There are few moments in military history in which the course of events
tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At
dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By
sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk by
American planes. Though the Second World War had three more years to
run, the Imperial Japanese Navy would never again initiate a strategic
offensive.
In this spellbinding account of a key turning point, one of America's
leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds, paints a portrait of
ingenuity, courage, sacrifice, and chance. Symonds begins with the
arrival of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after the
devastating Japanese attack, and describes the events leading to the
climactic battle, including both Coral Sea--the first in history
involving opposing carrier forces--and Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid of
Tokyo. He focuses throughout on the people involved, offering telling
portraits of Admirals Nimitz, King, Halsey, and Spruance as well as the
leading Japanese figures, including the poker-enthusiast Admiral
Yamamoto Isoroku and Admiral Nagumo Chuichi. Indeed, Symonds illuminates
the aspects of Japanese culture--such as their single-minded devotion to
combat, which led to poorly armored planes and inadequate fire-safety
measures on their ships--that contributed to their defeat.
Symonds' account of the battle itself is deft and exhaustive, weaving
together the many disparate threads of attack--attacks that failed in
the early going--that ultimately created a five-minute window in which
three of the four Japanese carriers were mortally wounded, changing the
course of the Pacific war in an eye-blink.
The American victory at Midway was both less incredible and miraculous
than it has sometimes been portrayed. It was, instead, the result of a
web of contingencies and decisions than can be traced back to their
origins and reconnected. As Symonds' book brilliantly demonstrates,
doing so detracts nothing from the battle's significance and drama, nor
loosens its enduring hold on our imaginations.
