Ron Werneth

For over twenty-five years, historian Ron Werneth has made it his mission to record and preserve the stories of military veterans, from World War II through the Vietnam War. A regular contributor to aviation journals worldwide and more recently the Smithsonian Channel, he has a passion for aviation history, and realized the importance of recording the stories and images of veterans before they were lost to time.

While recording the stories of American veterans who served in the Pacific during World War 2, he became frustrated by the lack of good English-resources on the Japanese side of the war. Moving to Japan and living there for several years, he gained unprecedented access to surviving Imperial Navy aviators and mechanics, earning their trust and friendship during the course of his interviews with them.

In 2008, his critically-acclaimed first book, Beyond Pearl Harbor: The Untold Stories of Japan’s Naval Airmen, was published. Drawing on his interviews as well as official Japanese and Allied military war records, the book features individual veterans’ accounts of the events at Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal, illustrated with previously unpublished personal photographs.

His recently published second book, The Fall of the Japanese Empire: Memories from the Air War 1942-45 has already received high praise from noted historians. An excellent companion to his first book and told in the same way, using the words of the veterans and Werneth’s insightful narrative, it picks up the story in 1942 as the tide begins to turn for Japan, covering the shooting down of the Admiral Yamamoto over Bougainville, the war in the Philippines, Okinawa, the sinking of the Yamato and Iwo Jima. It concludes with never before told Japanese accounts of the ensuing chaos during the final days of the War.

Throughout this decade-long project culminating in the two books, Werneth has spoken with over two-hundred veterans from Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Ron Werneth currently lives in his home town of Chicago with his wife and daughter.

For more information about speaking events, multi-media resources and updates, please visit: www.facebook.com/FalloftheJapaneseEmpire/