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Title: Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History by Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon ISBN: 0-14-015909-6 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Totally Refutes the "Revisionist" Viewpoint
Comment: Over the years, there has developed a "revisionist" group of historians who claimed FDR Knew in advance about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor and he did nothing to stop it. In this excellent book by Gordon Prange, this somewhat questionable viewpoint is thoroughly destroyed. One of the revisionists' claims is that the radio stations on the West Coast were able to track the Japanese fleet due to their radio signals. This is impossible, since the Japanese fleet NEVER broke radio silence, and, in fact, had their transmitters removed from thier radios all together. Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led the attack, also said that "the force maintained the strictest radio silence throughout the cruise". Revisionists also believed, according to Prange, that if the Japanese task force would have been discovered, it would have turned back. Again, this is not true. The Japanese hoped to attain surprise, but if they were to have been discovered, they were prepared to fight all the way to Pearl Harbor to deliver their attack. What Prange attempts to achieve in this excellent book is who really was to blame? In this aspect, the War Department and the commanders, Kimmel and Short, are held responsible. Prange comes down hard on the War Department for failing to notify the commanders of the intercepted "bomb plot" message. This message, intercepted by "Magic", was transmitted to Japan by a Japanese spy. It broke Pearl Harbor into several sections, which, in effect, could be interpreted as a bombing grid. This information was not transmitted to Kimmel and Short, and could have proven invaluable. But the bulk of the blame appears to fall on Kimmel, Short, and the subordinate commanders. Kimmel and Short both grossly misinterpreted the "War Warning" message dated November 27, 1941, and sent to them by Washington. Short only alerted his troops against possible sabotage and maintained his training schedule. The War Department is also to blame here, because they failed to follow up to make sure Short understood the meaning of the message. Kimmel also failed to grasp the meaning of this message, and, unfortunately, communication between the army and navy was poor at best, so very little information was shared between the commands. One must also realize, and Prange makes excellent reference to this in the book, is that the Japanese placed tremendous amounts of time, thought, and training into this mission, and they must be credited with the success of the attack. America's belief of their huge superiority in both ships and personnel was totally destroyed. Prange also covers each of the resulting investigations fully and includes excellent testimony throughout the book. In summary, this is an excellent book about the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and does a good job of refuting the revisionists and acurately placing blame.
Rating: 3
Summary: Somewhat disappointing finish to the trilogy
Comment: I'm a big fan of 'At Dawn We Slept' and 'December 7, 1941,' the first two books in Gordon W. Prange's Pearl Harbor trilogy. 'Verdict of History,' in which he shifts his focus from 'what happened' to 'why it happened,' however, is more troubling. Prange himself died before the publication of his trilogy. The work was finished by his two co-authors, Goldstein and Dillon, and so I'm tempted to hold them responsible for the things I find most disappointing in this volume.
Part of the problem is the title, which I hope Prange himself didn't have a hand in. As Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn sagely pointed out in 'Liberty or Equality,' the verdict of *history* and the verdict of *historians* are two (often very different) things. I would hope a historian of Prange's skill would not be so presumptuous as to claim to speak for all history. The opinions of talented historians are valuable. But relatively few judgments can ever be final (Henry Clausen's Pearl Harbor book has this problem in spades).
The larger issue seems to have been the release, after Prange's death, of John Toland's 'Infamy,' which breathed new life into the so-called 'revisionist' theory that Franklin Roosevelt knew of and/or deliberately provoked the attack. According to their introduction to this volume, Goldstein and Dillon deliberately expanded and refocused Prange's work in order to respond more thoroughly to the 'revisionist anti-Roosevelt thesis,' which they reject.
They concede that Roosevelt 'might have been ill-advised' or insufficiently 'dynamic' in his leadership. But their central thesis is the mainstream one that Pearl Harbor was due to sub-standard naval and military intelligence systems and failures by the on-scene commanders.
In the end, though, Prange is at pains to point out something that often is overlooked in the 'who do we blame' debate: the magnitude of the Japanese achievement. Pearl Harbor was a massive strategic undertaking -- one the Imperial Navy executed nearly to perfection. Students of the attack do well to remember that attention rightly focuses on the Japanese side of the equation as much as on the American.
I've read a lot of Pearl Harbor history, and recommend Stinnett's recent 'Day of Deceit,' which I think is the most important piece of new Pearl Harbor scholarship in some time. But I readily admit I don't believe anyone has all the answers yet. Prange's seminal work (the sum of his three volumes) is an important part of the dialectic that presents arguments and interpretations and helps us get a clearer picture of what really led up to the Day of Infamy.
Rating: 1
Summary: Mr. Prange, Don't Even Think of Practicing Law.
Comment: I approached this book thinking that it would yield insights into how and why the United States was so poorly prepared for the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. It seemed appropriate in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, to see if the United States had failed to learn from the past and had thereby condenmed itself to a repeat.
What I found between the covers of "Verdict of History" was a thick skulled and fatuous account that, in a nutshell, said "this stuff just happens, and no one is to blame". As anyone who read "The Valor of Ignorance" (Homer Lea), "Strategy", by Lidell Hart, the writings of Thucydides (a successful ancient Greek General) or other books on military strategy and the nature of warfare realized, the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet was predictable -- and in fact was first discussed in military and political circles as a likely event as early as 1905.
The author [...] asserts that Roosevelt's administration was not derelict in exercising its duty or responsibility to defend the United States, and then he provides hundreds of pages of text indicating that they were (At Dawn, They Slept ... and in the afternoon and evening as well, apparently). Mr. Prange seems to have done a great deal of research but learned absolutely nothing from it. Regrettably, that's par for the course with academic writers.
[...]
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Title: At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Gordon William Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon ISBN: 0140157344 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1991 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: Miracle at Midway by Gordon William Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon ISBN: 0140068147 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: November, 1983 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Dec. 7, 1941 : The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor by Donald M Goldstein, Gordon W Prange, Katherine V Dillon ISBN: 0446389978 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1989 List Price(USD): $21.99 |
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Title: Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett ISBN: 0743201299 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 08 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation Under Attack by Michael Gannon ISBN: 0805071822 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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