| And I Was There - Pearl Harbor and Midway - Breaking the Secrets
(1985)
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| Front Cover |
Book Details |
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| Genre |
Non-Fiction |
| Subject |
Admirals - United States - Biography; Layton, Edwin T., 1903-1984; Midway, Battle of, 1942 - Personal narratives, American; Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941 - Personal narratives, American; United States. Navy - Biography |
| Publication Date |
December 1985 |
| Format |
Hardcover (9.4
x
6.4
mm)
|
| Publisher |
William Morrow & Co |
| Language |
English |
| Extras |
Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover |
|
| Description |
| The former Pacific Fleet intelligence officer recounts the deciphering of Japanese codes before Pearl Harbor, the failures and mishaps that contributed to the disaster, and intelligence activities in the Pacific |
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
D767.92 .L39 1985 |
| Dewey |
940.5426 |
| ISBN |
9780688048839 |
| Edition |
[1st ed.] |
| Cover Price |
$19.95 |
| No. of Pages |
596 |
| First Edition |
Yes |
| Rare |
No |
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| Notes/Review |
This is, essentially, the memoirs of Edwin Layton. He was intelligence officer for both Admirals Kimmel and Nimitz. The key events in the book are the attack on Pearl Harbor and the battle of Midway. But it's not a combat book. It's about the signals intelligence efforts of the US Navy; the failures and successes.
The majority of the book, in fact, takes place before 7 December 1941. There are 526 pages of text, and we don't arrive at the morning of the attack until page 299. In the first few pages, Layton instructs us that "Intelligence is a perishable commodity. Battles are won and lost and campaigns decided often on the basis of which side is the most proficient in the use of intelligence - that is, the acquisition, evaluation, and dissemination of military information in time for commanders to act upon it." That is the issue of the first three hundred pages. What intelligence was acquired, how was it evaluated, and what were the issues in getting it into the right hands in a timely manner?
One key subject was the treatment of Kimmel (and, to a lesser degree, General Short). Layton lays out the case the Kimmel and Short were scapegoats and that the blame for the disaster (unpreparedness) at Pearl rightly belongs in Washington.
After Midway, the book compresses the remainder of the war into just a few chapters. Guadalcanal takes one short chapter and everything from Guadalcanal to the end of the war is reduced to one chapter.
Again, this book isn't about combat. It's primarily about communications intelligence. To get the full picture of Pearl Harbor and Midway, it should be combined with combat books about those battles.
On a side note, my reading about General MacArthur always left me conflicted about him. MacArthur is not a key figure in this account, but enough is said about him to reinforce my misgivings about his skills as a tactician/strategist. Kimmel and Short were pilloried for Pearl Harbor, but MacArthur got a pass even though his air assets were destroyed on the ground nine hours after the attack on Pearl. Also, MacArthur's supporters point to the low casualties suffered during his campaigns. But it seems this was a result, to a large degree, of the intelligence provided to him but not credited by any of MacArthur's hagiographers. |
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