[.ca] The Attack on Taranto: Blueprint for Pearl Harbor (ISBN 0811726614)

The British put three Italian battleships out of action.:
As the authors quite rightly put, this was the prelude to Pearl Harbor. The Italian Navy was stationed at this harbor and posed a threat to British sea routes to Egypt, India, Singapore, and Australia. A daring attack by 21 aircraft from a British aircraft carrier damaged three Italian battleships and put them out of action for six to nine months. Since they were in a heavily protected shallow harbor, it was indeed a daring attack, which the Japanese copied to place the American Pacific fleet out of action. The Japanese attack was on a much larger scale. One of the authors was a member of the attack group, and he gives his own account in the battle. This is a nice little read. The book is short and has plenty of photos. A determined reader could finish this book in two to three hours. Taranto was indeed the prelude the Pearl Harbor, but now few people realize this. With Lowry's perspective, this is good book about the Second World War.

Japan was watching:
This is the story of how a small force of obsolete British Swordfish torpedo planes flew into Taranto harbor, surprised the Italian fleet, and sank three battleships. The attack force consisted of about twenty torpedo bombers which flew from a single British carrier in the Mediterranian sea. Although this book is short, the author does a good job of explaining the events leading up to the attack, and how this small force managed to take the Italians complelely by surprise. Furthermore, the Japanese used this attack as a model for their Pearl Harbor operation. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Pearl Harbor. The similarities between the two attacks are uncanny.

A Short Historical Jewel:
This short history of the birth of one of the truly significant innovations in modern military tactics and technology is nicely written, very well researched (the co-author was a leading participant), and offers up just the kind of occassional riveting statements that military history buffs love, such as: -the names of two African American pilots who flew biplane fighters for Haile Salasse against Mussolini (now there's college paper topic for you). -that Adm. Yamamoto was once banned from casinos in Monaco because he won too much. -that a German named Schwartzkoff (sp?) stole the plans of the first practical torpedo from a British engineer in the 19th century. The story itself is short and economically written, but the book is beefed up with divergent historical lines of inquiry, from the overall strategic position of the British Mediteranean fleet to the British use of of American Martin B-20's, a plane type apparently unknown to other WW-II history writers. Although the narrative goes a little far afield once or twice, and makes some brisk statements begging for better source notes, it is an overall good read, about the right length, and should be in every 20th century naval historian's collection.