Attack On Yamamoto - Hardcover

Glines, Carroll V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517577283 ISBN 13: 9780517577288

Publisher: Crown, 1990

Synopsis

Well-told story of the successful 1943 American mission to shoot down the plane carrying Japan's great admiral. Also considers the subsequent controversy over which pilot actually shot down the plane. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

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Reviews

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese navy and mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, was killed on April 18, 1943, in an aerial ambush by a squadron of U.S. Army P-38s based on Guadalcanal. Glines ( The Doolittle Raid ) describes how the trap was set after U.S. naval intelligence discovered that Yamamoto would be flying between New Guinea and Bougainville on that date, and describes in detail how it was sprung. For nearly half a century a controversy has raged over which P-38 pilot deserves credit for the kill. Until now the leading contender has been Thomas G. Lanphier Jr., who until his death in 1987 was persistent in calling attention to himself as "the man who got Yamamoto." Glines here painstakingly collects accounts from eyewitnesses (including the testimony of one of the Japanese escort pilots) plus evidence at the crash site, and concludes that the credit belongs to Lanphier's wingman, Rex T. Barber. All this makes for engrossing reading, but the most memorable element is Glines's portrait of Lanphier, a feverishly self-glorifying character whose behavior was rooted in his postwar political ambitions. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

On April 18, 1943, a flight of Army P-38 fighter planes intercepted and shot down the bomber carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. This book is less a popular reprise of the event than an attempt to settle the controversy over which of two American pilots actually killed the enemy warlord. Glines, the author of other aviation dramas (e.g., The Doolittle Raid, LJ 10/15/88; Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders, 1981), is not impartial about the matter. This is a lively and well-researched account, but frequently repetitious. Still, it is the best since Davis Burke's Get Yamamoto (Random, 1969. o.p.). For general collections only.
- Raymond L. Puffer, U.S. Air Force History Prog., Los Angeles
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0517577283
• ISBN 13: 9780517577288
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240