Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack

by Steve Twomey

A Smithsonian Top History Book of 2016
A Japan Times Best Book About Japan of 2016

A fascinating look at the twelve days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—the warnings, clues and missteps—by a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter.

In Washington, DC, in late November 1941, admirals compose the most ominous message in Navy history to warn Hawaii of possible danger, but they write it too vaguely. They think precautions are being taken, but never check to see if they are. A key intelligence officer wants more warnings sent, but he is on the losing end of a bureaucratic battle and can’t get the message out. American sleuths have pierced Japan’s most vital diplomatic code, and Washington believes it has a window on the enemy’s soul—but it does not.

In a small office at Pearl Harbor, overlooking the battleships at the heart of America’s seafaring power, the Commander of the Pacific Fleet tries to figure out how much danger he really faces. His intelligence unit has lost track of Japan’s biggest aircraft carriers, but assumes they are resting in a port far away. The admiral thinks Pearl is too shallow for torpedoes, so he never puts up a barrier. As he frets, a Japanese spy is counting the warships in the harbor and reporting to Tokyo.

There were false assumptions, and racist The Japanese aren’t very good aviators and they don’t have the nerve or the skill to attempt a strike so far from their home. There were misunderstandings, conflicting desires, painful choices. And there was a naval officer who, on his very first mission as captain of his very first ship, did exactly the right thing. His warning could have averted disaster, but his superiors reacted too leisurely. Japanese planes arrived moments later.

Twomey’s telescoping of the twelve days leading to the attack unravels the crucial characters and moments, and produces an edge-of-your seat drama with fascinating details about America at this moment in its history. By the end, the reader understands how assumption is the root of disaster, and how sometimes a gamble pays off.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Military Fiction, American History, Military History, War

384 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2016

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“And now, on a Sunday morning in December, here was the anticipated harbinger: a destroyer had reported not merely that it might have heard a submarine, but that it had shot at one within sight of the harbor…No one, in either command chain, reacted with alacrity to what the [USS] Ward had seen and done. Everyone remained in the vise grip of peace. What would have unfolded if the response in these last minutes had been faster is, of course, unknowable. There would not have been time for the fleet to flee its cramped home; but there might have been enough to sound general quarters on all ships and be waiting with all antiaircraft guns loaded and all eyes skyward…”
- Steve Twomey, Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack

There have been a lot of books written about Pearl Harbor. It was a world-historical moment, a first-rate disaster, and until the morning of September 11, 2001, the biggest intelligence failure in United States history. We’ll soon be in range of the eighty-year anniversary of the attack, so undoubtedly, there will be more written volumes to come.

Despite this vast literature, Steve Twomey’s Countdown to Pearl Harbor really jumps out. The conceit here – simple but good – is to present the days leading up to the Japan's surprise airstrike as a tick-tock thriller, a white-knuckled ride toward a known conclusion, that nevertheless feels fresh and shocking.

Perhaps the best word to describe Countdown to Pearl Harbor is sleek. It is a stripped-down, lean, and efficient machine. Gordon Prange’s seminal At Dawn We Slept clocks in at around 700 or so pages of text, making it a weighty tome indeed. Twomey’s volume, on the other hand, has just 306 pages of text, each page delivered at a rather exhilarating pace.

And while certain books on Pearl Harbor leap headfirst into the thickets of conspiracy, laboriously turning every negligent oversight into breathtakingly homicidal misfeasance, Twomey narrates this story with coolness, rationality, and logic. It is, in other words, a welcome corrective to overheated, overcomplicated screeds that see monstrous crimes rather than simple negligence; that twist and contort and employ fuzzy math in order to “prove” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt willingly sacrificed his beloved Navy in order start a war with Japan that would then – because, prophecy – trigger the war with Germany that FDR actually desired.

In the days, months, and years ahead, a fantastical notion would find root in dark corners: that Franklin Roosevelt had hoped the Japanese would attack some place or thing American, and that he had even known where they would do so and let them, eager to rally a skeptical nation to the barricades against totalitarianism. If such word ever reached him, of course, it would have had to pass through the hands of many others, from enlisted men in radio rooms to admirals and generals, all of whom would then have had to wink at avoidable death and destruction, and many of them would then have had to lie about it publicly and go to their graves with sealed lips. If Roosevelt did want America in the war, it already was, nakedly assisting Great Britain and Russia beyond any notion of neutrality, to the point of firing on German ships. If he did know where Japan’s blows were going to fall, then the man who loved the navy would have been treasonously and fatally betraying it.

Rather than some dastardly design, the twelve days covered by Twomey are a clear-eyed catalogue of human failings. For example, there was the famous “war warning” sent by Chief of Naval Operations Harold “Betty” Stark to various overseas commands. Despite using such a provocative hook, this short (less than a hundred words) communique was remarkably ill-constructed, managing to be hyper-specific, to the point of exclusion, about possible targets, while being incredibly vague as to what constituted a proper response. Then there was the infamous “bomb plot” message, which was intelligence from a Japanese spy that essentially placed Pearl Harbor into a grid. Intercepted by Army Intelligence, this information – often pointed to as a “smoking gun” by conspiracists – never made it into the hands of Admiral Husband Kimmel or General Walter Short, the respective Navy and Army commanders in Oahu.

Behind each of these incidents was a fallible man, and Twomey’s indictments are wide-ranging. He faults President Roosevelt for inattention to the Pacific Theater, and for cannibalizing the Pacific Fleet for operations in the Atlantic, even as tensions threatened to boil over with Japan. He judges CNO Admiral Stark as a well-meaning bumpkin, far out of his depth, and holding an important position mainly by dint of his friendship with FDR. Not surprisingly, General Short is portrayed as symptomatic of the Old Army, a man who somehow rose to the rank of lieutenant-general without a hint of brilliance or insight.

Twomey’s chief target, though, is Admiral Kimmel himself. This caught me a bit off-guard. Not because I disagree, but because Kimmel’s family has been working pretty tirelessly to reframe the admiral’s ultimate role (helped along by books such as A Matter of Honor: Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family's Quest for Justice). Given enough time, Americans are typically pretty willing to forgive, so I thought that Kimmel’s posthumous reputation might be closing in on rehabilitation.

Twomey certainly isn’t buying that. He is rather scathing in his evaluation of Admiral Kimmel, presenting him as myopic and obsessed with taking the offensive, at the expense of basic defensive arrangements. He was also a minutiae-minded bullet counter, who relentlessly focused on minor details while ignoring the larger picture. In short, a drill-obsessed pedant who couldn’t be bothered to fly reconnaissance missions along the most probable vectors of an air attack.

(Brief aside: My position on Kimmel is that he absolutely should have lost his job as CINPAC, especially in light of the fact that Chester Nimitz, one of America’s greatest naval warriors, was his replacement. I also believe, however, that he should’ve been given another opportunity at command).

Aside from his excellent distillation and the fantastic momentum, Twomey writes in a lively, appealing, and witty prose. At one point, he describes intelligence officer Edwin Layton as having “the sexy visage of a drugstore pharmacist,” which is absolutely, one-hundred percent accurate.

This is a book I didn’t want to end. Of course, the perfectly modulated rhythm and careful editing is the reason I flew through it so quickly. Twomey finds that rare balance between seriousness of purpose and ease of reading. This is an engrossing literary narrative that never compromises the historical integrity of his subject.

Countdown to Pearl Harbor is clear and streamlined without being simplistic; it has a flair for the dramatic, without being heavy-handed; it is sharp, even harsh in its criticisms of the people involved – especially Kimmel – yet maintains a certain sympathy for these men, as human beings who could not quite overcome their flaws, their blind-spots, their profound limitations.

This may not be the best book about Pearl Harbor (there are so many, after all), but it is easily my favorite.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read several books on the attack on Pearl Harbor and have to say that this history may stand at the top of my favorites. Written by Pulitzer Prize winner, Steve Twomey, it dissects the 12 days leading up to the attack and why the Americans were not prepared.

Rather than a long and rambling review, I am choosing to list some of the various reasons and oversights made by those in charge, both in Washington and at Pearl Harbor.

*The Japanese were underestimated, not only in their military equipment (planes and ships) but were thought to be "skinny, shortsighted, and physically unsuited" for an attack against a larger foe.
*Naval intelligence did not seem to be concerned that Japan's carriers' location had suddenly dropped out of sight.
*Japanese supervision of their espionage headquarters were shifted from the US to Rio de Janeiro after burning all their files.
*The US had broken the Japanese code that was named Magic but the information from the Pearl Harbor cryptologists often was skimmed or not read by the upper echelon.
*The Americans thought that if the Japanese did attack, the depth of water at Pearl Harbor was too shallow and the torpedoes would be "stuck in the mud". They were wrong.
*The Japanese carrier/planes could have been detected well in advance of any threat although very few American spotter planes were sent out.

These are just a few of the errors in judgement that were made before that fateful day "that will live in infamy". You may be thinking that hindsight is valuable but this author has excellent source material which supports the facts as presented. A superb and well written history which I highly recommend.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a detailed look at the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, what happened, when, and who was involved. The author has obviously researched this topic in depth and recounts the facts in a way that keeps the reader’s attention. It is a gripping account. Though the subtitle indicates it covers “the twelve days to the attack,” it is, in fact, much more extensive. Twomey does not shy away from revealing the reasons behind the lack of preparedness, exposes the communications gaps, the attitudes of the time (hubris, racism), and how a confluence of factors led to the surprise attack. Considering its subject, it is shorter and more direct than many accounts I have read. Recommended for those interested in the history of WWII.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. I decided to read a few new books that just came out about Pearl Harbor. I started with “Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack”. By Steve Twomey. I was surprised at the number of books about Pearl Harbor published this year. I did notice that most of them are what are called popular histories, i.e., written by non-historians. Twomey won the Pulitzer Prize as a journalist.

Twomey opens the book with Admiral Husband E. Kimmel assuming command of the Pacific Fleet as Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet on 1 February 1941. The author then jumps to the 12 days leading up to the Japanese attack. He portrays events during that period in the style of a military thriller. The people are the heart of the action. Twomey jumps from Kimmel and the military and political leaders in Washington to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, to the Japanese diplomats in Washington, to the U.S. sailors.

The book is well written and meticulously researched. Twomey researched the official investigations and personal papers of those involved. He successfully brought together all the players into the dramatic detailed carnage of the attack and Kimmel’s loss of his rank.
The book is 384 pages and contains illustrations, publication date is December 2016.

[Boudewijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A description of the 12 days before the attack. It is not a description of the attack itself, but explains how the United States was surprised by the event. Washington knew war was imminent, but never expected it to start in Honolulu. Admiral Kimmel and general Short never took an attack on Pearl Harbour serious. Therefore, in the morning of the 7th of December, admiral Kimmel saw Japanese planes destroy his battleships and his career.

[Steven Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steve Twomey is a superb writer whose new book COUNTDOWN TO PEARL HARBOR: THE TWELVE DAYS TO THE ATTACK is a useful addition to the list of books recently published commemorating December 7, 1941. Employing numerous primary source documents, memoirs, interviews, and a mastery of secondary materials Twomey has recreated the tension filled days leading up to the Japanese attack. The reader is provided a front row seat from which to witness the debates within the Roosevelt administration, the work of the intelligence community, and the approach the American military took in responding to the Japanese threat. In addition, the author explores the Japanese perspective on all events.

Twomey, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post incorporates numerous biographical sketches of the major figures and these sketches include Japanese as well as American figures. Prominent on the Japanese side are Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Vice Minister of the Imperial Navy, the architect of the attack; Kichisaburo Nomura, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States; Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese spy who took a job as a dishwasher at Pearl Harbor; Admiral Harold Starks, Chief of Naval Operations; Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet; Joseph J. Rochefort, Head of the Combat Intelligence Unit; William Knox, Secretary of the Navy; General George C. Marshall, Chief of the Army, and General Walter Short, Army Command in Hawaii, among others.

Twomey follows the week and a half leading to the attack, providing context and analysis as he brings to the fore a number of issues. The role of the Washington bureaucracy and its communications with military commanders is especially important, as is the flow of intelligence that was made available. The intelligence issue is paramount because the United States had broken Japanese diplomatic and naval codes referred to as MAGIC and these intercepts had a limited dissemination. The preparation taken by commanders in the Philippines and Hawaii receives a great of attention as does the inability of Washington to supply the numbers of planes and pilots for reconnaissance to provide a warning to deal with the Japanese threat. Marshall and Stark had a limited ability to supply the Pacific theater, and even reduced Pearl Harbor’s forces by 25% to assist in the Atlantic war against Germany.

Twomey deals with those who were supposedly the most culpable for the lack of preparation at Pearl Harbor, and unlike Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan’s recent book he finds Admiral Kimmel guilty of a lack of judgement in preparing his command and presents him as a person who had little contact with Japan, and believed they might bluff but would not be reckless enough to attack the United States. Twomey also dissects the intelligence community concentrating on the cryptographic miracles that occurred in the “dungeon,” the nickname for Rochefort’s office. Men like Lt. Commander Edwin T. Layton, a Lt. Commander of the intelligence division who held a strong knowledge of Japanese culture and language, and Capt. Arthur H. McCollum, Chief of the Far Eastern Section of Naval Intelligence who assisted in the breaking of the MAGIC code are discussed in detail in an enlightening chapter entitled, “Their Mail Open and Read.”

A number of telling things emerge in dissecting the lack of preparation at Pearl Harbor. Twomey’s critique of Stark is very accurate as during the course of 1941 up until the collapse of diplomatic negotiations with Japan at the end of November, his warnings to the Pacific fleet were like a “yo-yo.” On January 13, 1941 he informed Kimmel that war “may be in a matter of weeks.” On October 17, 1941 he told Kimmel that “I do not believe the Japs are going to sail into us,” but on November 7, 1941 he stated the situation was “worser and worser and in a month may see literally most anything.” The problem as the author correctly points out is that Stark did not put himself in the minds of a commander with his double bind messages. Further, Stark kept the Japanese intercepts away from Kimmel and General Short, and when messages that were forwarded did not include a threat to Pearl Harbor as it emphasized the Philippines.

Another interesting chapter that Twomey presents deals with Army-Navy relations at Pearl Harbor. The lack of trust, poor communication, and little or no training together by the two services before the arrival of Kimmel and Short is damning to say the least as is their lack of coordination of reconnaissance flights, the destination and location of naval forces, and other issues. The situation does improve once the new command is in place, but it took a long time to try and undo the past relationship.

The role of Joseph Grew, the American Ambassador to Japan and his attempts at reaching a settlement between the two adversaries is interesting as is Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s negotiations with the Japanese in Washington. The Japanese process was simple in its application of diplomacy, stall and create a charade of amiability until their navy was in place, then move quickly to the deadline date. Another important component in Twomey’s narrative is his accurate portrayal of American racist views. This deprecation of Japanese culture led to ridiculous views of the abilities of Japanese naval forces and their pilots. Our view of their inferior technology, intelligence and decision making also contributed to the disaster of December 7th. Another fascinating area is Twomey’s discussion of how American naval intelligence lost sight of Japanese aircraft carriers weeks before the attack. They went silent and intelligence analysts could not determine its true meaning for the near future. But, by December 3rd intercepts showed that Japanese diplomats were destroying their code machines and documents and they feared for their seizure once the attacks in the Pacific took place. If Stark was convinced this was a prelude to war why didn’t he make firmer warnings to Kimmel?

In the final analysis Twomey argues American readiness for an attack on Pearl Harbor was an outright gamble. After sifting through all the documentation the author can make the case that certain steps should have been taken by Stark, Kimmel, Short and others to prepare American forces for a Japanese attack. However, those in charge in Washington and Pearl Harbor held the belief that the Japanese would not be ignorant enough to hit Pearl Harbor so distant from their home base. The Philippines was most likely to be attacked, but for government officials, civilian and military, Pearl Harbor should not have been a target. The question who is responsible for the disaster that followed, the blame could be spread around and should not have focused on one or two individuals.

[Bfisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-1/2 stars.

Since next month is the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, you might reasonably expect some new books on the topic. You also have to ask, after Gordon Prange`s magisterial At Dawn We Slept, what new light can this writer shed on Pearl Harbor?

There is nothing new or startling in this book, but there is nuance. The main thing I took away from this book was the peculiar position that intelligence held at the time of Pearl Harbor.

American cryptologists had broken the main Japanese diplomatic codes, and were able to read intercepts almost as quickly as their intended recipients. One side effect of this was the overconfidence this bred in American political and military leaders that they had a good picture of Japanese intentions.

However, they had not been able to penetrate Japanese military and naval communications - a major cloak over Japanese intentions, considering that Japan was essentially under military control by that point. Was it reasonable to expect that Japan’s junto would be reveal their full intentions to their diplomats, probably despised by their military overlords?

Furthermore, the writer indicates that in the infant and non-integrated American intelligence operations of the era, intelligence analysis was neither well-developed, nor well-regarded by much of the military hierarchy, and some senior commanders were reluctant to consider that junior officers might be better informed and more capable of divining Japanese intentions. This was exacerbated by a national and institutional unwillingness to consider Japanese military and naval capabilities in a light unflattering to American abilities.

While I liked this book, it has the common failure of dealing almost exclusively with the American side of the story. A great book about the Japanese story of the operation remains to be written.

[WendyB · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dry. I would like to have read more about the average sailors and soldiers and what their days were like leading up to the attack.

[Chadwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though we know how the story ends, Steve Twomey has crafted a remarkably suspenseful account of the days leading up to the Pearl Harbor debacle. His book is thoroughly researched and elegantly written.

The Pearl Harbor story is a well-known one, and the subject of countless books. So why another one? Twomey does add a few new twists, but it's really the drama of his storytelling that makes his account stand out. As he writes in his prefatory note: "This book is not offered as an exhaustive account. . . . The focus is, instead, on the core narrative of a day with almost no equal in American history." Indeed, his history is anything but dry, and his focus on the key characters at the heart of the story succeeds in making this story very human, and tragic. He shows us how individual biases, false assumptions, and bad decisions led to such momentous events. In the end, it makes for strangely sad reading.

It's a fresh and compelling take on what we know -- or thought we knew -- about Pearl Harbor.

(Thanks to Simon & Schuster for an advance e-galley. Receiving a free copy did not affect the content of my review.)

[Tsuyoshi Ishida · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how Twomey did it. This book gives the human side to both the American and Japanese sides of the attack. In no other account of Pearl Harbor, have I felt the human nuance of the Japanese military, from the higher ranks all the way down to those at the bottom. I have read many books about Pearl Harbor in both English and Japanese, as I am a native Japanese, and this is the first book that caught the Japanese position and heart convincingly. You could say he wore the shoes of the Japanese, in the bitter cold before the attack. Kudos to Twomey and 5 stars; although I wish I could give it 6.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at the two weeks leading up to Pearl Harbor. Each chapter was essentially one of the 12 days examined, and the stories bounced around between different leaders at different levels mostly throughout the U.S. leadership but also with some focus on Japanese leadership. It felt at times as if the story was dragged out a bit longer than it needed to be, but for fans of World War II this was worth the quick read.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seventy -five years ago most of the world powers were at war. One - The United States was gearing up for war. Could the US have avoided what appeared to be the inevitable? Could Japan have been convinced to change her course? Was the military to blame? The politicians? The statesmen?

Steve Twomey explores those questions and leads the reader to form opinions of the answers in his book Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack. Along the way, he introduces the people who were integral players before, during and after those twelve days, but who have been largely forgotten. People still remember Husband Kimmel, Cordell, Hull, FDR, Tojo, and Yamamoto. But many more people had pivotal roles during those days.

Harold Rainsford “Betty” Stark was Chief of Naval Operations and his positive and negative actions during those twelve days could be enough for a book themselves. The hand-tying of the US ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew was explored. The attitudes of the US military towards the worthiness of the Japanese as pilots was considered. The mistaken belief that Pearl Harbor would not be a target permeated the policy and the defenses. “Magic” and “purple” gave major clues to what was coming, but they were masked in such secrecy that is some ways it could be said that they were rendered useless.

If you have ever seen the movie Midway, then you know of cryptanalyst Commander Joseph Rochefort He and his men were responsible for the decoding of the Japanese messages that determined that Midway was their target. But he was also at Pearl Harbor. Had he and the men he commanded there been privy to “purple” the scenario might have changed drastically.

Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack takes the reader through each of those days. Mr. Twomey builds upon each day with the thoughts and writing of the men and women involved, the locations, the ironic twists and the aftermath of decisions made and not made.
One of the strengths of Countdown to Pearl Harbor is the way the humanness of the decision makers is depicted. I highly recommend this book for those interested in World War II, history and the individuals involved.

I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchanged for my honest review. Thank you.

[Tony Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Countdown to Pearl Harbor, Steve Twomey
This is an excellent book covering the days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I am a history buff and have read quite a bit about the attack and the days leading up to it. Twomey brings a fresh perspective and a good writing style. A strength is Twomey’s ability to bring out the humanness of those making the decisions. As Twomey shows there is enough “blame” to spread around, from the top down. There is also enough credit to go around, from the top down.

I strongly recommend this book for those interested in history and especially World War II history. I received a free copy of Countdown to Pearl Harbor from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Many thanks to NetGalley.

[victor harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavy on primary source first person accounts and they are woven together into a compelling narrative that details the intelligence and communication lapses that allowed the Japanese to make their stunning surprise strike. Admiral Kimmel wouldn't take the fall for the failure to adequately repel the attack but there was plenty of blame to go around. Even with the style of documentation it does not disrupt the reading pace and the account shifts between analysis, biographical sketches and dialogue very efficiently. A solid five the whole way.

[Mike Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Countdown to Pearl Harbor by Steve Twomey is thorough and detailed account of the events leading to the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. The book covers the period from February 1, 1941 through the attack but focuses on the 12 days from November 26 through December 7.

Twomey covers the actions of the main characters including Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Husband Kimmel. Commander of the Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor, General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, and Major General Walter Short, commander of the Army forces on Oahu.

Twomey gives biographical briefs on each of the main character and then relates the roll each of these officers played in the Peal Harbor disaster.

Beginning with the disappearance of the Japanese aircraft carriers from detection on November 26 each succeeding day is examined as December 7 comes closer.

Probably the biggest issue were the warning orders sent out by both the Navy and the Army on November 27. While these orders were meant to direct the forces on Oahu to raising security and reconnaissance both orders left too much room for interpretation by the commanders on site: for example, the warning order from Adm Stark seemed to imply that any impending attack would take place in the western and southwestern Pacific, leading Adm Kimmel to conclude Oahu was not included in the higher alert status; similarly, the message to Gen Short seemed to put emphasis on sabotage instead of security from an impending attack.

It is noteworthy that neither Adm Stark nor Gen Marshall followed up on the actions taken in response to these alerts.

The book also goes through the futile diplomatic efforts to avoid war and the mounting hints that something was imminent.

My takeaways from this book were the lack of action taken by the 4 senior military commanders in the nation. All 4 were veterans of WW1. Stark and Marshall were too vague in their messages to Kimmel and Short and gave them too much leeway to interpret what actions needed to be taken, and they never followed up to find out what actions were taken on Oahu; Kimmel and Short actually tried to coordinate their actions but allowed too many unverified assumptions to determine their actions.

While the story of Pearl Harbor is well known this book is an excellent dive into the details of mis actions and no actions taken while there was still a chance to get properly prepared.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since Pearl Harbor Day is coming around again, I thought I should find another book that I haven't read yet and came up with this one: Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack by Pulitzer Prize winning author Steve Twomey. Published in 2016 it draws on newly available archive material to focus on the twelve days leading up yo the attack. With new material the author is able to correct some previously held beliefs and understanding that were not completely accurate. It is very well written and alternates between what was happening from the Japanese viewpoint as well as American from Washington, DC and Hawaii. Having read a number of other books on this topic of course to outcome is known. But there were many instances where small changes in what happened could have produced major changes in the outcome. For example, the US military and political leadership knew an attack was coming but wrongly assumed it would be in southeast Asia and the Philippines. They also greatly underestimated the ability of Japanese pilots as well as their aircraft and some even thought, after the attack, that German pilots must have flown the attack. Many eye opening discoveries based on new information are presented here. For me, this book was hard to put down. Highly recommended for WWII buffs especially the War in the Pacific.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Gordon W. Prange book At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor had the perfect title for Pearl Harbor Attack on December 7, 1941. No one believed the signs of attack: Even when a destroyer had shot at and sunk a Japanese submarine within sight of the harbor; even when admirals in Washington warned the commanders in both the Army and Navy, to be prepared for an attack; even when two privates monitoring the radar on Oahu's north shore for planes, notified their higher-ups that they saw many planes approaching at about 137 miles out.

This is the first book I have read on Pearl Harbor, and I don't think it will be my last. Twomey asks what if any of the many things the commanders could have done: putting out nets in the harbor to hamper the torpedoes; flown patrol missions around the islands; moved the fleet away, etc. My question is what would have happened if the Japanese had bombed the dry docks that were needed to repair the ships that had been damaged.

[C.H. Cobb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulously researched and well-written. Twomey reports on the thinking of Admiral Kimmel and General Short as to why the two were caught so completely unprepared by the devastating raid on Pearl Harbor. Ridiculous pride in America's strength, a racist devaluation of the intelligence and ability of the Japanese, failures in communication, and unwarranted assumptions combined to make Pearl easy pickings for Japan. Twomey's extensively documented text makes popular conspiracy theories (such as Roosevelt knew in advance) untenable. The book suffers in a minor way from repetitive features (sometimes three illustrations would be sufficient, six is too much), but overall this is an excellent report on a massive failure of imagination and preparedness on the part of America's military leadership at the outset of World War 2.

[Nestor Rychtyckyj · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm always been fascinated by the Pearl Harbor attack ever since my grade school class was taken to see "Tora Tora Tora". Starting with "At Dawn We Slept" by Gordon Prange - I feel compelled to read any new book that covers the history of Pearl Harbor. "Countdown to Pearl Harbor" is a worthy entrant to any library.

We all know the story of course, but Steve Tomey manages to keep the suspense up as he deftly weaves the different threads together ranging from the president and his advisors in DC to the Japanese Navy and diplomats and of course Admiral Kimmel and Gen. Short in Hawaii. There are no startling revelations even though I love how the USS Ward and its new captain is given a large role. Pearl Harbor was a huge disaster for the United States, but the roots of the disaster were really in the flawed assumptions and bad decisions that were made by good people who couldn't understand that the world was changing. These lessons are just as important today as they were in 1941.

[Josh Philpot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riveting account of the build-up to Pearl Harbor. I was struck with how poor communication can lead to tragic consequences. Excellent writing. I'll read it again some day.

[Kathie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This in depth look at all the false assumptions and mistakes (and Japanese successes) that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor are examined in detail that is excruciatingly honest. Highly recommend.

[Brett Milam · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much of what presages war is built upon assumptions and as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Twomey, author of 2016’s book, Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve to the Attack, noted, “assumption is the father of defeat.”

Such is the end of the beginning of the United States’ entry into the second global war within two decades directly after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Navy of Japan on Dec. 7, 1941.

Admittedly, prior to listening to the audiobook performed beautifully by Holter Graham, I didn’t know much about the attack upon Pearl Harbor and I’m still not going to pretend to be some expert. Before this book, I knew the date because of then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous “a date which will live in infamy” line. I knew that roughly 2,000-some Americans perished in the attack (overall, 2,355 were killed). And I knew that the usual framing of the attack is that it was a “surprise” attack, with (I thought) the Japanese using kamikazes.

In fact, I’m not sure we can call it a “surprise” attack in the traditional sense of the word, but it’s arguable, and the Japanese wouldn’t use kamikaze, or suicide dive bombers as an aerial strategy in the war, until three years later.

As Twomey lays out in the 12 days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a lot of ineptness to go around in America between civilian leadership in Washington D.C. and military leadership both in Washington D.C. and at Honolulu where virtually the entire Pacific Fleet of the United States was stationed at Pearl Harbor:

- Racist assumptions about the Japanese, primarily that they were incapable of being good pilots and they certainly weren’t capable of being better pilots than Americans.
- Outdated assumptions that battleships were still king in the blossoming age of the airplane and the ability to launch fighter jets from carrier ships. That there was no way logistically for a tiny airplane and its tiny torpedoes to sink a battleship.
- Arrogant assumptions that the Japanese would not be willing to slap the mighty United States in the face by starting a war with it through an attack on its Pacific Fleet, and fitting in with the racist assumptions, just a general under-appreciation and underestimating of the would-be enemy.

These issues made it so that not only did American leaders not expect or believe that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor (or really, any American positions in the Pacific), but that even if Japan was daring enough to do so, Americans had the capability to detect it and thwart it immediately.

The latter was the thing, too: Throughout the lead-up to the United States entry into WWII and the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States government and its military were banging its war drum and pumping its chest out about all kinds of capabilities when the reality was, the military was caught flat-footed because of assumptions baked onto assumptions.

Because it also wasn’t just that the United States underestimated Japan and assumed various things about what Japan would do and be able to do, but also, that within the United States military and government apparatus itself, there was so much bureaucracy at play and “cooks in the kitchen” not knowing what the other cooks were doing, that external assumptions (that Japan wouldn’t and couldn’t attack Pearl Harbor) were sitting upon a false throne of internal assumptions, such as the United States being able to thwart any incoming raid and that it was prepared for war on a two-ocean front (the Atlantic and Pacific) when in fact, it still wasn’t. Sure, American industry and might were ramping up for war before declared war, but it still wasn’t ready in any traditional sense.

The military also wasn’t as ready for this attack as they portrayed. The Army and the Navy were territorial over who would defend Pearl Harbor and who was the better military outfit in America. And there was no one commander overseeing Pearl Harbor. Instead, there were assumptions, which again astounds me that you would assume things about matters of war, about what others were taking care of and not taking care of. For instance, the Army would take care of defense and the Navy would do whatever it does “out there,” meaning, out there in the ocean. But the Navy wasn’t actually out there patrolling in that kind of way.

Nonetheless, from the Japanese side of things and on the American side of things, there was one assumption that was a prescient one: Even if Japan did decide to slap the United States (and there were a few lone voices within the American apparatus who believed they would attempt it and could pull it off, having noticed gaps in American defenses), eventually, the might of American industry and ingenuity was such that the United States would ultimately overwhelm and defeat Japan, which obviously panned out.

Twomey does a Herculean job laying out everything I said in great, painstaking detail and part of that includes getting the perspective from Japan. That perspective includes that of Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief for the Imperial Japanese Navy and the mastermind behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto wanted to take out of the Pacific Fleet to kill American morale. Because at that time, our battleships were still considered a prized possession of sorts. And Americans believed their government’s military telling them that any attack on America was virtually impossible.

Striking at the battleships off the coast of the American mainland would be a shock to such notions.

You just get the sense listening to Twomey’s book that politicians, and not only American ones, have no idea what they’re doing when it comes to war. Which makes the fact that we engage in wars as humans absolute madness to me. All of it is based on often faulty assumptions, with no real knowledge, experience and empirical data in which to back it up.

An item that I learned, and which surprised me in listening to the book, is the number of Japanese, American-born, who were living in Hawaii at the time, more than any other ethnicity, including native Hawaiians. Not surprisingly given many of the racist assumptions at the time, the United States government viewed them as potential-saboteurs should war break out.

Communication is also big facet of this book, whether it’s the fascinating details behind genius American attempts (often successful, mind you!) to break Japanese communication codes, or the diplomatic communications between the two countries to broker a peace — FDR literally sent Emperor Hirohito an olive branch of sorts seeking peace the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor — , or the fact of how communication of the attack itself moved so dang slowly, to where despite one ship’s captain’s quick response to a Japanese submarine on Dec. 7, 1941, the response from higher-ups in the military took too long for it to mean anything, and that those who did hear about the attack thought it a hoax, simply incredulous that it could be true, and that the news took so long to travel at all, with the American ambassador to Japan not hearing about it until hours later. (That’s what makes 9/11, among other reasons, such a different attack, too.)

In fact, that tidbit itself about the submarine is a new tidbit to me: the American destroyer, Ward, which discovered and fired upon what was called a “midget submarine” of Japan’s was technically the first shot fired in the Pacific Theater. Granted, it was fired in self-defense, but I didn’t know that!

For eight discs and however many hours I listened to the brilliant performance of Holter Graham reading Twomey’s words (it really is a performance because he does multiple voices and inflections of his voice depending on the scenario), by the time it got to the attack itself, it felt like I was listening to an action movie. I could feel my adrenaline kicking in because Graham’s reading and Twomey’s words brought this attack in 1941 to 2021; they made it come alive, or as one blurb on the book said, “they made this old tragedy feel new again.”

And something I never lose sight of is thinking about how young those in the military are and were in the case of Pearl Harbor. Despite being attacked from a blob of Japanese planes, boys (yes, boys in my view) of 17, 18, 19 years of age and with barely even a year of Navy experience, were not running away in fear or what have you. No, they manned their guns and fired back in the face of a lopsided onslaught. That’s remarkable and courageous.

You feel the weight of this attack after the 12 days of build-up to it from Twomey. When FDR comes into the cabinet meeting on that “day of infamy,” he tells the assembled men something like, “This is the most important cabinet meeting since 1961,” which I would think is true. Civil War matters aside, it was unprecedented to have that sort of attack happen against the United States.

I do think Husband Kimmel, the four-star Admiral and commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Walter Short, the lieutenant general and major general of the Army in charge of defending Hawaii, were culpable for their ineptness in defending against an attack by Imperial Japan at Pearl Harbor, but I also feel like FDR and the Commission he created through them under the bus and made them scapegoats for general government ineptness. That is, they used the excuse of the ongoing war to not do a full-fledged investigation. It is do bleak, and you almost feel sorry for him, when Twomey lays out Kimmel’s reaction in real-time to the Pearl Harbor attack. Because the attack represented a devastating blow to all of his assumptions about the Japanese, and also of course, knowing that as the commander, he was watching his men surely die for his assumptions, at least in part.

There are of course conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor, like any major incident in American history. The main thrust of the most prevailing theory is that FDR knew about the attack beforehand and let it happen, so as to galvanize the American populace to join the global war effort. I don’t believe that.

Again, conspiracy theorists ascribe nefariousness and malice to historical events when ineptness and arrogance will do. Such is the case with Pearl Harbor.

And Twomey has laid out in great, horrific detail the countdown to one of the worst attacks on America in its history and all of the very human mistakes that led up to it. I came away feeling like I learned a lot about an event in our history I didn’t know much about.

I highly recommend the audiobook version so you can enjoy Graham’s reading of it, as I did. He somehow managed to elevate what was already a captivating and compelling story.

History rules, even when covering tragedy.

Incidentally, I began reading this book not realizing that we were on the cusp (at the time) of the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. This turned out to be a fitting exercise then and one I would highly recommend anyone else to partake in.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book ! In the two weeks before December 7, 1941, there were plenty of indications that war with Japan was inevitable. But somehow the attack on Pearl Harbor came as a complete surprise, and the author meticulously examines all the missed chances of being prepared. The US (and the most experienced leaders in Japan) knew that Japan would be the loser of a protracted war, so they could not believe that Japan would attack the US. They knew that Japan had attacked other countries without formal declaration of war, but some officers believed that this time would be different. They knew that the theatre of war would be somewhere in the Pacific - but they thought it would be the Philippines, not Hawaii. They thought that Pearl Harbor was too shallow for torpedoes -but technological advances had made that possible. But most of all, it seems to me, this was a case of "the other guy has taken care of it". The Navy and Army commanders on Oahu were actually good at communicating with each other -except about the important topic of whether airplanes were conducting surveillance of the seas around Oahu. The officer in Washington thought he had been crystal clear in telling the commander in Oahu to be prepared for an attack; but that local commander thought the messages were reassuring. Important intelligence about the sudden radiosilence of several Japanese aircraft carriers, or the unexpected changing of the Japanese codes, was missed or misinterpreted. Result : a tragedy of missed opportunities and misunderstandings.

My only critique about the book is that the illustrations were almost exclusively portraits of the characters involved, which I always think is the least informative. I would rather have seen a map, or a timeline, or a picture of Pearl Harbor before and after the attack.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to have some very interesting information about not only the 12 days before the attack but also going back to a year before, and what Pearl was like. It was not the home of the Pacific Fleet, and that when they did move the Fleet from California to Hawaii Kimmel was not the commander. That commander got replaced by Kimmel less than a year before because he was critical of Washington moving the Fleet, but lacking the resources it needed for sustaining a viable force. Everything was still coming from the west coast, and the families of the sailors were still in California. Kimmel complained but in a less focal way to Washington, and was more upset with the amount of ships and equipment being sent to the Atlantic depleting his Pacific Fleet while still being told to protect Pearl, Guam, Wake Island, Philippines, and other Islands. One thing that Kimmel did do was practice, and train which actually did help the day of the attack. The author takes you through what was happening in Washington, and how they were reading information, but I felt not giving Pearl all of the facts. They were also leading him to believe that an attack at Pearl would not happen and to send ships and planes to other Islands. The book also gives you the Japanese side as well. You are given a lot of information and though the author does say it I still believe that Kimmel, and Short were set up to take the fall just the way everything happened and then the men of the investigation picked by Roosevelt. You also see that at least a year before we were already delivering 3,184 aircraft, light and heavy bombers, and fighter and patrol planes to British. That when Kimmel asked for PBY’S for patrol he was given none. Out of 376 built 97 went the Royal air force, 21 to Canadian, 18 to Dutch, 16 to Australian, the rest went to the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Also what is not really talked about is the bombing by the British by carrier planes in 1940 in the Gulf of Taranto in Italy, in depth less than Pearl and the British used wooden fins on the torpedoes. This information was never given to Kimmel or the previous Commander, and in another book about Pearl Harbor their question is why not? So you see still after all of these years there are still questions. The book itself is good and makes you think that if just one thing was different that morning it may have not have been so bad. Overall a good book. I got this book from netgalley. I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

[David Baer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This covers predictable ground but is incredibly interesting because it makes you understand the human factors that caused the ostensibly shameful lack of military preparedness. When you understand the specific humans in charge, you can see the interplay between their specific characteristics as people, and the systems within which they operated.

Take Admiral Husband Kimmel. (Pay attention now – Husband was his actual name. The book does not address the how and why of that name. Well established, however, is the corollary fact that his wife’s name was NOT Wife.) OK, Husband Kimmel. Naval command replaced the previous command, Admiral James Richardson, with Kimmel, because Richardson was sounding like something of a wet blanket – moaning about resources and readiness, presenting almost an attitude of defeatism. Kimmel was different, a real go-getter. He didn’t even bring Wife (sorry, “his wife”) to Oahu because he was so driven about the job.

Yes, Kimmel was driven. He was obsessed with every detail about his Naval command. He drove and drove to get his vessels and men prepared for eventual conflict. He was thinking about all kinds of details about equipment and operations, and was also fighting with Naval director of operations Harold Stark, about resources as well. At this time, America was using ever more naval resources in the undeclared Atlantic war: convoy operations. Kimmel’s trained sailors and some of his vessels kept being bled off to Atlantic operations, and this pained him no end. Because he expected war with Japan, eventually, as did everyone.

The Navy was one thing. The Army was a completely different thing. A startling thought: in those days, there was no unified command structure. One General Walter C Short commanded the ground forces on Oahu, and of course the Army planes. Yes, there was no Air Force, at this time: the Navy had planes, and the Army had planes, and not only did each service not know where the other’s planes were, or what they were doing, the two commanders and their subordinate commands had no idea what the other was even doing in broad terms.

Who was in charge of defending Oahu? Not Kimmel: he saw his core mission as getting ready for a future naval conflict, which was most likely to break out at Midway or the Marshall Islands. And as for Short, he was thinking about the possibility of sabotage a lot, with ground invasion being a decidedly remote chance. He saw the Navy coming and going all the time, and he assumed they were doing area patrols to control the approaches to Oahu. He had no idea that no such thing was happening: the Navy’s training operations included no such patrols. Moreover, Army planes and Army pilots lacked long-distance navigation capability, and so long-range air patrols were the implicit responsibility of the Navy. Implicit, that is, because neither Kimmel nor Short felt it was their ambit to inquire into the other’s specific intentions.

Then, despite this basic dysfunction, why did neither service snap into readiness upon receiving a clear warning from Washington about imminent threat? Because the warning was anything but clear. For one thing, Stark had been issuing vague warnings about the deteriorating diplomatic situation with Japan, for some months. Each such warning had come to nothing.

Of course, Stark was privy to the Magic decrypts, the existence of which neither Kimmel nor Short knew. When the Magic decrypts revealed Tokyo’s instructions to break off negotiations and destroy documents, it was clear that the jig was up. Somehow. But Magic was merely diplomatic communications; the Japanese naval message contents were unpenetrated. Yet it was now almost certain that something was going to happen. Stark had to make it clear. So he began the dispatch with the unusual phrasing “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.” What could be more clear?

The dispatch went on to enumerate possible locations for Japanese amphibious operations: the Philippines, the Kra peninsula, Borneo. The dispatch instructed to “execute appropriate defensive deployment.”

Kimmel read that, saw the places mentioned, and concluded that the message basically “was not for us.” His idea of an “appropriate defensive deployment” was to send a task force to the Marshall Islands, which in and of itself could be interpreted as an aggressive move. Kimmel’s trigger finger was itchy. The dispatch told him what he wanted to hear: to get ready for the naval engagement he considered the most likely. Obviously, Oahu was too far away from Japan to be directly threatened.
Short got the dispatch and got busy on anti-sabotage measures. The newfangled radar installation continued to be operated on the basis of training. No particular urgency or heightened sense of readiness trickled out to the men in charge of it.

Stark did not request, let alone insist on, a full report of measures taken. Obviously, Kimmel knew what he was doing, and he would obviously send up air patrols all around Oahu, among other “appropriate defensive deployments."

Except there were a mere eighty or so reconnaissance planes available, versus the two hundred-plus planes that would have been required to mount a comprehensive patrol all around the island. The Roosevelt administration had been supplying the British, the Canadians, even the Dutch – with these planes, along with much other war materiel. Still, there were enough planes to do a decent job of patrolling the most likely approaches. For a time, that is. One still had to think of shortages of spare parts and of the need to maintain readiness to deploy to far-flung bases in the event of the outbreak of war.

All this is obvious in hindsight. Everything is obvious in hindsight, once you know the answer. Kimmel spent the rest of his life explaining variations of this. He blamed Stark most of all, for not sharing more and timelier information. Indeed, Stark comes off in this account as, at best, plodding. He issued a series of vague warnings, but was not impelled to pick up the telephone in the face of breaking intelligence on the day of the attack: the Japanese issuing obviously final instructions to their Washington ambassadors. Yet it was Kimmel who interpreted all the information he did get as benignly as possible. It was he who decided to ignore the proven Japanese predilection for surprise attack, and he who rested firm on his belief that Pearl was too shallow for torpedoes.

All the damning details listed above have been selected, laser-like, from among trillions of other facts that were also available to the main actors. Kimmel may have been guilty of confirmation bias, but even that term hadn’t even been invented yet. We, yes, “we,” were still writing off the Japanese as being, as a race, too nearsighted to be good pilots.

Still, Hawaii was an outpost, and, “in an outpost, they are always supposed to be awake and prepared for anything. That is why it is an outpost, so that people on the Mainland can go to sleep.” After the fact, Kimmel would say, “I felt that before hostilities came that there would be additional information, that we would get something more definite.” (Refer to: definition of “surprise attack.”)

[Everydayreader1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack by Steve Twomey is the most interesting book, to date, I have read about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The reason for this is that Mr. Twomey writes in great detail about the personalities of the people most closely concerned with the attack--what they knew, how they learned about events leading up to December 7, 1941, and what they did or did not act on when information came to them. I found the account fascinating.

My parents were both adults at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, so I grew up on stories they and others in my family told about where they were and what they were doing when they learned of it. All those years later, the feelings still ran deep and the emotion came to the surface. I think that is one of the reasons I have such an interest in World War II. In December of 1988, I had the privilege of visiting the Arizona Memorial. It is an experience I will never forget. The smell of oil is still there, and the atmosphere is one of reverence.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the events and happenings in the days leading up to the attack, and the personalities of some intimately involved with it as well as some in the armed services of the United States and Japan.

[Jerôme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review using the TMI sandwich method in order to train me for the upcoming evaluation contest ;-)

Mr. Twomey has given us a treat by this a well-researched book that he conveys in a truly great narrative style.

I have two points for improvement:
1. I would have liked more attention on the Japanese side. .The chapter Hitokappu Secret’ was one of the most thrilling and I would have loved to see more of those. However, out of its 16 chapters, only one was devoted to the Japanese which IMO is a misbalance.
2. I would have liked more maps. At the moment there is none. This lack of maps makes the war story harder to follow. To extrapolate the saying: 'You cannot wage war without a map', so you could conclude that 'you cannot write about war without a map'.

What I noticed the book did to me is that it drew me into the story. Though I knew who it would end it was and remained gripping and I was sad the book was over as I would have loved to continue reading about the War in the Pacific as presented by Mr. Twomey.
He has a new fan.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an intriguing account of the days leading up to the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As I read through this well written history (not dry like a college lecture), I realized that there is no one person to blame for this disaster. There is certainly enough blame to go around for all be it military, political, or human.

Even if you are not a history buff you will enjoy this rendering of this important period in our country's narrative.

Highly recommended!

[Peter L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Count Down to Pearl Harbor is Day by Day account of last 12 days run up to Pearl Harbor

This day by day account fully explains how the Army, Navy and the diplomats, and spies missed the many clues that pointed to the Japanese surprise attack. Very readable & filled with many details that brings that time period to life.

[Larry · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you read "At Dawn We Slept" -- and I have, twice -- there is no reason to read this book. If you don't want to wade through Prange's history classic, this a shorter version that handles the US side (diplomatically and militarily) reasonably well. But the lack of the Japanese side of things leaves this effort a little short.