Cover of 1942

1942

December 7 is "the date which will live in infamy." But now Japan is hatching another, far greater plan to bring America to its knees. . . .

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The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was a resounding success-except for one detail: a second bombing mission, to destroy crucial oil storage facilities, was aborted that day. Now, in this gripping and stunning work of alternate history, Robert Conroy reimagines December 7, 1941, to include the attack the Japanese didn't launch, and what follows is a thrilling tale of war, resistance, sacrifice, and courage. For when Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sees how badly the United States has been ravaged in a two-pronged strike, he devises another, more daring proposal: an all-out invasion of Hawaii to put a stranglehold on the American Pacific Fleet.

Yamamoto's strategy works brilliantly-at first. But a handful of American soldiers and a determined civilian resistance fight back in the face of cruelty unknown in Western warfare. Stateside, a counterassault is planned-and the pioneering MIT-trained aviator Colonel Jimmy Doolittle is given a near-impossible mission with a fleet of seaplanes jury-rigged into bombers. From spies to ordinary heroes and those caught between two cultures at war, this is the epic saga of the Battle of Hawaii-the way it very nearly was. . . .

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 358 pages

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  1. Days of Infamy Shares alternate history, alternative history, historical fiction
  2. Stars and Stripes Triumphant Shares alternate history, alternative history, alt history
  3. 1812: The Rivers of War Shares alternate history, alt history, alternative history
  4. 1945 Shares alternate history, alternative history, fiction

“People who read 1942 tend to reach for these next.”

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“If it was the alternative history that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Man with the Iron Heart
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  3. Drive to the East
  4. End of the Beginning

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Pacific Payback: The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway
  2. The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
  3. Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany
  4. Days of Infamy