December 7, 1941 by Gordon Prange and two other people who added some more stuff after Gordon died. It was exactly a year ago today that I decided to read up on the attack at Pearl Harbor. I went on to Amazon and searched for the best book on the subject and Gordon's book won hands down, so I purchased it. It took me a couple months to finish but it was a very well written book and most informative. He interviewed scads of people who experienced the attack and not just soldiers and sailors but other people living on the island and officer's wives too. Just a few things I remember after reading the book... Perhaps the most surprising thing I learned was that, almost to a man, officers, soldiers and sailors thought that the initial bombardment was being brought about by daredevil American military pilots who were showing off. A number of officers were heard yelling to get the names of those a-hole pilots for court marshal purposes. Of course once everybody recognized the Japanese Zero insignias, weapons were sought and the painfully slow efforts to fight back were begun. Fruitless efforts of fighting back for the most part but a few ship and ground based guns did manage to down four or five Zeros. The attack centered on the ships in the harbor and several military aircraft fields and this was covered in great detail by the author. Next, I learned that after the enemy departed back to their ships, almost all of the surviving military personnel were convinced that there was going to be a follow up ground invasion. In fact, reports came in to headquarters that a vast number of Japanese soldiers were seen advancing towards some military targets. This of course never happened, it was just an understandable case of confused soldiers running around like heads with their chickens cut off. Those officer's wives I mentioned were evacuated from their homes and had to spend the night in a number of caves on the island.
A great book all in all and I'll surely read it again someday. Kind of reminded me of the movie Tora Tora Tora, starring Martin Balsam and Jason Robards. I kept thinking about my Uncle Frank while reading the book. He was onboard one of the ships when the attack happened. As far as I know, he wasn't injured and his ship didn't sink but while he was climbing a ladder to an upper level, the guy just ahead of him got cut down by a strafing Zero. In the movie coincidentally, there is a quick scene where two sailors are climbing a ladder and the one up above was shot by a strafing Zero.