"When Japan unleashed its firestorm on Pearl Harbor, surprise, anger, and fear beyond words gripped the nation. Reflecting on this, I realize how wrong so many people were, including enlisted men like me and those in power." In this historical, political, analytical, and deeply personal story of a disgracefully blundering hierarchy, inadequate weaponry, lack of even rudimentary supplies, and official incompetence and miscalculation at every turn, Poness recounts the events that led up to being taken as a prisoner of the Japanese and of his harrowing years as a P.O.W. The fighting men distinguished themselves, they fought and sacrificed and died. Their nation profoundly failed them.