Award-winning author and best-selling novelist Timothy B. Benford is a former newspaperman and magazine editor. Several of his previous 12 books have also been published in French, Spanish, and Polish. His first novel, Hitler’s Daughter, won the West Coast Review of Books Porgie as one of the three best novels of the year and was made into a USA Network’s Movie-of-The-Week. His first two books, The World War II Quiz & Fact Book, vols. 1 and 2 (Harper & Row) are still in print 18 years after publication. All but two of his previous books are still in print.

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The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

Prange’s book offers everything you always wanted to know about Pearl Harbor but were afraid to ask, plus pictures! This tome comprises an exhaustive study of the day that will live in infamy. Prange takes a long, hard look at President Roosevelt’s relationship with Japan and implies that FDR all but goaded the empire into bombing the Hawaiian base. With the 60th anniversary of the attack approaching, there no doubt will be many volumes released and rereleased, but this is among the best.

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Having completed their Civil War trilogy, ex–House Speaker Gingrich and historian Forstchen return their attention to World War II (they previously collaborated on 1945). The attack on Pearl Harbor occupies the final quarter of the book, and the extensive leadup begins in 1930s Japan and provides readers not well versed in Japanese history a decent thumbnail sketch of Japanese culture and the events that preceded the attack. The authors’ research shines in accurate accounts of diplomatic maneuvering as well as the nuts-and-bolts of military action, beginning with the Japanese invasion of China. Fans of the authors will expect their trademark “alternative” ending. In this case, the Japanese attack far more vigorously and devastate a larger chunk of the U.S. Pacific fleet than they actually did. How this affects the war’s outcome will be revealed in the sequel. Gingrich and Forstchen, though adept at bigger-picture issues, falter when it comes to establishing and developing characters; FDR, Churchill and Hirohito come across as caricatures who move the plot along by mouthing historically appropriate lines, while the soldier-heroes exist to explain their nation’s point-of-view to the reader. The recent success of Letters from Iwo Jima may attract readers who would otherwise shy away from military history fiction.

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Day of Infamy, 60th Anniversary: The Classic Account of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor

There may not be a better book on what happened at Pearl Harbor than Day of Infamy–and it’s not as if the Pearl Harbor story has lacked chroniclers.

Lord begins by showing how Japanese admirals, three months before their notorious sneak attack, “tested the idea on the game board at the Naval War College.” (It didn’t go nearly as well there as it did in real life.) Then he proceeds briskly through the preparations for the assault and delivers a minute-by-minute account about those fateful hours in Oahu. The detail is incredible. The Japanese scan Hawaiian radio stations to see if their moves have been detected; a U.S. naval officer on “his first night on his first patrol on his first command” spots a Japanese submarine just hours before the strike; when the surprise attack finally does arrive, an excited Japanese commander shouts “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (”Victory!”) before even the first bombs have fallen. The whole assault lasted about two hours. Thousands of Americans were killed or wounded. The Navy lost the U.S.S. Arizona, which blew up about 15 minutes into the raid, and 17 other ships were either sunk or crippled. Hundreds of planes were destroyed or damaged. The Japanese, by contrast, lost only 29 planes. It must be considered one of the most lopsided battles in all history–and “battle” probably isn’t the best word to describe it. Pearl Harbor was closer to a massacre. Whatever the label, Pearl Harbor was a turning-point moment in American history, and it gave rise, the very next day, to some of the most famous words ever spoken by an American president: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked….” If you intend to read only a single book on Pearl Harbor, this is the one for you. —John J. Miller

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