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Your NavyNew Pearl Harbor book tells the Japanese side of events in fateful attackBy Todd South Dec 7, 2021A cartoon sketch remembers the actions of Navy cook Doris Miller, who defended his ship during the Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. (Polity Publishing)For 80 years the Imperial Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor and wider assault throughout the Pacific theater that brought the United States into World War II has seen countless retellings, analyses and even its share of conspiracy theories.That history has largely been told from a distinctly American perspective for a U.S. audience. But a book published this past year offers a blow-by-blow account, diving into previously untranslated primary source material, from the Japanese perspective.Dr. Takuma Melber, a modern Japanese historian and lecturer at Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies in Germany, spoke with Military Times about his new book, “Pearl Harbor” and how tenuous the launch and success of the operation was and how Japan’s ultimate doom was possibly written in poor decisions made at the conclusion of the attack.Melber wrote his doctoral dissertation on the actions of the Imperial Japanese military in Malaysia and Singapore between 1942 and 1945 before he penned his recent volume on Pearl Harbor.*Editor’s note: the below Q&A has been edited for clarity and content.Q: What drew your interest to Pearl Harbor, especially from the Japanese perspective?A: I’m the son of a Japanese mother and German father, raised in Germany. I never met my Japanese grandfather who served during the war. I never had an opportunity to talk with him about that time. While there’s a lot of material about the attacks, historical and otherwise, there’s very little that’s been translated from Japanese to English. So, more than five years ago, I began looking at secondary sources, monographs, books and memoirs written by Japanese people involved with planning, decision making and conducting the attack.For example, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yosuke Matsuoka, who was in office leading up the attacks, later wrote a lengthy memoir detailing what led to the decision to conduct the attacks and the internal struggles, resistance and conflicts within the wartime government. As recently as five years ago, it still hadn’t been translated.The book "Pearl Harbor" by Takuma Melber was published in 2021. It provides a detailed account of the attack from the Japanese perspective. (Polity Publishing)Q: What are some of the key pieces of information, on the Japanese side, that readers should know about what led to the attacks?A: Following an oil embargo and stalled negotiations as to Japan’s territorial claims in China, members of the military and some government leaders saw a preemptive strike on United States positions as what would determine the survival of the Japanese empire. But as recently as the summer of 1941, only five months before the attack, most leadership wanted to avoid a fight with the United States. Japanese leaders realized that the United States had vast resources and reach and could win a prolonged war with Japan.Some of the top leadership, including Adm. Osami Nagano and Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto opposed a war with the United States.“A war with such small prospects for success should not be waged,” Nagano said in transcripts of the Imperial Congress ahead of the attack.“A decision (to go to war) has been made that is diametrically opposed to my attitude as an individual,” Yamamoto wrote a friend before the operation. But he saw no other choice as his duty to his government and emperor were ironclad. “I should regard it as my destiny,” he wrote.Strangely enough, Yamamoto was somewhat of an anglophile and had many friends in the United States. He told leadership he doubted that Japan could match the United States’ industrial might for wartime production and saw resources shortages such as oil reserves and other materials as major obstacles to Japan’s success.But U.S. diplomats and officials were standing firm on Japan relinquishing the territories they’d taken in their war with China. Ashley Clarke, a member of the British embassy in Tokyo at the time, had warned that the Japanese government could not go to its people and say it was giving up the territory for which so many of their sons had only recently died to obtain.Dr. Takuma Melber, a Japanese history professor and author of the book, "Pearl Harbor," published in 2021 with an account of the attack from the Japanese perspective. (Takuma Melber)Q: This was a large-scale operation. How was the Japanese military able to plan and execute the attack in secret and what challenges did they face?A: Warships had gathered in the Tankan Bay area on Nov. 22, 1941, ahead of the Nov. 25 deadline for negotiations with the United States. A “mobile force” of six aircraft carriers with more than 360 aircraft on board, two battleships, three cruisers and nine destroy escorts set sail on Nov....