Marketing Department

Maryland Public Television

(410) 581-4076

Key events in the life of

Gordon W. Prange

July 16, 1910 Prange born in Pomeroy, Iowa

1937 Prange graduates with Ph.D. from University of Iowa, is hired to be a history professor by the University of Maryland

December 7, 1941 Japanese Navy attacks U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. U.S. enters Word War II.

1942 Prange joins U.S. Navy. Prepares for work in eventual occupation of Japan.

August 1945 Japan surrenders. Prange is transferred to Japan to serve on Gen. MacArthur’s occupation staff. He heads official historical staff, writes official history of Pacific war and begins work on what he believes will be the definitive work on the attack on Pearl Harbor. While in Japan, he has unlimited access to the architects of the attack, its key participants, and reviews rare maps and documents.

1950 Civil Censorship Detachment is disbanded. Prange secures its collection of books, magazines, and newspapers, one of the deepest ever collected for a specific time period, and has it shipped to University of Maryland, where he returns to resume his academic career. He continues research on his Pearl Harbor book.

1951 Prange meets Donald W. Goldstein, an undergraduate student with a great talent for history. Goldstein assists Prange on various projects until graduating in 1955 and beginning a 22-year career in the Air Force. The two remain friends throughout the years.

1956 Portions of Prange’s in-progress Pearl Harbor book are serialized in the Japanese editions of Reader’s Digest. The series is a huge success. Prange’s publisher, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., asks Prange to complete work on his Pearl Harbor book noting, “There comes a time in any such research and writing project such as yours that you have to turn your back on the unsolved details and produce the finished book.”

1964 Commander Minoru Genda, who planned the “Hawaii Operation,” and lead pilot Commander Mitsuo Fuchida spend the summer with Prange and his family at their home in University Park, Maryland, providing in-depth information for Prange’s research. McGraw-Hill again asks when the book is likely to be finished.

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1970 Release of the feature film Tora! Tora! Tora!, an historically accurate representation of the attack. Prange served as a consultant, ensuring a level of accuracy in detail never achieved in any other Hollywood depiction of the attack.

1977 Donald Goldstein retires from the U.S. Air Force after 22 years of active duty service. He resumes his academic career at the University of Pittsburgh.

1979 Goldstein receives a call from his old friend Gordon Prange. Prange has been diagnosed with cancer and is dying. He asks Goldstein to help him ready his Pearl Harbor book for publication. Goldstein convinces McGraw-Hill to release the book for publication in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the attack. The company, which had long-ago foregone the project, agrees to publish the work if Goldstein could deliver it in one volume. Goldstein and Prange’s assistant Katherine Dillon begin the monumental task of editing Prange’s 12,000 page manuscript to a manageable 800 pages. They do this by retyping, and by cutting and pasting by hand – the personal computer would not be introduced for two more years.

May 15, 1980 Gordon W. Prange dies. He is survived by his wife and two children.

November 1981 At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor is released by McGraw-Hill, 36 years after Prange begins work on the project. The book sells more than 1 million copies, spends nearly a year on The New York Times best-seller list and is hailed as the definitive work on the attack. The book is lauded for its detail presented in clear, easy to understand language and Prange’s careful footnoting of his facts.

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For more information contact

Laurel Goodrick

Maryland Public Television

Tel. (410) 581-4076

E-mail:

September 3, 2002