The Fujita Plan


Book Description

After the staggering success of the Pearl Harbor surprise attack, the Japanese plotted to maintain the initiative and spread fear and panic among the civil population of the United States and Australasia. With his usual skilled research the author has uncovered numerous plans. Some like the midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour and the daring Seaplane air raids on Oregon were put into effect. Others never reached that stage due to either impracticality, bad luck or counter-espionage. The Fujita Plan throws fascinating new light on a little known aspect of the Second World War.







A Blue Sea of Blood


Book Description

On the morning of March 1, 1942, the WWI-era destroyer USS Edsall—under orders to deliver some forty Army Air Force fighter crews to the beleaguered island of Java—split off from the USS Whipple and the tanker Pecos and was never seen again by Allied forces. Despite the later discovery of bodies identified as Edsall crew members near a remote airfield on the coast of Celebes, what happened to the ship remains a matter of mystery and, perhaps, deliberate obfuscation. This book explores the many puzzling facets of the Edsall’s disappearance in order to finally tell the full story of the fate of the vessel and her crew. Based on exhaustive research of the historical record—including newly deciphered Japanese documents and previously unrevealed material from the crew’s family members—A Blue Sea of Blood offers a painstaking reconstruction of the ship’s history. The book investigates not only the Edsall’s mysterious final action, but also her wide-ranging pre-war career and the curious uses to which her story was put—generally under false pretenses—first by the pre-war US Navy and then by the Japanese wartime propaganda machine. And finally, military historian Donald Kehn considers the circumstances surrounding the curious obscurity of the Edsall’s heroic service and final battle in American histories. Redressing six decades of official indifference, Kehn’s account recovers a significant chapter missing from the history of World War II—and tells a long-overdue story of courage and tragic loss.




Slaughter at Sea


Book Description

The author of Japan’s Gestapo details the atrocities committed by the Japanese Navy during World War II. While the Japanese Navy followed many of the British Royal Navy’s traditions and structures, it had a totally different approach to the treatment of its foes. Author Mark Felton has uncovered a plethora of outrages against both servicemen and civilians that make chilling and shocking reading. These range from the execution of POWs to the abandonment of survivors to the elements and certain starvation to the infamous Hell Ships. Felton, who lives in the Far East, examines the different culture that led to these frequent and appalling atrocities. This is a serious and fascinating study of a dark chapter in naval warfare history.




Pearl Harbor


Book Description

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." Early that morning hundreds of Japanese fighter planes unexpectedly attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More than 2,000 Americans were killed and the battleships of the Pacific Fleet lay in ruins. The brutal attack launched the United States into war, a conflict that engulfed the world.




Pearl Harbor


Book Description

Hawaii, 7th December 1941, shortly before 8 in the morning: Japanese torpedo bombers launch a surprise attack on the US Pacific fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. The devastating attack claims the lives of over 2,400 American soldiers, sinks or damages 18 ships and destroys nearly 350 aircraft. The US Congress declares war on Japan the following day. In this vivid and lively book, Takuma Melber breathes new life into the dramatic events that unfolded before, during and after Pearl Harbor by putting the perspective of the Japanese attackers at the centre of his account. This is the dimension commonly missing in most other histories of Pearl Harbor, and it gives Melber the opportunity to provide a fuller, more definitive and authoritative account of the battle, its background and its consequences. Melber sheds new light on the long negotiations that went on between the Japanese and Americans in 1941, and the confusion and argument among the Japanese political and military elite. He shows how US intelligence and military leaders in Washington failed to interpret correctly the information they had and to draw the necessary conclusions about the Japanese war intentions in advance of the attack. His account of the battle itself is informed by the latest research and benefits from including the planning and post-raid assessment by the Japanese commanders. His account also covers the second raid in March 1942 by two long-range seaplanes which was intended to destroy the shipyards so that ships damaged in the initial attack could not be repaired. This balanced and thoroughly researched book deepens our understanding of the battle that precipitated America’s entry into the war and it will appeal to anyone interested in World War II and military history.




Japan's Gestapo


Book Description

From the author of Children of the Camps, a look at the disturbing activities of the Kempeitai, Japan’s feared military and secret police. The book opens by explaining the origins, organization, and roles of the Kempeitai apparatus, which exercised virtually unlimited power throughout the Japanese Empire. Author Mark Felton reveals their criminal and collaborationist networks that extorted huge sums of money from hapless citizens and businesses. They ran the Allied POW gulag system that treated captives with merciless and murderous brutality. Other Kempeitai activities included biological and chemical experiments on live subjects, the Maruta vivisection campaign, and widespread slave labor, including “Comfort Women” drawn from all races. Their record of reprisals against military and civilians was unrelenting. For example, Colonel Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo in 1942 resulted in a campaign of revenge not just against captured airmen but thousands of Chinese civilians. Their actions amounted to genocide on a grand scale. Felton backs up his text with firsthand testimonies from survivors who suffered at the hands of this evil organization. He examines how the guilty were brought to justice and the resulting claims for compensation. As a result, Japan’s Gestapo provides comprehensive evidence of the ruthlessness of the Kempeitai against the white and Asian peoples under their control.




Astral Prime Mission Pack 3


Book Description

The search for knowledge will be the salvation of mankind... or the destruction of the universe. The temptation of ancient wisdom proved too much for them to resist. Now, Hiroko and Cedric must each face the consequences of the secrets they unlocked—and the terrors they recklessly unleashed. Mission 9: Void Kraken Unleashed from an alternate universe, the space-borne leviathan dubbed "void kraken" terrorizes the galaxy. The most powerful weapons barely scratch it. Whole fleets fall before it. Its movements are erratic. Its motives inscrutable. All anyone knows for sure is that if it isn't stopped, it's going to eat its way through the galaxy. Mission 10: Stellar Rampage The galaxy is in a state of panic. A horror has been unleashed, and it's a threat to every inhabited planet. Luckily, it currently rampages across a sparsely populated part of the Black Ocean. But even that callous view only hold limited hope for the fortunate species whose worlds lay safer by virtue of distance. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to destroy it. Mission 11: Core Threat The galaxy has gone from troubled to doomed. Now faced with a multiplying threat, the races of the Milky Way are faced with a foe who cannot be stopped, cannot be turned back. And yet, for the sake of their own survival, they fight on in the desperate hope that they can hold out long enough to prevail. And they're running out of time. One of the ARGO core worlds may be next on the menu for the world-devouring monsters. Mission 12: Terminal Gambit Cedric has discovered the means to fight back, but the price is high. Not all species are capable of carrying out his methods. It's one thing asking ships and crews to fight; it's another to ask them to sacrifice themselves. And yet, the valiant ships of Earth Navy continue to do so. If only the rest of the galaxy were so brave. Short Story: Two Roads Diverged Two heroes? Two villains? A mix of both? However galactic history comes to view Cedric and Hiroko, they take very different paths to their ultimate destinies. Black Ocean: Astral Prime hearkens back to location-based space sci-fi classics like Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Astral Prime builds on the rich Black Ocean universe, introducing a colorful cast of characters for new and returning readers alike. Come along for the ride as a minor outpost in the middle of nowhere becomes a key point of interstellar conflict.




A Shot of History: Attack on Sydney Harbour


Book Description

On the night of 31 May 1942, Sydney Harbour was attacked by midget submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy. An accommodation vessel of the Royal Australian Navy was torpedoed, and 21 sailors died. The midget submarines were hunted down, and two sunk. War had already come to northern Australia, and now the southern cities were made bitterly aware that the world-wide conflict had reached them. The midget submarine attack was only the beginning: gun strikes were made against land targets, and more enemy submarines came south, attacking freighters up and down the continent’s eastern coast. This new accounting of the night Sydney Harbour was attacked reveals new details of the fight that ensued and sets some of the previous historical accounts right. The text is supported by numerous photos as well as extensive plans of the midget submarines, and details of the curious stories following the war, including the discovery of the third midget submarine, sunk off the New South Wales coast.