WEST POINT TO PEARL HARBOR by Dick Spangler
A Little Boy Remembers the Japanese Attack and Other Survivor Stories from America’s Greatest Military Disaster
Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc.
701 Smithfield Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Genre: History/Memoir
Rating: Very Good
ISBN: 13: 9780805972047, $36.00, 400 pp.
Quoting from the back cover:
"An early portion of West Point to Pearl Harbor tells about life at the U.S. Military Academy and one young cadets’s challenge to graduate amid the rigorous training regimen at the Point. In the beginning, Plebe ‘Dutch’ Spangler was about to understand that he was nothing but a ‘beast’–a lowly presence considered unfit for social contact with upper classmen. He wasn’t an outcast, rather a cadet on probation for the next year until proved that he had what it takes mentally and physically with proper military bearing. ‘Dutch’ had already made his firm decision at the age of eighteen that he could endure and show everyone, including himself, that he would become a full-fledged cadet. He made it! Armed with a hard earned diploma, a fine engineering education, ‘gripped by an indefinable West Point spirit,’ he was imbued with a strong sense of duty and honor that ‘guides everyone during their stay at the Military Academy and during the career of later life.’
"West Point to Pearl Harbor is heavily devoted to memories of the attack on Oahu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941 as my Father, then a captain, was ordered with his family to Fort Kamehameha, an artillery base adjacent to Pearl Harbor. As a five-year-old boy, I had been happily playing on the beach along the strategic entry channel to Pearl Harbor when I was startled into awareness and watched as the first wide wave of Japanese fighter planes roared over the Waianae Mountain Range even before they dropped their deadly loads...."
West Point to Pearl Harbor is a unique addition to the many books written about this historical event. Unique because it is predominantly a perspective of the era and lives as told through personal journals, letters, and memoirs. Dick Spangler is a consummate writer and has done an excellent job in organizing this material. The stories, as told by the survivors, bring to life the reality of this horrifying attack.
I can highly recommend West Point to Pearl Harbor to history buffs and students of all ages.
Kaye Trout - December 30, 2007
Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc.
701 Smithfield Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Genre: History/Memoir
Rating: Very Good
ISBN: 13: 9780805972047, $36.00, 400 pp.
Quoting from the back cover:
"An early portion of West Point to Pearl Harbor tells about life at the U.S. Military Academy and one young cadets’s challenge to graduate amid the rigorous training regimen at the Point. In the beginning, Plebe ‘Dutch’ Spangler was about to understand that he was nothing but a ‘beast’–a lowly presence considered unfit for social contact with upper classmen. He wasn’t an outcast, rather a cadet on probation for the next year until proved that he had what it takes mentally and physically with proper military bearing. ‘Dutch’ had already made his firm decision at the age of eighteen that he could endure and show everyone, including himself, that he would become a full-fledged cadet. He made it! Armed with a hard earned diploma, a fine engineering education, ‘gripped by an indefinable West Point spirit,’ he was imbued with a strong sense of duty and honor that ‘guides everyone during their stay at the Military Academy and during the career of later life.’
"West Point to Pearl Harbor is heavily devoted to memories of the attack on Oahu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941 as my Father, then a captain, was ordered with his family to Fort Kamehameha, an artillery base adjacent to Pearl Harbor. As a five-year-old boy, I had been happily playing on the beach along the strategic entry channel to Pearl Harbor when I was startled into awareness and watched as the first wide wave of Japanese fighter planes roared over the Waianae Mountain Range even before they dropped their deadly loads...."
West Point to Pearl Harbor is a unique addition to the many books written about this historical event. Unique because it is predominantly a perspective of the era and lives as told through personal journals, letters, and memoirs. Dick Spangler is a consummate writer and has done an excellent job in organizing this material. The stories, as told by the survivors, bring to life the reality of this horrifying attack.
I can highly recommend West Point to Pearl Harbor to history buffs and students of all ages.
Kaye Trout - December 30, 2007
posted by Kaye | 11:09 AM
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