Dead Reckoning: The Story of How Johnny Mitchell and His Fighter Pilots Took on Admiral Yamamoto and Avenged Pearl Harbor

The definitive and previously untold account of Operation Vengeance, the American military operation to kill Japanese Naval Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the man who devised the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“AIR RAID, PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT DRILL.” At 7:58 a.m. on December 7, 1941, an officer at the Ford Island Command Center frantically typed what would become one of the most famous radio dispatches in history as the Japanese navy launched a surprise aerial assault on the American navy stationed in Hawaii. In a little over two hours, the Japanese killed more than 2,400 Americans and propelled the U.S.’s entry into World War II. Dead Reckoning is the story of the mission to avenge that devastating strike.

New York Times bestselling author Dick Lehr expertly crafts this "hunt for Bin Laden"-style WWII story as he recreates the minute-by-minute events at Pearl Harbor. Lehr explores the tremendous spycraft and rising military tradecraft undertaken in its wake, and goes behind the scenes at Station Typo in Hawaii where U.S. Navy code breakers’ discovered exactly where and when to find Admiral Yamamoto, on April 18, 1943, and chronicles in detail the nearly impossible, nerve-wracking mission to kill him.

Lehr focuses on the key figures, including Yamamoto, the enigmatic, charismatic military genius whose complicated feelings about the U.S.—he studied at Harvard—add rich complexity; the American pilots of the attack squad—Thomas Lanphier Jr., Besby Holmes, Ray Hine, and Rex Barber; and their extraordinary leader, Major John Mitchell, who planned their record-setting mission literally to the second. Lehr adds tension using a Rashomon-like approach that tells the story of the operation through competing versions, and offers well-reasoned conclusions, including the identity of the pilot actually responsible for bringing Yamamoto down.

Dead Reckoning features 8 pages of black-and-white photos.