To Wake the Giant Quotes

“You may have increased the enthusiasm among our country's elite for finding other means of replacing what you've taken away.
-Kichisaburo Nomura, Japanese Ambassador to the United States”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was not in favor of war and was under no illusion that Japan had the ability and the resources to outlast the US or Britain.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“All I propose is an attack that will paralyze the Americans, for perhaps six months. This attack is not about victory, about winning a war...It is about delaying them, keeping them back, damaging their military might and pride.
-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“A school yard full of unruly school children in which children don't always understand the consequences of what they do.
-US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, on international relations”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“My one fear which I expressed to the President is that by reducing the fleet in Hawaii we have sent a signal to the Japanese that we are not as prepared to meet their threats as we once were.
-Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander US Pacific Fleet”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“We believed we knew everything they were thinking. Those Magic intercepts made us feel invulnerable. No, a better word is cocky. Their diplomats are chatting back and forth with Tokyo about the weather or color of their new Cadillacs while their military put a plan together to kick us in the teeth. We thought we knew everything. We didn't.
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“Hull’s reaction to the intercept was concern, but the cryptologists and the ranking military officers all the way up the chain of command dismissed his worries.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“The Magic machines had intercepted an unusual message sent via the Purple codes, and it immediately crossed the desks of everyone in Washington authorized to receive it. It was an oddly detailed set of instructions from the Japanese foreign ministry to its consulate in Honolulu. The instructions called for the entire area in and around Pearl Harbor to be laid out in a series of grid lines, as though a checkerboard was to be superimposed over a map. The instructions also called for the consulate to designate the types and classes of the warships anchored in the harbor.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“What Hitler has done is attack the nation with the largest landmass on earth. This makes as much sense to me as loading up the Japanese army and ferrying them over to California to invade the entire United States.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“Roosevelt’s secretary of the navy, Frank Knox, spoke up now. “Mr. President, there is one accurate statement of which we are well aware. We do not possess adequate numbers of aircraft on Hawaii to effectively patrol a three-hundred-sixty-degree circumference, twenty-four hours a day.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“having our fleet in Hawaii is a cautionary symbol, reminding the Japanese that they simply can’t gallop all over the Pacific as they please.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“The Japanese have changed their radio codes, the call signals for their ships...They change their codes every six months, like clockwork. These codes were changed after four weeks...Logically, it means they're preparing for a large-scale operation.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“How were we taken so by surprise? Everything we have gone through at the State Department, for most of the past year has pointed unmistakably to Japanese aggression, to their deceitfulness, duplicity, and backdoor actions. We knew exactly what they were doing in Southeast Asia in the Netherlands East Indies in China. We had access to their diplomatic communications we have outstanding people in our intelligence offices, both army and navy. How could this have happened?
-Former US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“Secrecy and deception in war is often how one wins that war. And it is my preference that we win this fight.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“Sometimes I have to explain to those jarheads what ‘marine’ stands for: Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential. Just”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

“Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Expected.”
― Jeff Shaara, To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor