The Pearl Harbor Staff Ride Handbook is the ninth study in the Combat Studies Institute's (CSI's) Staff Ride Handbook series. LTC Jeffrey Gudmens' handbook on Pearl Harbor allows individuals and organizations to study this battle not only in the context of the Japanese attack but, more importantly, in the context of issues that are relevant to the current global war on terror. In addition to analyzing the actual attack, Gudmens also enables users of this work to examine the problems associated with conducting joint planning and operations between the US Army, the Army Air Forces, and the US Navy.He also provides insights into the problems of a Homeland Security environment in which intelligence operatives from a foreign nation (and potentially even recent immigrants from that foreign nation who are now US citizens) can operate with little hindrance in a free and open democratic society. Additionally, this study provides an opportunity to look at how military commanders and planners prepared for their wartime mission with inadequate resources and equipment. Each of these issues, and others analyzed herein, is as relevant to us today as it was almost 65 years ago. Modern military professionals for whom this handbook was written will find a great deal to ponder and analyze when studying the events leading up to, and including, the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Despite the fact that for many years the United States conducted detailed planning the Japanese were still able to conduct a successful attack at Pearl Harbor. The 1907 war scare with Japan led to the initiation in America of war planning against the threat of Japanese aggression, and the establishment of a standing American capability at the Army War College, where each year students critically analyzed and recommended updates to standing defense plans. Based on these strategic plans, the Hawaiian Department implemented and developed Joint defense plans for Oahu. Historians have shown that the United States military possessed the intelligence to indicate an impending attack on Pearl Harbor. However, the ability to respond to the attack depended on two things: early warning, and effective defense planning. In 1941, radar—the primary means of early warning—remained a new technology. Radar proved to be effective and correctly detected the incoming attack but lacked the ability to discriminate between friendly or enemy aircraft. This monograph has particular significance given today’s concern in America regarding homeland defense, since the lessons learned from analyzing the cause of the successful Pearl Harbor attack will offer insight to planners working on modern-day concerns like potential terrorist attacks against the United States involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. By determining whether poor planning or lack of early warning and response capability led to the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, this research will contribute to modern efforts to prepare for homeland defense.

 During the first 10 months of the war in the Pacific, Japan achieved air supremacy with its carrier and land-based forces. But after major setbacks at Midway and Guadalcanal, the empire's expansion stalled, in part due to flaws in aircraft design, strategy and command. This book offers a fresh analysis of the air war in the Pacific during the early phases of World War II. Details are included from two expeditions conducted by the author that reveal the location of an American pilot missing in the Philippines since 1942 and clear up a controversial account involving famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai and U.S. Navy pilot James "Pug" Southerland.

“A valuable reexamination” (Booklist, starred review) of the event that changed twentieth-century America—Pearl Harbor—based on years of research and new information uncovered by a New York Times bestselling author. The America we live in today was born, not on July 4, 1776, but on December 7, 1941, when an armada of 354 Japanese warplanes supported by aircraft carriers, destroyers, and midget submarines suddenly and savagely attacked the United States, killing 2,403 men—and forced America’s entry into World War II. Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness follows the sailors, soldiers, pilots, diplomats, admirals, generals, emperor, and president as they engineer, fight, and react to this stunningly dramatic moment in world history. Beginning in 1914, bestselling author Craig Nelson maps the road to war, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, attended the laying of the keel of the USS Arizona at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Writing with vivid intimacy, Nelson traces Japan’s leaders as they lurch into ultranationalist fascism, which culminates in their scheme to terrify America with one of the boldest attacks ever waged. Within seconds, the country would never be the same. Backed by a research team’s five years of work, as well as Nelson’s thorough re-examination of the original evidence assembled by federal investigators, this page-turning and definitive work “weaves archival research, interviews, and personal experiences from both sides into a blow-by-blow narrative of destruction liberally sprinkled with individual heroism, bizarre escapes, and equally bizarre tragedies” (Kirkus Reviews). Nelson delivers all the terror, chaos, violence, tragedy, and heroism of the attack in stunning detail, and offers surprising conclusions about the tragedy’s unforeseen and resonant consequences that linger even today.

The Pearl Harbor Staff Ride Handbook is the ninth study in the Combat Studies Institute's (CSI's) Staff Ride Handbook series. LTC Jeffrey Gudmens' handbook on Pearl Harbor allows individuals and organizations to study this battle not only in the context of the Japanese attack but, more importantly, in the context of issues that are relevant to the current global war on terror. In addition to analyzing the actual attack, Gudmens also enables users of this work to examine the problems associated with conducting joint planning and operations between the US Army, the Army Air Forces, and the US Navy. He also provides insights into the problems of a Homeland Security environment in which intelligence operatives from a foreign nation (and potentially even recent immigrants from that foreign nation who are now US citizens) can operate with little hindrance in a free and open democratic society. Additionally, this study provides an opportunity to look at how military commanders and planners prepared for their wartime mission with inadequate resources and equipment. Each of these issues, and others analyzed herein, is as relevant to us today as it was almost 65 years ago. Modern military professionals for whom this handbook was written will find a great deal to ponder and analyze when studying the events leading up to, and including, the attack on Pearl Harbor. They are lessons that we cannot afford to forget.