Shattered Sword Dispels Myths About the Battle of Midway
By DAVID W. MUNNS, Assistant Editor
SHATTERED SWORD: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, Inc., Nov. 2005.
640 pp. $35.00.
ISBN: 1-57488-923-0
Had the Japanese Navy accomplished its objective during the Battle of Midway, the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet would have been essentially destroyed, likely providing for a different outcome to World War II.
Instead, four Japanese carriers were destroyed during the epic June 4-7, 1942, battle and future plans of the Japanese Navy to dominate the northern Pacific Rim were thwarted. Many historians tout this battle as one that changed the course of history. Shattered Storm: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway also tells this story.
Authors Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, consultants to a 1999 mission to the Midway battle site that was sponsored in part by the U.S. Navy Oceanographic Office, hold true on their promise to relate the untold. The authors add novel new elements to the voluminous history of Midway by revealing both American and Japanese perspectives with a confluence of new research that reveals much about the strategy, execution and talent that went into the battle, and evidences the drama of the combat, the importance of victory and incredible adeptness of the American forces.
During their mission to the Midway battle site, the authors were struck by the lack of research that went into Japanese primary and secondary sources in other historical accounts of this battle. After careful scrutiny, they determined that some histories were incomplete, and, by their account, incorrect. The authors claim to re-evaluate some prevailing myths about the battle, and credibly succeed in provoking thought for the reader.
What they reveal is that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, considered Japan’s most esteemed naval tactician, did not, in fact, withhold intelligence information from Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, executor of Pearl Harbor and operational commander of the Japanese naval carrier striking force, causing Nagumo to lose the battle.
Nagumo also was not “in the dark” about the threat facing him at Midway, the authors write, nor were the Japanese remiss in attempting a reconnaissance search on the morning of June 4 to locate the American fleet in time to win the battle.
Parshall and Tully learned that while individual logs of Japanese vessels were, indeed, destroyed during the battle, many carrier aviator logs still survive, and they lend more than just names and faces, but also the hour-by-hour records that show exactly what the aviators were doing during the battle. To this, the authors apply a studied understanding of carrier doctrine — particularly Japanese air group doctrine — to analyze “why the Japanese operated as they did.”
The book explains how the Japanese failed, by Japan’s own account, and that the myth of an American triumph against “overwhelming odds” is a discredit to the tremendous strength of the U.S. Navy in 1942.
Also Received:
THE DUTCH NAVAL AIR FORCE CAMPAIGN AGAINST JAPAN: The Defense of the Netherlands East Indies, 1941-1942
by Tom Womack, Jefferson, Va.: McFarland and Co. Inc., 2006.
217 pp. $35.00.
ISBN: 0-7864-2365-X
The Dutch Naval Air Force was a largely unknown ally of the United States during World War II. Spawned by the attack at Pearl Harbor, the new theater of war in the Pacific also conveyed a new threat for the then-Netherlands East Indies.
With 175 aircraft, the Dutch Naval Air Force, also known as the Marine Luchtvaart Dienst, outnumbered American and British naval air reconnaissance forces combined.
However, in just three months of fighting, the Dutch lost approximately 140 aircraft and thousands of their personnel following the Japanese invasion.
This book covers the importance the Dutch Naval Air Force lent to Allied efforts during the war. Beginning with a brief history of the Dutch force, the book also looks at the methodology of its operations.
Seapower does not review works of fiction or self-published books.
