He introduces dozens of people, both American and Japanese, military and civilian, from admiral to lowly seaman. He begins Day of Infamy in the late hours of December 6, 1941, deftly creating tension with a countdown to the violent collision. Though not as lauded, Day of Infamy perfectly captures the style and immediacy of A Night to Remember, and in doing so creates the touchstone of Pearl Harbor literature. I don’t think it gives him too much credit to say that he is partly the reason Titanic endures over a century after she touched the bottom of the Atlantic. Lord demonstrated a masterful ability to harness oral history into a compelling and fluid narrative. A Night to Remember is justly hailed for its attention to personal detail, captured in numerous first-person survivor accounts that Lord gathered himself. Lord is most famous as the chronicler of the RMS Titanic, the doomed luxury liner that Lord memorialized in A Night to Remember. Despite being first published in 1957, it remains the best narrative of the battle ever written.

In honor of that milestone, and with the expectation of the release of fresh volumes, I reread Walter Lord’s classic Day of Infamy. We are fast approaching the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the (in)famous Japanese air raid that caught the American fleet at anchor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. At the big new consolidated barracks, Staff Sergeant Charles Judd lay in bed, reading an article debunking Japanese air power in the September issue of Aviation magazine.' Private Mark Layton squeezed under the 7:45 breakfast deadline, but most of the men didn't even try. Nurse Monica Conter - in between dates with Lieutenant Benning - took pules and temperatures at the new base hospital. Captain Levi Erdmann mulled over the base tennis tournament. Sergeant Robert Hey began dressing for a rifle match with Captain J.

Day of infamy by walter lord