Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision

Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision

This book, "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision" is technically written by Roberta Wohlstetter. In this masterpiece of military strategies, Wohlstetter clearly defines the worth of time, communication and planning. In addition to the traditional values of viewpoint identified by the author (Roberta Wohlstetter) describes, in this book, that there was a crisis of signals which army sent. Along with the critical armed forces warning signals, there were huge numbers of challenging and inappropriate messages. This milieu noise frequently gave a puzzled picture and sometimes pointed in the wrong track, mixed the signs pointing to jeopardy. "The Navy maintained an inner air patrol of sorts which covered only the fleet operating areas around the islands." (Wohlstetter, 1962, p.12) In my point of view, the author's thesis and supporting arguments both are supporting the evidence Japanese and American military tactics.

In this book, the author has used mainly secondary sources. Her personal approach and research are mainly based on previous researches conduced by American writers. In every chapter of this book, she has frequently used general language to support her arguments. After Wohlstetter's sweeping initial statement in Chapter named "Surprise", author qualifies it. Wohlstetter points out that no individual or soldier ever had at any valuable minute all the signals existing. And while the decision-makers had at hand an outstanding allowance of data on the foe, they did not have the entire register of goals approximated to be the objectives of an manifestly imminent seaborne attack), since no one of the last-minute approximates encompassed Pearl Harbor. They did not understand the accurate hour and designated day for unfastening the attack. For example, they did not have unquestionable information of Japanese capabilities or of Japanese proficiency to accept very high risks.

Several causes are offered. It is much ...