Pearl Harbor: Japan's Fatal Blunder: The True Story Behind Japan's Attack on December 7, 1941

The ``swift and ruthless'' policy of the Japanese navy in World War II was due to the military genius of Adm. Heihachiro Togo, whose strategies during the Sino- and Russo-Japanese wars, the author asserts, provided a model for Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto in his attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Albright, an intelligence officer at Army headquarters on Oahu at the time, tells the familiar story of the failure of the U.S. command to heed the warnings of impending disaster. He also argues that neither Gen. Walter Short nor Adm. Husband Kimmel deserves the degree of blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster that historians have placed on their shoulders. Albright tells, as well, of the planning, preparation and execution of the two-wave Japanese assault. He contends that the Japanese could have caused far greater damage had they exploited their initial success with a third wave, a carrier-baiting landing on Oahuand he speculates on how this might have turned out. The study concludes with an examination of the devastating Japanese naval defeat at Midway six months after Pearl Harbor and the death of Yamamoto. (July)