At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (50th Anniversary Edition)

As the Japanese commander watched the first planes from the squadrons dive on the ships of the U.S. Navy - still sleeping in the morning sun at Pearl Harbor - he radioed back to his task force the code words saying that complete surprise had been achieved. The attack was sure to succeed. Now, after thirty-seven years of unparalled research, Professor Gordon W. Prange has written the authentic record of how Japan planned and executed the infamous assault. The 1941 attack was a military classic, one of the greatest surprises in the history of warfare. It shattered the quiet Sunday morning on Oahu, destroying myths, illusions, cherished ideas, and assumptions, as completely as a tornado levels a Midwestern town. Pearl Harbor was a national disgrace. It remains a living symbol of America's lack of alertness, and its gross underestimation of a potential enemy. This book tells us about ourselves as a people, our political and military leaders, and the way they thought and acted. Not only was that fearful December 7 an ignomious defeat for the U.S., it marked a watershed in the relations between Japan and America. It was a turning point of World War II. "Fifty years after the attack that plunged America into World War II, At Dawn We Slept remains the greatest account of Pearl Harbor ever written." "This gripping study scrupulously reconstructs the Japanese attack, from its conception (less than a year before the actual raid) to its lightning execution; and it reveals the true reason for the American debacle: the insurmountable disbelief in the Japanese threat that kept America from heeding advance warnings and caused leaders to ignore evidence submitted by our own intelligence sources." "Based on thirty-seven years of intense research and countless interviews, and incorporating previously untranslated documents, At Dawn We Slept is history with the dramatic sweep of a martial epic. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET