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Summary: Personal Histories of Pearl Harbor
Review: This is a first person history of the events around Pearl Harbor. This is not a book which examines the great issues. It is a book which captures the feelings and experiences of the people who lived through the attack on he American side. It traces their dawning realization that the idyllic peace time existence that they had led up to December 7th had been changed in an instant. It traces the difficulty that these people had to understand that a war was on. They woke up on a Sunday to live their quotidian lives and found themselves in the midst of a defining moment in history. Lord captures their incredulity with anecdotes such as one in which a person going to church is strafed by a Japanese fighter and carrys on to church unable to fully understand what had happended to him and another in whach a distinguished surgeon addressing a conference started his lecture with a joke about the explosions happening outside the hotel.The book traces these individuals as in a few hours they transform themselves bafflement to determination. Lord shows how this was representative of eh US nation as a whole as isolationists as well as everyone else are changed by the attack. Lord's book is a history of individual lives caught up by great forces. It is book that focuses on the ordinary and the individual to bring focus to a great issue. It is well with reading.
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Summary: An outstanding account of the Pearl Harbor attack
Review: This is one of the best books written about the attack on Pearl Harbor. This book is based on historical documents and the personal accounts of soldiers, sailors, and civilians; both American and Japanese. The planning behind the attack by the Japanese high command and the launch and the almost perfect execution of the attack are described in riveting detail. The observations by the crewmen on the Japanese war ships and the crews of the attacking aircraft are educational. Admiral Nagumo, commander of the attacking forces could have launched a second attack and caused even more destruction, but fortunately for us, he was over cautious. There is no attempt to hide the many mistakes made by the American commanders or the missed opportunities to foil the attack or at least blunt the devastating effects. Submarines were spotted and attacked and the incoming aircraft were spotted by radar, but nobody took notice. When the actual attack was under way, many thought if was some sort of drill. A lot of good men lost their lives and there were incredible acts of heroism. This book contains many tales of bravery, terror, and determination. 2403 Americans lost their lives on December 7th, 1941. The Japanese lost 5 midget submarines, on large submarine, and 29 aircraft with 55 crewmen. It was a small price to pay for such an overwhelming victory, but the cost to Japan in the long run we all know.
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Summary: This Book Puts You At Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941
Review: This was the first non-kids book I ever read. That was back in the 3rd Grade. And years later I still look at this book as one of my favorites. Walter Lord does not break any new ground in this classic but older story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But what he does do is give you a perfect description of what happened and how it happened. Walter Lord is one of those historians that puts you there. And thats what he does in this book. You are there as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Day of Infamy is compelling!
Review: Tracing the human drama of the great aerial & naval attack which catapulted America into the Second World War as the fabled Pacific Fleet rested at port on a sunny morning in paradise. As broad & vast as the Pacific Ocean, Walter Lord's 1957 classic retelling of the many & various, military & civilian, pieces of the shattered puzzle that became the impetus for President Roosevelt's six-minute radio speech, has been reissued for the 60th Anniversary of when naval & air forces of the Empire of Japan, suddenly & deliberately attacked the United States of America. Walter Lord has done an admirable job of recreating the hour by hour, blow by blow engagement & reminds us of just how innocent we were & in that innocence how unprepared & untrained we were at putting the clues together - remember no one really believed anyone had the reach to reach us, let alone attack us. Between these covers I stood among the host of determined, terrified & courageous people who came together for that moment in time which will always be a Day of Infamy. A must for anyone interested in how America got into the Second World War & how Japan did it.
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Summary: You will not find a better account
Review: Walter Lord is a master in what he does.He tells it like it was and tries not to get to technical.Its a simple and easy read that pretty much tells you what you want to know from the men that were on that DAY in history.Just like A Night To Remember another classic.
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Summary: Most exciting account of the attack on Pearl Harbor
Review: Walter Lord's vivid, compelling description of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stands alone among World War Two non-fiction. The student of Pearl Harbor will gain a sense of what being there during the attack was like; the casual reader will be gripped by the true-to-life drama that Lord describes. The third chapter, "I can't keep throwing things at them", is possibly the most exciting combat narrative ever written. Although Prange presents the scholarly approach to the study of Pearl Harbor, "Day of Infamy" is possibly the best way to understand the fog of battle that surrounded that first day of America at War. This book, which reads easily and quickly, is a page-turner, plain and simple. One can never forget "Day of Infamy", and one never should.
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Summary: A disjointed disappointment
Review: When I received "Day of Infamy" from my son, who had just visited Pearl Harbor, I opened it with great anticipation. But I found it much duller than I expected. While Lord covers the attack in great minute-by-minute detail, his endlessly long chapters simply seem like groups of quotes and incidents thrown together, with no point of view. I plodded through to the finish. But in my opinion, it is not a book to remember.
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Summary: A Classic for any Naval Historian
Review: When I was fourteen I borrowed the original hardcover version of this book from an Uncle of mine who was a Naval Officer in the Pacific during WWII. Last summer, while in an old bookstore, I added that same 1957 hardcover edition to my library. The book is a total resource of that fateful Sunday and a treasure for any student of military history.
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Summary: Always will we remember
Review: Why is "Day of Infamy" a superb retelling of the Pearl Harbor story? Because it tells the story of the real emotions that the people involved actually felt at the time, not the feelings that they wished they had felt later. Walter Lord is trained as a lawyer, and he interviewed his subjects so that they were persuaded and maybe even almost compelled to admit how shocked and disorganized they were on this fateful day. Pearl Harbor was, in strictly military terms, a terrible defeat for America's armed forces. It was also a day that we will always remember because in it we see a deeply flawed but great, peaceful people hurled into war. They had to fight back, and they did. Symbolically, all of us are there. Would we do any better? We should read and enjoy this book, and remember the lesson.
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