In Wounded Tiger, author T. Martin Bennett casts real-life figures from the World War II era in a multilayered nonfiction novel. Readers will be struck by the novel’s historical accuracy and immediately intrigued by the primary character: Mitsuo Fuchida, a Japanese captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. Before becoming fascinated by Fuchida’s story, Bennett, like many, had primarily viewed the war through an American lens.
“Although I know a good bit about World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters, I’d never heard any details about the pilot who led the Pearl Harbor attack,” Bennett says. “As I read, I realized that this was one of the greatest undiscovered stories of the entire war and, perhaps, the greatest story I’d ever come across.” It was a story he felt determined to share with the world.
Bennett’s research for the book included poring over thousands of pages of primary and secondary sources, speaking with foremost authorities on the Pacific War, and traveling to Japan. In the process of learning more about Fuchida, Bennett came across additional World War II–era figures whom he felt belonged in his story, including Jacob DeShazer, an American who bombed Japan in the Doolittle Raid, and members of the Covell family, teachers and missionaries living in Japan who later escaped to the Philippines.
Bennett individually develops each of the primary characters before revealing to readers how their lives intersect. As Bennett tells it, in 1947, Fuchida was preparing to testify at a war crimes trial in Tokyo. At the time, Fuchida had little faith in the human potential for empathy. But, prior to the trial, Fuchida bumped into friend and sailor Kazuo Kanegasaki, who told Fuchida about meeting the caring missionary Peggy Covell while being held as a prisoner of war. After hearing the story, Fuchida began to think differently about the potential for human kindness. After being ordered to testify a second time, in 1948, Fuchida came across a pamphlet written by DeShazer called “I Was a Prisoner in Japan,” in which he describes how he persevered through his experience via the teachings of the Bible. Fuchida and DeShazer, once on opposing sides of the war, would end up meeting and becoming close friends.
These stories are inspiring and compelling on their own, but together they weave into one powerful cord, multiplying the impact and interest of this character-driven epic story,” Bennett says. Supporting the nonfiction elements of the narrative are hundreds of archival photographs, letters, maps, and other images—some never before published—that vividly capture the zeitgeist of the era and allow the main characters to come alive on the page.
Growing up, Bennett always considered himself a storyteller, but he found the idea of spending hours behind a keyboard off-putting. “What did excite me, and always has, were true stories, whether in the pages of a book or on the big screen of a theater,” he says. In fact, Bennett initially wrote Wounded Tiger as a screenplay. But he later decided to write a narrative that marries the dramatic development of a novel with the factual content of a nonfiction work. “I went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the historicity and accuracy of the characters, events, and stories, allowing historians to vet the content,” Bennett says.
The result of Bennett’s in-depth research and storytelling prowess is a novel that anchors readers in history. It also speaks to the power of finding a common humanity amid chaos and discord. “In a world that longs for hope, Wounded Tiger is a demonstration of both the destructive force of selfish ambition and hatred and the power of self-denial and love,” Bennett says. “Ultimately, Wounded Tiger is an authentic story of hope for all.”
