Below The Beltway

As I’ve written in the past, there is sometimes much to criticize about Harry Turtledove’s writing style. As demonstrated most aptly in the Timeline-191 Series, he has a tendancy to repeat himself to the extent that it can become annoying. At other times though, he can write a book that is just extraordinary. Fortunately, the first volume of his alternate-history version of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Days Of Infamy, falls into the second category.

The point-of-departure for this book is fairly simple. Rather than merely attacking the American Pacific Fleet from the air on December 7, 1941, the Japanese follow up with a manned invasion of Oahu that, despite the valiant efforts of the American land forces on the island, ends up succeeding. As improbable as this might seen, it has its roots in history; Minoru Genda, who is credited as the primary tactician of the Pearl Harbor attack, orginally advocated that Japan follow up its aerial bombardment of the American Pacific Fleet with an invasion of the Hawaiian Islands. His plan was rejected in our world, but Turtledove writes about what might have happened if the Japanese had followed Genda’s original plan.

The immediate results are not good for the United States. The disasterous results of December 7, 1941 are magnified ten-fold when the Japanese Army lands on the beaches of Oahu’s North Coast and, slowly but surely, fights its way down the island and forces the remaining American forces to lay down their arms.

The consequences of Japanese control of Hawaii are quick and inevitable. Without the support of the U.S. mainland and with little hope that a Japanese Empire at war will bother to send supplies their way, civilians are forced to find a way to survive on their own. American POW’s are drafted into slave labor. And, over on the mainland, Americans try to prepare for the inevitable effort to evict the invaders from American soil.

As usual, Turtledove uses many characters to show us his vision of Hawaii under Japanese rule from different points of view. We meet a Japanese citizen living in Oahu who seems to be proud of his native country’s military success while he fights with his sons, who consider themseleves American. Providing some comic relief is a mainland-native living in Hawaii who finds himself in the middle of a war and dealing with a sometime-girlfriend who apparently finds successful employment in the new Hawaii. And, perhaps most of all, we spend teime with several Japanese characters who represent a different view of the conflict.

In reality, it seems unlikely that Turtledove’s scenario could have come about. The attack on Pearl Harbor was an incredibly daring move on Japan’s part to begin with. Their ability fo follow that attack with an invasion force seems, to me at least, questionable at best. Nonetheless, Turtledove spins an incredibly captivating tale of what might have happened if only that date which will live in infamy had turned out to have been even worse than it actually was.