Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack

In Washington, DC, in late November 1941, admirals composed the most ominous message in US Navy history to warn Hawaii of possible danger - but they wrote it too vaguely. They thought precautions were being taken, but never checked to be sure.

In a small office at Pearl Harbor, overlooking the battleships, the commander of the Pacific Fleet tried to assess whether the threat was real. His intelligence unit had lost track of Japan's biggest aircraft carriers, but assumed they were resting in a port far away. Besides, the admiral thought Pearl was too shallow for torpedoes; he hadn't even put up a barrier. As he fretted, a Japanese spy was counting the warships in the harbor and reporting to Tokyo.

With taut focus and elegant prose, Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Twomey turns the lead-up to the most infamous day in American history into a ticking time-bomb thriller. Never before has a story you thought you knew proven so impossible to put down.