Book Review

Day Of Infamy
By Author Walter Lord

Day Of Infamy was written by the author Walter Lord who was famous for his historical books. Lord died in 2002 at 84 after first having a career as an advertising executive and then an author. Some of his most well known books are on the sinking of the Titanic, Pearl Harbor, the Alamo, and the War of 1812. Mr. Lord combined historical research and interviews with survivors or witnesses to the events he wrote about. Lord interviewed 577 witnesses to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and used the 40 volumes from the U.S. Congressional investigation as well as the documents from the War Records Depository. He was known to be meticulous in his research and was an “inspiration” to many authors of historical stories and biographies, according to David McCullough, author of the recent popular biography on John Adams in a New York Times story on Walter Lord’s death. Lord is definitely an author who is trustworthy and accurate, he had no biases when writing this account on the Pearl Harbor bombing and no person or group sponsored or endorsed Day Of Infamy. The critic from the Chicago Sunday Tribune stated, “A behind the scenes story that is utterly fascinating,” while author James Michener, critic for the New York Times said the book “stuns the reader with the weight of reality.” The Atlantic Monthly review states that, “the carefully planned hour by hour recording of the Pearl Harbor assault is as engrossing as the story of the sinking of the Titanic and more harrowing.”
Walter Lord’s purpose in writing Day Of Infamy was to preserve the events of that horrible day in the words of those who witnessed the attack and to show the shock, anger, and fear of those present. There had been many earlier books and articles written on the subject of Pearl Harbor, but none of them detailed the minute by minute actions of civilian witnesses, soldiers and their families like this book does. Mr. Lord was very successful at putting together everyone’s story on a timeline. As an example:
“At 7:02, Elliot sat down and began to fiddle with the controls…a large blip
came across the machine and he thought it was broken, but there was nothing
wrong, it was just a huge flight of planes.” “At 7:03, the destroyer Ward
picked up a sub on her sound apparatus.” At 7:45, Lieutenant Commander
H.P. McCrimmon was sitting with his feet on his desk” (Lord 45 & 57).

Day Of Infamy was written in a mixture of styles. It has mainly expository text with some narrative and dialogue mixed in. The structure of the book was set up with events in chronological order on the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the writing was very descriptive so the reader got a mental picture of what the author was describing. For example:
Thirteen year old James B. Mann Jr. stood with his father squinting at the planes that
circled high above their beach house on the northwest coast of Oahu. The Manns liked
to come to the house for a restful weekend, but this morning there was no rest at all.
First the planes set off their two pug dogs; then the barking woke the family up. Mrs.
Mann thought it might be that lieutenant Underwood from Wheeler Field – he was
always buzzing the beach- but Mr. Mann and Junior quickly discovered that it was a
much bigger show. More than 100 planes were orbiting about, gradually breaking
up into smaller groups of three, five and seven. Soon several fighters dropped down
low enough for junior to observe, “They changed the color of our planes” (Lord 49).

The structure of the book did not help in the comprehension of the story, however. This was a difficult account to follow. There were so many different characters and locations talked about that it was impossible to remember who the character was when they came up in the story again. Mr. Lord interviewed hundreds of witnesses for this account of that awful day and it appears he put every one of their part of the story in the book.
The author makes no conclusions and there are really no main points discussed, this is just an accurate eye-witness account of the events of December 7, 1941. Lord begins the book with a short few chapters on the Japanese process of planning for the attack and what they did to follow through. The book comes to a close with the accounts of wives and families of those stationed on Pearl Harbor who waited for news of their soldier husband or father. It also speaks of the many who volunteered their services at the hospital to help with the wounded and ends finally with President Roosevelt’s speech about the “day that will live in infamy”(Lord 209). This book is facts only, no opinions from the author.
Lord’s Day of Infamy is tied directly to my subject, which was the attack on Pearl Harbor and it certainly helped me become more knowledgeable of the events of that day. However, there was nothing about the book that I enjoyed. It was very difficult to read because as stated before, there were too many characters doing too many things. A person might be on page 42 and not appear again until page188 and I could not remember who he or she was or what they were doing originally. I would recommend this book for anyone who is writing a report about Pearl Harbor because there are some good quotes and statistics within it, but it is definitely not a book to read for fun.