The USS Arizona

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Overall
Review: I bought my copy of "The USS Arizona" after a trip to the 'Arizona' memorial in Hawaii last year. I have always been interested in Pearl Harbor and World War Two in the Pacific Theatre, and have read extensively on it (I particularly like the Gordon Prange books, especially "At Dawn We Slept".) I found the 'Arizona' memorial to be a place of beauty and tranquility, yet amazingly solemn and haunting. After the visit, I decided to learn more about the 'Arizona' herself. This is a great book for a start. It is an interesting amalgam of operational history, information on the attack, including an excellent section debunking myths surrounding the attack, personal recollections, and historical preservation efforts today.

The bulk of the book deals with recollections of crewmembers on shipboard life, with emphasis on December 7, 1941, obviously. These recollections form a valuable oral history of the ship, and though there are minor conflicts between the stories on a couple of details, they are heartfelt, well told, captivating, and historically irreplaceable.

Equally important is the story of the current preservation efforts of the National Park Service to manage the wreck. In particular, the stories of survivors who elect to rejoin their fallen comrades when they are interred in Turret Four are moving beyond all expectations, and reinforce the significance of the Pearl Harbor attack in their lives.

There are some minor errors in the book, many of which are typographical, for instance using "savage" instead of "salvage". Some of the errors are a bit more careless as in a reference to 'General Yamamoto', when he was, of course, and Admiral, and going back and forth on whether the 'Arizona' was tied up at quay F-7 or F-8 (I believe it was F-8.) These are pretty nit-picky, but need to be mentioned. The book does have a couple of standout features in the five appendices. Appendix A is an excellent, if brief, overview of the key events in the Pacific war, Appendix B is an 'Arizona' casualty list, Appendix C is a list of 'Arizona' survivors, and Appendix E is a list of ship casualties of Japan in World War Two. Appendix E makes a sobering statement, that I have never heard anywhere else and found utterly fascinating: "Of the attacking Japanese fleet that initiated the war against the United States on December 7, 1941, all ships ended up on the bottom of the sea by the war's end except one midget submarine." As horrible as Pearl Harbor was for the American forces, the whirlwind reaped by Japan, in the end, was no less ferocious.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Touching
Review: I bought my copy of "The USS Arizona" after a trip to the 'Arizona' memorial in Hawaii last year. I have always been interested in Pearl Harbor and World War Two in the Pacific Theatre, and have read extensively on it (I particularly like the Gordon Prange books, especially "At Dawn We Slept".) I found the 'Arizona' memorial to be a place of beauty and tranquility, yet amazingly solemn and haunting. After the visit, I decided to learn more about the 'Arizona' herself. This is a great book for a start. It is an interesting amalgam of operational history, information on the attack, including an excellent section debunking myths surrounding the attack, personal recollections, and historical preservation efforts today.

The bulk of the book deals with recollections of crewmembers on shipboard life, with emphasis on December 7, 1941, obviously. These recollections form a valuable oral history of the ship, and though there are minor conflicts between the stories on a couple of details, they are heartfelt, well told, captivating, and historically irreplaceable.

Equally important is the story of the current preservation efforts of the National Park Service to manage the wreck. In particular, the stories of survivors who elect to rejoin their fallen comrades when they are interred in Turret Four are moving beyond all expectations, and reinforce the significance of the Pearl Harbor attack in their lives.

There are some minor errors in the book, many of which are typographical, for instance using "savage" instead of "salvage". Some of the errors are a bit more careless as in a reference to 'General Yamamoto', when he was, of course, and Admiral, and going back and forth on whether the 'Arizona' was tied up at quay F-7 or F-8 (I believe it was F-8.) These are pretty nit-picky, but need to be mentioned. The book does have a couple of standout features in the five appendices. Appendix A is an excellent, if brief, overview of the key events in the Pacific war, Appendix B is an 'Arizona' casualty list, Appendix C is a list of 'Arizona' survivors, and Appendix E is a list of ship casualties of Japan in World War Two. Appendix E makes a sobering statement, that I have never heard anywhere else and found utterly fascinating: "Of the attacking Japanese fleet that initiated the war against the United States on December 7, 1941, all ships ended up on the bottom of the sea by the war's end except one midget submarine." As horrible as Pearl Harbor was for the American forces, the whirlwind reaped by Japan, in the end, was no less ferocious.

Rating:
Summary: A True Treasure Found
Review: I should have followed the advice of my fellow reviewers. I was extremely disappointed in this book. I have read many books about Pearl Harbor and the Arizona, and this has to be the worst. There are many factual mistakes in this book. For example, the authors state that there was no lull between the first and second Japanese attack waves. This is simply untrue. In fact, there was about a twenty minute lull between the first and second waves. This allowed the Navy to unlock the ammunition and to fight back. Hence, the Japanese suffered their greatest losses in the second wave due to the lull. The authors also state that "luckily, no American planes were shot down" by friendly fire. Again, this is untrue. The USS Enterprise was returning from delivering fighters to Wake island and launched several SBD Dauntless dive bombers to scout ahead and land on Ford Island. Indeed, several of these were shot down and several pilots and crewmen were killed due to overanxious American gunners. Finally, the authors say that a dive bomber dropped the bomb wich ultimately destroyed the Arizona. Untrue. The bomb was dropped by a high-level bomber. The bomb was too heavy to be carried by a dive bomber.

There was also too much repetition in the book. I grew tired of hearing how many different men shined the decks or worked in the messhalls.

I did learn a few things from the book. I was unaware that both the Captain of the ship and the battleship division admiral were killed on the bridge during the attack. Also, some of the survivors did give excellent personal renditions of life aboard the Arizona and the attack itself.

However, overall, I was disappointed in this book. There are much better books available on the Arizona and Pearl Harbor than this one.

Rating:
Summary: Unique point of view
Review: The combination of the authors' perspectives, the subject matter and its historical perspective, and the eyewitness accounts were
very interesting and moving.

The book has drama, history, and personality......a rare combination!

Rating:
Summary: SOFTCOVER EDITION COVER PHOTO
Review: THE PUBLISHER COULD ADD SOME CREDIBILITY TO THE BOOK BY HAVING A PICTURE OF THE ARIZONA ON THE COVER.THE ARIZONA HAD TRIPLE GUN 16 INCH MAIN GUN TURRETS.THAT IS NOT A PICTURE OF THE ARIZONA ON THE COVER.IT IS LITTLE DETAILS LIKE THAT YOU WOULD THINK THE EDITOR MIGHT NOTICE.