AMAZON NOW CARRIES OPERATION STORM

You can now pre-order Operation Storm from Amazon at the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Storm-Japans-Secret-Submarines/dp/0307464806

Operation Storm

Publisher prefers the title Operation Storm because it's more military sounding so we are going with that.

You can now pre-order Operation Storm from Barnes & Noble below. Come on Amazon, get your butt in gear!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/operation-storm-john-geoghegan/1112570785

New Title???

Oh-oh. Publisher doesn't like my title, "Storm From A Clear Sky: Japan's Top Secret Plan to Change the Course of World War II."

GOT ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Attacking New York City and Washington, DC

Storm from a Clear Sky tells the true story of Japan's plans to bomb New York City and Washington, DC as a follow up punch to the attack on Pearl Harbor. During my research, I came across this screen painted by Makoto Aida in 1996 which does an excellent job of depicting what the Japanese had in mind.

Copy editing

Got my copy edited manuscript back from the publishers. Now have to go through the somewhat tedious process of inserting my own corrections. Fortunately, thanks to my expert readers: Norman Polmar, Carl Boyd, Emil Petrinic, and Rear Admiral (ret.) Yoichi Hirama-san, my self-inflicted errors should be much reduced. I owe them a significant debt of gratitude.

Thank You, Annie!

Am loosing a wonderful editorial assistant at Crown named Annie Chagnot, but can't complain. In addition to taking great care of me, Annie's leaving to teach middle-school English for the New York City Teaching Fellows program. It's terrific that someone with Annie's background is undertaking such a noble task. She can make a real difference in reading habits at that age. Crown's loss is the children of New York City's gain! The world needs more readers. 

How I Came to Write "Storm From A Clear Sky"

I was recently asked what motivated me to write "Storm From A Clear Sky"? 

In no particular order, I had a desire to understand the psychology behind Japan's participation in WWII. I'd lived and worked in Japan, had married a Japanese woman, and had grown increasingly interested in piercing their culture (no easy task). 

I was also fascinated by the story of the I-400 subs, which were virtually unknown when I began. I'd read a one sentence reference to them in a book many years ago, and had kept it in a file marked "story ideas." When the wreck of the I-401 was discovered in 2005, I realized her captain was still alive, which led me to pitch the editor of Aviation History, a magazine I'd been writing for, to do a story on the I-400 subs based on an interview with their flagship's captain. Since I take my kids to Japan once a year to see their grandmother (and maintain their Japanese), I thought I'd interview the captain while I was there. One thing led to another and PBS made a documentary about the I-400s called "Japanese SuperSub." Since it was based on my magazine article, I wrote several versions of the teleplay and served as technical consultant on the production. Nevertheless, I found the one hour television format so limiting I thought a book was necessary to tell the whole story from both the Japanese and American points of view.

So, that's the explanation. Though it hardly fits in a nutshell, the genesis of these things rarely springs from a single event. If I had to trace it to one thing, however, I'd say I just couldn't believe there was such a thing as an "underwater aircraft carrier" and had to understand why it was built.