One of the most surprising books I've read on WWII history - and I'm pretty well read as both an avocation as well as studies in university. Although Zimm is a naval officer, this reads more like a carefully researched historian's work. There has been a considerable amount of mythology and repeated statements in the record of Pearl Harbor, and this work consider them in detail. Unlike many other historical treatments, this is ALSO a review of the engagement, in terms of how and why it happened the way it did. He does this from not only a historical perspective, but from the vantage of a military planner. For example, most armchair historians know that the USS West Virginia and USS Oklahoma were torpedoed and sunk. Why were they singled out? Zimm points out that the approach paths for attacking the other battleships were technically very difficult, requiring a low approach over alternating water and land from the south (exerting alternating uplift and downdraft on the torpedo bomber), and then with only a very limited time to drop the weapon into the harbor. The West Virginia and Okhlahoma, on the other hand, had clear over-water runs up one of the channels, making it a far easier attack from a technical perspective. The author is also quite objective, noting for example that the pilot who put a torpedo into the USS California had an extremely difficult task, flying a curved approach to a short drop - which he did to near perfection. These are NOT the type of things you read in other discussions of Pearl Harbor.
We're taught by both the historian's literature and the popular works that the attack was planned exhaustively and executed to perfection. Zimm points out that neither of these were the case. The planning was flawed in many ways, for example leaving a whole attack group allocated to aircraft carriers, even though intelligence unambiguously indicated that no carriers were in port. This wasted or at least mis-applied a fairly significant proportion of the first attack wave. The cherished notion that ships could be sunk in the channel to prevent the port from being used is exposed as completely impossible, since the channels were so wide that it would take TWO large ships, sunk end-to-end at exact right angles at the critical point. (The channel was about 1400 feet wide, and battleships were about 650 feet long by 100 feet wide.) In other words, without the active cooperation of at least one American captain, the planners had no hope of blocking the channel, so orders to attempt to block the channel should not have been issued, and the expenditure of a considerable proportion of the second wave's dive bombers should not have been expended on attempting to sink the USS Nevada in the channel.
Also considered are a variety of misconceptions (and a few outright lies) that have grown up around the event. For example, it is certainly true that the Fleet was at anchor in peacetime drill on the 7th of December. However, few realize that the attack had actually been planned for two weeks earlier (November 26th) - and that moreover, the whole base had been at high alert for the entire month before the actual attack. Had the attack actually been launched on Nov 26th as originally planned, the outcome would very likely have been quite different. Still a serious result for the US Pacific Fleet, but probably nothing like the completely one-sided catastrophe that actually occurred.
Other authors have castigated the Japanese planning methods for being entirely biased and in fact actually "rigged." Evidence of the latter is given by others as the war gaming referees "resurrecting" lost or damaged ships in the exercise. Zimm explains the wargaming methodology and in the process one realizes that such a "resurrection" might well be an entirely valid action. For example, if a force runs over a minefield and ships are sunk, the planners may make note of the fact and order in minesweepers in the event. The loss of the ships would then be irrelevant, so putting them back on the board to continue war gaming the remaining part of the plan is an entirely valid and unbiased method. He also notes that in some cases such changes were in fact reflected in the plans, and that in others, the suitable changes were NOT in fact ordered. This is a much more even-handed treatment than the common narrative.
Even if one does not completely agree with the very surprising different narrative, the author defends his analysis very well. Such analysis, at minimum, should cause everyone to consider why they agree or disagree with any given narrative - and that's the function of a work of historical analysis.
To me, this is probably the single most thoughtful and informative analysis of any WWI or WWII action that I've read.
Highly recommended.
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Top reviews from other countries
C Castleton
This one is a problem for a dedicated reader of WWII history.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2013