Rating: 
Summary: Reads Like a Corporate Audit
Review: I had been looking forward to reading this book since graduate school, when it was assigned reading for some of my classmates. I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into this massive tome, which I expected to be a real "page turner," as they say. How wrong I was! Apparently in an effort to pen the "definitive" book on the subject, the authors simply could not bring themselves to pare down their primary source material (excellent though that material was) to a manageable level. As a result, the book immediately becomes bogged down in almost absurd minutiae, which to me made it an unbearably dull read. Why didn't an editor axe out a couple hundred pages? Less can be better, and this would have been the case in this instance, I believe. I detest throwing down a book in the middle, so I forced myself to continue to the end of Part I (about the first 300 pages), then I skipped ahead to the actual bombing of Pearl Harbor (which occupies only about 50 pages of the book's roughly 700 pages). The account of the bombing itself was adequate, but not nearly as riveting as it could have been in the hands of other writers. In the end, I simply couldn't bear to read the rest of the book. It could have been such a fine work given the authors' access to such choice source material. I recommend that the publisher issue a new, heavily abridged addition - with a top-notch editor assigned to the project.
Rating: 
Summary: For the serious historian
Review: I have had G.W. Prange's 3 book set on Pearl Harbor for many years but it always got knocked down the reading list untill now.
The book is for the serious historian of World War II who wants to dive into the details to get a better understanding of the topic. At dawn we slept starts off a little slow and of course builds up to that fatefull morning of the attack by providing you with a very in depth knowledge of the story behind it and makes you want to read the other 2 books in this trilogy. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Only Pearl Harbor Book to Read is Right Here
Review: I truly enjoy books that have lots of detail. They read as if every word is fact, and there is no doubt about what appears there in print. This is one of those books.The most amazing fact about this volume is that the author declares that he researched this book for 37 years! I have absolutely no doubt about that statement. His sources are endless, and his attention to detail is without pier. And stand back revisionists. He pretty much buries all those approaches and theories with solid scholarship and fact. This book is amazing!!! ... A remarkable 1 year story leading to the attack that reads easy and fast, with plenty of aside humor, and will be very difficult to put down. Short chapters crammed with information. Perfection is tying together a billion events into a story line that moves ahead to it's target with precision and accruracy. There are vivid descriptions of ships, people, places, occurances, whatever, that are a joy to read. What a writer this guy is! I find it hard to believe that any of the other books about Pearl Harbor can compare with this volume. If you're one of the few people who haven't seen the movie yet, do as I did. Read this first, at least 470 pages, then go see the movie (luckly I finished before the movie trip). You'll have a very enjoyable experience. Finally, every history buff should read this book, MUST read this book, for the lessons learned, and for the joy of a superbly crafted book. ...
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: I usually stick to war novels like The Triumph and the Glory, The Killer Angels, or films like The Thin Red Line to satisfy my interest in WWII, but Gordon Prange and his team of world class scholars have written such a masterful accoun of Pearl Harbor that I've made an exception and read At Dawn We Slept. It was well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Most gripping, compelling historical book ever written
Review: I've never read a book of any genre that was as riveting as this book - even though the outcome is patently obvious, reading every page made you race madly to the next to see what was happening. Non-history buffs could never imagen how Yamamoto must have felt when he was forced to take on this campaign. Breathtaking!
Rating:
Summary: THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE PEARL HARBOR ACCOUNT
Review: If you wanted to know anything about the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese, or what started it, or what followed it, this book offers the most comprehensive account. The reporting is meticulous from both the American and Japanese positions. The author must have been a "fly on the wall" at both Japanese headquarters and aboard their ships, as well as at the Pentagon, Roosevelt's office, and at Pearl Harbor, since there is no other way to account for the rich day to day detail that he provides the reader. This is a most thorough account; whatever questions the reader had about Pearl Harbor before reading this book are definitely answered. Great history with very alive characters.
Rating: 
Summary: At the End I Snored
Review: It is apparent after reading At Dawn We Slept that those reviewers who have called this the "definitive account" of the Pearl Harbor attack either do not understand the meaning of "definitive," or did not read the entire 753 pages. While Professor Prange's 37-year research effort is exhaustive in the areas he chose to study, it certainly is far from definitive. The book is divided into three sections, entitled "Prelude," "Action" and "Aftermath." In "Prelude," Prange provides a complete reconstruction of the Japanese planning of the Pearl Harbor attack, beginning in early 1941. The author is clearly fascinated by the Japanese effort to turn this "mission impossible" into reality. Prange points out that the Japanese naval air arm vastly increased its capabilities through arduous training and intelligent reorganization. The creation of the First Air Fleet in April 1941 marked a major doctrinal shift away from traditional battleship tactics and toward the use of massed sea-based airpower. The American efforts to uncover Japanese intentions through the MAGIC decryptions are covered in great detail. However, Prange glosses over the weighty strategic issues facing Japan. While Prange does demonstrate that many Japanese officers opposed the plan as too risky and a diversion of effort, he does not properly address alternatives. A related issue is the near deification of Admiral Yamamoto as a strategic genius. After more than fifty years, the Pearl Harbor raids looks more like an act of national suicide than inspired genius. Yamamoto's bold opening gambit was indecisive by design since he rejected any follow-up invasion of Hawaii. Furthermore, the selection of Nagumo to command the task force was a poor choice that reduced the size of the victory at Pearl Harbor and contributed to defeat at Midway. Yamamoto was no genius but rather, one of the blind imbeciles that led Japan down the path that ended at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The section on the actual attack is covered in only 35 disappointing pages. The chronology of the attack is poor, with the famous "Air Raid" alarm following behind the attacks on battleship row. This section is by far the weakest in the book, almost as if Prange assumed his readers knew the details by heart and did not need serious recounting. One example of this overly succinct account occurs in Prange's assessment of US airpower in Hawaii, where he merely notes the number of aircraft available, but not their readiness. In Samuel Eliot Morison's account of the raid, he provides precise statistics that only 50% of the US Army bombers and 61% of the fighters were operational that morning. In "Aftermath," Prange has developed the cure for insomnia, by using 200 pages to cover the post-attack recriminations ad nauseum. The focus shifts almost entirely to the two commanders on the spot, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, and the Japanese characters fly off into the sunset. Prange asks two key questions: (A) how was the US military caught by surprise after so many warnings and (B) who was responsible for this catastrophe? Prange's short answer to A is that the US military was infected with widespread disbelief of a Japanese attack and they essentially ignored or downplayed the warnings. The short answer to B is, the entire US military and political chain of command made mistakes that December, but Kimmel and Short made the greatest personal contributions to the catastrophe. There is still a great deal of sympathy for Kimmel and Short, with some accounts portraying them as scapegoats. Prange does a good, if long-winded job, of dispelling this notion. However, many of Prange's findings against the two men are delivered in rather muted fashion. Short's decision to not issue ammunition to his antiaircraft and coastal artillery units was a key indicator that he failed to make the defensive preparations ordered by the 27 November 1941 "war warning" message from Washington. Consequently, not one US Army antiaircraft gun fired in defense of Oahu, thanks to Short. Kimmel didn't even bother to pay lip service to the need for aerial reconnaissance and his adherence to peacetime weekend routines caused the slaughter of 2,000 of his sailors. Although Kimmel and Short are repeatedly depicted as intelligent, hard-working officers, the facts speak otherwise. Stupid, lazy and complacent seem more apt. To be fair, Kimmel and Short were nimble in climbing the career ladder, just ineffective in preparing for war. In fact, Kimmel and Short bear resemblance to other "tragic" military commanders, like von Paulus at Stalingrad or Pulleine at Isandlwana, who choke at the decisive moment. Another reason that this account is not definitive is Prange's failure to address other on-going activities in December 1941. When the Asiatic Fleet in Manila received the "war warning," Admiral Hart promptly withdrew two battalions of US marines and his gunboats from China. Nor was Admiral Halsey, sailing under blackout conditions, caught napping. These actions dispel the argument that everyone in the US Navy stood in disbelief of a Japanese attack. Prange also fails to detail the ten days following the Pearl Harbor raid in which Kimmel and Short retained command. When the US Marine defenders at Wake repulsed the initial Japanese attack, Kimmel and Short were presented with an opportunity to redeem at least some of their reputations. Yet they wasted even this last chance. Instead of launching an immediate relief effort, Kimmel dawdled and then sent only a weak task force, which was recalled. At Dawn We Slept is certainly an excellent case study in the use and mis-use of intelligence. However, it is certainly not a definitive account of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Rating: 
Summary: The Pearl Harbor Tragedy Relived
Review: Just as Cornelius Ryan's three major works about World War II (The Longest Day, The Last Battle, and A Bridge Too Far) focus on the last 11 months of the conflict in Europe, the late Gordon W. Prange and his collaborators Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon zeroed in on the Pearl Harbor saga and its aftermath. No less than five major books by Prange and Co. deal with the series of events that occurred before, during, and after. Of these, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor is the first and most important volume. At Dawn We Slept covers nearly the entire 12-month period leading up to the "day of infamy" that marked America's entry into World War II. It provides amazing insights into both the Japanese and American mindsets, and, most important, explodes the revisionists' myth that Japan's attack succeeded because President Franklin D. Roosevelt withheld critical information from Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii. Prange researched the Pearl Harbor affair for 37 years until his death in 1980, and his posthumous books paint a tragic picture of two great Pacific nations reluctantly yet inexorably moving in a collision course. Japan doesn't necessarily hate the United States, yet since the 1920s sees it as its main rival for supremacy in the Pacific. Japan's war in China causes the rift between it and America to grow, and U.S. economic sanctions intended to end Japanese aggression against its neighbors have exactly the opposite effect on the military-dominated government in Tokyo. What once was just an abstract idea in Japan's military academies -- a transoceanic war with Britain and America -- slowly but surely comes closer to reality after Tokyo joins the Axis in 1940. It becomes inevitable after Japan moves troops into French Indochina as a precursor to Japan's strike to conquer the resource-rich Southern area (the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Singapore, and the U.S.-controlled Philippine Islands). On the Japanese side, the book shows the intense planning and preparation for the attack. Although not flawless (the midget submarines were rather superfluous and almost gave the attack away), it was brilliant. Driven by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's steely determination, a powerful strike force is gathered, pilots are painstakingly trained, and every resource - from innovations in ordnance (adapting torpedoes to run in very shallow waters) to a spy network on Oahu - is devoted to make the strike more effective. At Dawn We Slept also paints a sobering picture of American complacency, ignorance, and even incompetence during the months before the attack. Readers will learn, for instance, that Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short never truly understood his mission, which was to defend the Pacific Fleet when it was in port. Short failed to grasp the danger of aerial attack, focusing instead on an imaginary threat from Hawaii's 125,000 Japanese-Americans. (This mistaken notion actually caused more loss of American airpower rather than preventing it; Short ordered all planes to be lined up in the middle of their air bases so they could be more easily guarded. This just made it easier for Japanese planes to destroy or disable most of the Hawaiian Air Force.) The Navy fares no better in its pre-Pearl Harbor activities, either. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel wasn't a meek and incompetent officer, and he did have an offensive-minded posture. Nevertheless, his failure to fully coordinate intelligence gathering, patrols, or even contingency plans with Short were factors which contributed to the success of the Japanese attack. The book devotes much attention to the twists and turns that made December 7th, 1941 such a momentous day. As someone once said, it's all in the small details. Who knew just what impact would the typing speed of a Japanese diplomat would have on the course of history? What would have happened if Adm. Kimmel had been immediately notified of the sinking of an unknown sub in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor? What if Adm. Nagumo had launched a third wave that day?
Rating:
Summary: Definitive and Timeless
Review: Mr. Prange's life's work culminates in At Dawn We Slept. It is THE definitive account on the surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy. It can be quite exhaustive and detailed at times but this is necessary to truly understand the unbelievable sequence of events that transpired before, during, and after the tragic events at Pearl Harbor. The blunders and human frailties contributing to the disaster over sixty years ago are astounding and, at the same time, quite disturbing and eerily familiar in light of the recent tragedies our nation suffered only 18 months ago. In a word, At Dawn We Slept is timeless.
Rating:
Summary: What a Book
Review: Prange at his best. Took him 39 years to write the book of a lifetime. No one else has ever put so much thought and research into a book like this before. I could not put it down. After reading it, there were so many questions on why that day was ever allowed to happen and why two men had to pay the ultimate price for something they had no control of. A must read for any military historian or buff.
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