Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness Paperback – August 1, 2017

For anyone searching for the definitive story of America’s dreadful plunge into WWII, this is probably it. Nelson spares little detail as he guides the reader through the labyrinth of political and economic machinations, bogus negotiations, trade war bombast, arms buildup (Japan in spades, the U.S. only after we were already in the fight), generally endless politicking, and scorching mutual ignorance of what each side was ultimately confronting. No, Japanese pilots weren’t nearsighted and inferior opponents. And no, Americans weren’t a bunch of lazy miscreants. Could rampant racism have ever been more threatening to world peace?Nelson is a master at integrating historical narration with eyewitness accounts of the carnage and aftermath, right through to the Medal of Honor awards at the end of the book. Representative quotes are to be found on virtually every page. As a sample,“Moored at Pearl’s submarine base, the eighteen ships of Lieutenant Commander William Specht’s Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron were still in working order, and their crews began rescue operations. Seventeen-year-old Mal Garcia was working dock detail during the attack when an officer yelled, ‘Hey, coxswain, get that whaleboat out of here.’ Mal considered telling the superior he was actually a radioman on submarine tender Argonne, but then remembered that you can’t argue with a commander and spent the rest of the day helming an eighteen-footer, ferrying the dead and wounded. He later said that Pearl Harbor aged him from seventeen to maybe thirty-five, and that later he tried to remember what it was like to be a teenager, but couldn’t. He would spend in time twenty-two years with the U.S. Navy.‘I remember one fella that—I will never forget this one—about him reaching up for the gunnel, trying to get out with his hand coming up,’ Bert Davis remembered. ‘And I reached down to help him, and I grabbed him right around his arm and I started pulling, and all the skin came right off in my and. But that’s the thing that sticks in my mind all the time, and I have nightmares sometimes about it. But you try and you do your best.’”This reader has plumbed the depths of WWII above all other topics in a 3-4 year reading blitz that has surpassed any comparable surge during my grad school days, right through to my dissertation. The personal sacrifices and efforts I poured into my schoolwork back then is a reasonable reference point but it pales to near invisibility in the face of our Greatest Generation’s utterly incredible heroics. Again, a sample from Nelson’s brilliant book brings the case front and center:“Sixty percent of Pearl Harbor casualties were second- and third-degree burns. There had been fires at every airfield; both on and within the Arizona, California, Curtiss, Downes, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Shaw, and West Virginia; and on the oil that floated on the water of Pearl Harbor. Many of those burned had escaped through that water and were coated in marine fuel. To get to Ford, thousands of survivors had stumbled through roiling black clouds of smoke, many naked, dripping oil, sheathed in blood, screaming in pain. ‘The only thing I could see were their eyes, lips, and mouths,’ a survivor said. ‘Their mouths were reddish; their eyes looked watery. Everything else was black.’ With no time or enough equipment to clean off that oil, treatment proceeded anyway. Burned skin was cut away with scissors. To draw out the heat, tannic acid was sprayed on with Flit guns. Saltwater baths drew out the liquid. All of this was gruesome to perform, and excruciating to endure."…Despite my reading every page at least twice, this wonderful book flew by for me. I cannot wait to get my hands on another tome by Mr. Nelson. We are all in his debt for this towering monument of a book.

Pearl Harbor is such an infamous event in American and world history and only rivaled by 9/11 in modern times. Yet even visiting the Arizona memorial this September did not give me a full appreciation of the true shock and devastation wrought on December 7, 1941 until I read this book. The book starts off slow and deliberate as it walks through the state of the world in 1931-1941 particularly as it relates to Japan. The cunningness of the plan to attack Pearl Harbor and the months of preparations are laid out well, and Nelson does a masterful job of capturing American attitudes at the time - while many warning signs were there that an attack on Oahu could happen, Americans just could not conceive that the Japanese could pull it off due to their stereotypes.Pearl Harbor is best at exactly the right moment - the day of the attack itself. Nelson has done incredible research and minimizes his narrative to have the story told through eyewitness accounts. The first hand accounts are searing, powerful, and pack an emotional wallop that allows the reader to be taken back to that day in the same way that many of us reflect on 9/11. Nelson is able to convey the true horror while covering the vast scope of the event, as many tragedies were unfolding simultaneously.Nelson continues from the day of the attack to cover the American response and provide a summary of the rest of the campaign in the Pacific. He focuses on the story of the Doolittle Raiders bombing Tokyo as the true turning point when America finally were able to taste a victory f sorts while Japan's leaders were stunned that the homeland was not as impregnable to attack as they thought. Nelson also does not shy away from cataloging the many atrocities on both sides of the war and the true human devastation caused all over the Pacific. This is not the romantic visions we have of D-Day and the Atlantic campaign and I came to better appreciate the vileness and depravation that was experienced in Asia.An outstanding tribute to the 75th anniversary of a date that will forever live in infamy, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more or thinks they already know the story of Pearl Harbor.

Just an excellent account of the reasoning behind and the delivery by the Japanese navy of the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. The details on the ships and personnel involved are just engrossing. Particularly enjoyed the information on the Japanese submarine attack and how those civilian aircraft and their pilots aloft during the attack fared. Very interesting.

The book is very detailed and very thoroughly researched, with a lot of detail on facts and personal accounts. However, only one third of the book is dedicated to the description of the actual attack at Pearl Harbor. Although both the prelude to Japanses entry into WWII and the aftermath of the attack are equally interesting the take up a disproportionate part of the book. More appropriately the book should have a more general title.Also, I find it a bit irritating that the author chooses to extol the virtues of the USA quite many times. It is, after all, a historical account and not a pro-USA pamphlet.

Fascinating recollections from the veterans. Not a 100% historically correct but don't let that spoil your enjoyment. Well worth a read.

Best book I’ve ever read!

I was enjoying this. All the way to page 58. Then I read this: "On September 23, 1940, the die was cast. Japanese troops invaded what are today the nations of Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, and what were then the resource-rich Southeast Asian colonies of Europe. Japan now controlled British Malaya's acres of rubber plantations, French Indochina's sinuous veins of tin, and most important, the Dutch East Indies' bounteous cache of oil." Pardon?In fact the Japanese invaded French Indochina in September 1940, after the fall of France. They reckoned (correctly) that after total defeat at the hands if the Nazis, the Vichy government would be able to do anything about it. (French Indochina also included the modern nation of Laos, by the way.)Hostilities against the Dutch East Indies began in the middle of December 1941 with an undeclared invasion of Borneo - that is, about a week after Pearl Harbour.The invasion of British Malaya began on the 8th of December 1941, actually a few hours before the attack on Pearl. (If that sounds wrong, remember that Hawaii and Malaya are on different sides of the International Date Line.)The timeline for the outbreak of war in Southeast Asia in 1941 is fairly well-known, I think. If Nelson hasn't got something as clear and obvious as "When did war actually break out and where?" right, how on earth can we depend on anything he says? What's more, Scribners' proofreaders missed it, as did the worthies who wrote the dust-jacket blurbs: Messrs. Jim DeFilippi, Doug Stanton and Jim Bradley.The book goes in the paper recycling bin today.