Danger's Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her

[RamboLiberal]

I just finished this book in a week. Well done history of the USS Bunker Hill and the kamikazes of Japan, including the kamikaze pilot who nearly sunk the Bunker Hill. BTW, the author, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, is the ninth child of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy.

Book's website: http://www.dangershour.com/

From Amazon.com
From Publishers Weekly
The U.S. aircraft carrier Bunker Hill and the Japanese kamikazes that struck her on May 11, 1945, embodied two fundamentally different approaches not only to war but to life, according to Kennedy. The Bunker Hill manifested American material power, and its civilian sailors reflected the determination of a nation to punish Japan's aggression with total victory. The pilots of the Divine Wind (or kamikaze) , on the other hand, represented a philosophical and spiritual response, an epic of pride, honor and virility. And when the kamikazes struck the Bunker Hill, it seemed for a time that a few determined men could frustrate American power, killing almost 400 Americans and wounding another 250. In what he views as a relevant lesson for the age of terror, Kennedy (Make Gentle the Life of This World) explores how an individual's desire to live can be so successfully suppressed that he will train for certain death. The author combines extensive archival research with interviews of American and Japanese participants in a spellbinding account showing that much more than geopolitics was at stake in the Pacific war. Photos. (Nov. 4)
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Review
"This fascinating story of the deadliest kamikaze attack in World War II provides a vivid window on the war in the Pacific. But it also contains critically important insights for today's struggle against terrorists. Maxwell Taylor Kennedy shows how suicide bombers are recruited, the role they can play in asymmetric warfare, and how our military can be resilient in face of such attacks."-- Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Einstein: His Life and Universe

"This book is a triumph -- an original conception, a dramatic narrative superbly told, with lyrical portraits of brave men on opposite sides of a titanic struggle and impeccable research masterfully rendered. With Danger's Hour, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy's talents as a first-rate historian, an intrepid interviewer, and a wonderful writer are on full display."-- Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals

"One of the little-known aspects of World War II was the role played by Japan's suicidal kamikaze pilots and their devastating impact on the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. Maxwell Taylor Kennedy tells their story in a detailed, vivid, credible, highly readable narrative."-- Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History

"This is a riveting, thought-provoking, superbly written history that unfolds and surprises like a novel. What we are permitted to participate in is nothing short of hell: a glimpse into the most asymmetrical warfare we Americans have ever faced -- the kamikaze pilot."-- Ken Burns, Filmmaker