Days of Infamy
Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen
Reviewed by Mary Lydon Simonsen, author of Pemberley
Remembered
In the decades following the end of a war, civil and
military historians pour over the reams of documents and miles of film
generated by the conflict in an attempt to make sense of the chaos that
is
war. It takes years and sometimes
decades to document and explain major military events such as the D-Day
invasion of Normandy or
the Battle
of the Bulge. After the dust has settled
and consensus has emerged, historians have the luxury of engaging in
discussions
of the “what ifs.” World War II had more
than its share of decisions that lend themselves to “active” history. For example, what if the Luftwaffe had
continued to pound British airfields instead of moving their planes to
the east
for the attack on Russia? Would Britain
have been so vulnerable that a German invasion from the continent would
have
been successful? Another of these “what
ifs” is the basis for Days of Infamy. If Admiral Yamamoto had been in command when
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor instead of
Admiral
Nagumo, would a third wave of planes have been launched?
Damage from the first two waves of planes on that
fateful
December 1941 morning was massive and included the sinking of the
battleships
Arizona, West Virginia, and California, heavy damage to five others, as
well as
significant damage to cruisers, airfields, aircraft, and hangers.
Fortunately,
the prize Japanese targets, the aircraft carriers, Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga, were
out to sea when the Japanese struck. The
targets for the third wave were the submarine base, the dry docks in
the Navy
Yard, the oil storage facilities, and the CINCPAC headquarters where
the
cryptologists were working on breaking the Japanese military code. But the third wave was never launched, except
in Days
of Infamy.
The authors pit the daring, and some say, reckless Admiral
Bill “Bull” Halsey, commanding the aircraft carrier, Enterprise,
against the poker-playing gambler, Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto. Enraged by
the sneak Japanese attack, Admiral Halsey makes the decision to follow
Navy
doctrine and “go in harm’s way.” What
follows is an all-out slugfest. Nearly
300 pages of the book are given over to ferocious battles where
American airmen,
flying antiquated planes, take to the skies filled with the superior
Japanese
Zeroes to attack a battleship and two of their carriers in what they
know to be
suicide missions. The book describes
endless
waves of Japanese planes attacking the American carriers and paints
vivid
portraits of the gallant efforts of the sailors on these floating
cities who
are burnt, blown up, boiled by steam, and drowned when cut off from
rescue
efforts.
When the attacks are over, the people on Oahu, who now have had
time to think about who caused so much death and destruction, focus
their anger
on those who look most like their enemies—Japanese Americans. This is the least satisfying part of the
book. The story of a cryptologist and his Japanese- American wife are
only there
to explain what was happening to the civilians of Oahu. It really doesn’t work. What does work are
the battle scenes.
This is one of those books that once you start reading it
you do not want to put it down because the details of the engagements
are so
riveting. You want to know if the
Americans, after having suffered such a devastating attack, can get in
a few
punches of their own. This is the story
of those frontline sailors and airmen who fought the first battles of
World War
II and came out swinging. In this
imagined historical narrative, there are no clear winners.
Instead, evidence of the bitter war the
United States would be fighting against the Empire of Japan lies in the
floating flesh and metal dotting the Pacific that were once men and
their
machines.
Newt Gingrich Web Site
William Forstchen Web
Site