Dead Reckoning audiobook

This is the story of two men, one Japanese, the other American. They’re 30 years apart in age and might have come from different galaxies for all the different ways their experience has shaped them. One is Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Empire’s Combined Fleet. He’s the man who planned the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor carried out on December 7, 1941. The other is Major John Mitchell of Enid, Mississippi. Known as Mitch, he commanded the US Army Air Forces fighter squadron that ended the admiral’s life on Palm Sunday, April 18, 1943, exerting revenge for Pearl Harbor. (The mission was called Operation Vengeance.) In Dead Reckoning, journalist Dick Lehr brings both men back to life in a compelling account of their lives up to the fatal moment when their timelines intersected.THE MAN WHO MADE PEARL HARBOR HAPPENIn every respect, Yamamoto was the architect of the sneak attack on what President Franklin Roosevelt called “a date which will live in infamy.” For decades, the brilliant Japanese naval officer had been the leading proponent of the development of attack aircraft and aircraft carriers against the powerful opposition of the “battleship admirals” who long controlled the Japanese Navy. In fact, Yamamoto had openly advocated the use of airplanes based on ships even before a single aircraft carrier was to be found anywhere on Earth. It was his lobbying of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that led to the creation of Japan’s celebrated Zero fighter aircraft. And as the prospect of war with the United States steadily gained support in Japanese military circles in 1940 and ’41, Yamamoto advanced his audacious plan—again in the face of fierce opposition. Pearl Harbor was Yamamoto’s project, pure and simple.THE TWO CENTRAL FIGURESLear’s story is tightly focused on the two men whose lives are central to Operation Vengeance. Others enter into the tale, including senior figures in both the US and Japanese navies, but they are incidental to the plot.ISOROKU YAMAMOTOAdmiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1904 in time to join in the Empire’s underdog victory over the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War. He was wounded at the decisive Battle of Tsushima. His experience in that war, serving under the legendary admiral who had launched the war with a surprise attack on the Russian fleet, left a permanent imprint on him. That lesson inspired his plan four decades later to attack Pearl Harbor by surprise. However—and Dick Lehr goes out of his way to make this clear—Yamamoto demanded that his superiors inform the United States government an hour in advance of the operation, so that they could not claim it as a “sneak attack.” As we know, and as the admiral discovered some time later, they did nothing of the sort.JOHN MITCHELLImage of John Mitchell, the pilot who led the mission to exact revenge for Pearl HarborJohn Mitchell (1914-95) was a flying ace who flew in both World War II and the Korean War. He volunteered for the United States Army in 1934 and four years later entered training as a pilot, receiving his wings and a commission as a second lieutenant in 1940. He early demonstrated both superlative skill as a pilot and leadership potential. After months of training and inactivity following Pearl Harbor, Mitchell went into combat on Guadalcanal, where he became the Army Air Forces’ first ace on the island, with a record of eight confirmed kills. He rose quickly through the ranks, gaining promotion as a lieutenant colonel when the war ended and serving as a colonel in Korea.Mitchell had been a high school valedictorian. He graduated with a degree in economics from Columbia University, and received a second diploma from the University of Chicago. It’s hard to imagine finding a more able man to carry out the mission that achieved revenge for Pearl Harbor for the United States.YAMAMOTO PLANNED THE ATTACK IN HOPES OF WINNING PEACEThe Pearl Harbor attack was a limited tactical success but a strategic blunder of historic proportions. Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States, and Yamamoto knew that as well as anyone on the planet. Unlike all but a handful of other Japanese military officers, he was intimately familiar with America. He had studied at Harvard, served two tours as Naval Attaché in the Japanese Embassy in Washington, and traveled coast to coast by train. But the admiral argued in vain to persuade the members of the War Cabinet that victory was exceedingly unlikely.What Yamamoto hoped to accomplish with the operation was to knock out the US Navy in the Pacific and thereby force the Americans to negotiate for peace. Japan had seized the Philippines, much of Southeast Asia, and virtually all of coastal China, and he envisioned the Empire being able to hold onto most of these gains under a peace agreement.PEARL HARBOR: TACTICAL SUCCESS, STRATEGIC FAILUREIn fact, however, the Pearl Harbor operation had been only partially successful. The strike force failed to destroy the repair yards, the submarine base, or the vital oil storage tanks inland on the island of Oahu. And the US Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were hundreds of miles away on maneuvers, undetected by the Japanese. All of which meant that the US Navy would need not a full year to recover but merely a few months. Still, the admiral remained hopeful for peace for several months as the Japanese Navy continued to rage through the Pacific. But, seeing no move by top officials in Tokyo to extend peace feelers to the US, he became increasingly frustrated and eventually despondent.AMERICANS WERE MISINFORMED ABOUT YAMAMOTO’S INTENTIONSSome months before Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto had written to one of the men who was among the most strident of the militarists in the upper reaches of Japan’s military establishment. In his letter, he skillfully made the case that the Empire could not hope to win a war with the United States. It would be necessary, he wrote, for Japan to utterly destroy the American military, invade the country, and march into the White House to dictate peace terms. The letter backfired.When the propaganda specialists working for the military got hold of Yamamoto’s letter, they drastically edited it to read as a bold promise on Yamamoto’s part to dictate peace to the Americans from the White House. And US newspapers and radio stations—themselves working as propagandists in the war effort—quoted liberally from the doctored letter. Yamamoto became Americans’ second most hated man in the world (after Adolf Hitler). And there he stayed for the duration of the war.A BRILLIANT ACCOUNT BUT OVERSIMPLIFIEDDick Lehr’s rendering of this story of revenge for Pearl Harbor is an example of first-class journalism. He tells the tale in chapters that alternate between Yamamoto and Mitchell until the pace quickens, at which point he begins alternating sections within chapters. His portrayals of the two men are exceptionally well-rounded, with extensive detail about their relationships with the women they loved—Mitchell’s fiancée and later wife, and the admiral’s mistress. But the structure he chooses necessitates compromises, requiring him to simplify in filling in background information lest he unduly slow down the story.For example, Lehr argues that Yamamoto consistently faced opposition from the conservative (and mostly older) officers in the Japanese Navy. This is true so far as it goes. But he ignores a complication in the case of the admiral’s advocacy of the Pearl Harbor attack. When his plan surfaced in the summer of 1941, a strategic debate was raging in Tokyo. Many Army officers and political leaders strongly advocated attacking not the USA but the Soviet Union, which Germany had just invaded. Their opposition proved fiercer than that of the naval officers, who were already coming around to the belief that Yamamoto was a genius. In the end, of course, the navy, and Yamamoto, prevailed, but it was a close call.ABOUT THE AUTHORDick Lehr (1954-) is also the author of two bestselling nonfiction books about the notorious Boston mob boss, Whitey Bulger. Lehr is a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Connecticut School of Law but has worked as a journalist throughout his career.

** spoiler alert ** It was a great book! Lots of details that I had not known about!

This is a great story written as a narrative. Because the author tells the story through the lives of the two primary people involved in the story, I forgot that I was reading history. These two, Johnny Mitchell and Admiral Yamamoto, were unknown to each other, and they only briefly crossed paths, yet the buildup to their intersection makes a gripping story.

This was an interesting read. Don’t expect any huge reading about the Pearl Harbor but Yamamoto workings to get the plan done. John Mitchell was a terrific pilot and his team was responsible for killing Yamamoto. The events leading up to this mission and the situation afterwards. I found it quite remarkable the relationship between John Mitchell and his fiancé during his service time before and after their marriage. The book is a fast read and page turner. Anyone interested in WWII and the Pacific War will find this a must read.

Published just two years ago, journalist Duck Lehr tells in dramatic fashion a story never before told in this way: how the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was avenged by Army Air Force Maj Johnny Mitchell. Conveyed in dramatic prose much like the raid that took out bin Laden decades later, Lehr takes us into the personal lives Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto—the Japanese naval admiral and mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack. We learn of his numerous time spent in the US prior to the war and of his caution to his government not to go up against the US, yet he was rebuffed. We also learn much about his long extramarital love affair, and through this, some of the war’s details in letters to his mistress. On the other side we get to follow the life of Johnny Mitchell from Enid, MS who marries and then ships off a few weeks later and doesn’t see his wife for years. His letters and personal recollections are made newly available to Lehr for this book. Mitchell is the first ace of his unit with 8 kills and a Distinguished Service Cross when he is asked to plan the mission to kill Yamamoto from Guadalcanal where he is based. Having broken the Japanese code several months earlier, planners know of the Admiral’s movements and begin planning the mission from the only long-range fighter capable of the range to do so—Mitchell’s P-38 Lightnings. With mission detail to the second and radio salience, Mitchell and his pilots take out and kill Yamamoto while he is airborne. Years of controversy would surround who exactly got credit for the kill, and to this day it is split between pilots Rex Barber and John Lanphier, Jr. A fantastic gripping story!

Journalist Dick Lehr's book "Dead Reckoning" is an captivating book about the Pacific Theater in World War II. It focuses specifically on a small group of Army Air Force fliers who ultimately shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane sixteen months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto, of course, was the planner of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and who was revered by the Japanese military and the public. His death dealt a blow to Japanese morale, and to the U.S., partially avenged the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The key figure in the book is Major John Mitchell, who led the mission to intercept Yamamoto and down his plane. The book introduces Mitchell as a young man interested in learning to fly, his joining the Army Air Corps, his marriage, and deployments in the Pacific theater. Mitchell's duties and responsibilities increased over time, and he soon was promoted to Major and led the strike force against Yamamoto. In that mission, the pilots had to fly hundred of miles over open ocean with no landmarks, and time their arrival precisely when Yamamoto's plane was expected to arrive at the expected coordinates. Any errors in navigation, changes in weather, wind changes, or other delays would have meant the mission would fail, and the planes would be lucky to have enough fuel to safely return to base. It's an incredible story.

So, I love history. It's fascinating to me to read about people's lives, how they unfold and the impact they have in history. World War 2 holds a particular fascination for me, since my Father was in the Army Air Corps, later the Air Force, and he flew 25 bombing missions over Germany. A navigator,

Good revealing story!! One thing overlooked was the part Charles Lindbergh played !!Lindy was a aircraft rep. that flew out to the war zone to show p-38 drivers how to get the most range out of their fighters!! He taught them to fly with overboost power setting. Most pilots flew with power settings squared (23 in. Manifold pressure and 2300 RPMs) these are settings on my Aero Commander 680P I flew. Fighter combat missions flew with higher settings! His flight lead noticed Lindy always had more than 75 gal. exxtra fuel in his tanks!!! He asked Lindy about this: Lindy replied I am good with fuel flow management !! How do you think I flew the Atlantic ocean! He then explained how to fly overboost setting with high manifold pressure and low rpms! I flew with 25 in. mp. and 1800 rpm. You fly slower but save fuel!!

Just finished reading Dick Lehr's book about World War II and the U. S. pilots who blew Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's plane out of the sky and partly avenged what Yamamoto did at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. Surprise attack? Well, I was interested in buying "Dead Reckoning" when the blurb mentioned the lead pilot in that mission was John Mitchell, hailing from Enid, Miss. A pretty interesting work, which raked though some mundane goings on not only in Mitchell's life, but also in Yamamoto's. One of the post-Pacific Theater events included the factoid that Mitchell toured bases stateside, including two in his home state of Mississippi: Grenada and "Greenfield"!!!! Surely, Dick Lehr, you meant to write, "Greenville".

Yamamoto explained, A brilliant tactician who engineered the devastating attack on pearl harbor and the people who took him out.Mr. lair does an excellent job of assembling material on admiral Yamamoto, providing important details that explain his tactical planning during world war 2. Mr. lair also does an excellent job describing the American forces at the time And providing insight into The pilots thinking. The book also reminds us of the need for secrecy and wartime. The apple log doesn't excellent job of explaining why egos need to be in check.

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!There is so much more to learn about the shoot down of Admiral Yamamoto and the Army Aviators who completed the 800 mile, 50 feet off the water strike with only a wrist watch, a compass and "Dead Reckoning " The author goes back to the child hood and earlier generations of the strike leader and the Admiral. Deeply researched a page turner!

great insight to a pivotal day in WWII. This was a great read, hard to put down as Dick Leir made it easy to understand and follow the story he throughly researched. Well worth a read!

Excellent history book about the raid that killed Yamamoto. The mission was a "targeted kill" to take out the irreplaceable Admiral behind the Pearl Harbor attacks. Books like this get you in touch with out past and the issues that brought about the war in the Pacific.

Last book of 2020 was an excellent read. This book depicts the story of John Mitchell and his fighter pilots who successfully shot down Yamamoto in the Pacific theater. It's unfortunate that John Mitchell never received the Medal of Honor. I recommend this one for all the history people.

Great BookFantastic and an outstanding read, well written and precise plus very clear. I have tried to give it 5 stars but the 5th won’t take or stay blue like the other 4.

Historical factI liked this story very much. Didn’t know about the killing of Yamamoto even though I was growing up during that era. Highly recommend.

Highly detailed, I learned a lot. Needed better editing.