Donald M. Goldstein

I was oddly disappointed with this book. The preface to the book by the authors really piqued my interest but the actual book, despite the subject matter, came across quite flat in many parts. There is something missing here. I think that the lack of some backstory for most of the major participants resulted in name after name after name, which documents who was involved but gave little or no context. I had to turn to the internet for information about some of the people involved. The internet barely existed when this was first published in 1995. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 Enola Gay that dropped the Hiroshima bomb, lived to 92 years of age and died on November 1, 2007.

For me the main value of this book was the photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which are primarily in the middle two (of eight) chapters of the book.… (mehr)

insight into the perspective of WWII from the Japanese military view…This is the story of Mitsuo Fuchida, the career naval aviator - and, later, internationally known Christian evangelist - who not only led the air attack on Pearl Harbour, but participated in most of the fiercest battles of the Pacific. As well as a record of historical events, it is the personal story of a man swept along by his times.
God's Samurai is the unusual story of Mitsuo Fuchida, the career aviator who led the attack on Pearl Harbor and participated in most of the fiercest battles of the Pacific war. A valuable record of major events, it is also the personal story of a man swept along by his times. Reared in the vanished culture of early twentieth-century Japan, war hero Fuchida returned home to become a simple farmer. After a scandalous love affair came his remarkable conversion to Christianity and years of touring the world as an evangelist (the last half of the book). His tale is an informative, personal look at the war "from the other side."… (mehr)