NONFICTION REVIEW: "Pearl Harbor Christmas"

Acclaimed historian Stanley Weintraub has developed a niche. In "Silent Night," he wrote about Christmas in the trenches of World War I. In "11 Days in December," he described the horrific Christmas of 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge. Now Weintraub looks at Christmas 1941, just weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor forced the United States into the war. The narrative here takes a global focus, as Weintraub skillfully chronicles a nightmarish Christmas in Southeast Asia, especially for U.S. forces in the Philippines, and on the Russian front as German soldiers get bogged down in winter.

Weintraub excels at illuminating larger-than-life characters like Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Winston Churchill. For example, he takes us inside Prime Minister Churchill's December visit to the White House. In one awkward moment, President Roosevelt enters the bathroom while the Prime Minister is naked after a shower. Never at a loss for words, Churchill responded, "You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to conceal from you." Weintraub emphasizes Churchill's joyous relief at having the United States, and its industrial power, enter the war.

Yet the war was going disastrously for U.S. forces in the South Pacific under MacArthur. Weintraub makes it clear that MacArthur worked as hard to protect his own reputation as he did his men's lives, describing how the vainglorious, pipe-smoking general used public relations to fool the American public into thinking he was fighting the Japanese rather than retreating: "MacArthur's self-composed communiqués suggested stiff resistance and tank encounters that were only imaginative."

With U.S. forces in full retreat, MacArthur even took time to manage his investment portfolio, asking the acting president of the Philippines (soon to be imprisoned by the Japanese) to buy shares in a gold mine for him.

Weintraub also paints a portrait of a crazed Adolf Hitler, berating his generals for failing to advance on the Russian front. Hitler refused to accept bad news, choosing to fire generals who carried it. The German army, writes Weintraub, "was being mauled by bitter weather as well as the seemingly endless reserves of the Red Army, while German supply lines were overstretched and attacked, and Hitler in his dream world ... refused appeals to fall back to more defensible" positions. The author shows that German generals feared not only the Red Army but also Hitler's epic temper tantrums.

Throughout, Weintraub juxtaposes the bad news of war with the spirit of joy brought by Christmas. As Roosevelt and Churchill together light the White House Christmas tree, Churchill speaks to the world by radio: "For one night only, each home ... should be a brightly lighted island of happiness and peace." Christmas 1941 may have been the most difficult in American history, but Weintraub describes it masterfully.

Chuck Leddy is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in Boston.