Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Hardcover)

by Jonathan Parshall (Author), Anthony Tully (Author) "The Inland Sea of Japan was still veiled in darkness when the anchorage at Hashirajima began to awaken..." (more)
Key Phrases: upper hangar deck, carrier attack aircraft, reserve strike force, Combined Fleet, Imperial Navy, Pearl Harbor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Extensively researched, soundly reasoned, and engagingly and colorfully written..." -- Robert J. Cressman, editor and principal author of "A Glorious Page in Our History: The Battle of Midway"

"To really know about the Battle of Midway, you must read this book." -- John B. Lundstrom, author of "The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway"

"At last, the Japanese side of the Battle of Midway has been limned in English with accuracy, lucidity, authority, and objectivity. The authors' specialized knowledge of the tactics and technologies of Japanese naval air power, their careful reading of surviving Japanese air unit records, and their appreciation of the larger meaning of the battle combine to give us a combat narrative and analysis that superbly balance expert detail and grand historical import. I suspect it of being a classic." --Mark R. Peattie, author of Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 and Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941

"The best naval history book of 2005." --The Naval Review

"Why would anyone who has read Walter Lord, Gordon Prange, and Mitsuo Fuchida on this subject think that anything more is to be said, especially by a couple of relatively unknown writers? The short answer is, simply, get this book. Parshall and Tully have pulled off what every author/historian aspires to do: take the body of literature on a chosen topic to a level of insight and understanding not formerly attained or perhaps even imagined.... Shattered Sword can justifiably be labeled a groundbreaker, a landmark work that belongs at eye-level center in any naval historian's bookcase." -- Naval History

Review
"To really know about the Battle of Midway, you must read this book."

"A lot has been written about Midway since 1945. Yet everyone who thinks that they know the last word about this momentous event must examine Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully's book on the subject. Shattered Sword, packed with new information, will certainly become the definitive volume on the most important naval battle of World War II."

"This meticulously researched and thoroughly documented study is an essential corrective. It is essential reading for anyone interested in carrier aviation, past, present, or future. Although imposing in scale, Shattered Sword is a bargain, and a highly engaging read. Every page seems to throw up a new perspective - from the pathetically low Japanese aircraft production figures, to the political infighting both within the Naval High Command and between the services. The best naval history book of 2005."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc. (December 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574889230
• ISBN-13: 978-1574889239
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (123 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #85,559 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

293 of 297 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway, November 14, 2005

By	R. W. Russell "midway42.org" (Lodi, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

. Don't be misled by the title, this is not just another telling of the entire Battle of Midway story. Instead it's an exhaustively detailed new account of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) at Midway, accomplished with a depth of research and analysis not previously seen. The book is crammed with a dazzling set of graphics, including brilliant computer-generated charts and diagrams that very signficantly aid the text.
. Of course, anyone attempting to rewrite the history of the IJN at Midway needs to convince potential readers that the new book offers something signficant over the time-honored resource for that subject, Fuchida and Okumiya's "Midway, the Battle That Doomed Japan." The authors of "Shattered Sword" not only accepted that challenge, but they convincingly demonstrate that Fuchida was very loose with certain key facts in his Midway book, done in order to serve personal aims that didn't necessarily require telling the truth. The result has been a number of deeply-entrenched myths that permeate the popular history of the battle. "Shattered Sword" ably exposes those myths and convincingly demonstrates in each case what really happened and why.
. This reviewer frequently has occasion to recommend references on the Battle of Midway to students and others beginning a study of that epic clash. In such cases I always recommnend Robert Cressman's "A Glorious Page In Our History" as the best overall account of the battle. I now need to add "Shattered Sword" to the short list of works that those doing serious research on Midway really must have. In particular, anyone who has read Fuchida's "Midway" and puts significant stock in it really ought to read "Shattered Sword" to learn what the earlier work either omitted or got quite wrong.

194 of 199 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking history, November 15, 2005

By	Barrett Tillman (Mesa, AZ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Very few histories can be considered groundbreaking treatments of an event more than 60 years afterward, but "Shattered Sword" meets that exceptional standard. As the authors conclusively prove, much of what has been written about the most important naval battle of the 20th century was incomplete, inaccurate, or simply fabricated. No future account of Midway will be worthwhile without reference to "Shattered Sword".

Parshall and Tully delve far beyond their unmatched mastery of the technical aspects (some more detailed than accounts of US Navy operations!) to explain why Japan lost the battle. The reasons are many and varied, extending from procedural, operational, and strategic concerns to the very culture that produced the Imperial Navy. In the process, the authors not only provide rare clarity to their analysis, but they raise the bar for naval histories of the Second World War. Readers yet unborn will be grateful to them. I know that I am.

Barrett Tillman, "Clash of the Carriers"

110 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A modern perspective on America's greatest naval battle, March 16, 2006

By	Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This piece is essentially a modern analysis of the causes of the Japanese defeat in the great Battle of Midway. It is more an analysis of Japanese defeat than American victory which, while fascinating, only tells part of the story of the greatest naval battle in American history, and one of the great battles of all time.

The main thrust of this work is to refute the common wisdom that a major cause of the Japanese defeat was that American dive bombers hit three Japanese aircraft carriers while these vessels were in the process of loading bombs onto their own dive bombers and torpedo planes on their flight decks. Here, the authors are persuasive. They give detailed accounts which convince the reader that Japanese doctrine would have had the planes being refit below decks. Further, the authors claim with convincing evidence that the incessant American attacks throughout the morning kept the Japanese fleet largely on the defensive, as it tried to augment its Combat Air Patrol with additional launchings of fighter aircraft. This is a new perspective on the battle, and this appears to be the major finding of this book.

Beyond these tactical considerations, the authors further argue that Japan lost the battle for other more strategic reasons. The authors argue that Yamamoto's Midway strategy lost sight of the principles of Mass and Objective. The principle of Massing of Forces (Mass) was violated as the Japanese dropped one aircraft carrier from the battle due to moderate damage that it suffered at the Battle of Coral Sea (first) and, even more importantly, diverted one carrier group to support a simultaneous sideshow in the Aleutians, which diverted a considerable number of planes from the main battle which was to take place at Midway. These planes could have been decisive in the great battle that was to occur. Further, the Japanese lost sight of the principle of the Objective--were they there to defeat the American fleet or invade Midway and the Aleutians, or both? The Japanese strategy was a hodgepodge of conflicting objectives, and indeed the conflict as to whether they should strike Midway or turn to engage the American fleet that seemed to lurk on their flank plagued the Japanese fleet at a decisive moment.

By contrast, the Americans, as the authors point out, "moved heaven and earth" to put the Yorktown back into the battle, after that carrier was heavily damaged after the Coral Sea battle. So badly damaged was Yorktown that the Japanese never dreamed that the US Navy could produce her at the Midway showdown. As the authors put it, the US Navy simply "wanted the win" more desperately than did the Japanese. The Japanese, argue the authors, where overconfident after years of victories over both Asian and Western adversaries, and had contempt for their American foe.

I found the authors' arguments largely persuasive, but also incomplete. This book is told almost entirely from the Japanese perspective in that it focuses mainly on what the Japanese did wrong. It tells the reader much less about what the US Navy did right. The American victory at Midway largely turned on the decisions of one man, the great Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance. Spruances' decision to launch early, at long range, to get in the first blows against the Japanese was decisive, especially if we apply and accept the authors' analysis. Even though, at this early stage of the war, the American torpedo bombers were not very competent (none of them struck Japanese targets and they were slaughtered by Japanese fighers) and the launchings of the coordinated attacks did not come off well, this early strike that Spruance ordered kept the Japanese on the defensive after the first Japanese strike against Midway. This set the stage for the deadly-competent American dive bombers to strike. This is the very point that the authors make, but this was not due to Japanese incompetence, but rather to a carefully thought-out strategy by Admiral Spruance. Spruance then wisely protected the fleet, avoided exposing it, and kept it in position to protect Midway if necessary. He came in for savage insider's criticism even during the battle as well as thereafter. This criticism was incorrect, as history has judged. Unlike the Japanese, Spruance never forgot his objective (protect the fleet, defend Midway), and always applied the principal of Mass as he struck a lethal blow at the heart of the Japanese Navy with everything he had. While the American Navy at the Battle of Midway had not yet shook off all of the peacetime inertia, it executed its well thought-out doctrine against the Japanese under Spruance's leadership, and won a great victory. Victory was won by the US Navy at Midway, not lost by the Japanese.

"Shattered Sword" is an excellent analysis of the Battle of Midway which all readers with an interest in this great battle will want to read. Its main strength is its analysis of the Japanese side and its command of detail in this regard. Recommended