Remembering
Pearl Harbor
Robert S. LaForte and Ronald
E. Marcello
Ballantine Books,
2001, 314 pages
With
all the information coming out now about Pearl Harbor because of the movie, it
is going to soon be a market that is over inundated. I am sure that there will be as it can be seen here in the book
review section of US-aircraft.com that there are clear winners and losers in
the stakes of historical research.
Remembering
Pearl Harbor is a simple book based upon a simple idea. Let the survivors, and those who were
present at Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 tell their individual
story. It is the simplicity of this
concept that I like so much. There are
no embellishments other than those of the tellers themselves. The authors keep their editorial comments to
a minimum, and then only to point out where either the official record, or
historical fact do not support the observations of the person telling the
story.
I
like this approach because it does 2 things.
1: Keeps the historical record
straight, and two: it shows how
memories from 50 years ago can fade, and even change things. To make this point a bit more vivid, and to
help those who seek to understand how historians work, let me illustrate it by
using one of the individual tales from the book.. Gunners Mate 3rd Class George E. Waller of the USS Maryland clearly states
that a torpedo went around the Oklahoma, and hit the Maryland, and that
afterward he accompanied the ship to the naval yards at Puget Sound to have it
repaired. Historical fact, and the
official record clearly shows that the Maryland was not hit by a torpedo, but
just 2 1500 pound bombs dropped from level bombing Nakajima B5N2 Kates, and the
official naval record never finds an instant of a bow replacement of the USS
Maryland.
The
people who enlisted were simple people, but not dumb in the least bit. This book is told in their words. It is compelling reading, and a must to
fully understand the day, and the aftershocks.
The stories are divided into sections of the harbor, and the airfields,
so that the instances are of similar nature for each section. A very good editorial move.
This
is one to have in your library, or to read and pass to a friend. I highly recommend this book to one and all.