At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

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Summary: CANDID AND PLEASURABLE
Review: "At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor" is one of the few books which presented the story of Pearl Harbor without partialities. Every page of this well-structured piece reminds one that several years of dedicated research were concluded before its author went to work.
If you are in interested in knowing the truth about the U.S.-Japan relations before and after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attacks, then, this book will be very useful for you. It provided all the details that you would ask for. But most importantly, it presented both sides of the story without any form of bias. The book's chronological outlook is superb. It is a pleasurable piece to read.

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Summary: The most definitive book on the subject of Pearl Harbor
Review: How to Transcend the Present and Record the Past for the Future Or, Prange's Present toPosterity Seth HieronymusHistory of PearlHarbor Abroad November 22, 1997Principia College, Elsah, IL, 62028 At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, by Gordon W. Prange, manages to break new ground in history writing. Although the manuscript in this form was authored primarily by two of Prange's ex-students Dr. Donald Goldstein and CWO (USAF Ret.) Katherine V. Dillon, due to Prange's enormous contribution, At Dawn We Slept is truly his tale. Prange endeavored to write the most complete work on the subject extant, an inside look from both the Japanese and American points of view. In his own words, "I [Prange's italics] am the only individual who has come to grips with the entire Pearl Harbor problem and conducted extensive research and interviews on both sides of the Pacific." Prange, through his research and his use of both the Japanese and American perspectives, has succeeded brilliantly in writing this unbiased look at Japanese / American relations leading up to, and immediately following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Prange's story starts in Japan, New Year's Day, 1941, with its 2601st birthday, and ends in 1946, with the conclusion of the Joint Congressional Committee Investigation into the attack at Pearl Harbor. , , Even though At Dawn We Slept contains several historical references outside this timeframe; for instance, Commodore Mathew Perry's expedition in 1895 that normalized Japanese-American relations, they serve mainly as background information that support the main story. Similarly, although the book briefly mentions the Atlantic theatre and events in Washington, it does not try to expand its focus beyond its original purpose, the Pacific, from Japan to Pearl Harbor. What makes this book great are not the dry facts about who was involved, and where or when it happened, but rather how it tells the events. It is arranged much like two trains, one Japanese and one American, that stop every so often to trade passengers, but inexorably race on to a truculent collision on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. The language of the book lets the reader look through the eyes of the characters, lets him feel their emotions, and gives him a first-hand look at the events. For instance, speaking of Japanese ships, "[Abukuma] led nine of the newest and best destroyers under the Rising Sun flag... Nagumo's trouble-shooters... could spring to battle at a moment's notice," and later: On Nagumo's shoulders rested a responsibility and a burden such as few commanders had ever borne in the history of naval warfare. The venture ripped out all the pages of Japanese naval tradition, violated their basic rules of strategy, and tossed into the classified waste the plans which Japan had long formulated to fight the U. S. Navy. , The word pictures that At Dawn We Slept paint personalize the history, and make it more accessible and enjoyable. Furthermore, the pictures, although rather sparse, give a visual perspective that speaks out from the past, for instance Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's stately demeanor and Lt. Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki's smug confidence. As with any historical work, research forms its backbone and determines its credibility. The contribution of Prange's own history should not be forgotten, because his background determines the skills and opportunities that he brought to the investigation. Born in Iowa, on July 16, 1910, Prange taught history at the University of Maryland from 1937 to 1980, when he died. Beyond that, he was Douglas MacArthur's chief historian from 1946 to 1951, and had a chance to talk to the participants first-hand. How often are people in the right places at the right times that they are able to record the events of history for posterity? Prange was. Because he spent 37 years of his life gathering first- hand, eye-witness accounts for this book, Prange forces us not only to trust him, but to actually relive the events, as they happened. His hundreds of interviews consisted of individuals who actually participated in the history, from the lowest ranks of the military to the highest, and many of the civilians. The sheer magnitude of his work is an essential element in this book's appeal. For example, Prange met with Commander Minoru Genda -- the main author of the Japanese attack -- a total of 72 times, and Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, the flight leader, 50 times. , Prange's original plan was to write a book solely from the Japanese perspective. Consequently, a bias could have been introduced as Prange did not interview many of the American participants until much later. In one case, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt. General Walter C. Short, whom the Inquiry Board found partially responsible for the attack, died on September 3, 1949, before Prange even had a chance to interrogate him. However, the magnitude of Prange's research and interviews enabled him to find the germane facts in people's otherwise embellished tellings. In this way, Prange minimized distortion of the actual events, and thereby minimized any bias introduced. This is not to say the book falls short of placing both blame and praise for the attack. Of Short, and Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, "Both Kimmel and Short exercised poor judgment in this crisis." And about Genda, and Commander Mitsuo Fuchida: From the moment Genda explained his assignment, Fuchida brought a new dimension to the Pearl Harbor picture. Henceforth he and Genda formed a unique team - Genda the creative genius supplying the original ideas, Fuchida the aggressive activist hammering them into reality.At Dawn We Slept essentially becomes Prange's thesis about the how historical events leading up to Pearl Harbor occurred - on both sides of the Atlantic. However, the book does more: It goes beyond dates and places, and instead brings the history alive. This book, in doing so, becomes a model for its contemporaries and a benchmark for the future.End Notes Gaddis Smith, "Remembering Pearl Harbor," The New York Times Book Review 29 November 1981: 3. Donald Goldstein, Telephone Interview, November 20, 1997. Goldstein Interview. Gordon W. Prange, Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon, ed. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (New York: Penguin, 1991) 814. Prange 3. Prange 722. Prange 842. Prange 392. Prange 395. Prange 1st Picture Set. Prange Cover. Goldstein Interview. Prange 821-825. Prange 827. Prange 829. Prange 728-729. Prange 410. END

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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.

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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.

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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. ...

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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?

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Summary: Thorough Analysis of Pearl Harbor
Review: The attack on Pearl Harbor is often described as a key turning point in history. In many ways, it was the culmination of centuries of colonialism in Asia and the Pacific, centuries which saw the rise of Anglo-centric liberal imperialism and the emergence of an Asian imperial axis with China and Japan as the focal points. Given this backdrop, the Pearl Harbor raid can be said to be the belated, overcompensatory and miscalculated response of a predatory state to the cumulative actions of political entities which had advocated the creation of nation-empires for economic gain.

But, not surprisingly, Prange's "At Dawn We Slept" deals with geopolitics in a limited way. Instead, it expounds at length on events leading to the so-called day of infamy, and gives readers painstakingly reconstructed insights into the mindsets of the numerous personalities involved. "At Dawn We Slept" is the story of how the Imperial Japanese Navy assembled the strongest naval armada at the time, and how that armada was forged into a highly effective weapon against an obsolescent battle fleet. It is also a story about a lamentable failure of imagination on the part of the US chain of command.

The attack itself was a clever operation, partly based on a carrier-based raid executed by the British against Italian battleships in Taranto, Italy, and principally designed to remove the US Pacific Fleet out of the chessboard. However, Prange points out that the Pearl Harbor raid was carried out by the Imperial Navy not primarily due to military expediency, but partly due to the intransigence of Admiral Yamamoto. Prange's interviews with Japanese officers involved in the planning and execution revealed the level of punctiliousness of the Japanese navy regarding the ill-fated plan, and the infighting that ensued following the introduction of the Pearl Harbor concept. Only Yamamoto's insistence that the attack be carried out led to its ultimate implementation.

The book sets out to present a balanced view, covering both Japanese and American viewpoints about the historical fulcrum that is December 7, 1941. And it succeeds primarily because of rigorous research. Nearly four decades were spent by Prange interviewing key participants, and what emerged from his investigation is perhaps the most comprehensive account of the sordid Pear Harbor affair. As a bonus, Prange and his editors manage to convincingly refute the so-called revisionist school of thought about the attack. All in all, "At Dawn We Slept" is a monumental effort that, in light of recent geopolitical events, deserves to be read.

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Summary: The Definitive History Of The Day That Will Live In Infamy
Review: Thirty seven years in the making, Gordon W. Prange's AT DAWN WE SLEPT is, like Shelby Foote's three volume THE CIVIL WAR and Alan Nevins' ORDEAL OF THE UNION, a masterwork of historical research that is unmatched in its attention to detail, its writing style (edited and completed by others after Mr. Prange's death along with the companion volume MIRACLE AT MIDWAY), and its ability to weave literally thousands of disparate elements into a penetrating analysis of why we slept at dawn.

Although the detail sometimes becomes overwhelming, it also puts human faces to the protagonists, both Japanese and American. Prange's thesis, that the dynamic Japanese nation felt constrained by American geopolitical goals, is the cornerstone of most modern scholarship on the outbreak of the Pacific War.

America's isolationism and complacency is also addressed. Although the military had frequently war gamed an attack on Oahu (and the Japanese studied these war games in detail), it is nothing short of incredible that the U.S. considered the Japanese at most a second-rate threat, and did nothing to prepare for what had long since been foreseen.

In its exhaustive examination of the events leading up to December 7th, we can read a cautionary tale. There is no question but that December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 and kindred days with kindred histories. Those who do not learn from history are so terribly doomed to repeat it.

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Summary: The Best
Review: This book is the best ever on the attack. For anyone who wants a serious knowledge of the attack they should read this one

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Summary: The definitive work on Pearl Harbor? Perhaps it is...
Review: While science is my area of expertise, I have a continuing interest in history. That interest lead me to pick up Prange's book. Gordon Prange has devoted years to accumulating information about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That information includes interviews and military and government information from the USA and Japan. That accumulated information was then boiled down into this final work -- completed after Prange's death.

While there have been many books and theories proposed about why and how the debacle at Pearl Harbor took place, Prange's approach is well documented, and includes details of the pre-attack politics of the USA and of Japan. His book also includes detailed information about the attack itself, gleaned from interviews with those on both sides who actually participated in the event. But, even with that level of detail, I must admit that the most compelling part of the book for me is the section that follows the actual attack -- when the US government and the military were trying to figure out what actually happened, and who was to blame.

The final series of chapters of the book provide insight into the thoughts and tactics of Adm. Kimmell (CincPAC) and Gen Short (Commanding General of army at Hawaii), the two primary "interested parties" in the event.

Before reading the book, I had a tendency to believe that there may have been something of a conspiracy by the Roosevelt administration to get us into WWII, but after reading this account of Pearl Harbor, I am more likely to believe that the great success, including complete surprise by Japanese naval aviation was the result of a series of ill-advised decisions by the commanders at Hawaii rather than by any entity in Wash DC.

The sticky point in the whole affair was "magic" the US's code-breaking machine that allowed us to monitor coded diplomatic messages sent between Tokyo and some of its embassies. While "magic" was the source of a great deal of information that may have resulted in a different outcome at Pearl Harbor if the commanders there had access to it, we will never really know.

If you are interested in looking in repurcussions from the attack at Pearl Harbor, or if you have an interest in thinking about the whys and hows of the US entry into WWII, I urge you to read this book.

The writing is passable, though sometimes quite dry. The information is well documented, and is believable. This is not, however, a quick read -- there is a lot of meat in this book to be digested as you go along.

All in all an outstanding contribution to the telling of a sensitive piece of American history.

5 stars for content and believability.

Alan Holyoak