Remembering Pearl Harbor: Eyewitness Accounts by U.S. Military Men and Women - Hardcover

Culled from 350 interviews conducted over 15 years, these 40 oral histories of December 7, 1941 and its immediate aftermath recount the experiences of military men and women present at Pearl Harbor and its environs. The diverse vantage points range from ships attacked at sea to Battleship Row, the Navy drydocks, the airfields, Schofield Barracks, the Tripler Army Hospital, and the suburbs of Honolulu. The authors introduce the speakers with brief biographical sketches outlining their lives before December 7th, then follow the narratives with accounts of their subsequent careers. While many studies have covered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this is the first to offer such a full complement of U.S. enlisted and junior officers' descriptions of the event. Highly recommended for most collections. (Photos not seen.)-- George F. Scheck, Naval Underwater Systems Ctr. Lib., Newport, R.I.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Based on 350 interviews conducted over a 15-year period with military rank-and-file stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941--a "day which will live in infamy"--the book conveys the shock, the indignation, the fear of the Americans caught in the Japanese surprise attack. This is unlike the myriad other WW II studies in using eye-witness accounts to show us the reactions of those on the ground trying to survive, to aid casualties, to recover pieces of bodies, to pull bloated corpses from the water in the days following the assault. LaForte and Marcello, historians at the University of North Texas, add a significant chapter to WW II history in this re-creation of the action which began at 7:55 a.m., lasted some 110 minutes, left 2403 Americans dead and 1178 injured.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.