Gordon W. Prange

After leaving Japan in 1951, he returned to his old job as a professor of history at the University of Maryland. He would pass away in Baltimore on May 15, 1980, a victim of cancer, at the age of 69.

His manuscript of "Tora! Tora! Tora" became one of the source materials (the other being Ladislas Farago's "The Broken Seal") for the motion picture "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970) produced by 20th Century Fox. He was hired as a writer and consultant on that film. The manuscript had been published in Japan and became a bestseller. In the United States, it had been published only in an abridged version by The Reader's Digest.

After leaving General MacArthur's staff in 1951, he was regarded as a respected authority on MacArthur's career, the Pacific campaigns of World War II and the military occupation of Japan.

In late 1945, after the Japanese surrender, he asked to be sent to Japan where he would work for the next six years.

He entered the Navy in 1942. By 1945, General Douglas MacArthur appointed him Chief Historian on his staff.

He earned his doctorate in 1937 and married Anne Root, a professor's daughter, the same year. They remained married until 1980 when he succumbed to cancer.

As part of his doctoral program, he studied at the University of Berlin from 1935 to 1936. It was reported that he said that he saw "Hitler operate firsthand and heard him speak a number of times.".

He enrolled at the University of Iowa where is majored in Physical Education with the intention of being a coach. He was a two year letterman in baseball. He switched his major to history for his bachelor's degree. He went on to earn his master's degree in 1934 and finally his doctorate in 1937.