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Japanese Destroyer Captain - Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway - The Great Naval Battles As Seen Through Japanese Eyes (2007)
Front Cover Book Details Back Cover
Genre Non-Fiction
Subject Hara, Tameichi, 1900-; Ship captains - Japan - Biography; World War, 1939-1945 - Naval operations, Japanese; World War, 1939-1945 - Personal narratives, Japanese
Publication Date 4/2/2007
Format Hardcover (8.9 x 6.3 mm)
Publisher Naval Institute Press
Language English
Extras Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover
Personal Details
Store Alibris
Purchase Price $32.43
Condition Very Good/Very Good
Rating 0
Links Library of Congress
Product Details
LoC Classification D777 .H313 2006
Dewey 940.545952092
ISBN 9781591143543
Cover Price $27.95
No. of Pages 310
First Edition No
Rare No
Notes/Review
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My favorite kind of WW II book is the personal narrative. I'm much more interested in what happened to the average Joe than the stories of generals and admirals. It's pretty easy to find first person stories of Americans, Brits, and Germans. It was tougher to find Russian stories, but more of these have become available since the fall of the Soviet Union. Japanese stories, on the other hand, are still quite difficult to find.

Destroyers played a bigger role in the war for the Japanese than cruisers and battleships and Hara was one of the few survivors. As the cover says, we follow him from Pearl Harbor and Midway (sort of) to Guadalcanal and the Solomons.

To survive the war, a man in Hara's position had to be both lucky and skilled. It's understandable, then, that a survivor's tale has a touch of ... arrogance isn't the word I'm looking for ... cockiness, perhaps? Hara does a fair amount of Monday morning quarterbacking, and I found his critiques of his superiors' strategies interesting. He says early on that America's industrial might would likely defeat Japan, but I get the sense that he feels things might have turned out differently had fewer mistakes been made.

The book is well written and has several maps that aid in following the action. Includes an index and appendices.