Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement
The Shocking True Story of the Military Intelligence Failure at Pearl Harbor and the Fourteen Men Responsible for the Disaster
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
This account of the top secret investigation is “essential history . . . the authoritative appraisal of why American armed forces met the Japanese attack asleep” (The Christian Science Monitor).
On December 6, 1941, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, assured his staff that the Japanese would not attack Pearl Harbor. The next morning, Japanese carriers steamed toward Hawaii to launch one of the most devastating surprise attacks in the history of war, proving the admiral disastrously wrong. Immediately, an investigation began into how the American military could have been caught so unaware.
The results of the initial investigation failed to implicate who was responsible for this intelligence debacle. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, realizing that high-ranking members of the military had provided false testimony, decided to reopen the investigation by bringing in an unknown major by the name of Henry C. Clausen. Over the course of ten months, from November 1944 to September 1945, Clausen led an exhaustive investigation. He logged more than fifty-five thousand miles and interviewed over one hundred military and civilian personnel, ultimately producing an eight-hundred-page report that brought new evidence to light. Clausen left no stone unturned in his dogged effort to determine who was truly responsible for the disaster at Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details of Clausen’s investigation and is a damning account of massive intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This book goes a long way toward ending the 50-year-old debate as to how the Japanese managed to surprise U.S. forces when they bombed Hawaii on December 7, 1941. In 1944, Secretary of War Henry Stimson selected co-author Clausen, then a lawyer in the U.S. Judge Advocate's office, to conduct an independent investigation into the Pearl Harbor attack; Clausen submitted a top-secret report on the matter, the substance of which is published here for the first time. Assisted by New York-based editor Lee, Clausen details his discovery of egregious errors of omission and commission, as well as criminal neglect of duty by the Army and Navy high command in Washington and Honolulu. He concludes that the top officers in Hawaii, General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel, were simply asleep at the switch and ignored repeated warnings. Probably the most telling factor in this failure of communication, he argues, was the Navy's arrogant hoarding of secret intelligence that should have been shared with its Army counterparts. This thoroughly engrossing narrative, as compelling as a detective novel, answers two major questions: What did Washington and Honolulu know about Japanese actions before the attack and what did they do about it? A significant historical breakthrough that should attract a wide readership. Photos. 60,000 first printing; BOMC, QPB and History Book Club alternate. ( Sept. )
