These are lively, astute portraits that rock no boats. Isoroku Yamamoto and ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura. Walter Short their superiors in Washington, Adm.
Twomey churns up plenty of minor characters and little-known incidents over the course of 16 unchronological chapters, but he emphasizes the major figures on both sides, including such star-crossed commanders in Hawaii as Adm. Pulitzer winning journalist Twomey teases readers with his subtitle before delivering a fine account of the players and events in the years leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. “Even though readers already know the ending, they’ll hold their collective breath, as if they’re watching a rerun of an Alfred Hitchcock classic” ( St.
The brilliance of Countdown to Pearl Harbor is in its elegant prose and taut focus. But he tells the story with compassion and a wise understanding of why people-even smart, experienced, talented people-look down at their feet when they should be scanning the sky.
Through remarkable characters and impeccable details, Pulitzer Prize–winner Steve Twomey shows how careless decisions and blinkered beliefs gave birth to colossal failure. There were false assumptions and racist ones, misunderstandings, infighting, and clashes between egos. As he fretted, a Japanese spy was counting warships in the harbor and reporting to Tokyo. Besides, the admiral thought Pearl was too shallow for torpedoes he never even put up a barrier. His intelligence had lost track of Japan’s biggest aircraft carriers, but assumed they were resting in a port far away. In a small office at Pearl Harbor, overlooking the battleships, the commander of the Pacific Fleet tried to assess whether the threat was real. They thought precautions were being taken, but never checked to be sure. In Washington, DC, in late November 1941, admirals composed the most ominous message in Navy history to warn Hawaii of possible danger-but they wrote it too vaguely. In this “riveting” ( Los Angeles Times) account of the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Twomey “infuses a well-known story with suspense” ( The New York Times Book Review), offering a poignant new perspective on the most infamous day in American history.
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