This account of the top secret investigation is "essential history . .
. the authoritative appraisal of why American armed forces met the
Japanese attack asleep" (The Christian Science Monitor).
On December 6, 1941, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of
the United States Pacific Fleet, assured his staff that the Japanese
would not attack Pearl Harbor. The next morning, Japanese carriers
steamed toward Hawaii to launch one of the most devastating surprise
attacks in the history of war, proving the admiral disastrously wrong.
Immediately, an investigation began into how the American military could
have been caught so unaware.
The results of the initial investigation failed to implicate who was
responsible for this intelligence debacle. Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson, realizing that high-ranking members of the military had
provided false testimony, decided to reopen the investigation by
bringing in an unknown major by the name of Henry C. Clausen. Over the
course of ten months, from November 1944 to September 1945, Clausen led
an exhaustive investigation. He logged more than fifty-five thousand
miles and interviewed over one hundred military and civilian personnel,
ultimately producing an eight-hundred-page report that brought new
evidence to light. Clausen left no stone unturned in his dogged effort
to determine who was truly responsible for the disaster at Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details
of Clausen's investigation and is a damning account of massive
intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This
book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed
so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful
day.
