Pearl Harbor Attack

by Edwin P. Hoyt

On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces stunned America by launching a shocking air raid on Pearl Harbor, destroying all the battleships of the U.S. fleet. No one imagined that Japan would be bold enough to plan an attack so close to the mainland, and in Hawaii the shock was complete as soldiers and sailors rushed to escape from the fires and wreckage of their ships. In this engrossing and extensively researched account, war correspondent Edwin P. Hoyt—who served in the Pacific theater—takes a close look at the personalities involved and Japan’s careful planning as the kido butai   (or striking force) was assembled. An endpaper map lays out the geography of the Pacific Ocean, and internal charts, maps, and historic photos appear throughout.
Edwin P. Hoyt served in the Pacific theater during World War II and afterward became a war correspondent in Asia and the Middle East. He was a news editor for the U.S. Office of War Information and a member of the psychological warfare team in India, Burma, and China. He was a reporter for the Denver Post and the San Francisco Chronicle as well as a producer for CBS News. An avid military historian, Hoyt is the author of more than 150 books.    

156 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Edwin P. Hoyt was a prolific American writer who specialized in military history. He was born in Portland, Oregon to the publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt (1897–1979) and his wife, the former Cecile DeVore (1901–1970). A younger brother, Charles Richard, was born in 1928. Hoyt attended the University of Oregon from 1940 to 1943.

In 1943, Hoyt's father, then the editor and publisher of The Oregonian, was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the director of the Domestic Branch, Office of War Information. The younger Hoyt served with the Office of War Information during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. In 1945 and 1946, he served as a foreign correspondent for The Denver Post (of which his father became editor and publisher in 1946) and the United Press, reporting from locations in China, Thailand, Burma, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and Korea.

Edwin Hoyt subsequently worked as an ABC broadcaster, covering the 1948 revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1949 to 1951, he was the editor of the editorial page at The Denver Post. He was the editor and publisher of the Colorado Springs Free Press from 1951 to 1955, and an associate editor of Collier's Weekly in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1957 he was a television producer and writer-director at CBS, and in 1958 he was an assistant publisher of American Heritage magazine in New York.

Starting in 1958, Hoyt became a writer full-time, and for a few years (1976 to 1980) served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hawaii. In the 40 years since his first publication in 1960, he produced nearly 200 published works.

While Hoyt wrote about 20 novels (many published under pseudonyms Christopher Martin and Cabot L. Forbes) the vast majority of his works are biographies and other forms of non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on World War II military history.

Hoyt died in Tokyo, Japan on July 29, 2005, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by his wife Hiroko, of Tokyo, and three children, Diana, Helga, and Christopher, all residing in the U.S.

Reviews

[Jeremiah S]

This is a book called Pearl Harbor Attack by Edwin P. Hoyt. Hoyt served in the pacific theater of World War II as a war reporter. The Japanese had allied themselves with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940. President Roosevelt took action and placed an embargo on Japan to cut off their supplies of oil, rubber, and steel that Japan needed to fuel its war machine. Japanese leaders felt they had to take action and on December 7, 1941, they attacked Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii. My favorite chapter was called “Control of the Sky”. In this chapter, Hoyt describes the epic battle in the sky between the American and the Japanese fighter pilots. It made me sad to find out that the Americans fought hard but the Japanese were just too much for them. Hoyt describes how America ignored warnings from military intelligence that led them to be caught off guard for the attack. I liked the way the author wrote this book because in every chapter you can really picture the action in your head. After reading this book I felt a little disappointed to learn that America was caught off guard for a surprise attack and had lost the battle at Pearl Harbor. I will recommend this book to other students who want to learn more about war history.

[Joe]

This is a great little overview of the Pearl Harbor Attack. It is special to me, because on page 83, my grandfather tells his story of that day.

[Jaeger Matthias]

The day that shall live in infamy........ DECEMBER SEVEN.............