Just how fortunate the United States was in winning the closely contested navy engagement at Midway in the central Pacific in mid 1942 is evident to any reader of this very well documented and quite balanced account of one of the largest and most famous exchanges between the US navy and their Japanese counterparts during the course of World War Two. By using extensive inputs from both Japanese and American participants and observers of the sea battle, the authors thread together a memorable and engaging narrative of the events leading up to and involving both sides during the summer months of that fateful year. It was one for the record books, and one that demonstrated conclusively that the rules of war at sea had changed forever from one dominated by capital ships like battleships and cruisers to one dominated by aircraft carriers and attack airplanes.
In the devastating aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the American Navy was looking for an opportunity to engage the Japanese in a "mano-a-mano" confrontation, hoping to even the odds and shorten the war by using what we felt would be surprise and tactics to overcome the numerical advantage the Japanese enjoyed in numbers of both ships (especially in terms of aircraft carriers) and launchable aircraft. Even though the Japanese had blundered badly at the battle of the Coral Sea, they left the scene believing the fracas had been won, and that they had further damaged the American fleet by sinking three carriers. And though the U.S. Navy did in fact limp away having lost some of its few carriers either through sinking or damage, in actuality they had inflicted more damage than they had incurred. Furthermore, soon one of the badly damaged U. S. Navy carriers (the Yorktown) would be repaired and ready to sail in support of the Midway engagement.
Also, by cracking certain aspects of the Japanese Navy's wireless communication codes, the Americans were able to determine not only what the Japanese were ostensibly planning in terms of a strategy to take Midway, but also what the specific positioning and disposition of the various aspects of the Japanese naval force would be. Obviously, this information added to the element of surprise gave the Americans a huge tactical advantage, and made victory much more possible. Yet it did not guarantee anything. It was the tactical brilliance and contemporaneous innovation of the on-site commanders in the American force that won the day. In a series of engagements that did not change the course of the battle until the last few remaining waves of American aircraft suddenly sank or damaged the majority of the Japanese carriers, the Americans succeeded both through their own daring and a few fatal tactical errors on the part of the Japanese commanders.
The results were devastating for the Japanese, who never again could muster the kind of raw carrier power, or just as importantly, ever replace the huge number of experienced carrier-based aircraft pilots needed to successfully engage and threaten the expanding American task forces that within another 12 to 18 months would virtually transform the character of the war in the Pacific, leading the Japanese into waging an almost suicidal war of attrition which they had no chance to win. This is a well-written, well-documented, and entertaining book that helps the reader to understand just how critical to both the Americans and the Japanese the fateful naval engagement at Midway was, and how the results determined the course of the rest of the war in the Pacific. Enjoy!
