Publishers Weekly
09/26/2016
The married investigative team of Summers and Swann (The Eleventh Day) make an airtight case that Adm. Husband Kimmel, “the man with overall responsibility for America’s Pacific fleet” at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, should not have been blamed for the catastrophe. Through the extensive use of primary sources, including some previously unavailable materials from the National Archives, the authors delineate who in the U.S. government and military knew about Japan’s intentions in 1941. Tragically, there were dots that American intelligence did not properly connect that would have informed Kimmel of what was to come. But even had he gotten such an alert, the limited resources available to him—despite frequent requests, he lacked tools of defense such as a radar warning net—would have been insufficient. In the wake of the disaster, Kimmel was scapegoated and slandered without basis by people as eminent as then-senator Harry Truman. Eventually, a naval commission of inquiry found that Kimmel had not been derelict, but that exoneration came too late for his reputation. Even today, his grandchildren are fighting to have his rank posthumously restored to four-star admiral. This sad story reads like a thriller, thanks to the authors’ evocative prose and careful use of detail. (Dec.)
From the Publisher
Meticulous, eloquent, and compelling - and hugely readable. The 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack is well served by A Matter of Honor.” — Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Men Who United the States and Pacific
“Anthony Summers’ & Robbyn Swan’s A Matter of Honor is a noble and right-minded portrait of Admiral Kimmel, the scapegoat for Pearl Harbor. The amount of fresh research is deeply impressive. Highly recommended!” — Douglas Brinkley, author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt & the Land of America
“The most comprehensive, accurate and thoroughly researched book of events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ever written. It provides new information never before revealed.” — Admiral James Lyons, former Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Fleet
“Streamlined, muscular, objective, and well-written - a sensitive examination of a vast constellation of source material. [Summers and Swan] present a powerful argument in defense of Admiral Kimmel, who was blamed for the attack and forced into inglorious retirement. An excellent book.” — Martin Morgan, World War II historian and author
“Meticulous research...thorough-going...provides a great deal of insight into the ordeal of Admiral Husband Kimmel, who served his nation well but was treated shabbily by its leaders.” — Paul Stillwell, author of Battleship Arizona
“A fine book. Scrupulously researched and rigorously argued..[a] compellingly told story.” — David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression & War, 1929-1945
Paul Stillwell
Meticulous research...thorough-going...provides a great deal of insight into the ordeal of Admiral Husband Kimmel, who served his nation well but was treated shabbily by its leaders.
Douglas Brinkley
Anthony Summers’ & Robbyn Swan’s A Matter of Honor is a noble and right-minded portrait of Admiral Kimmel, the scapegoat for Pearl Harbor. The amount of fresh research is deeply impressive. Highly recommended!
Martin Morgan
Streamlined, muscular, objective, and well-written - a sensitive examination of a vast constellation of source material. [Summers and Swan] present a powerful argument in defense of Admiral Kimmel, who was blamed for the attack and forced into inglorious retirement. An excellent book.
Simon Winchester
Meticulous, eloquent, and compelling - and hugely readable. The 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack is well served by A Matter of Honor.
David M. Kennedy
A fine book. Scrupulously researched and rigorously argued..[a] compellingly told story.
Admiral James Lyons
The most comprehensive, accurate and thoroughly researched book of events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ever written. It provides new information never before revealed.
Library Journal
09/15/2016
On December 7, 1941, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel commanded the Pacific Fleet. He stood in his office and watched the attack on Pearl Harbor destroy battleships, planes, and buildings—and the lives of more than 2,400 military personnel. When a spent bullet bounced off his chest, he muttered, "Too bad it didn't kill me." Within hours, the race to find someone to blame for the catastrophe was in effect. Kimmel became the subject of several Congressional inquiries and was demoted in disgrace. At the time, he insisted that he'd been denied crucial information and was being scapegoated by the U.S. Navy. He, his sons, and grandsons worked for years to clear the admiral's name, eventually gaining some measure of success but failing to have his rank restored. Pulitzer Prize finalists Summers and Swan (coauthors, The Eleventh Day) attempt to make sense of the decades-long saga of missed messages, faulty memories, long-classified documents, and official inertia—with some success. VERDICT Casting light on a controversial episode in history, this difficult yet important human interest story is likely to be of interest to large World War II collections. [See Prepub Alert, 5/2/16.]—Edwin Burgess, Kansas City, KS
Kirkus Review
Sept. 8, 2016
This evenhanded exposé of the scapegoating of the commander in chief of the Pacific fleet at the time of Pearl Harbor challenges official memory.Adm. Husband Kimmel was roundly blamed for the destruction of the fleet at Pearl Harbor and loss of 2,403 lives on that terrible day of Dec. 7, 1941, but as co-authors Summers and Swan (The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11, 2011, etc.) show, he was conveniently used to hiding many missteps by his Washington, D.C., superiors. Both Kimmel and the Army’s Hawaiian commander, Lt. Gen. Walter Short, were forced into retirement after the debacle. The subsequent official fact-finding commission (the first of nine), the Roberts Report, blamed them for “dereliction of duty,” and they were charged with having failed to “confer and cooperate” with warnings by Washington leading up to the surprise Japanese attack. Kimmel dedicated the rest of his life to challenging these charges and vindicating his name. The truth, as close as the authors can ascertain, is that the intercepts cracking a Japanese supercode were not adequately shared with Kimmel, although Washington officials assumed that they had been. The key middleman in this failure to pass on valuable intelligence information was Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark, who was ostensibly Kimmel’s longtime friend yet withheld critical information from him—e.g., the telltale Japanese dispatch of Sept. 24, which requested that Pearl Harbor be divided into special zones for the location of specific kinds of ships. Moreover, Kimmel was out of the loop in knowing about the deterioration of diplomatic negotiations between Japanese representatives and Washington in the final weeks leading to the attack, while the traffic analysts guessed that Japanese heavy carriers (which no one could locate) must be in home waters. In the end, the authors find enough blame, high and low, to go around. A solid demonstration of how an insistence on secrecy proved to be a fatal breakdown as the Japanese attack loomed. A good complement to Steve Twomey’s Countdown to Pearl Harbor (2016).
