Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor

by Donald A. Davis

This is the story of the fighter mission that changed World War II. It is the true story of the man behind Pearl Harbor--Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto--and the courageous young American fliers who flew the million-to-one suicide mission that shot him down.

Yamamoto was a cigar-smoking, poker-playing, English-speaking, Harvard-educated expert on America, and that intimate knowledge served him well as architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next sixteen months, this military genius, beloved by the Japanese people, lived up to his prediction that he would run wild in the Pacific Ocean. He was unable, however, to deal the fatal blow needed to knock America out of the war, and the shaken United States began its march to victory on the bloody island of Guadalcanal.

Donald A. Davis meticulously tracks Yamamoto's eventual rendezvous with death. After American code-breakers learned that the admiral would be vulnerable for a few hours, a desperate attempt was launched to bring him down. What was essentially a suicide mission fell to a handful of colorful and expendable U.S. Army pilots from Guadalcanal's battered "Cactus Air Force":

- Mississippian John Mitchell, after flunking the West Point entrance exam, entered the army as a buck private. Though not a "natural" as an aviator, he eventually became the highest-scoring army ace on Guadalcanal and the leader of the Yamamoto attack.
- Rex Barber grew up in the Oregon countryside and was the oldest surviving son in a tightly knit churchgoing family. A few weeks shy of his college graduation in 1940, the quiet Barber enlisted in the U.S. Army.
- "I'm going to be President of the United States," Tom Lanphier once told a friend. Lanphier was the son of a legendary fighter squadron commander and a dazzling storyteller. He viewed his chance at hero status as the start of a promising political career.
- December 7, 1941, found Besby Holmes on a Pearl Harbor airstrip, firing his .45 handgun at Japanese fighters. He couldn't get airborne in time to make a serious difference, but his chance would come.
- Tall and darkly handsome, Ray Hine used the call sign "Heathcliffe" because he resembled the brooding hero of Wuthering Heights. He was transferred to Guadalcanal just in time to participate in the Yamamoto mission---a mission from which he would never return.

Davis paints unforgettable personal portraits of men in combat and unravels a military mystery that has been covered up at the highest levels of government since the end of the war.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Military Fiction, Military History, War, World War II, Aviation

400 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

Reviews

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am at page 80 of Lightning Strike and have arrived at a personal conundrum. I read WWII history and literature a great deal. At least 90% deal with the European Theatre of Operations, the Holocaust, events in the U. S. like the concentration camps created in this country for Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants / citizens, or biographies of Hitler, Reinhardt, or Himmler. I have been so engrossed in the beginning of the war in the Pacific and Yamamoto's role in the Pearl Harbor attack that I have a new list of mental titles that I want to explore. One possible reason for the European "bias" is my own Caucasian heritage. My father and most of my uncles served in the war, but this offers no explanation. One uncle drove a tank for Patton another was a tail-gunner who was killed over Germany. On the other hand, another uncle was a medic in the Pacific war and the other was a cook on a naval vessel in the same theatre. I have traveled to Pont du Hoc and looked out a German heavy gun bunker, picked up a stone from Omaha beach, seen the mulberry harbor remnants at Arromaches, and looked at the headstones and listened to the carillon at the American Cemetery. These were profound experiences for me, but how do they compare with my experiences in the East? In the fall of 1967 I traveled with a student study group from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota to live in Bangkok, Thailand and study at Chulalongkorn University. We traveled throughout East / Southeast Asia extensively. Yet I have never read a book about the Japanese occupation of Thailand. Our first stop was Hawaii, but I did not go to the Arizona memorial. In our Tokyo hotel one morning we were awakened by the music known as the "Colonel Bogey March". This was used in the theme song of the film "The Bridge Over the River Kwai". Japanese workers were exercising to the music on an adjacent roof - irony. On an evening walk in the city we were approached by some college students who wanted to practice their English. This was at the height of the Vietnam war. I will never forget that one of the young men asked why we did not simply drop atomic bombs on North Vietnam. I have never understood how a citizen of the only country to have experienced the bomb in war would encourage this action. I turned 19 in Kyoto, Japan which at that time was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Only recently did I learn that the city was at the top of the list for the atomic attack. The city was saved because Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, had honeymooned there and loved its beauty and history. It was replaced by Hiroshima. Our next stop was Hong Kong. One of the factors that contributed to the Japanese capture of the area was that the fresh water supply was cut off. When we stayed in Kowloon, the water came from Communist China and was sporadic in presence - none of the reservoirs for fresh water had been constructed at that time. While studying in Bangkok the University took us on a number of trips into the country. One was to Kanchanaburi, the site of the second bridge over the Kwai River. The bridge is part of the "death railroad", so called because thousands of British, Canadian, Australian, and other prisoners of war ( many from Singapore ) died from starvation and overwork while building a railroad that was to run all the way up the Malay peninsula into southern China to facilitate Japanese incursion into that country. We visited several cemeteries, each holding thousands of graves. One stone read: there is a place in a distant land that is forever England. The largest has 7,000 graves of which 3,568 are British, 1362 are Australian and 1,896 Dutch. As we watched a train pass over the narrow gauge bridge and stood contemplating the horrible waste of war, three American jets made a low pass over the bridge on they way to bomb in Vietnam. We never learn..... After completing our studies we flew to the island of Penang off the coast of Malaysia. It was occupied by the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945. At the end of the war it was also the first state in the Malay Peninsula to be liberated by the British. Next we traveled to Singapore, the site of the largest British surrender in history. 85,000 allied troops defended the main island. They believed the jungle to the north was impenetrable. Large defensive weapons were all aimed at the sea. 36,000 Japanese captured the stronghold with extensive bombing especially of the fresh water supply. Near the end of the battle almost one million civilians had been driven to the remaining 1 % of the island under allied control. After the surrender the Japanese initiated the Sook Ching purge, killing thousands of civilians. One day in Bangkok I was studying at a hotel near our dormitory when I was approached by an extremely well dressed ( complete with umbrella ) gentleman. He asked if he could speak with me. Although there were 10,000 R&R troops in and out of Bangkok every week, there were few young, white females in the city. He simply wanted to speak with a Caucasian girl. This British man had been stationed in Singapore when it was captured by the Japanese. He escaped into the jungle and lived there for the rest of the war providing what radio information he could to the Allies. On to Taiwan which became Japan's first "colony" in 1895 after the first Sino-Japanese war. It was not returned to China until 1945. ( I had no idea. ) Finally we arrived in Manila. We visited Fort Santiago ( built in 1571 ) which was used as a POW prison. On May 6, 1942, U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered all U.S. troops in the Philippines to the Japanese. McArthur had been living on Corregidor in an underground bunker and was evacuated from the country. Then there was the Bataan death march where American and Philippine soldiers walked to a POW camp. I met a man who was part of that lethal walk. He described how they walked three abreast with the weakest man in the middle. Finally due to our group being greatly over the weight limit for our luggage, a direct flight from Manila to Honolulu had to land on Guam due to insufficient fuel. I have visited so many important WWII Pacific war sites!! Reading Lightning Strike and my history has created a huge desire to shift my reading from the European Theatre!!! ***** As to the book itself, I have read about the attack on Pearl Harbor and Admiral Yamamoto in the past. He was truly almost singlehandedly responsible for the early Japanese successes of the war. Having studied at Harvard and spent time in the U.S. in various roles, he had an excellent understanding of America. He championed and largely created Japanese aircraft carrier warfare. He was under the threat of death from the military controlled government because he favored peace over war with the United States. He believed, correctly, that Japan could have early victories, but the vast manufacturing capacity, the American spirit, and the wealth of natural resources would eventually end in Japanese defeat. I am loving this book..... WOW!!!! Even though you know how the operation to kill Yamamoto ends, I was engrossed by the story of the mission. The P38 mission took off from Guadalcanal. I had, of course heard stories of the island, but I had no appreciation of the horrible situation that faced the young Americans who held the island. The runways sat below a ridge. When reinforce Japanese soldiers attempted to reach the base, the fighter planes were used to kill troops on the ground - far different from their purpose to engage other planes in the air. Another interesting fact - John F. Kennedy was on Guadalcanal when the squadron returned from the mission. When the first planes and troops arrived, the fighters were in boxes with no information for assembly. These young men / boys used their own ingenuity to survive. After months of missions, hand to hand combat in the jungle, and near starvation an inexperienced officer arrived and was resented by the "old hands". ( This reminded me of a story that my father told from his time in the service. My father was a Boeing mechanic - working on the B-24's, B-25's and B-29's. One day an officer that was called a "90 day wonder" took over command of his unit. He posted that calisthenics would be held every morning at 0500. No one liked this idea. My father posted a note on the bulletin board: Isaiah 11:6. He reported that more Bibles were opened in the barracks that night than ever before. The quote: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. ) What was truly amazing to me was the work of the leader of the mission, John Mitchell, who sat down with the location of the base where Yamamoto was set to land and calculated exactly where to intercept the bomber. The mission flew over 400 miles at roughly 30 feet above the Coral Sea to remain undetected. There were many Japanese bases in "the slot" the direct route from Guadalcanal to Balalae Airfield, on an island near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. They made turns toward the base and intercepted the bombers. It was a one in a million chance and he did it. Four fighters were designated to attack the planes while the rest of the squadron were there to protect the "kill team" from Japanese fighters. At the end of the book you believe you know exactly which pilot shot down Yamamoto, but unfortunately one of the 4 pilots assigned to bring down the plane was a narcissistic, glory hound. To hear his story, he was the only pilot on the mission. He had aspirations to be president of the United States so WWII glory was part of the process. The other controversy concerned keeping the kill secret so that the Japanese would not know that the Americans had broken the naval code. The glory hound typed up the "mission debrief' and told the story to a reporter. Publication was blocked, but the story was too great and there were too many people in and out of Guadalcanal and all the way to the White House who led to a very poorly kept secret. Fortunately the Japanese did not pay attention. My one small disappointment with the book is the preservation of the Coventry, England bombing myth. The story was that Churchill knew long before the raid that Coventry would be bombed and did not warn the city to hide the fact that the Allies had broken the Enigma code. Coventry: Thursday, 14 November 1940 by Frederick Taylor demythologizes the story. The code breakers knew that ‘Operation Moonlight Sonata’ was directed at a British city, but they did not know the exact location until a few hours before the attack. Churchill did not warn the city because it was feared that more citizens would die in a desperate attempt to flee the city than would perish sheltering in place. Of a population of over 200,000, approximately 500 civilians were killed during the raid. An alternate history states that Churchill was still expecting the raid to hit London into the evening hours. Regardless, the target was not known far in advance............... That said, this is a terrific book!!! I intend to read more about the Pacific Theatre in WWII. Highly recommend. Kristi & Abby Tabby

[Werewolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worst Kept Secret of the War

Killing the Admiral appears to be more of a curse than accomplishment. Yamamoto was an absolute supreme warlord. Go Army !

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Throughout the Japanese military in the lead up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there was no man more knowledgeable about the United States than Admiral Isoroka Yamamoto. He spent a great deal of time in the United States as a military attaché and was well aware of the tremendous industrial potential of the United States. He was also a student of history and knew that when aroused, the American men would fight and die for their country.
Yamamoto was also far-sighted in that he understood that the day of the mighty battleship was over. The most powerful military forces on the seas were now the aircraft carriers, the battleship without air cover was almost helpless against an attack from the air. Yamamoto also knew that Japan could not defeat the United States in a prolonged war, he openly said that if war broke out between the United States and Japan, he would run wild in the Pacific for six months or so, but then the might of the U. S. would be unleashed, and Japan would have to go on the defensive.
This book is a lengthy run-up to the American mission where the goal was to kill Yamamoto as he was traveling by plane on an inspection tour in the Pacific. The background lead-up to the actual mission is lengthy and detailed. One learns a great deal about the mindset of the greatest military mind that Japan had. He was a tactical genius, his strategic plans would have worked, grave errors were made by the local commanders. Specifically, the decision by the Admiral of the Pearl Harbor task force to not launch another wave of planes.
The battles in the South Pacific, specifically the one for Guadalcanal, are covered in detail as the Japanese outward movements were blunted. The specific mission to kill Yamamoto was at the extreme range of the planes and was considered a “one-in-a-million” chance. The planes had to arrive within a window of mere minutes as the plane containing Yamamoto and the escorts would only be in the strike area for a short time.
To the surprise of many, the American planes arrived at the right time and took the Japanese by complete surprise. There was a fighter escort, but it was largely ineffective in protecting the bombers containing Yamamoto and his aides. The rendition of this operation is riveting and is a demonstration of the fickle fortunes of war. A few minutes either way and there would have been no contact between the Yamamoto group and the American task force.
The least interesting sections of the book deal with the ways in which individual pilots were either given or denied credit for shooting down the plane containing Yamamoto. The Navy was of course desirous of trotting out the specific pilot, and they did just that. Although, as the subsequent record clearly indicates, the pilot given credit for the kill almost certainly did not. This was a difficult section to read, as it dealt with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims of prowess.
There is no question that the killing of Admiral Yamamoto weakened the Japanese navy and likely shortened the war. His strategic genius would have consolidated Japanese naval power and led to a much better performance as the Japanese fought to resist the Allied onslaught. All of that is made very clear in this definitive book of history.

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get Yamamoto!

Historian Donald A. Davis gives us a rich history of the U.S. mission to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the man who masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor and led the Japanese navy during World War II. For a man who was as much an American arch-nemesis as Hitler during the war, the wildly gutsy mission to kill Yamamoto is – surprisingly – largely forgotten today. Fortunately, Davis adroitly reconstructs the daredevil attack from both American and Japanese sources, offering a nicely balanced and entertainingly told account of the airmen and machines that met over the skies of Bougainville Island on April 18, 1943.

It’s a compelling read, especially as Davis offers a fascinating sketch of Yamamoto the man – warrior and poet -- and the chess match played between US and Japanese forces across the Pacific. Davis’s inspection of the crash site of Yamamoto’s downed Mitsubishi G4M bomber is particularly riveting – a case-closed, post-mortem on one of history’s most notable military commanders. He also probes the controversaries spilling out of the aftermath of mission – of leaked intelligence, mad grabs for credit, and passing the buck on blame. As the one of the book’s cover blurbs accurately attests, there are plenty of ‘heroes, villains and idiots’ in this one.

Final Verdict: An excellent soldier’s view of the war in Pacific, capped off by a white-knuckle mission to get one of the war’s most notable figures. Davis pulls no punches in sifting past the propaganda (either personal or institutional) to dig into exactly what happened that day, delivering a masterful account of the final fate of the famed Japanese Admiral and assigns credit to the ragtag American pilots who brought him down.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and thrilling! A true story that borders on the impossible - in fact these P-38 Lightning pilots accomplished the most incredible feat - bringing down Admiral Yamamoto, thus avenging the attack on Pearl Harbor.

However, the story of this event doesn't end here. At least one of the pilots, Tom Lanphier, behaved somewhat less than honorably upon returning to the airfield at Guadalcanal after the mission was accomplished. He immediately began whooping it up and shouting at the top of his voice that he, and he alone, had shot down the Japanese admiral. Glory hounds have a way of ticking off other people with whom the credit for great accomplishments should be shared. But Captain Lanphier made every effort to claim full credit for this historic accomplishment, thus casting a pall over the entire mission.

Nonetheless, the heroism of every pilot involved in this unbelievable deed is unparalleled. As such, I salute all the brave men who worked so valiantly to bring the war to its ultimate end by taking out the greatest admiral the Japanese navy had in its ranks. Never again, after Yamamoto's death, would Japan experience another naval victory.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yamamoto was the man who led the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor, making him one of the people that Americans hated the most. This book is about the chance given to the U.S. military to kill Yamamoto during an inspection tour he was doing.

What many people do not know is that Yamamoto is punctual and wanted to make sure that the attack on Pearl Harbor was to take place after war had been declared. He was even led to believe that such a thing had happened, but, in truth, the message that was basically the declaration of war was not deciphered in time by the Japanese diplomats in Washington and was given to the U.S. government after the attack had happened, not before.

The book also talks about the internment of the Japanese Americans and quotes a FDR memorandum that said : “...every Japanese citizen or noncitizen on the Island of Oahu who meets...Japanese ships or has any connection with their officers or men should be secretly...identified and his or her name placed on a special list of those who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the event of trouble.”

What I find particularly interesting about that memo is the use of the term “concentration camp.” There is a lot of controversy over what to call the camps that the persons of Japanese ancestry living in America on the West Coast were placed into. The general term used is “internment camp.” Another term, somewhat less used, is “relocation center.” The term “concentration camp” is also used, but we need to note that this refers to terms used today. The use of the term “concentration camp” in 1941 would not have had the same connotations that the term has today, since the U.S. did not, supposedly, have knowledge of the concentration camps that Hitler was using to exterminate the Jews, homosexuals, political dissidents and anyone else his forces did not like.

So, in the connotations that the term has acquired since 1941, they camps were of the internment variety and not the concentration variety. But, as for 1941, FDR used the term “concentration” and there's really no way to know exactly what he meant by that term at that time in history.

The book, of course, has a lot on the history of Yamamoto and what he did, and of all the events that revolved around the effort by the U.S. military to kill him, including the controversy over who exactly shot down the plane that he was in.

The book also deals with Japanese atrocities. Talking about the Japanese taking of Hong Kong, it says “...Japanese soldiers slaughtered helpless civilians, mutilated children, raped nurses, and bayoneted wounded men lying in their beds.”

One quite interesting tidbit in the bit concerns MacArthur's removal from the Philippines when it was overrun by the Japanese. The book says FDR “feared the general was too much a symbol of American resistance to risk his being captured” and that Japanese propaganda broadcasts had said that MacArthur would be hung in public in Tokyo if captured.

Another topic it covers is that of “Tokyo Rose,” noting that “a number of women radio announcers” were collectively known as Tokyo Rose, that there was not just the one woman who was tried in the U.S. for being Tokyo Rose.

The book talks about various battles in the Pacific, including Midway, and notes that he Japanese lost four big carriers, a heavy cruiser, 14 other ships, over 250 planes and 2,500 men. The pilots they lost were also among the best that Japan had.

In the battle for Tulagi, the book says that there were 250 Japanese defenders, and only 3 surrendered.

A lot of time is spent on spent on the battle for Guadalcanal.

A reference is made to atrocities on both sides: “Americans frequently found the mutilated bodies of their fellow soldiers who had been taken captive, and U.S. troops routinely killed Japanese prisoners, and sometimes even went hunting stragglers just to collect souvenirs.”

Then there's a later reference to U.S. killings. It relates to an attempt on the part of the Japanese to reinforce their troops on New Guinea. The convoy was attacked by U.S. fighters and bombers in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. In refers to the U.S. planes: “...the fighters slid in on strafing runs and machine-gunned the Japanese soldiers who had taken to lifeboats or were swimming for their lives.”

The actual part of the book dealing with the killing of Yamamoto doesn't really start until chapter 20.

There was also something I found interesting that actually relates to an episode of Babylon 5. On that episode, Sheridan is referring to the bombing of Coventry in England during World War II, and how the English government knew the city was going to be bombed but did not warn the people since they didn't want the Germans to know they had broken the German code.

This book talks about what really happened, and it turns out it was just like in the Babylon 5 story; the British government knew what was going to happen, and Churchill “...sacrificed an entire city to prevent Berlin from learning that their codes had been broken.”

As you can see, there is a lot of interesting material in the book. However, I think that if the book was narrowed down to just the sections that deal with Yamamoto and his killing, then the book would have been much, much smaller. The majority of this book deals with other things and so the title is a little misleading.

[John Galea · Rating 3 out of 5]

What started out slow, then got gripping during the Guadalcanal battles, glanced quickly over the Yamamoto attack and then digressed into a who shot down whom and the politics of that. Overall a good book with some boring disinteresting sections ... Honestly I wouldn't recommend it. I'm sure there are MANY better books.

[BBJWEIHE · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars not enough

A triple feature extraordinaire, 1 part Yamamoto biography, 1 part Guadacanal overview, 1 part The shooting down of Yamamoto.

The writer made this as exciting as any best selling novel, with great descriptions, fascinating characters, timely historical facts and personal insights.

[Gregory Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

I read this book out of curiosity about Yamamoto and the men who shot him down. The book was very well research and documented. I thought it ran a little long, but he told a great story. I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious about World War II and the life those involved.

[Brian F. Wruble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent World War 2 history covering pivotal moment of the 20th Century.

I found this book to be fascinating reading. The author has done extraordinary research, and he ably covers both the military events and the controversy surrounding them.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible. I love how Davis dives into the lives and backstories of the pilots, and how he weaves in the background of Yamamoto and the politics of the time. One of the best books I’ve ever read.

[John Behles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book began with the usual world war two beginning, it started with the battle of Pearl Harbor. The pilots that flew the missions of world war two were young and brave, they had planned for a series of attacks on the Japanese ships in order to find and kill the person responsible for Pearl Harbor. The conflicts that continued throughout the book were explained and it is still a controversial topic when talking about who killed Yamamoto.

The reason I gave this book three stars instead of any other rating was because of the authors unique ability to relate to the younger generations but it was only slightly different than the other book I have read that are close to the same topic.

"They brought in enough drums of gasoline to keep a dozen fighters in the air for a single hour" (Davis, 142) This quote explains how much the pilots were trying to defeat the Japanese and also how much they tried to kill Admiral Yamamoto.

The older generation trying to connect with the younger generation is just like our children's books, we were trying to connect ourselves to kids just like the man who wrote this book was trying to connect with high school students.

If had to recommend this book to anybody, I would recommend it to history lovers and fanatics because there is a lot of topics that are explained throughout this book.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book for some research, but found it quite an engaging story. In a way, this was a precursor to what the US currently does in Afghanistan, using airpower to target and kill key individuals. Yamamoto certainly was as big a target as the US could go after. The operation planned was quite daring and had little margin for error. However, Davis sets the backstory well, discussing Yamamoto, his life, decisions, and actions pre war and in World War II. The pilots who would fly the mission had quite the saga of their own, engaged in the operations to retake Guadalcanal in 1942. Yet, somehow, the actual engagement appeared to work nearly according to plan. However, a painful part of the tale is the aftermath and the long running disputes as to who did what during the mission. Even 70 years later, history is still not entirely sure who officially shot down Yamamoto. Overall, a worthwhile read.

[Au Yong Chee Tuck · Rating 2 out of 5]

The publishers have chosen to show two maps side by side which do not make much sense. One map on the left page showed the west coast of the US with a route marked from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor. The other map on the right page showed Japan, the Philippines and Australia with routes marked from Sydney to Hawaii and Tokyo to Hawaii.
If these maps have been published the other way round, the US west coast map published on the right page and the Australia map published on the left page, it would have made it much easier for the reader to view the maps!
Then there is also no map showing the route taken by the P-38 raiders from Guadalcanal to Bougainville.
This is a good book spoilt by the poor presentation of the maps.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a history buff then this will interest you, especially if you like material about the Second World War. This book describes the daring mission in April 1943 that resulted in the downing of the aircraft that carried Admiral Yamamoto, Japan's Commander in Chief of Naval Operations in the Pacific, by Army Air Corp Pilots flying P-28 aircraft . Although the mission was an astounding success, the controversy surrounding the events of the mission swirled for decades afterward. Very interesting.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since my father was at Pearl Harbor, I am very interested in the subject. Having just read Newt Gingrich's Pearl Harbor, I had to reread Don Davis's "Lightning Strike." It is a masterful telling of history by a former journalist. It is very readable -- and changes many preconceived notions about this particular moment in history.

[Art · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of the P-38 attack on Admiral Yamamoto. About half the book covers the early Pacific war and the events leading to the shoot down. There's a lot of coverage of the cactus air force as well. Not the best book I've ever read on the Pacific, but not the worst either, it just kind of sits somewhere in the middle.

[Beth/Chuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

In depth account of Yamamoto's life and the history of the Pacific War before and after the mission. I learned something new each chapter. Also found out more about Indianapolis native Ray Hine who was he only American casualty of this famous mission.

[Bill Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enthralling TRUE story of the Allied air strike to kill Admiral Yamamoto, the mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor raid. Very interesting read because the author states that Yamamoto was an initial detractor AGAINST attacking the United States. A truly informative tome.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is holding my interest more than I thought it would. Nice overview of the war. So far I am enjoying it.

I thought it got better the more I read. I enjoyed learning about the controversy over who actually shot down Yamamoto.

[Aaron Mcqueen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the story until I got to the battle for credit.