Product Description

In the closing months of World War II, Americans found themselves facing a new and terrifying weapon: kamikazes -- the first men to use airplanes as suicide weapons.

By the beginning of 1945, American pilots were shooting down Japanese planes more than ten to one. The Japanese had so few metals left that the military had begun using wooden coins and clay pots for hand grenades. For the first time in 800 years, Japan faced imminent invasion. As Germany faltered, the combined strength of every warring nation gathered at Japan's door. Desperate, Japan turned to its most idealistic young men -- the best and brightest college students -- and demanded of them the greatest sacrifice.

On the morning of May 11, 1945, days after the Nazi surrender, the USS Bunker Hill -- a magnificent vessel that held thousands of crewmen and the most sophisticated naval technology available -- was holding at the Pacific Theater, 70 miles off the coast of Okinawa.

At precisely 9:58 a.m., Kiyoshi Ogawa radioed in to his base at Kanoya, 350 miles from the Bunker Hill, "I found the enemy vessels." After eighteen months of training, Kiyoshi tucked a comrade's poem into his breast pocket and flew his Zero five hours across the Pacific. Now the young Japanese pilot had located his target and was on the verge of fulfilling his destiny. At 10:02.30 a.m., as he hovered above the Bunker Hill, hidden in a mass of clouds, Kiyoshi spoke his last words: "Now, I am nose-diving into the ship."

The attack killed 393 Americans and was the worst suicide attack against America until September 11. Juxtaposing Kiyoshi's story with the stories of untold heroism of the men aboard the Bunker Hill, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy details how American sailors and airmen worked together, risking their own lives to save their fellows and ultimately triumphing in their efforts to save their ship.

Drawing on years of research and firsthand interviews with both American and Japanese survivors, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy draws a gripping portrait of men bravely serving their countries in war and the advent of a terrifying new weapon, suicide bombing, that nearly halted the most powerful nation in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135718 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 528 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743260800
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
The U.S. aircraft carrier Bunker Hill and the Japanese kamikazes that struck her on May 11, 1945, embodied two fundamentally different approaches not only to war but to life, according to Kennedy. The Bunker Hill manifested American material power, and its civilian sailors reflected the determination of a nation to punish Japan's aggression with total victory. The pilots of the Divine Wind (or kamikaze) , on the other hand, represented a philosophical and spiritual response, an epic of pride, honor and virility. And when the kamikazes struck the Bunker Hill, it seemed for a time that a few determined men could frustrate American power, killing almost 400 Americans and wounding another 250. In what he views as a relevant lesson for the age of terror, Kennedy (Make Gentle the Life of This World) explores how an individual's desire to live can be so successfully suppressed that he will train for certain death. The author combines extensive archival research with interviews of American and Japanese participants in a spellbinding account showing that much more than geopolitics was at stake in the Pacific war. Photos. (Nov. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
A photo, a poem, a partial name tag: these war souvenirs taken from a Japanese corpse by a sailor on the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill enabled identification of the ship’s kamikaze attacker. For this account of the agony of the Bunker Hill, author Kennedy reconstructed the brief life of Kiyoshi Ogawa. Pictures of the apparently happy young man, a university-student draftee, aid Kennedy’s intent to depict pressure on his like to volunteer for imperial Japan’s aerial suicide squads. Setting the stage for battle, Kennedy describes the naval architecture of the Bunker Hill and the functions of a World War II aircraft carrier; provides biographies of several of her crew; and discusses combat operations off Okinawa in which she was engaged on the day of Ogawa’s dive, May 11, 1945. Photographs grimly document the result; Kennedy’s text covers the struggle to save the ship, succor her injured, and bury her dead. Solid in the disaster-at-sea department, Kennedy’s book, with its original slant on Ogawa, will be of particular interest to the WWII readership. --Gilbert Taylor

Review
"This is a riveting, thought-provoking, superbly written history that unfolds and surprises like a novel. What we are permitted to participate in is nothing short of hell: a glimpse into the most asymmetrical warfare we Americans have ever faced -- the kamikaze pilot."-- Ken Burns, Filmmaker

Customer Reviews

Worthy Kamikaze Project Crashes & Burns from Fatal Errors
Where "Danger's Hour" succeeds is wholly in the human element, describing relationships among Americans and Japanese combatants. Undoubtedly that aspect will find favor among generalist readers and reviewers who care little about ships, aircraft, or history.

Sailors, aviators and historians: stand by to be repelled.

Mr. Kennedy knows almost nothing of his core subject: naval aviation. There are literally scores of errors that would have been avoided by competent fact checkers. For instance, we are told that Admiral Marc Mitscher learned to fly "soon after graduating from Annapolis" and became Naval Aviator Number 17. Actually, he was No. 33 six years after graduating. That information is readily available in a casual Internet search.

Basic chronology of the Pacific War is too often muffed, with overlapping accounts of events 1942-43 and again in 1944-45. The Guadalcanal campaign is especially convoluted.

Kennedy's attempts at describing aviation matters inevitably fail. He has bombs attached to Corsairs' landing gear (!) and his description of the Mitsubishi Zero defies explanation. His effort to explain aerodynamics becomes unfathomable.

Nor is he better with nautical subjects. Throughout, the book refers to a ship's "tunnels" (presumably passageways), "ceilings", and "hanger decks." The naval term "head" is properly used once amid "bathrooms," "restrooms," and "lavatories."

Historical facts take repeated hits. Allegedly Vice Admiral Ozawa took four carriers to Leyte Gulf without aircraft or escorts. We are told that Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay refused to send B-29s against kamikaze bases, then we read multiple accounts that state otherwise. (In truth, XXI Bomber Command diverted from Japanese industrial targets to airfields in support of the Okinawa invasion.) A Marine pilot, then-Captain James Swett, is repeatedly cited as "Colonel" when in fact he gained that rank 20 years later.

The final manuscript still requires editing. Grammatical errors abound, especially mixing subjects and pronouns. ("Japan was devastated; they had almost no fuel.") Furthermore, the author unnecessarily inserts himself into the narrative: "Mr. X told me" rather than merely "Mr. X said..."

The publicity promoting "Danger's Hour" often descends into puffery. A noted scholar proclaims that kamikazes remain "one of the little known aspects of WW II." Another statement says that VE-Day in Europe, five weeks previously, has overshadowed Bunker Hill's story for 65 years. (Actually, the Navy released the news a month later.) The promotional material even states that Bunker Hill's survival "proved crucial to Allied victory" though she never returned to service.

This is pretty poor stuff, especially since the story has stood on its own merit since 1945. Yet 21st century values sometimes are imposed upon WW II subjects. No better example exists than the assertion that all Bunker Hill fliers were "challenged by the guilt of homicide." Not some, not most--all of them. (This reviewer has known many Bunker Hill aviators and not one ever expressed such maudlin sentiments.)

The debrief: though "Danger's Hour" receives credit for an innovative, ambitious approach, it may charitably be characterized as inadequate. That's a shame: properly executed, it could have been magnificent.

Two stars.

Finding the Enemy
Maxwell Taylor Kennedy's book about the kamikaze attack on the USS BUNKER HILL is a powerful and arresting account of World War II. Kennedy has done his homework and his research is impressive. He based this book on work in the National Archives, using after-action reports and log books, but also interviews with surviving crewmen. The problem with oral histories done many years later is that they often give the survivors a larger voice than they might otherwise deserve just because they survived. Kennedy compensates for this glitch by becoming a historian/detective. He contacted the families of many deceased members of the crew and got access to their letters and diaries. The result is an account that is informative and reads well.

Kennedy also interviewed a number of kamikaze alumni and shows--quite rightly--that none of them were crazy monsters or suicidal fanatics. He manages to give the other side, humanity and develops their point of view, something which is often lacking in English-language studies of the Pacific Theater. His argument that the ship and the kamikazes represent two different ways of war is exaggerated, and distorts more than it helps. He is, however, dead on the mark when he contends that the Japanese suicide pilots offer lessons important and relevant to the Long War/Global War on Terrorism. By comparing the accounts, records, and/or artifacts of American and Japanese participants in this kamikaze campaign, Kennedy even manages to indentify the pilot that slammed into the BUNKER HILL, Ensign Ogawa Kiyoshi. Using interviews with Ogawa's friends and family, he gives his readers a personality sketch of a reluctant kamikaze. This type of material is fresh and new, but since Kennedy must depend on others to explain Ogawa, the pilot never emerges as a fully developed personality.

The book becomes much stronger when it comes to the actual attack. Kennedy's coverage is detailed. The photographs that litter the text are one of the most striking parts of this book. Kennedy pulls no punches and includes images of dead Americans. The bodies in these illustrations are often in bad shape, which brings home the real nature of war. Drawings of the ship and its compartments in the inside of the binding/cover are an important addition.

Readers looking for a good account of the War in the Pacific will enjoy this entertaining and informative read.

Excellent subject, appallingly bad writing and absolutely no editing
The story of the Essex class fast carriers of TF58/TF38 is one that deserves telling. That the ships of the Big Blue Team bore the brunt of combat at sea in the Pacific War is unquestioned. Books like the "Big E" and the "Little Giants" are well-written expositions of fact combined with personal stories that illuminate the subject and are timeless. Telling the whole story of the Essex class in general, and the tragic story of the USS Bunker Hill in particular, would be a welcome addition to the available literature .

Unfortunately, this is not that book.

It is a disorganized mass of inaccurate, convoluted, virtually unreadable gibberish.

The most mundane facts regarding the US Navy, its ships and aircraft as well as those of the Japanese Empire are unknown to this author.

The editors, fact checkers and other support staff at Simon and Schuster who allowed this incredibly bad imitation of a history to be published should be fired, now.

I have read the 5 star reviews of this book on this site and have concluded that they must have read a different book than I did, or did not read it at all. I did read it all, and wished I had not done so.