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From: <4700gbera@um*.cc*.um*.ed*>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 1995 08:51:36 EDT
To: techdiver@terra.net
CC: rec-scuba@cs*.ut*.ed*
Subject: Book(s), interesting
 I figure that there are probably a fair number of us who are interested
in naval history, etc, even if not directly diving-related, so...
...in a used bookstore in Boston, I found this:

Battle Report: Pearl Harbor to Coral Sea. "Prepared from Official Sources
by Cmndr Walter Karig, USNR and Lt. Welbourn Kelley, USNR". Farrar and
Rinehart, New York. 1944.

There are another 4-5 volumes, but, for some reason, Vol. 1 was on the
Buck-a-Book table, while the rest was inside for more per volume, so I 
only got Vol. 1 (maybe this weekend...and yes, that should read "rest
were").

The book is written from the perspective one would expect of a wartime
document (the Japanese are often referred to as "Japs", although the
authors refrained from using the term "Nips"), and is a bit purple-
prosey at times, but some of the descriptions of naval engagements capture
the absolute terror that must have been felt by the participants.

On thing that I find _very_ interesting is that, although a good quarter
of the book is devoted to 07 Dec, 1941 and the tense period before the
attack, the names of Admiral Husband Kimmell and General Walter Short
(Naval and Army Commanders at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack)
are completely absent, like they never existed. This kind of bothered me;
scapegoating is human nature, but "dissappearing

scapegoating is human nature, but "disappearing" people right out of the
history books seems, well, un-American. I guess truth _is_ the first
casualty of war.

Some of the photos are spectacular, such as those showing how they
righted a capsized battleship at PH, and the divers preparing to lock
into the same battleship to repair it from the inside (shudder).

FYI,


Dave Ventre
Quincy, MA

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