This book review was previously published by me on December 7, 2013 in the Tucsoncitizen.com (which was shut down on January 31, 2014 so that review is no longer online).
“Wounded Tiger” is a complex and compelling, first “non-fiction novel” by Tucsonan T. Martin Bennett, about the Japanese pilot Commander Mitsuo Fuchida who led the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and survived WWII. He is the “wounded tiger” of the title, being born in the Year of the Tiger (per Asian zodiac calendar) but is not wounded physically but spiritually from Japan’s defeat.
This well-written, gripping novel is about three separate but parallel true stories that take place during WWII, which finally intersect at the end, into a powerful message of love. The first true story is obviously about Fuchida’s rise to power as a pilot in Japan’s Imperial Navy.
The second true story is about an American husband/wife team of Baptist missionary teachers Jimmy & Charma Covell who live in Japan for 20 years, raising their 3 children Peggy, David, and Alice to appreciate Japanese culture. They flee to the Philippines before WWII begins, but are there on the island of Panay when Japan invades & occupies that country.
The third true story is about Jake DeShazer, a young man from Oregon who becomes a Sgt. and bombadier in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII. Jake’s first mission is with Lt. Jimmy Doolittle’s B- 25 team (“Doolittle’s Raiders”) which flies to Japan and bombs Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya in April, 1942. Eight of them are captured by the Japanese and Jake spends the rest of the war as a P.O.W. being tortured and almost dies in captivity.
