At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

It’s not often that I get to use the word, definitive, but it certainly fits [At Dawn We Slept]. This book offers its readers everything they could possibly want with regard to the who, what, when, where, and why of the planning and execution of the raid, as well as the who, what, when, where, and why of how the U. S. failed to anticipate their actions and protect Pearl Harbor from a likely attack. It is filled with the incredible research done by Gordon Prange over almost 40 years, tracing down not only written information in letters, diaries, newspapers, magazines, and government records, but finding and interviewing well over 100 people, both in the U. S. and Japan.

I was surprised that I grew to be so interested in some of the show more major players in this moment in history that I actually felt for them a great deal of sympathy or, in the case, of some, cheered them on. Through this very long book they became like family or close friends.

Of course, I’ve lived my entire life knowing much about the Pearl Harbor attack. The following are some of the things I learned which were new to me or different than I had come to believe:

Yamamoto clearly understood that Japan had no hope of ultimate victory over the United States. He perceived Pearl Harbor as a knockout punch – damage and temporary containment.

The Japanese gathered mounds of information about Pearl Harbor merely by having one of their agents drive around the area and take notes. Security was so lax that the comings and goings of all ships were published in the newspapers every morning.

Neither Short nor Kimmel were privy to the Honolulu intercepts of Japanese coded transmissions, which were translated daily, and delivered to a very select few.

The Japanese originally estimated that the Pearl Harbor attack would cost them one third of their task force because they anticipated that the U. S. would discover them and respond accordingly.

Ambassador Nomura had no knowledge of the planning of Pearl Harbor. He only learned of it after he had returned from his final trip to the U. S. Ambassador. The Japanese government purposely kept him in the dark.

As early as October 11 Japan chose the date of December 7 (Hawaii time) for the attack.

FDR did not know about Pearl Harbor prior to its occurrence. He did not intentionally suppress information in order to bring it about.

The first blood spilt was by a Japanese and first shot fired was by the U. S.

On a personal note, the book was too inclusive. The editors did the reader no favors by putting in all that was gathered. Also, I found it very annoying that they used [sic] so often when the text was grammatically incorrect, especially since Prange misused forms of bring and take. show less

An incredibly detailed and unique look at a defining moment of the 20th century. Never before have WWII buffs had such an insight into the Day of Infamy, particularly in being able to view the lead up, battle, and aftermath from both the US and Japanese points of view. Prange's experience while living in Japan allowed him to cultivate and gather information that truly sheds new light on Pearl Harbor. In my view (as an amateur WWII historian), he permanently lays to rest the question of whether FDR had foreknowledge of the attack, though that is not the real value of this book. The true value is in the detail of planning, doubt, successes, failures, and crucial turning points throughout the narrative, particularly on the Japanese show more side.

For anyone interested in deeper analysis and fine minutiae of the battle, politics, and fallout, you can likely do no better. show less

An ambitious, academic work on the causes, reasons, outcomes and aftermaths of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Its probably one of the most well known events of WWII, but there was a lot that I never knew. Especially on the Japanese side, where the idea came from? how and when it was decided to go, and the logistical problems that arose. Not the least of which was that they had to completely redesign torpedo bombs, as they would not work in the shallow draft of the harbor. On the US side, I was amazed to see that bureaucracy and partisanship is nothing new and existed even during the unifying events of the war.

In the rear-view mirror of history, it is very easy to see where things went wrong and how the attack couldn't have been show more anticipated or prevented. In the book relatively little time is spent on the actual attak itself and the last big section deals with the aftermath, mostly around the many hearings and investigations that were undertaken to assign blame. Someone has to be blamed, right? To be honest, it was here that I tapped out and put the book down and decided to call it finished. The politics and who did what to whom, or who didn't do what to some other whom, didn't really interest me.

Despite this disappointing finish (for me), it is a worthwhile read for any history buff. Truth is always stranger and more interesting than fiction, or at least it usually is.

"He stands before the inquisitive historian in taut watchfulness, courteous, painstaking, and inscrutable, forever holding the citadel of his own personality"

6/10

S: 6/26/16 - F: 10/30/16 (127 Days) show less

Remarkable Analysis of a Pivotal Event in History
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 show more 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.

(Posted in Amazon.com, May 18, 2004) show less

Rated: B-

At 7:53 a.m., December 7, 1941, America's national consciousness and confidence were rocked as the first wave of Japanese warplanes took aim at the U.S. Naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. As intense and absorbing as a suspense novel, At Dawn We Slept is the unparalleled and exhaustive account of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It is widely regarded as the definitive assessment of the events surrounding one of the most daring and brilliant naval operations of all time. Through extensive research and interviews with American and Japanese leaders, Gordon W. Prange has written a remarkable historical account of the assault that-sixty years later-America cannot forget.

A thoroughly researched and generally well-written history of the myriad events surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is a bit long-winded in many respects, such as paragraph-long physical descriptions of certain officers, but it is still instructive. If Prange had lived to cut back the manuscript, there is no telling how magnificent it might be. Also, Prange died right as Toland's Infamy was published. A professor told me that this was the corrective to Toland's (one and only) book of tripe. Goldstein and Dillon do a nice enough job of taking on the theories of Toland and others.