Brothers Down
Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A deeply personal and never-before-told account of one of America's darkest days, from the bestselling author of The Admirals and MacArthur at War.
The surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 remains one of the most traumatic events in American history. America's battleship fleet was crippled, thousands of lives were lost, and the United States was propelled into a world war. Few realize that aboard the iconic, ill-fated USS Arizona were an incredible seventy-nine blood relatives. Tragically, in an era when family members serving together was an accepted, even encouraged, practice, sixty-three of the Arizona's 1,177 dead turned out to be brothers.
In Brothers Down, acclaimed historian Walter R. Borneman returns to that critical week of December, masterfully guiding us on an unforgettable journey of sacrifice and heroism, all told through the lives of these brothers and their fateful experience on the Arizona. Weaving in the heartbreaking stories of the parents, wives, and sweethearts who wrote to and worried about these men, Borneman draws from a treasure trove of unpublished source material to bring to vivid life the minor decisions that became a matter of life or death when the bombs began to fall. More than just an account of familial bonds and national heartbreak, what emerges promises to define a turning point in American military history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This well-organized book is a poignant look at the brothers who were serving aboard the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941. By using the fresh approach of focusing on the family connections among the crew, Borneman (MacArthur's War) breathes new drama into the oft-explored story of the day that ushered the United States into WWII. He focuses on 14 of the 38 groups of brothers who were part of the Arizona's crew, describing how they represented the Navy, the country, and the lower-middle-class families whose sons joined the service seeking a path out of the economic hopelessness of the Great Depression. The research behind this work is unique; Borneman draws on the brothers' letters home and family lore from their relatives. The second part of the book follows the sailors into the attack on the Arizona. Most of the brothers 63 of the 79 perished in the disaster, as Borneman relays in detail. The final section follows the telegrams to the families, how they coped, and the subsequent lives of the survivors, wives, and girlfriends. The moving and unusual angle, excellent research, and the prose's clarity and emotion make this one a winner.
Customer Reviews
Fascinating and moving
Fascinating and moving story of the brothers aboard Arizona, it also offers a glimpse of the pre-war Navy and naval culture. Well researched, it shows history is not dates and places but rather the people who made dates and places important. While content is excellent, the ebook version is abysmal. Footnotes are blank and the only way to look up a reference is stop reading and trudge to the appendix, hoping to return to where you were reading without losing your place. And the photos, which would put faces to the names, are broken across pages and separated from captions. Altogether, the ebook is a disservice to the author’s fine work and the sacrifices of the families of the brothers.