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

The definitive and dramatic account of what became known as
Operation Vengeance -- the targeted kill by U.S. fighter pilots of Japan's
larger-than-life military icon, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the naval genius who
had devised the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor.

 “AIR RAID, PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.” At
7:58 a.m. on December 7, 1941, an officer at the Ford Island Command Center
typed what would become one of the most famous radio dispatches in history, as
the Japanese navy launched a surprise aerial assault on U.S. bases on Hawaii.
In a little over two hours, more than 2,400 Americans were dead, propelling the
U.S.’s entry into World War II.

Dead Reckoningis the epic true story of the high-stakes operation undertaken
sixteen months later to avenge that deadly strike – a longshot mission hatched
hastily at the U.S. base on Guadalcanal. Expertly crafting this hunt for
Bin Laden -style WWII story,New
York Timesbestselling author Dick Lehr recreates the tension-filled events
leading up to the climactic clash in the South Pacific skies – frontline moments
loaded with xenophobia, spycraft, sacrifice and broken hearts.

 Lehr goes behind
the scenes at Station Hypo on Hawaii, where U.S. Navy code breakers first discovered
exactly where and when to find Admiral Yamamoto, on April 18, 1943, and then chronicles
in dramatic detail the nerve-wracking mission to kill him. He focuses on Army
Air Force Major John W. Mitchell, the ace fighter pilot from the tiny hamlet of
Enid, Mississippi who was tasked with conceiving a flight route, literally to
the second, for the only U.S. fighter plane on Guadalcanal capable of reaching
Yamamoto hundreds of miles away – the new twin-engine P-38 Lightning with its
fabled “cone of fire.”

Given unprecedented
access to Mitchell’s personal paperslSf