Gordon William Prange (; July 16, 1910 – May 15, 1980) was the author of several World War II historical manuscripts which were published by his co-workers after his death in 1980. Prange was a professor of history at the University of Maryland from 1937 to 1980 with a break of nine years (1942–1951) of military service in the United States Navy during World War II, and in the postwar military occupation of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, when he was the Chief Historian in General

Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...

's staff. It was during this time that Prange collected material from and interviewed many Japanese military officers, enlisted men, and civilians, with the information later being used in the writing of his books. Several became '' New York Times'' bestsellers, including ''At Dawn We Slept, The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor'' and '' Miracle at Midway''. Prange's 1963 ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'', published in the November and December issues of '' Reader's Digest'', and later expanded into ''At Dawn We Slept'', portrayed the attack on Pearl Harbor, and is credited as the basis for the screenplay of the film ''

Tora! Tora! Tora! ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' ( ja, トラ・トラ・トラ！) is a 1970 epic film, epic war film that dramatizes the Empire of Japan, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The film was produced by Elmo Williams and directed by Richard Fleischer, T ...

'', which was produced in 1970, while Prange took a leave of absence from the University of Maryland to serve as the technical consultant during its filming. His extensive research into the attack on Pearl Harbor was the subject of a

Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

television program in 2000, ''Prange and Pearl Harbor: A Magnificent Obsession'', and was acclaimed "a definitive book on the event" by '' The Washington Post''. Prange was a popular lecturer at the University of Maryland. The ''Terrapin'', the university's yearbook, said of his World War I and World War II history classes: "Students flock to his class and sit enraptured as he animates the pages of twentieth century European history through his goosesteps, 'Sieg Heils', 'Achtungs', machine gun retorts and frantic gestures".

Personal life

Gordon William Prange was born on July 16, 1910, in

Pomeroy, Iowa Pomeroy is a city in Calhoun County, Iowa, United States. The population was 526 at the time of the 2020 census. History Pomeroy was platted in 1870 in anticipation of the railroad being built through the settlement. It was named for Charles P ...

. His parents were Al, a blacksmith and his wife Johanna. He had one older brother Russell. He attended Pomeroy High School, where he excelled in baseball and track athletics. He was also known as the class clown. He graduated from Pomeroy in 1928 and enrolled at the University of Iowa intending to become a coach, but switched to history. He obtained his bachelor's degree, his master's degree in 1934, and doctorate in 1937. He studied at the University of Berlin in 1935 to 1936, during which he said: "I saw Hitler operate firsthand and heard him speak a number of times."

Family

In 1937 he married Anne Root, a professor's daughter from

Iowa City Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

. They had two daughters and a son. They moved to Maryland, where Prange took employment as a history instructor at the University of Maryland.

Death

Prange died on May 15, 1980, in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

, from cancer, aged 69. 'Prange Park' in Pomeroy is named after him.

Selected bibliography

* Gordon W. Prange (1963), ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'', in ''Reader's Digest'', November and December issues. All below by Gordon W. Prange, with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon: *''At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor'' (1981), *''Miracle at Midway'' (1982), *''Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring'' (1984), in which the authors detail the undercover operations of the spy ring headed by Richard Sorge and Hotsumi Ozaki that conveyed highly-secret information from Tokyo to the Soviet Union between 1933 and 1941 *''Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History'' (1986), *''December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor'' (1988), *''God's Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor'' (1990),

References

External links

The Gordon W. Prange Collection
at the University of Maryland
Prange, Gordon W.Gordon W. Prange papers
at the

University of Maryland libraries The University of Maryland Libraries is the largest university library in the Washington, D.C. - Baltimore area. The university's library system includes eight libraries: six are located on the College Park campus, while the Severn Library, an of ...