Roger Burk's Reviews > Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway

This is indeed the untold story: it is entirely from the Japanese point of view. The authors have made a new and thorough analysis of the Japanese sources, rejecting some that were translated early and set American understanding of the battle. Americans interested in the Battle of Midway will find many new details and insights here, and it is well enough written to be pleasurable to read.

However, the authors claim too much. They think they have completely overturned our understanding of the battle, but they have not. They have added interesting and important detail. For instance, the Japanese counterstrike was not spotted on deck and about to take off when the American dive bombers arrived and destroyed them and their carriers. They were fueled and armed on the hanger deck below, and that's where they were destoyed; the flight decks had to be clear for the constant cycling of the combat air patrol fighters that were defending the fleet. Okay, noted, but that doesn't change the overall course of the battle. The authors don't want us to call the battle "miraculous"--the forces engaged were actually about evenly matched: 4 Japanese carriers vs. 3 American carriers plus aircraft based on Midway, and the Americans had the advantage of surprise. But this is curmudgeonly quibbling. It was a smashing American victory that came after defeat after defeat, against what the authors call "the finest carrier force in the world" that had "performed brilliantly" up to that day. Surely that's miracle enough, even if we in hindsight can trace its causes. The authors don't want us to call the battle "decisive" because the Japanese would have lost the war even if they had won at Midway, once the American industrial capacity got mobilized and produced fleet carrieres by the dozen. Well, maybe, but the counterattack would have to be based in California and cross the entire Pacific. A victory at Midway would have given Japan a fighting chance at exhausting America and getting a negotiated victory that left their empire intact.

The conventional wisdom is that the Americans won because they broke the Japanese code and were able to surprise the Japanese. This book concentrates on the reasons the Japanese lost. Foremost was folly born of overconfidence. We've known this since the war, but now we have new detail. The simultaneous attack on the Aleutians was not a feint to draw out the American fleet, as has often been said--it was a parallel economy-of-force operation to forestall an American advance from that direction. It was also an ill-conceived division of forces before a decisive battle, as was also the New Guinea operation that led to two Japanese carriers being badly damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea a month before Midway. The Japanese did not believe in America's willingness to fight, even after American air raids on Rabaul (Feb), Guam (Mar), New Guinea (Mar), and Tokyo (Apr), and Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese reconnaissance the morning of the battle was inadequate to cover the necessary area, and by chance it missed the American fleet until too late. Even when their attack on the island found the defenders well-prepared and full of fight, the Japanese were slow to realize that the Americans expected them and that the risk of an attack was grave.

One new tidbit worth knowing: the repeated air strikes on the Japanese fleet from Midway, which failed to hit a single ship and suffered some severe losses, were not in vain. The need to keep the combat air patrol fighters up occupied the flight decks and kept the Japanese from spotting their attack planes and getting off a strike until it was too late.