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Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling , Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida’s , an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle.
Parshall and Tully examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading World War II naval historian John Lundstrom, is an indispensable part of any military buff’s library.
is the winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and was cited by as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.
Parshall and Tully examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading World War II naval historian John Lundstrom, is an indispensable part of any military buff’s library.
is the winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and was cited by as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.
612 pages, Hardcover
First published November 8, 2005
About the author
Jonathan Parshall
2 books30 followersA graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Jonathan Parshall is an adjunct lecturer for the U.S. Naval War College and a frequent speaker at the National WWII Museum and other venues.
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December 15, 2023
“The conditions in [the Japanese aircraft carrier] Kaga’s hangars immediately after the bombing were horrific beyond description. Bodies and pieces of bodies of Kaga’s armorers and mechanics lay strewn everywhere among the wreckage of her aircraft. In the open air, a 1,000-pound general purpose bomb has a 50 percent chance of killing anyone standing within a thirty-foot radius of the blast center. Inside the confines of the hangar deck, these lethal effects were greatly magnified…Mechanics, plane handlers, and armorers alike were slaughtered by the score – blown apart, immolated, crushed under the aircraft they had been servicing, or mown down by shrapnel as they crouched on the bare metal deck, seeking shelter where there was none…”
- Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
The people I love most are those with a passion for something. God bless the nerds, geeks, and fanatics of the world, whoever you are, and whatever it is that you are doing when you should be mowing the back yard. I have little patience for people spouting their half-informed opinions about politics or sports, but I have infinite patience for the guy at work who wants to fill me in on his cover band. It’s worth the listen, just to see a person really come alive.
Passion is easy to mock, especially in an era when everyone is an ironist. At the same time, because of the internet, it’s never been easier to let your flag fly, whatever it is. Cheers to those connoisseurs of Star Wars fan fiction, who can tell you the names of all Han and Leia’s children. Kudos to the home brewers, who put a lot of money and effort into making a bottle of beer that costs five times what a normal beers costs, and will probably cause blindness. Huzza to the amateur novelist, the after-dinner poet, and the cell-phone camera auteur. I don’t care if your hobby is model ships or carving limestone rocks into chess pieces while you plot your escape from Shawshank Prison. In either event, I salute you.
I’m guessing that the authors of Shattered Sword, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, have the kind of passion I’m talking about. I like to think that on Thanksgiving Day, while everyone else is talking about yams or the Detroit Lions, Jon and Tony are regaling their kinsmen with exacting critiques of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto’s decision to disperse his forces. I make this assumption based on the author bios (Parshall works for a software company, Tully does information technology), my unfamiliarity with the publisher (Potomac Books), and the vast number of appendices chock with information that can only be described at gratuitous (I gave up when I came to the appendix on Japanese airplane tail codes. Hey, I only got so much brain space, and a lot of that is taken up with six years of worthless Lost mythology. Update: I have added eight years worth of useless Game of Thrones mythology).
Clearly, this book is a labor of love, to the extent that one can “love” the Japanese Imperial Navy.
Shattered Sword takes as its subject the 1942 naval battle of Midway between the navies of Japan and the United States. As Wellington said of Waterloo, it was a near run thing. A strike force of four Japanese aircraft carriers, led by Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, was ambushed by two American task forces – totaling three carriers – led by Admirals Frank Fletcher and Raymond Spruance. In the resulting fight, all four Japanese carriers were sunk, at the loss of a sole American carrier. The authors argue convincingly that Midway was not a decisive battle, since America would likely have prevailed in the Pacific even if it lost, but it did mark a turning point: from Midway on, the balance of power belonged to the United States.
When you read a lot of books, you start to realize that the only people who lie more than politicians are the people who invent subtitles. The subtitle of Shattered Sword is The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. By untold, the authors really mean the Japanese side of the story. Frankly, I disagree with the assessment that the Japanese side has been heretofore hidden. Gordon Prange’s Miracle at Midway was – like his works on Pearl Harbor – exceptionally balanced and made extensive use of Japanese sources. The unique thing about Shattered Sword is that it’s told only from the Japanese perspective. The movements of the American forces and the intentions of the American commanders are mostly ignored. This will lead to some confusion unless you already have a bit of an idea of what is going on.
Parshall and Tully are both fans of the Imperial Fleet, and they are here to share that with you. They get deep into this subject, and if you decide to pick up this hefty book, you will learn more than you ever dreamed about Japanese carrier construction, carrier doctrine, search-plane scout-patterns, force distributions, and strike rosters. The strict Japanese point of view is not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed, perhaps teaches a valuable lesson that not every story has to be filtered through American eyes. At the same time, you learn literally (well, almost literally) nothing about what the Americans are up to during the battle. Accordingly, this should not be the first book you read about Midway (and I’m guessing if you’ve taken the time to read this far in the review, you’re probably in that rare group of people who’ve read multiple works on Midway). If I had to make a suggestion, I would say that Prange’s Miracle at Midway and Walter Lord’s Incredible Victory are prerequisites to Shattered Sword, if only because Parshall and Tully have many polite critiques about those seminal volumes. (Update: Add Craig Symonds’s The Battle of Midway to that list).
The problem with a lot of passion-projects is that often passion outstrips talent. That is not a problem with Shattered Sword. The writing is clear, conversational, and peppered with nerdy wit. The authors are obviously writing towards a certain audience, yet they seldom fail to stop and explain the concepts that they are bandying about. They have also included a huge number of charts, maps, graphs, and pictures to help make sense of a fairly complicated battle fought over hundreds of square miles of open ocean.
The one writing tic I found annoying was the authors’ use of unfamiliar Japanese terms. For example, an air group section of three planes is called a shōtai. In most books, you might see the author initially note the Japanese word, but continue to use the English translation. Here, the authors decide to do just the opposite. They translate the word once, and then use the Japanese word for the rest of the book. In other words, you best remember what shōtai means.
For some words, this wasn’t a problem. I could recall, for example, that Kidō Butai meant strike force. However, when you get to the battle narrative, and you’re trying to follow the action, it becomes increasingly disruptive to have to flip to the glossary in back to figure out the difference between a hikōchō (carrier air officer) and a hikōtaichō (commander of the carrier group).
Another minor problem I had was with the narrative distance taken by the authors. For all their many criticisms of Walter Lord and Gordon Prange, Parshall and Tully don’t come near to scaling the dramatic heights of Incredible Victory and Miracle at Midway. Lord and Prange brought you into the battle in vivid, visceral ways. They never let you forget that there were men in those diving planes and burning ships. Parshall and Tully have a bit too much of the armchair general in them. They are more intrigued by the art and theory of war than the actual clash of arms. As a result, you will read a lot more about the Japanese destroyer Chikuma’s No. 1 scout plane’s shoddy search grid than you will about the slaughter of the USS Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron 8.
Shattered Sword sets out to revise the way we view the battle of Midway. And I suppose the authors have succeeded. I didn’t read anything that caused me to fall out of my chair, throw my computer out the window, or scream at my wife to get in the panic room; however, the authors did add a lot of nuance, shading, and reinterpretation to the accepted narrative. I suppose if your passion for Midway rises to the level of Parshall and Tully, you will be gratified that the record has been changed. If you, like me, have allowed your subscription to the US Naval War College Review to lapse, you can still learn a thing or two. (Especially about the importance of good damage control systems!)
For me, though, the best part about Shattered Sword is the way two committed hobbyists managed to create a book that has become a standard reference on the battle of Midway.
The second best part may be the fact that Parshall named his cats after the Japanese carriers Hiryū and Sōryū.
- Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
The people I love most are those with a passion for something. God bless the nerds, geeks, and fanatics of the world, whoever you are, and whatever it is that you are doing when you should be mowing the back yard. I have little patience for people spouting their half-informed opinions about politics or sports, but I have infinite patience for the guy at work who wants to fill me in on his cover band. It’s worth the listen, just to see a person really come alive.
Passion is easy to mock, especially in an era when everyone is an ironist. At the same time, because of the internet, it’s never been easier to let your flag fly, whatever it is. Cheers to those connoisseurs of Star Wars fan fiction, who can tell you the names of all Han and Leia’s children. Kudos to the home brewers, who put a lot of money and effort into making a bottle of beer that costs five times what a normal beers costs, and will probably cause blindness. Huzza to the amateur novelist, the after-dinner poet, and the cell-phone camera auteur. I don’t care if your hobby is model ships or carving limestone rocks into chess pieces while you plot your escape from Shawshank Prison. In either event, I salute you.
I’m guessing that the authors of Shattered Sword, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, have the kind of passion I’m talking about. I like to think that on Thanksgiving Day, while everyone else is talking about yams or the Detroit Lions, Jon and Tony are regaling their kinsmen with exacting critiques of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto’s decision to disperse his forces. I make this assumption based on the author bios (Parshall works for a software company, Tully does information technology), my unfamiliarity with the publisher (Potomac Books), and the vast number of appendices chock with information that can only be described at gratuitous (I gave up when I came to the appendix on Japanese airplane tail codes. Hey, I only got so much brain space, and a lot of that is taken up with six years of worthless Lost mythology. Update: I have added eight years worth of useless Game of Thrones mythology).
Clearly, this book is a labor of love, to the extent that one can “love” the Japanese Imperial Navy.
Shattered Sword takes as its subject the 1942 naval battle of Midway between the navies of Japan and the United States. As Wellington said of Waterloo, it was a near run thing. A strike force of four Japanese aircraft carriers, led by Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, was ambushed by two American task forces – totaling three carriers – led by Admirals Frank Fletcher and Raymond Spruance. In the resulting fight, all four Japanese carriers were sunk, at the loss of a sole American carrier. The authors argue convincingly that Midway was not a decisive battle, since America would likely have prevailed in the Pacific even if it lost, but it did mark a turning point: from Midway on, the balance of power belonged to the United States.
When you read a lot of books, you start to realize that the only people who lie more than politicians are the people who invent subtitles. The subtitle of Shattered Sword is The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. By untold, the authors really mean the Japanese side of the story. Frankly, I disagree with the assessment that the Japanese side has been heretofore hidden. Gordon Prange’s Miracle at Midway was – like his works on Pearl Harbor – exceptionally balanced and made extensive use of Japanese sources. The unique thing about Shattered Sword is that it’s told only from the Japanese perspective. The movements of the American forces and the intentions of the American commanders are mostly ignored. This will lead to some confusion unless you already have a bit of an idea of what is going on.
Parshall and Tully are both fans of the Imperial Fleet, and they are here to share that with you. They get deep into this subject, and if you decide to pick up this hefty book, you will learn more than you ever dreamed about Japanese carrier construction, carrier doctrine, search-plane scout-patterns, force distributions, and strike rosters. The strict Japanese point of view is not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed, perhaps teaches a valuable lesson that not every story has to be filtered through American eyes. At the same time, you learn literally (well, almost literally) nothing about what the Americans are up to during the battle. Accordingly, this should not be the first book you read about Midway (and I’m guessing if you’ve taken the time to read this far in the review, you’re probably in that rare group of people who’ve read multiple works on Midway). If I had to make a suggestion, I would say that Prange’s Miracle at Midway and Walter Lord’s Incredible Victory are prerequisites to Shattered Sword, if only because Parshall and Tully have many polite critiques about those seminal volumes. (Update: Add Craig Symonds’s The Battle of Midway to that list).
The problem with a lot of passion-projects is that often passion outstrips talent. That is not a problem with Shattered Sword. The writing is clear, conversational, and peppered with nerdy wit. The authors are obviously writing towards a certain audience, yet they seldom fail to stop and explain the concepts that they are bandying about. They have also included a huge number of charts, maps, graphs, and pictures to help make sense of a fairly complicated battle fought over hundreds of square miles of open ocean.
The one writing tic I found annoying was the authors’ use of unfamiliar Japanese terms. For example, an air group section of three planes is called a shōtai. In most books, you might see the author initially note the Japanese word, but continue to use the English translation. Here, the authors decide to do just the opposite. They translate the word once, and then use the Japanese word for the rest of the book. In other words, you best remember what shōtai means.
For some words, this wasn’t a problem. I could recall, for example, that Kidō Butai meant strike force. However, when you get to the battle narrative, and you’re trying to follow the action, it becomes increasingly disruptive to have to flip to the glossary in back to figure out the difference between a hikōchō (carrier air officer) and a hikōtaichō (commander of the carrier group).
Another minor problem I had was with the narrative distance taken by the authors. For all their many criticisms of Walter Lord and Gordon Prange, Parshall and Tully don’t come near to scaling the dramatic heights of Incredible Victory and Miracle at Midway. Lord and Prange brought you into the battle in vivid, visceral ways. They never let you forget that there were men in those diving planes and burning ships. Parshall and Tully have a bit too much of the armchair general in them. They are more intrigued by the art and theory of war than the actual clash of arms. As a result, you will read a lot more about the Japanese destroyer Chikuma’s No. 1 scout plane’s shoddy search grid than you will about the slaughter of the USS Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron 8.
Shattered Sword sets out to revise the way we view the battle of Midway. And I suppose the authors have succeeded. I didn’t read anything that caused me to fall out of my chair, throw my computer out the window, or scream at my wife to get in the panic room; however, the authors did add a lot of nuance, shading, and reinterpretation to the accepted narrative. I suppose if your passion for Midway rises to the level of Parshall and Tully, you will be gratified that the record has been changed. If you, like me, have allowed your subscription to the US Naval War College Review to lapse, you can still learn a thing or two. (Especially about the importance of good damage control systems!)
For me, though, the best part about Shattered Sword is the way two committed hobbyists managed to create a book that has become a standard reference on the battle of Midway.
The second best part may be the fact that Parshall named his cats after the Japanese carriers Hiryū and Sōryū.
November 14, 2019
I always thought that a stroke of good fortune was the reason for the United States Navy’s victory over at Midway. Others may say it was divine providence. The authors of Shattered Sword do not see it this way. They break down the Japanese Naval war machine step by step, and weigh each factor that contributed to their demise; chief of which was the IJN’s belief that quality was more important than quantity. The result was that Yamamoto divided his forces by sending two carriers to the Aleutians and only four to Midway, inviting the calamitous results that we are familiar with today. The authors ask, does anyone believe that the Japanese would have lost if they had brought those other two carriers to the battle?
The book is packed with detail but I thought it was presented in a fairly readable and digestible manner. The Japanese were drunk with victory. Hubris crept into their decision making process and they started to believe their own invincibility. Apparently, the IJN high command was unfamiliar with Von Moltke’s great quote “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Meanwhile, the Americans learned from every loss and adapted. Yes, this is true and already known, but the authors attempted to infuse new knowledge into the story. The Japanese were offensive minded and neglected things that one would associate with the defense. They were not as good at fire control or damage mitigation and they had bad radios and anti-aircraft on most Japanese ships were inadequate and so forth. The authors build a persuasive argument that more than just luck played into the USN victory at Midway. There are too many reasons to list in this review but If you are a Pacific War buff this is a must read.
The book is packed with detail but I thought it was presented in a fairly readable and digestible manner. The Japanese were drunk with victory. Hubris crept into their decision making process and they started to believe their own invincibility. Apparently, the IJN high command was unfamiliar with Von Moltke’s great quote “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Meanwhile, the Americans learned from every loss and adapted. Yes, this is true and already known, but the authors attempted to infuse new knowledge into the story. The Japanese were offensive minded and neglected things that one would associate with the defense. They were not as good at fire control or damage mitigation and they had bad radios and anti-aircraft on most Japanese ships were inadequate and so forth. The authors build a persuasive argument that more than just luck played into the USN victory at Midway. There are too many reasons to list in this review but If you are a Pacific War buff this is a must read.
December 11, 2019
Parshall and Tully deal with some of the fallacious ideas around the Battle of Midway. These are either untrue, or at least require careful clarification. Some of these ideas have been implanted in the Western accounts as a result of misunderstandings of the records of the battle. Some have resulted from a faulty understanding of the basic mechanics of how the battle was fought. Some are misrepresentations of the truth that were deliberately introduced by participants in the battle. And each has caused the distortions in Western perceptions of the reasons for victory. Correcting these distortions is the overriding goal of this book.
I won’t go into detail about these misconceptions, as this is probably already known by anyone with a mild interest in World War II. If you are interested in this battle, have read some of the classics, then I certainly would recommend this book. The research put into this book is comprehensive and exhaustive and will certainly offer new and refreshing insights.
I won’t go into detail about these misconceptions, as this is probably already known by anyone with a mild interest in World War II. If you are interested in this battle, have read some of the classics, then I certainly would recommend this book. The research put into this book is comprehensive and exhaustive and will certainly offer new and refreshing insights.
September 19, 2014
A full five star, Often we hear that History being written by Victor and get shrouded in myths. However Battle at Midway was one of rare event where both victor and loser painted a image which served there purposes in specific circumstances well. America was able to portray it's Navy as real life example of David vs Goliath while Japan was trying to scrape up some shreds of respect by trying to hide its own follies under the guise of tough luck.
Several reasons can be cited for the outcome which resulted in shift of offensive from Japan to America in Pacific theater of war. Major among them are:
- Complacency of Japanese strategic planners
- Haste in rushing towards conclusion of hostilities
- Imagining that few battles would bring a giant nation such as America to its knees
- Undermining strength and will of enemy
- Overconfidence in one's own planning and ability to judge enemy
- lack of proper home work
- Running after too many targets at once
I can keep on sighting what I believe were the reasons behind eventual reversal in Imperial navy's fate. However what this book clearly shows in the end is that it was inevitable that America lays waste to Imperial Japan and its ambitions. Japan clearly bit more than it could chew and sooner or later it had to choke up on it and suffer the ultimate outcomes of such mistakes.
Several reasons can be cited for the outcome which resulted in shift of offensive from Japan to America in Pacific theater of war. Major among them are:
- Complacency of Japanese strategic planners
- Haste in rushing towards conclusion of hostilities
- Imagining that few battles would bring a giant nation such as America to its knees
- Undermining strength and will of enemy
- Overconfidence in one's own planning and ability to judge enemy
- lack of proper home work
- Running after too many targets at once
I can keep on sighting what I believe were the reasons behind eventual reversal in Imperial navy's fate. However what this book clearly shows in the end is that it was inevitable that America lays waste to Imperial Japan and its ambitions. Japan clearly bit more than it could chew and sooner or later it had to choke up on it and suffer the ultimate outcomes of such mistakes.
October 28, 2023
What you thought you knew about the battle of Midway could be quite wrong. This book goes into detail about the entire conflict there. The record of the Japanese is corrected. If you're interested in WWII, you should read this.
March 5, 2010
Shattered Sword is a fine naval history book. It is a well researched book that has a multitude of facts on every page. This is a book that will be an often quoted source for many years about the Battle of Midway. The authors claim to change the way the battle will be viewed, in that the book focuses on the Kido Butai or the Japanese carrier fleet this claim can be accepted as true. The author meticulously researched the minutiae of where the Japanese aircraft were during the battle and who piloted those aircraft. Their research is admirable but possibly misplaced. The book is 436 of text with nine different appendices and often the book does bog down with which pilot was doing what at what point with instances of which sailor was doing what at the battle. This was interesting but the authors went into minutiae in details that would be better served with a few well placed examples that would best support their well thought out conclusions.
The authors did have some well thought out conclusions which do seem to put long held beliefs about the battle into context or refute them. For example its been long held that VT-8 from the USS Hornet pulled down the Japanese CAP (Combat Air Patrol) but the authors refute that fact very well. They argue that Admiral Yamamoto had forced the Midway plan without fully allowing for the US Navy’s intentions and capabilities which is true however this conclusion does ignore that Yamamoto was operating with the belief that the US had only two aircraft carriers because the belief was that the Lexington and Yorktown were sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the only available carriers to the US was the Enterprise and Hornet. The authors did not take that into account in their conclusion however, their conclusion that Yamamoto’s plan was needlessly intricate and that he should have never split his forces or wait for the Japanese Carrier Division 5 was spot on.
The authors took great pains to explain how the Japanese used their carriers and the development of Japanese carrier doctrine which makes the Japanese decision’s in the battle more accessible, for example fueling and arming the aircraft in the hanger decks. This leads to the great myth they disabused that the Japanese carriers were about to launch an attack on the US carriers. Through their meticulous and excellent research they show good evidence that the Kido Butai was not ready to launch an attack but at least forty minutes from the launch. The book is worth the price just for this conclusion.
The book did have its distractions that were needless and hopefully “rookie” mistakes. The first major distraction was the tone of the book where it felt as if the authors felt superior in their information and certain arrogance came through the writing. A good example is they often said the professional historians focus on the gun directors rather than the guns because the guns are of an interest to amateurs. This made me go to the back of the book and read the authors biographies and found out that both authors are It professionals which made their other attempts resemble that of putting their book into a piece of academic research rather than a “popular” history. It is true that many histories do ignore the fire control equipment but that is usually because the equipment of that time seems as advanced to people as using an abacus. It is true fire control was critical but the machines were crank driven and until radar, the veritable fuse and the stable element were married together by the US Navy around mid 1943 most fire control was by guess and by God and since the focus of the book was June 1942 in Japanese aircraft carriers it has to be concluded that the Japanese fire control might be critical only to IT professionals.
The tone of the book was often trying to achieve a superiority over the readers and seemed as if the authors were unsure they would be taken seriously, they should have trusted their research more. The research was fantastic but the tone made me question if they were translating the Japanese primary sources or if they were relying on translations. The difference is if they were translating they would be creating their own conclusions but with a translation they would be reading the primary source through the lenses and bias of the translator. Without that information available I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were translating the primary sources rather than relying on translations. The unneeded tone and dealing in minutiae became a distraction to a fine and excellent book. I look forward to reading Anthony Tully’s (one of the authors) new book on the Battle of Surigao Strait to see if his second effort improves on a terrific first start.
The authors did have some well thought out conclusions which do seem to put long held beliefs about the battle into context or refute them. For example its been long held that VT-8 from the USS Hornet pulled down the Japanese CAP (Combat Air Patrol) but the authors refute that fact very well. They argue that Admiral Yamamoto had forced the Midway plan without fully allowing for the US Navy’s intentions and capabilities which is true however this conclusion does ignore that Yamamoto was operating with the belief that the US had only two aircraft carriers because the belief was that the Lexington and Yorktown were sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the only available carriers to the US was the Enterprise and Hornet. The authors did not take that into account in their conclusion however, their conclusion that Yamamoto’s plan was needlessly intricate and that he should have never split his forces or wait for the Japanese Carrier Division 5 was spot on.
The authors took great pains to explain how the Japanese used their carriers and the development of Japanese carrier doctrine which makes the Japanese decision’s in the battle more accessible, for example fueling and arming the aircraft in the hanger decks. This leads to the great myth they disabused that the Japanese carriers were about to launch an attack on the US carriers. Through their meticulous and excellent research they show good evidence that the Kido Butai was not ready to launch an attack but at least forty minutes from the launch. The book is worth the price just for this conclusion.
The book did have its distractions that were needless and hopefully “rookie” mistakes. The first major distraction was the tone of the book where it felt as if the authors felt superior in their information and certain arrogance came through the writing. A good example is they often said the professional historians focus on the gun directors rather than the guns because the guns are of an interest to amateurs. This made me go to the back of the book and read the authors biographies and found out that both authors are It professionals which made their other attempts resemble that of putting their book into a piece of academic research rather than a “popular” history. It is true that many histories do ignore the fire control equipment but that is usually because the equipment of that time seems as advanced to people as using an abacus. It is true fire control was critical but the machines were crank driven and until radar, the veritable fuse and the stable element were married together by the US Navy around mid 1943 most fire control was by guess and by God and since the focus of the book was June 1942 in Japanese aircraft carriers it has to be concluded that the Japanese fire control might be critical only to IT professionals.
The tone of the book was often trying to achieve a superiority over the readers and seemed as if the authors were unsure they would be taken seriously, they should have trusted their research more. The research was fantastic but the tone made me question if they were translating the Japanese primary sources or if they were relying on translations. The difference is if they were translating they would be creating their own conclusions but with a translation they would be reading the primary source through the lenses and bias of the translator. Without that information available I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were translating the primary sources rather than relying on translations. The unneeded tone and dealing in minutiae became a distraction to a fine and excellent book. I look forward to reading Anthony Tully’s (one of the authors) new book on the Battle of Surigao Strait to see if his second effort improves on a terrific first start.
January 8, 2017
You think you know something, and then you discover that in fact most of what you know is wrong.
I love reading.
This is masterful treatment of probably one of the most analyzed battles of all time, which by examining closely the Japanese sources of the battle revises much of what we think we know about the battle. In particular, the author's patient explanation of the exact operational details of Japanese carrier operations is endlessly fascinating and enlightening, and serve to show that much of what has been written about the battle is clearly misguided if not outright impossible. The writing also never falls prey to that cardinal sin of the historian - being dull. Instead, the informal tone and willingness to employ humor, together with the lurid and compelling descriptions of the violence of battle, causes the book to read more like a Summer blockbuster action-adventure movie than the serious textbook of operational analysis that it also is.
If the book has any flaw at all, it is one inevitable to the recounting of a true narrative - the climax of this story occurs rather suddenly early on in the account and the denouement is rather longer and more anticlimactic than one would wish, precisely because that is what actually happened. As a minor nitpick, I was also mystified that - when broaching the taboo subject of national character and culture which a historian must tread if he wishes to be truthful despite the prevailing political climate - that no mention was made regarding the abundant evidence of the defects of the Japanese martial culture so on display prior to Tsushima. The author might leave a new reader with the impression that these defects arose after Tsushima rather than were - as a result of their own literature and philosophy - deeply written into the Japanese character right back into at least the middle ages. They are evident in philosophy of the martial art of Iaido, in the 'Book of the Five Rings', and the conduct of Japanese battle time and again long before WW2 or even the Sino-Russian War. Appealing to sources like Sun Tzu or their admiration for the Royal Navy seemed to me to appealing more to Parshall's 'proximate causes' rather than 'root causes', since the Japanese undoubtedly choose to admire these things only because they saw their own beliefs reflected in them, and only where they saw their beliefs within them. Parshall is right when he asserts a cultural strength is also a cultural weakness - the same culture that produced the miracle of the Meiji restitution also produced the horrors of Nanking and Manila and for much the same reasons - but he seems not to want to track this particular thread back as far as he could despite making oblique mention to it in his final paragraph.
Still, very highly recommended.
I love reading.
This is masterful treatment of probably one of the most analyzed battles of all time, which by examining closely the Japanese sources of the battle revises much of what we think we know about the battle. In particular, the author's patient explanation of the exact operational details of Japanese carrier operations is endlessly fascinating and enlightening, and serve to show that much of what has been written about the battle is clearly misguided if not outright impossible. The writing also never falls prey to that cardinal sin of the historian - being dull. Instead, the informal tone and willingness to employ humor, together with the lurid and compelling descriptions of the violence of battle, causes the book to read more like a Summer blockbuster action-adventure movie than the serious textbook of operational analysis that it also is.
If the book has any flaw at all, it is one inevitable to the recounting of a true narrative - the climax of this story occurs rather suddenly early on in the account and the denouement is rather longer and more anticlimactic than one would wish, precisely because that is what actually happened. As a minor nitpick, I was also mystified that - when broaching the taboo subject of national character and culture which a historian must tread if he wishes to be truthful despite the prevailing political climate - that no mention was made regarding the abundant evidence of the defects of the Japanese martial culture so on display prior to Tsushima. The author might leave a new reader with the impression that these defects arose after Tsushima rather than were - as a result of their own literature and philosophy - deeply written into the Japanese character right back into at least the middle ages. They are evident in philosophy of the martial art of Iaido, in the 'Book of the Five Rings', and the conduct of Japanese battle time and again long before WW2 or even the Sino-Russian War. Appealing to sources like Sun Tzu or their admiration for the Royal Navy seemed to me to appealing more to Parshall's 'proximate causes' rather than 'root causes', since the Japanese undoubtedly choose to admire these things only because they saw their own beliefs reflected in them, and only where they saw their beliefs within them. Parshall is right when he asserts a cultural strength is also a cultural weakness - the same culture that produced the miracle of the Meiji restitution also produced the horrors of Nanking and Manila and for much the same reasons - but he seems not to want to track this particular thread back as far as he could despite making oblique mention to it in his final paragraph.
Still, very highly recommended.
October 11, 2023
When most people hear the term ‘history book,’ they typically think of those watered-down texts we all read in high school where large swaths of time are melted down into paragraph-sized blubs to be memorized for a test and quickly forgotten. Even so, many of us – myself included – have become infatuated with history and long after leaving the public education system behind seek out books that provide a detailed look into a our past. These focused books can bring us a much greater understanding of an event and as a result, a greater understanding of present day events. But as time goes on, a consensus is usually reached by historians. Subsequent writings become nothing more than reaffirmations of earlier works. However, every so often new information is brought to light about an event that allows for a reassessment of the conventional wisdom. Shattered Sword provides just such a platform.
The Battle of Midway has been chronicled in books and films countless times in the sixty-six years since the battle between the Japanese and American navies during the Second World War. The summer of 1942 has forever been stamped as the turning point in the war in the Pacific and Parshall & Tully do nothing to discount its importance. What the do is provide accessibility to information – most notably large amounts of Japanese writings and documentation – and make them available to English readers in many cases for the very first time. One thing this book is not is revisionist history. If anything, it is a clarification of the facts of what actually happened and – more importantly – the chain of events that took place to bring about one of the most decisive battles in history. The most important result of all of the research is to throw into doubt the idea that the Japanese naval force was vastly superior to the Americans in every way and it was only due to luck and circumstance that the American navy was able to win the day. This is a view that was championed most notably by Mitsuo Fuchida – a Japanese naval officer who participated in the battle - in his book Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. This view has been echoed throughout the years, notably in the movie Midway, not just because of Fuchida’s first-hand knowledge and a lack of substantial documentation to the contrary, but because of our American love of being a victorious underdog. But by pouring through stacks of Japanese documentation, Parshall & Tulley are able to piece together a somewhat different account demonstrating that the two navies were far more evenly matched than anyone thought going into the battle. A combination of Japan’s poor military communication, the limited training of the Japanese ship crews, the flawed construction of their ships and their low opinion of the capabilities of the American sailor contributed as much to the outcome of the battle as the tenacity, daring and exquisite training of the American navy. Ultimately, overconfidence and poor planning all but doomed the Japanese navy before the battle even began. Sun Tzu would be proud.
The book provides a thorough view from the Japanese side to compliment the detailed American accounting of books such as Miracle at Midway. Throughout the book, Parshall & Tulley provide the reader an in-depth, well researched treatise. Better yet, they write it in such a way that the reader becomes a part of the events from the very first page all the way to the conclusion, taking you from the conferences of the Japanese leadership to the bridge of Admiral Nagumo’s flagship to the view from the water as a young sailor watches his proud ship go under. The result of this is a book that balances all the facts and provides a clear accounting of everything that led up to the most important single battle of the Pacific War while simultaneously keeping the reader engaged in the drama of the events. Not only is this the best, most thorough book on the Battle of Midway, it is one of the best written and researched books on the Second World War ever produced. If you are going to write history, Parshall has provided the roadmap on how to do it right with Shattered Sword. This book sets the bar extremely high for any future works on the topic. Shattered Sword is as good as history writing gets.
The Battle of Midway has been chronicled in books and films countless times in the sixty-six years since the battle between the Japanese and American navies during the Second World War. The summer of 1942 has forever been stamped as the turning point in the war in the Pacific and Parshall & Tully do nothing to discount its importance. What the do is provide accessibility to information – most notably large amounts of Japanese writings and documentation – and make them available to English readers in many cases for the very first time. One thing this book is not is revisionist history. If anything, it is a clarification of the facts of what actually happened and – more importantly – the chain of events that took place to bring about one of the most decisive battles in history. The most important result of all of the research is to throw into doubt the idea that the Japanese naval force was vastly superior to the Americans in every way and it was only due to luck and circumstance that the American navy was able to win the day. This is a view that was championed most notably by Mitsuo Fuchida – a Japanese naval officer who participated in the battle - in his book Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. This view has been echoed throughout the years, notably in the movie Midway, not just because of Fuchida’s first-hand knowledge and a lack of substantial documentation to the contrary, but because of our American love of being a victorious underdog. But by pouring through stacks of Japanese documentation, Parshall & Tulley are able to piece together a somewhat different account demonstrating that the two navies were far more evenly matched than anyone thought going into the battle. A combination of Japan’s poor military communication, the limited training of the Japanese ship crews, the flawed construction of their ships and their low opinion of the capabilities of the American sailor contributed as much to the outcome of the battle as the tenacity, daring and exquisite training of the American navy. Ultimately, overconfidence and poor planning all but doomed the Japanese navy before the battle even began. Sun Tzu would be proud.
The book provides a thorough view from the Japanese side to compliment the detailed American accounting of books such as Miracle at Midway. Throughout the book, Parshall & Tulley provide the reader an in-depth, well researched treatise. Better yet, they write it in such a way that the reader becomes a part of the events from the very first page all the way to the conclusion, taking you from the conferences of the Japanese leadership to the bridge of Admiral Nagumo’s flagship to the view from the water as a young sailor watches his proud ship go under. The result of this is a book that balances all the facts and provides a clear accounting of everything that led up to the most important single battle of the Pacific War while simultaneously keeping the reader engaged in the drama of the events. Not only is this the best, most thorough book on the Battle of Midway, it is one of the best written and researched books on the Second World War ever produced. If you are going to write history, Parshall has provided the roadmap on how to do it right with Shattered Sword. This book sets the bar extremely high for any future works on the topic. Shattered Sword is as good as history writing gets.
July 17, 2017
You do not know the Battle of Midway if you have not read Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully’s Shattered Sword, the Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. While it can be a tough read for the casual reader of history, scholars, history buffs and anyone who enjoyed the otherwise uneven Movie called Midway have cause to celebrate Shattered Sword. Highly recommended. My copy was the paperback so I missed the problems shared by the Kindle readers.
Common wisdom is that history is written by the winners. If this is true, a reason may be that only the winners may be able to teach the technique of winning. Authors Parshall and Tully prove that a careful study of the losers can teach you how to avoid losing when you should be winning. By a careful and honest read of:
Japanese records, ship logs, pilot diaries,
Comparative analysis of Japanese and American doctrine, and strategic thinking
Comparative analysis of ships and aircraft, and weapons
Critical evaluations of the Japanese analysis of their progress and chances for eventual victory
Results in a meaningful understanding of how the heretofore mighty Imperial Japanese Navy set themselves up for defeat.
Midway was a battle we studied 40 years ago at the Naval Academy. Additional and later readings reinforced what I had been taught. Reading Shatter sword taught me the importance of reading more than the home team version of events.
Rather than continue detailing the many reasons for recommending Shatter Sword, I will mention a point or two that the authors, in their enthusiasm got wrong.
In their final analysis of Midway as an “Incredible victory” they make their case very convincingly. However I think they misunderstand why pride in this victory is a reasonable attitude. In quoting Walter Lord’s [[ASIN:1580800599 Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway (Classics of War)]]
they repeat his listing of the relative strengths of the American and Japanese Navy at the outset of the battle. Also repeated is his conclusion that America had no “right to win”. They refute Lord, by among other things pointing out that Nimitz was too good at his job to commit his fleet to an impossible victory. The also demonstrate the value of a USN determined to win. Yet the authors had listed several ways the Japanese could have used their superior forces to make American victory unlikely. In fact, the same authors make it clear that the Battle was one for the Japanese to lose rather than one America could expect to win. Victory by America was assured by the code breakers, something the IJN could not assume and the many flaws in the Japanese deployment of and doctrine for employing what were not only more numerous ships and air craft, but also better weapons and experienced pilots. In this case the authors want it both ways. Even so the total weight of their argument on this point is convincing.
Parshall and Tully also argue that Midway was not an absolute turning point in the War in the Pacific. Japan knew they were fighting for time and that the American economy and determination to fight the war to end meant American Victory was as nearly certain as anything in a war.
This is a very well-reasoned argument. My hesitation is in their estimate that US defeat at Midway would at most delay American victory by a year or 14 months. Defeat at Midway could have contributed to Japanese conquest of the islands that would make the supply to run to Australia look like the Murmansk run. (Their analogy). Once possible view of this scenario is a steady piece meal defeat of American new construction, defended by inexperienced pilots. Eventually the sheer weight of American production and the inability of the IJN to replace, maintain or supply its remotely located navy would produce something like America defending interior lines while shifting the balance of power. All this in 14 months? Perhaps.
On the short side, once America Had the Atomic Bomb and high altitude, long range bombers, Japanese defeat happens quickly. A few flights out of China and the Japanese homeland -already hurting from submarine attacks on dwindling numbers of Japanese merchant marine hulls- would collapse.
Common wisdom is that history is written by the winners. If this is true, a reason may be that only the winners may be able to teach the technique of winning. Authors Parshall and Tully prove that a careful study of the losers can teach you how to avoid losing when you should be winning. By a careful and honest read of:
Japanese records, ship logs, pilot diaries,
Comparative analysis of Japanese and American doctrine, and strategic thinking
Comparative analysis of ships and aircraft, and weapons
Critical evaluations of the Japanese analysis of their progress and chances for eventual victory
Results in a meaningful understanding of how the heretofore mighty Imperial Japanese Navy set themselves up for defeat.
Midway was a battle we studied 40 years ago at the Naval Academy. Additional and later readings reinforced what I had been taught. Reading Shatter sword taught me the importance of reading more than the home team version of events.
Rather than continue detailing the many reasons for recommending Shatter Sword, I will mention a point or two that the authors, in their enthusiasm got wrong.
In their final analysis of Midway as an “Incredible victory” they make their case very convincingly. However I think they misunderstand why pride in this victory is a reasonable attitude. In quoting Walter Lord’s [[ASIN:1580800599 Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway (Classics of War)]]
they repeat his listing of the relative strengths of the American and Japanese Navy at the outset of the battle. Also repeated is his conclusion that America had no “right to win”. They refute Lord, by among other things pointing out that Nimitz was too good at his job to commit his fleet to an impossible victory. The also demonstrate the value of a USN determined to win. Yet the authors had listed several ways the Japanese could have used their superior forces to make American victory unlikely. In fact, the same authors make it clear that the Battle was one for the Japanese to lose rather than one America could expect to win. Victory by America was assured by the code breakers, something the IJN could not assume and the many flaws in the Japanese deployment of and doctrine for employing what were not only more numerous ships and air craft, but also better weapons and experienced pilots. In this case the authors want it both ways. Even so the total weight of their argument on this point is convincing.
Parshall and Tully also argue that Midway was not an absolute turning point in the War in the Pacific. Japan knew they were fighting for time and that the American economy and determination to fight the war to end meant American Victory was as nearly certain as anything in a war.
This is a very well-reasoned argument. My hesitation is in their estimate that US defeat at Midway would at most delay American victory by a year or 14 months. Defeat at Midway could have contributed to Japanese conquest of the islands that would make the supply to run to Australia look like the Murmansk run. (Their analogy). Once possible view of this scenario is a steady piece meal defeat of American new construction, defended by inexperienced pilots. Eventually the sheer weight of American production and the inability of the IJN to replace, maintain or supply its remotely located navy would produce something like America defending interior lines while shifting the balance of power. All this in 14 months? Perhaps.
On the short side, once America Had the Atomic Bomb and high altitude, long range bombers, Japanese defeat happens quickly. A few flights out of China and the Japanese homeland -already hurting from submarine attacks on dwindling numbers of Japanese merchant marine hulls- would collapse.
November 13, 2019
Want to read one of the best book on the Battle of Midway? I remember as a young kid reading about this battle and how it turned the tide of the war in Pacific in favor of the United States in which Japan suffered serious loss in this battle. This work simply exceeded my expectation and I was thoroughly hooked from page to page, which might sound almost unbelievable concerning a military operational book but the two authors did a good job telling us the story of the Battle of Midway and throughout the book they also critically interact with previous presentation of the battle by historians and popular misconception and argue for their account of what happened in a way that is informative while displaying an attitude of being concern for truth of what really happened.
I think the best part of the book is the fact that the two authors knew so much about the battle. The book was also unique in that unlike the majority of previous authors and historians writing about the battle of Midway, both Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully is informed and critically interact with Japanese sources such as record books, rosters, witnesses and also other important government documents. The data on the Japanese carriers in terms of technical information is simply incredible. Then there’s the description of the Japanese naval leaders who participated in the Battle of Midway. The personality profiles of these men are a window into the Japanese Imperial Navy. I’m very impressed with the authors’ knowledge of Japanese aircraft carriers from their history, their design, their strength and weaknesses. These details of the carriers is so vast from their size, speed, their weapons, what kind of Japanese planes were on them along with how they operated down to how do planes get prepped on the carriers, how the Japanese dealt with hazards and the kind of materials for the carriers’ deck. The book’s discussions about Japanese and American types of military planes and other ships were equally remarkable; I mean there’s even an appendix on what the markings on Japanese planes mean! The authors are truly military history nerds and I mean it as a compliment! But they aren’t just throwing trivia at you; the book is enjoyable for how it is narrated. I was totally amazed at how the book talked about how the Japanese doctrines for Carriers was different than the doctrines for the US carriers and how we must take that into account in understanding how the Japanese fought and also what happened in the battle of Midway. I thought it was amazing that the author consider the role of gun placement on carriers, the ways Japanese bombs and torpedoes were armed onto warplanes (the kind of hooks that held bombs and torpedoes) and how long it would take for this to happen along with the role of radio and communication contributed to the outcome of the battle. Yet the authors weren’t loss with the tiny details but was also able to see things at a larger strategic picture. For instance in evaluating the importance of the battle they considered the economy of Japan and the United States and how in the long run the economic factor at the start of the war was already stacked against the Japanese. But this is compounded with the Japanese inability to learn lessons from their military operations but their leaders intentionally wouldn’t consider the possibility of a strengthened and much wiser enemy. They would pay a serious price for that in the battle of Midway.
Read this book if you want to know the individuals and personalities on both sides of the battle; read this book if you want to know how the quality of leadership and quality and quantity of the technology and tools of war affected the outcome of the battle. Read this book if you want to get a feel for the men fighting this battle in terms of air units, ships and squadrons. Read this if you want to see how ships, planes, men and leadership and also individual courage led up to the US victory against Japan in the battle of Midway.
I think the best part of the book is the fact that the two authors knew so much about the battle. The book was also unique in that unlike the majority of previous authors and historians writing about the battle of Midway, both Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully is informed and critically interact with Japanese sources such as record books, rosters, witnesses and also other important government documents. The data on the Japanese carriers in terms of technical information is simply incredible. Then there’s the description of the Japanese naval leaders who participated in the Battle of Midway. The personality profiles of these men are a window into the Japanese Imperial Navy. I’m very impressed with the authors’ knowledge of Japanese aircraft carriers from their history, their design, their strength and weaknesses. These details of the carriers is so vast from their size, speed, their weapons, what kind of Japanese planes were on them along with how they operated down to how do planes get prepped on the carriers, how the Japanese dealt with hazards and the kind of materials for the carriers’ deck. The book’s discussions about Japanese and American types of military planes and other ships were equally remarkable; I mean there’s even an appendix on what the markings on Japanese planes mean! The authors are truly military history nerds and I mean it as a compliment! But they aren’t just throwing trivia at you; the book is enjoyable for how it is narrated. I was totally amazed at how the book talked about how the Japanese doctrines for Carriers was different than the doctrines for the US carriers and how we must take that into account in understanding how the Japanese fought and also what happened in the battle of Midway. I thought it was amazing that the author consider the role of gun placement on carriers, the ways Japanese bombs and torpedoes were armed onto warplanes (the kind of hooks that held bombs and torpedoes) and how long it would take for this to happen along with the role of radio and communication contributed to the outcome of the battle. Yet the authors weren’t loss with the tiny details but was also able to see things at a larger strategic picture. For instance in evaluating the importance of the battle they considered the economy of Japan and the United States and how in the long run the economic factor at the start of the war was already stacked against the Japanese. But this is compounded with the Japanese inability to learn lessons from their military operations but their leaders intentionally wouldn’t consider the possibility of a strengthened and much wiser enemy. They would pay a serious price for that in the battle of Midway.
Read this book if you want to know the individuals and personalities on both sides of the battle; read this book if you want to know how the quality of leadership and quality and quantity of the technology and tools of war affected the outcome of the battle. Read this book if you want to get a feel for the men fighting this battle in terms of air units, ships and squadrons. Read this if you want to see how ships, planes, men and leadership and also individual courage led up to the US victory against Japan in the battle of Midway.
May 1, 2010
This book is functionally written and provides considerable detail on the Battle of Midway, with much new information being used. One useful feature of the book is that we see a lot more of the battle and the runup to it from the eyes of the Japanese. We leartn of how Japanese and American carrier doctrine, operational ideas, even use space differed between the two carrier forces. As such, we get a different perspective than is common. The author also analyzes many of the decisions by Japanese Admiral Nagumo. The analyses are interesting, because the author on occasion absolves Nagumo of some claim made against him. Anyhow, if the reader is interested in Midway, this is an interesting work, worthy of taking a look at.
January 20, 2022
This is a very detailed and extensive history of the WWII Battle of Midway, but told from the Japanese side of the conflict. It's pretty high-level and focuses more on strategy and the decisions of the leaders, with an emphasis in correcting the record of what actually happened and why. As such, there's a lot of blame for Isoroku Yamamoto and Chūichi Nagumo, and especially for Mitsuo Fuchida who wrote a misleading account of the conflict several years after the war.
While I found the level of detail and discussion sometimes overwhelming and dull, it was actually a rather exciting book once the authors got to the actual day of battle and the events. I even felt very sad for the Japanese when the magnitude of their loss became evident (however, as an American, I'm happy it turned out the way it did). This most definitely isn't a book for the casual reader of WWII history, but it's a valuable book for the analysis and clarification of what really happened.
While I found the level of detail and discussion sometimes overwhelming and dull, it was actually a rather exciting book once the authors got to the actual day of battle and the events. I even felt very sad for the Japanese when the magnitude of their loss became evident (however, as an American, I'm happy it turned out the way it did). This most definitely isn't a book for the casual reader of WWII history, but it's a valuable book for the analysis and clarification of what really happened.
October 9, 2013
Recently read the new Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) by Craig L. Symonds. A nice summary, which brought up a few points I'd either forgotten or never learned. It did extensively reference Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway and hinted at a the Imperial Japanese Navy point of view. I had to track down this book.
Shattered Sword goes back to air operations logs and is the first English publication that sources the updated Japanese accounts published in 1970s. Examining the Battle of Midway, and to a smaller degree Coral Sea, against IJN fleet doctrine and building a timeline, the authors deflate the "miracle" of American victory.
According to Shattered Sword, the greatest error in both battles was allowing the carrier strike force to be committed piecemeal. If the invasion of New Guinea had been conducted with 6 fleet carriers, the island assault may have succeeded. At the very least, two American carriers would have been lost. The same error, splitting the assault force and conducting distributed operations incapable of joint support was duplicated at Midway.
On the strategic side, one of the most interesting points is comparison of aircraft lost. Ignoring the actual numbers, the United States lost less than 2 weeks production of aircraft. The IJN lost just under 2 months production of aircraft. For those with a gaming bent, the authors' point of view is very compelling.
Rather than being a lucky victory, Midway was a calculated ambush. Breaking the Japanese strike carrier group was the beginning of a production battle. This doesn't diminish the victory, but casts new insight into the choices made and risk calculated by both sides.
February 9, 2013
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.
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.
December 15, 2015
I started and stopped reading this book five times. The fact I tried it the sixth time is due to its reputation among military historians. This is not an academic history but a book by passionate amateurs. Their love for the subject matter is clear and their expertise is clear. This book will teach you more about the battle of midway than you would ever like to know. I'm glad I finally finished it.
November 16, 2015
While it is not written with the classical prose of a Walter Lord or a Bruce Catton, the authors have produced the greatest battle analysis I have ever read. This book instantly became one of my all time favorites!
November 19, 2022
I enjoy military history, especially when it’s wrapped around the events and happenings of World War 2. Usually, the author is trying to tell the story in a way both accurate and compelling, explaining and exploring command decisions and engagements, and the manner in which the battlefield itself, the action of individual units, and the vagaries of combat shaped the outcomes.
But Shattered Sword is in a class by itself. The writers have an agenda much larger than most—they intend to correct the received narrative of the battle of Midway, an erroneous narrative that has held sway for half a century. Their comprehensive research, which relies heavily on Japanese primary sources, has proven that most, if not all, of the popular accounts of the battle are significantly flawed, especially as regards the ultimate question of why the American naval forces won.
The book was a delight to read. The authors begin by delving deeply into the backgrounds of each of the principal characters, as well as the cultural ethos of the Imperial Japanese Navy. They explore the merits and demerits of each of the Japanese carriers and carrier aircraft. They expose the mind-numbing and initiative-stealing complexity of the overall Japanese battle plan for Midway. The entire process of preparing and arming the planes and spotting the flight deck for a strike is analyzed, down to the length of time a Zero’s powerplant needs to be warmed up in order to prevent damage to the engine upon launch.
I found the parts on Japanese naval doctrine, carrier operations, damage control, and air defense to be fascinating. Spoiler: the study of Japanese carrier operations became a major piece of evidence in substantiating the authors’ claims regarding the flaws in the received narrative, evidence that is buttressed by photographs taken during the battle.
The American side of the battle is also explored extensively, so the reader gets a sense for the simultaneity of the actions on the bridges and flight decks of ships on both sides of the conflict, as well as the strike and opposing defense aircraft. The reader is given precise timestamps (down to the minute) when the various decisions, communications, and actions were taken.
The book includes charts and drawings showing the relative dispositions of the carriers and their escorts, and once the attacks begin the direction of approach of the enemy aircraft. Eleven appendices detail the names of the personnel, the order of battle, technical details of the carriers, and a host of other matters that will be a goldmine for any writers or researchers that come after Parshall and Tully.
The book is fascinating, even gripping in places, exhaustively researched, and extensively documented. The authors successfully attain their agenda of correcting the record—conclusively in my opinion. Shattered Sword is the definitive resource for accurate information about the battle of Midway. Five stars, highly recommended.
But Shattered Sword is in a class by itself. The writers have an agenda much larger than most—they intend to correct the received narrative of the battle of Midway, an erroneous narrative that has held sway for half a century. Their comprehensive research, which relies heavily on Japanese primary sources, has proven that most, if not all, of the popular accounts of the battle are significantly flawed, especially as regards the ultimate question of why the American naval forces won.
The book was a delight to read. The authors begin by delving deeply into the backgrounds of each of the principal characters, as well as the cultural ethos of the Imperial Japanese Navy. They explore the merits and demerits of each of the Japanese carriers and carrier aircraft. They expose the mind-numbing and initiative-stealing complexity of the overall Japanese battle plan for Midway. The entire process of preparing and arming the planes and spotting the flight deck for a strike is analyzed, down to the length of time a Zero’s powerplant needs to be warmed up in order to prevent damage to the engine upon launch.
I found the parts on Japanese naval doctrine, carrier operations, damage control, and air defense to be fascinating. Spoiler: the study of Japanese carrier operations became a major piece of evidence in substantiating the authors’ claims regarding the flaws in the received narrative, evidence that is buttressed by photographs taken during the battle.
The American side of the battle is also explored extensively, so the reader gets a sense for the simultaneity of the actions on the bridges and flight decks of ships on both sides of the conflict, as well as the strike and opposing defense aircraft. The reader is given precise timestamps (down to the minute) when the various decisions, communications, and actions were taken.
The book includes charts and drawings showing the relative dispositions of the carriers and their escorts, and once the attacks begin the direction of approach of the enemy aircraft. Eleven appendices detail the names of the personnel, the order of battle, technical details of the carriers, and a host of other matters that will be a goldmine for any writers or researchers that come after Parshall and Tully.
The book is fascinating, even gripping in places, exhaustively researched, and extensively documented. The authors successfully attain their agenda of correcting the record—conclusively in my opinion. Shattered Sword is the definitive resource for accurate information about the battle of Midway. Five stars, highly recommended.
November 3, 2020
This is not the first work I read about battle of Midway. But by far this is the best.
Even though it is quite a large book, I can steadily devour this book due to the authors clear and digestable writing. And having abundance of sketches and drawing to visualise the complex battle helps a lot as well.
In this book Parshall and Tully will put you in the shoes of Nagumo. They rarely tell us what the US forces were doing and you will see the battle from the Japanese perspective only. So I hope you have read other works on battle of Midway.
I learn a lot by reading this book as it takes most of the facts from Japanese sources. The authors dispelled a lot of misconceptions about battle of Midway such as Nagumo's failure to launch immediate attack after finding US carrier task force.
Not only that the authors lovingly tell us about Japanese carrier designs, how they operated, doctrines, damage control etc.
You will also find the large section appendixes at the end if the book which will be very useful for reference in the future.
In short this is a must read book if you are a military history buff.
Even though it is quite a large book, I can steadily devour this book due to the authors clear and digestable writing. And having abundance of sketches and drawing to visualise the complex battle helps a lot as well.
In this book Parshall and Tully will put you in the shoes of Nagumo. They rarely tell us what the US forces were doing and you will see the battle from the Japanese perspective only. So I hope you have read other works on battle of Midway.
I learn a lot by reading this book as it takes most of the facts from Japanese sources. The authors dispelled a lot of misconceptions about battle of Midway such as Nagumo's failure to launch immediate attack after finding US carrier task force.
Not only that the authors lovingly tell us about Japanese carrier designs, how they operated, doctrines, damage control etc.
You will also find the large section appendixes at the end if the book which will be very useful for reference in the future.
In short this is a must read book if you are a military history buff.
February 15, 2023
Very interesting to learn about the Battle of Midway from the perspective of the Japanese. Apparently the battle was a far more even matchup than other historians have let on. This book also revealed the frustrations that were experienced during in the infancy of carrier warfare in WW2.
Luck played a part but some of the decisions by the Japanese leadership…
Luck played a part but some of the decisions by the Japanese leadership…
September 26, 2019
Numerous books have been written about the battle of Midway. And why not? Midway was a pivotal naval battle that took place only six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The United States Navy under Admirals Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Battle of Midway has often been called "the turning point of the Pacific". It was the Allies' first major naval victory against the Japanese, won despite the Japanese Navy having more forces and experience than its American counterpart. The value of "Shattered Sword" is that it was written from the Japanese perspective using Japanese sources. In doing so, the book seeks to correct many of the errors and myths that have surrounded the battle. The section of the book titled "Battle Diary" provides a minute timeline of the events of the battle. It also illuminates the Japanese experience. Unfortunately, the book also significantly downplays the American role. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile read that is very clearly written.
September 18, 2013
An extremely detailed look at the inner workings of the Japanese military strategic thinking processes during WW-II. Interesting that many of their problems came from mutual distrust between the Japanese army and navy, also that the highest reaches of the military hierarchy had an ineffective checks and balances procedure.
I was surprised to learn that Pearl Harbor was Yamamoto's idea, and he had enough clout to get it through despite the urgent protest of most of the other high ranking military officials. The prevailing Japanese position -- except for Yamamoto -- was "leave the US alone, and they will not bother us." And, "do not give the US a cause for going to war with Japan." Yamamoto got his way, and Japan ended up getting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Colossal example of bad leadership.
I was surprised to learn that Pearl Harbor was Yamamoto's idea, and he had enough clout to get it through despite the urgent protest of most of the other high ranking military officials. The prevailing Japanese position -- except for Yamamoto -- was "leave the US alone, and they will not bother us." And, "do not give the US a cause for going to war with Japan." Yamamoto got his way, and Japan ended up getting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Colossal example of bad leadership.
August 9, 2021
An interesting revision of how the battle proceeded, at least as compared to the prior popular understandings. It may be most interesting to those already familiar with previous writings such as Miracle at Midway (Gordon Prange) and Incredible Victory (Walter Lord). It's incredibly detailed, too, which is good or bad depending on your natural level of interest in (say) a 30-minute explanation of how Japanese carriers prepped aircraft for takeoff, including notes about the carts used for moving armaments around.
February 12, 2008
The authors set out to bust myths about the Battle of Midway while providing a very in-depth account of the Japanese side of the battle, which hasn't been properly done before. They provide a huge amount of information but deliver it with style and a very amusing snarky attitude. This is military history at its finest.
January 3, 2020
On my third time through, to see what I can pick up.
The level of detail is amazing.
The level of detail is amazing.
February 22, 2020
So, why does the subtitle claim to be the untold story of the battle of Midway? It is written from the Japanese perspective and includes some of the most extensive details I have ever seen in a World War II naval history. While earlier books on Midway incorporate the account of Commander Fuchida Mitsuo, the authors note that it was long ago debunked in Japan and use other Japanese sources, including official records, that tell a quite different story. If anything, this book is a bit of a myth-buster, taking aim at the following fact-claims that the authors consider to be myths:
1. The Americans triumphed against overwhelming odds at the battle of Midway.
2. The Aleutians Operation was designed to be a diversion to lure the American fleet out of Pearl Harbor.
3. Admiral Yamamoto withheld important intelligence from Admiral Nagumo, leaving the operational commander of the carrier strike force in the dark about the American fleet opposing him.
4. Had the Japanese implemented a two-phase reconnaissance search, they would have located the American fleet in time to win the battle.
5. The late launch of cruiser Tone’s No. 4 scout plane kept Nagumo from locating the American fleet in time.
6. If Admiral Nagumo hadn’t decided to rearm his aircraft with land-attack weapons, he would have been able to attack the American carriers as soon as they were discovered.
7. The lone attack by VT-8, resulting in the destruction of the entire squadron, caused the Japanese combat air patrol (CAP) fighters to be at sea level when the American dive bombers arrived overhead, thereby allowing them to attack unmolested by fighters.
8. Japan’s elite carrier aviators were all but wiped out in the battle.
Because many of these points have been considered common knowledge, the burden of proof was on the authors, and they went into impressive levels of detail: Japanese carrier doctrine, including rearming and aircraft spotting procedures, Japanese carrier construction, damage control doctrine, detailed timelines, etc. A detail-oriented engineer and Navy veteran (USS Theodore Roosevelt, CVN-71), I was in my element reading this book.
Before I discuss the myths, I will discuss the different air wings of the American and Japanese carriers. An American carrier had four squadrons:
• Fighter (VF), equipped with Wildcats
• Bomber (VB), equipped for Dauntlesses for dive bombing
• Scout (VS), equipped with Dauntlesses that could bomb a target of opportunity
• Torpedo (VT), equipped with Devastators
For the battle of Midway, the scouting function was primarily performed by PBYs from Midway.
A Japanese carrier had a similar distribution of aircraft:
• Type 0 carrier fighter (Zero)
• Type 97 carrier attack aircraft (Kate) that could carry torpedoes or bombs. Bombs and torpedoes utilized different cradles. So, shifting between bombs and torpedoes required both an ordinance and a cradle change-out.
• Type 99 carrier bomber (Val) for dive bombing
The Japanese primarily used seaplanes carried by their cruisers for scouting, although they were supplemented by type 97 and 99 aircraft from the carriers.
Before I discuss the myths, I also consider it appropriate to list a rough timeline of the battle, with some overlap between some events:
• The Japanese Navy settle on a plan to attack and overrun Midway atoll, luring American carriers out of Pearl Harbor so they can be engaged by heavy surface units and destroyed, providing the decisive victory considered necessary to force the U.S. to the negotiating table. An invasion of the western Aleutian Islands is added to the already complicated plan.
• American cryptographers intercept Japanese communications regarding the battle plan and conclude that Midway was the target of a large Japanese operation.
• The Japanese fleet sorties from the inland sea anchorage at Hashirajima.
• A badly damaged Yorktown returns from the Battle of the Coral Sea. It is given an intense three-day stint in a drydock to get it battle-ready.
• Task Force 16, centered around Enterprise and Hornet and commanded by Admiral Spruance, sorties from Pearl Harbor.
• Task Force 17, centered around Yorktown and commanded by Admiral Fletcher, sorties from Pearl Harbor a day later.
• The carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, in the Midway strike force launch an attack on Midway consisting of half their air wing strength. The other half of their air wing are armed for naval attack to account for the possibility that the American carriers have already sortied.
• Having taken heavy casualties, the Midway attack unit radioes for a second strike on Midway to further soften it up for the scheduled amphibious assault.
• Admiral Nagumo, in command of the Midway strike force, orders the planes in the hangars to be rearmed for land attack.
• A scout plane reports the presence of American naval forces in the area. Later reports will indicate the presence of carriers.
• Admiral Nagumo orders the rearming for land attack to be stopped and the planes to be once more armed for naval attack.
• Multiple waves of aircraft from Midway attack the strike force.
• VT-8 from Hornet attacks alone and is all but wiped out.
• VT-6 from Enterprise attacks alone and suffers heavy casualties.
• The Midway attack unit lands. Its aircraft are moved down to the hangers.
• While VF-6 fighters engage CAP fighters, VB-6 and VS-6 from Enterprise attack and mortally wound Akagi and Kaga. At the same time, escorted by VF-3 fighters, VB-3 from Yorktown attacks and mortally wounds Soryu, and VT-3, also from Yorktown, attacks Hiryu but fails to get any hits.
• Hiryu launches a strike against Yorktown, with dive bombers scoring hits on its flight deck.
• Yorktown puts out the fires and repairs the damage, restoring its flight deck to operational status.
• Hiryu launches another strike that hits Yorktown again, this time with two torpedoes that cripple the carrier. Because of its repairs from the earlier attack, the Japanese think they have hit a second carrier.
• An attack by American carrier aircraft mortally wounds Hiryu.
• Over the next few hours, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu are scuttled.
• During the night, Nagumo and Yamamoto attempt to maneuver their forces to engage the American carriers on the surface. The American commanders maneuvered their carriers to avoid this.
• Finally, Yamamoto decided to terminate the operation and retreat back to Japan. By the time it was notified to turn back, a cruiser group was within fifty miles of Midway. As the cruiser group was retreating, it encountered an American sub on the surface. While it was turning to avoid the sub, two cruisers collided.
• The crippled cruisers were located by American scouts and attacked. Although they both suffered similar damage from the air attacks, only one sank. The survivor had made better damage control choices.
• While Yorktown was being towed back to Pearl Harbor, a Japanese sub torpedoed it and a destroyer alongside, sinking both.
Regarding myth 1, the Japanese assumed that they would have to lure the American fleet out of Pearl Harbor and came up with a complicated plan that positioned different elements of the Japanese fleet too far apart to be mutually supporting. On June 4, three American carriers engaged the four Japanese fleet carriers of the Midway strike force. Because the American carriers had larger air wings than their Japanese counterparts, they were fairly evenly matched. The light carriers of the Japanese main body might have the equivalent of a single fleet carrier’s air wing, but they were too far away to assist the strike force. Furthermore, the American carriers were supplemented by land-based aircraft from Midway’s airstrip. While the Japanese commanders desired to engage the Americans in a surface engagement, the Americans didn’t want this and consistently positioned their fleet to avoid this.
Regarding myth 2, Japan had feared air attack from the American territories closest to the home islands, the Aleutian Islands. When Admiral Yamamoto planned the Midway operation, the Aleutian Island operation was part of the price tag for approval of his plan. If the Aleutians Operation were intended as a diversion to draw the American carriers out of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese would have had to attack Dutch Harbor a few days earlier than they did. As it turned out, the diversion of carrier resources to the Aleutian Islands left the Japanese with fewer carrier resources near Midway.
Regarding myth 3, because Admiral Nagumo received the same intelligence transmittals as Admiral Yamamoto, there was no need for Admiral Yamamoto’s staff to relay intelligence reports to Admiral Nagumo. Other failures left them both in the dark. There had been a plan for seaplanes to overfly Pearl Harbor and identify the American fleet elements there. Given that the seaplanes didn’t have adequate range for this, a submarine was assigned to refuel it at French Frigate Shoals. Because an American destroyer and seaplane tender were present there when the submarine arrived, this operation was called off. Furthermore, other submarines were assigned for cordon duty around Midway. They were a day late getting underway and were not on station until after the American carriers had sortied out of Pearl Harbor and were already in position to fend off an attack on Midway. Had the submarines arrived on schedule, they might have spotted the American carriers and given Admiral Nagumo the early warning he needed.
Regarding myth 4, the two-phase reconnaissance search pattern wasn’t incorporated into Japanese naval doctrine until 1943. Such a search would have involved more aircraft. For Admiral Nagumo, this would have meant utilizing some of his dive bombers as search planes, reducing the strength of his strike waves. Such a search pattern would have gone against contemporary Japanese carrier doctrine that called for hammer blows of overwhelming force. This criticism of Admiral Nagumo comes from Fuchida, who should have known better. That said, the authors consider the search plan inadequate, even for a single-phase plan. There were too few search planes aloft to adequately cover that much ocean, but, as noted earlier, more search planes in the air would have meant fewer dive bombers in the attack waves.
Regarding myth 5, had Tone’s No. 4 seaplane launched on time, its search pattern wouldn’t have overflown the American carriers in time for Admiral Nagumo to launch a strike that would take them out before they could launch their own strike against his carriers. The flight plan of cruiser Chikuma’s No. 1 seaplane would have overflown one of the American carrier task forces in time for Nagumo to attack it before it could launch its own attack. Either this plane flew off-course or it was flying through cloud cover when it overflew the American carriers. Regardless, it missed them.
Regarding myth 6, the authors go into a high level of detail regarding arming, spotting and launching procedures on Japanese carriers. Most of the re-arming and refueling took place in the hangers. The strike on Midway involved about half the planes of the Japanese carriers in the strike force. The other half were armed and ready for a strike on American naval assets, if any were discovered by the scout planes. When the Midway strike group radioed ahead that a second strike would be required on Midway, Admiral Nagumo, not yet having learned about the American carriers in the area, ordered the planes in the hanger to be rearmed for land attack. In the middle of this effort, scout planes started reporting American naval assets in the area. Eventually, they reported the presence of carriers. At this point, Admiral Nagumo ordered the planes to be rearmed with anti-ship weaponry. This did constitute a delay in his ability to attack the American carriers. However, during this time, Nagumo’s carriers were under near-constant air attack from Midway and later from early arriving elements of the American carrier air wings. He was too busy dodging air attacks and launching and recovering CAP fighters to spot his strike wing on deck, warm it up and launch it. As a result, there was a period of time in which the aircraft would have been ready and waiting in the hangars. Remember, World War II carriers had straight flight decks and could do only one thing at a time.
I remember repeating myth 7 in the last year or two and now stand corrected. When Hornet launched its own strike on the Japanese carriers, a misunderstanding of where the carriers should be sent the air wing in a wrong direction. VT-8’s commander thought he knew where the Japanese carriers were and, in violation of orders, led his torpedo planes away from the rest of the air wing. He was right, but his squadron of slow Devastators (In this battle, the slow speed of the Devastators was more devastating to their own aircrews than to the Japanese carriers.) found itself attacking the Japanese carriers without fighter escort. As a result, they were wiped out, with only one man of the thirty-man squadron surviving. Who want’s such a sacrifice to be in vain? It has been long argued that the torpedo planes drew the CAP fighters down to sea level, allowing the dive bombers to attack unmolested by fighters and deliver the fatal blows on the Japanese carriers. The authors point out that the failed attack by VT-8 was followed up by a separate failed attack by VT-6. Finally, the dive bombers of VB-6 and VS-6 just happened to attack the carriers Akagi and Kaga at the same time that the Yorktown attack group (VF-3, VB-3 and VT-3) came on the scene, with VB-3 successfully attacking the carrier Soryu and VT-3 unsuccessfully attacking the carrier Hiryu. The CAP fighters in the air were overwhelmed by simultaneous attacks from different directions and distracted by the surprise implementation by the outnumbered VF-3 fighters (Wildcats) of a new air combat tactic to neutralize the superior speed and maneuverability of the Zero (the fighter used by the Japanese Navy).
Regarding myth 8, with their planes in the hangars, the Japanese aviators not in CAP fighters were in their ready rooms when Akagi, Kaga and Soryu were mortally wounded. While some of them certainly perished on their ships or in the water after abandoning ship, most of them survived. On the other hand, Hiryu’s air wing, which twice attacked Yorktown, suffered exceedingly heavy casualties on account of CAP fighters and anti-aircraft fire. It was the subsequent Solomon Islands campaign that gutted Japan’s corps of elite naval aviators.
Personally, I think that the authors did an outstanding job of defending their thesis. As noted above, I absolutely loved the level of detail in the book.
1. The Americans triumphed against overwhelming odds at the battle of Midway.
2. The Aleutians Operation was designed to be a diversion to lure the American fleet out of Pearl Harbor.
3. Admiral Yamamoto withheld important intelligence from Admiral Nagumo, leaving the operational commander of the carrier strike force in the dark about the American fleet opposing him.
4. Had the Japanese implemented a two-phase reconnaissance search, they would have located the American fleet in time to win the battle.
5. The late launch of cruiser Tone’s No. 4 scout plane kept Nagumo from locating the American fleet in time.
6. If Admiral Nagumo hadn’t decided to rearm his aircraft with land-attack weapons, he would have been able to attack the American carriers as soon as they were discovered.
7. The lone attack by VT-8, resulting in the destruction of the entire squadron, caused the Japanese combat air patrol (CAP) fighters to be at sea level when the American dive bombers arrived overhead, thereby allowing them to attack unmolested by fighters.
8. Japan’s elite carrier aviators were all but wiped out in the battle.
Because many of these points have been considered common knowledge, the burden of proof was on the authors, and they went into impressive levels of detail: Japanese carrier doctrine, including rearming and aircraft spotting procedures, Japanese carrier construction, damage control doctrine, detailed timelines, etc. A detail-oriented engineer and Navy veteran (USS Theodore Roosevelt, CVN-71), I was in my element reading this book.
Before I discuss the myths, I will discuss the different air wings of the American and Japanese carriers. An American carrier had four squadrons:
• Fighter (VF), equipped with Wildcats
• Bomber (VB), equipped for Dauntlesses for dive bombing
• Scout (VS), equipped with Dauntlesses that could bomb a target of opportunity
• Torpedo (VT), equipped with Devastators
For the battle of Midway, the scouting function was primarily performed by PBYs from Midway.
A Japanese carrier had a similar distribution of aircraft:
• Type 0 carrier fighter (Zero)
• Type 97 carrier attack aircraft (Kate) that could carry torpedoes or bombs. Bombs and torpedoes utilized different cradles. So, shifting between bombs and torpedoes required both an ordinance and a cradle change-out.
• Type 99 carrier bomber (Val) for dive bombing
The Japanese primarily used seaplanes carried by their cruisers for scouting, although they were supplemented by type 97 and 99 aircraft from the carriers.
Before I discuss the myths, I also consider it appropriate to list a rough timeline of the battle, with some overlap between some events:
• The Japanese Navy settle on a plan to attack and overrun Midway atoll, luring American carriers out of Pearl Harbor so they can be engaged by heavy surface units and destroyed, providing the decisive victory considered necessary to force the U.S. to the negotiating table. An invasion of the western Aleutian Islands is added to the already complicated plan.
• American cryptographers intercept Japanese communications regarding the battle plan and conclude that Midway was the target of a large Japanese operation.
• The Japanese fleet sorties from the inland sea anchorage at Hashirajima.
• A badly damaged Yorktown returns from the Battle of the Coral Sea. It is given an intense three-day stint in a drydock to get it battle-ready.
• Task Force 16, centered around Enterprise and Hornet and commanded by Admiral Spruance, sorties from Pearl Harbor.
• Task Force 17, centered around Yorktown and commanded by Admiral Fletcher, sorties from Pearl Harbor a day later.
• The carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, in the Midway strike force launch an attack on Midway consisting of half their air wing strength. The other half of their air wing are armed for naval attack to account for the possibility that the American carriers have already sortied.
• Having taken heavy casualties, the Midway attack unit radioes for a second strike on Midway to further soften it up for the scheduled amphibious assault.
• Admiral Nagumo, in command of the Midway strike force, orders the planes in the hangars to be rearmed for land attack.
• A scout plane reports the presence of American naval forces in the area. Later reports will indicate the presence of carriers.
• Admiral Nagumo orders the rearming for land attack to be stopped and the planes to be once more armed for naval attack.
• Multiple waves of aircraft from Midway attack the strike force.
• VT-8 from Hornet attacks alone and is all but wiped out.
• VT-6 from Enterprise attacks alone and suffers heavy casualties.
• The Midway attack unit lands. Its aircraft are moved down to the hangers.
• While VF-6 fighters engage CAP fighters, VB-6 and VS-6 from Enterprise attack and mortally wound Akagi and Kaga. At the same time, escorted by VF-3 fighters, VB-3 from Yorktown attacks and mortally wounds Soryu, and VT-3, also from Yorktown, attacks Hiryu but fails to get any hits.
• Hiryu launches a strike against Yorktown, with dive bombers scoring hits on its flight deck.
• Yorktown puts out the fires and repairs the damage, restoring its flight deck to operational status.
• Hiryu launches another strike that hits Yorktown again, this time with two torpedoes that cripple the carrier. Because of its repairs from the earlier attack, the Japanese think they have hit a second carrier.
• An attack by American carrier aircraft mortally wounds Hiryu.
• Over the next few hours, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu are scuttled.
• During the night, Nagumo and Yamamoto attempt to maneuver their forces to engage the American carriers on the surface. The American commanders maneuvered their carriers to avoid this.
• Finally, Yamamoto decided to terminate the operation and retreat back to Japan. By the time it was notified to turn back, a cruiser group was within fifty miles of Midway. As the cruiser group was retreating, it encountered an American sub on the surface. While it was turning to avoid the sub, two cruisers collided.
• The crippled cruisers were located by American scouts and attacked. Although they both suffered similar damage from the air attacks, only one sank. The survivor had made better damage control choices.
• While Yorktown was being towed back to Pearl Harbor, a Japanese sub torpedoed it and a destroyer alongside, sinking both.
Regarding myth 1, the Japanese assumed that they would have to lure the American fleet out of Pearl Harbor and came up with a complicated plan that positioned different elements of the Japanese fleet too far apart to be mutually supporting. On June 4, three American carriers engaged the four Japanese fleet carriers of the Midway strike force. Because the American carriers had larger air wings than their Japanese counterparts, they were fairly evenly matched. The light carriers of the Japanese main body might have the equivalent of a single fleet carrier’s air wing, but they were too far away to assist the strike force. Furthermore, the American carriers were supplemented by land-based aircraft from Midway’s airstrip. While the Japanese commanders desired to engage the Americans in a surface engagement, the Americans didn’t want this and consistently positioned their fleet to avoid this.
Regarding myth 2, Japan had feared air attack from the American territories closest to the home islands, the Aleutian Islands. When Admiral Yamamoto planned the Midway operation, the Aleutian Island operation was part of the price tag for approval of his plan. If the Aleutians Operation were intended as a diversion to draw the American carriers out of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese would have had to attack Dutch Harbor a few days earlier than they did. As it turned out, the diversion of carrier resources to the Aleutian Islands left the Japanese with fewer carrier resources near Midway.
Regarding myth 3, because Admiral Nagumo received the same intelligence transmittals as Admiral Yamamoto, there was no need for Admiral Yamamoto’s staff to relay intelligence reports to Admiral Nagumo. Other failures left them both in the dark. There had been a plan for seaplanes to overfly Pearl Harbor and identify the American fleet elements there. Given that the seaplanes didn’t have adequate range for this, a submarine was assigned to refuel it at French Frigate Shoals. Because an American destroyer and seaplane tender were present there when the submarine arrived, this operation was called off. Furthermore, other submarines were assigned for cordon duty around Midway. They were a day late getting underway and were not on station until after the American carriers had sortied out of Pearl Harbor and were already in position to fend off an attack on Midway. Had the submarines arrived on schedule, they might have spotted the American carriers and given Admiral Nagumo the early warning he needed.
Regarding myth 4, the two-phase reconnaissance search pattern wasn’t incorporated into Japanese naval doctrine until 1943. Such a search would have involved more aircraft. For Admiral Nagumo, this would have meant utilizing some of his dive bombers as search planes, reducing the strength of his strike waves. Such a search pattern would have gone against contemporary Japanese carrier doctrine that called for hammer blows of overwhelming force. This criticism of Admiral Nagumo comes from Fuchida, who should have known better. That said, the authors consider the search plan inadequate, even for a single-phase plan. There were too few search planes aloft to adequately cover that much ocean, but, as noted earlier, more search planes in the air would have meant fewer dive bombers in the attack waves.
Regarding myth 5, had Tone’s No. 4 seaplane launched on time, its search pattern wouldn’t have overflown the American carriers in time for Admiral Nagumo to launch a strike that would take them out before they could launch their own strike against his carriers. The flight plan of cruiser Chikuma’s No. 1 seaplane would have overflown one of the American carrier task forces in time for Nagumo to attack it before it could launch its own attack. Either this plane flew off-course or it was flying through cloud cover when it overflew the American carriers. Regardless, it missed them.
Regarding myth 6, the authors go into a high level of detail regarding arming, spotting and launching procedures on Japanese carriers. Most of the re-arming and refueling took place in the hangers. The strike on Midway involved about half the planes of the Japanese carriers in the strike force. The other half were armed and ready for a strike on American naval assets, if any were discovered by the scout planes. When the Midway strike group radioed ahead that a second strike would be required on Midway, Admiral Nagumo, not yet having learned about the American carriers in the area, ordered the planes in the hanger to be rearmed for land attack. In the middle of this effort, scout planes started reporting American naval assets in the area. Eventually, they reported the presence of carriers. At this point, Admiral Nagumo ordered the planes to be rearmed with anti-ship weaponry. This did constitute a delay in his ability to attack the American carriers. However, during this time, Nagumo’s carriers were under near-constant air attack from Midway and later from early arriving elements of the American carrier air wings. He was too busy dodging air attacks and launching and recovering CAP fighters to spot his strike wing on deck, warm it up and launch it. As a result, there was a period of time in which the aircraft would have been ready and waiting in the hangars. Remember, World War II carriers had straight flight decks and could do only one thing at a time.
I remember repeating myth 7 in the last year or two and now stand corrected. When Hornet launched its own strike on the Japanese carriers, a misunderstanding of where the carriers should be sent the air wing in a wrong direction. VT-8’s commander thought he knew where the Japanese carriers were and, in violation of orders, led his torpedo planes away from the rest of the air wing. He was right, but his squadron of slow Devastators (In this battle, the slow speed of the Devastators was more devastating to their own aircrews than to the Japanese carriers.) found itself attacking the Japanese carriers without fighter escort. As a result, they were wiped out, with only one man of the thirty-man squadron surviving. Who want’s such a sacrifice to be in vain? It has been long argued that the torpedo planes drew the CAP fighters down to sea level, allowing the dive bombers to attack unmolested by fighters and deliver the fatal blows on the Japanese carriers. The authors point out that the failed attack by VT-8 was followed up by a separate failed attack by VT-6. Finally, the dive bombers of VB-6 and VS-6 just happened to attack the carriers Akagi and Kaga at the same time that the Yorktown attack group (VF-3, VB-3 and VT-3) came on the scene, with VB-3 successfully attacking the carrier Soryu and VT-3 unsuccessfully attacking the carrier Hiryu. The CAP fighters in the air were overwhelmed by simultaneous attacks from different directions and distracted by the surprise implementation by the outnumbered VF-3 fighters (Wildcats) of a new air combat tactic to neutralize the superior speed and maneuverability of the Zero (the fighter used by the Japanese Navy).
Regarding myth 8, with their planes in the hangars, the Japanese aviators not in CAP fighters were in their ready rooms when Akagi, Kaga and Soryu were mortally wounded. While some of them certainly perished on their ships or in the water after abandoning ship, most of them survived. On the other hand, Hiryu’s air wing, which twice attacked Yorktown, suffered exceedingly heavy casualties on account of CAP fighters and anti-aircraft fire. It was the subsequent Solomon Islands campaign that gutted Japan’s corps of elite naval aviators.
Personally, I think that the authors did an outstanding job of defending their thesis. As noted above, I absolutely loved the level of detail in the book.
January 23, 2021
Shattered Sword is a detailed analysis of the Battle of Midway, broadly considered the turning point of the Pacific theater of WW2, and considered one of the most influential naval battles in history. Midway was the first major victory by the Americans in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor, and the moment that Japan went into a defensive war that eventually ended in its surrender. As such, its story is intimately and emotionally tied to the national mythology of both the US and Japan. Parshall establishes his primary motivation is to cauterize some of inevitable propaganda and misinformation that subsequently infiltrated the historical record of Midway. He does this through an almost mathematical precision and vigor.
For the more plebeian audience (like me), the story is filled with dramatic critical decisions made with insufficient information, and cascades of consequences, both catastrophic and triumphant. Shattered Sword details the fascinating complications of operating aircraft carriers, complications which further amplify the drama of the events. Shattered Sword also allows a critical look at the intense, uncompromising culture of the Japanese military at the time, and both the benefit and drawbacks of managing people in that environment. I started Shattered Sword because I craved an in-depth, uncompromisingly detailed treatise on a major historical event, and certainly got what I wanted.
The foundation of the book is both the power and the complexity of WW2 aircraft carriers. Just before Midway, the importance of carriers over battleships was just becoming clear to most navies of the world, to varied extent. Carrier design and operations are tremendously complex. Its hard to use few words to convey it. One example is the process to launch an air group. The appropriate munitions (anti-ship vs. land-based) must be elevated to the hanger, distributed, and installed. The aircraft must be pushed into another elevator and brought to deck. On deck, the wings are unfolded, the fuel tanks filled, and the engine warmed. Because of the power of carrier aircraft engines, if the engines aren't precisely warmed, they may shatter and explode. A flywheel powers the engine initially and low-intensity fuel starts the engine. Slowly more and more powerful fuel is added as the engine is brought to full power, and left running for at least a minute. The carrier then turns into the wind and steams full power while the airplanes take off. Dive bombers, torpedo aircraft, and fighter aircraft must all be flown together for a balanced, effective strike force. Several aircraft carriers working in concert must coordinate this complex procedure so that all types of all aircraft are ready to attack nearly all at the same time, or else some aircraft waste their precious fuel awaiting completion of tasks. Needless to say many many thing can go wrong even outside of battle conditions.
The Japanese navy at the time was exceptional at this aspect of carrier warfare. The intense discipline prized by the Japanese military at this time made their carrier operations and aircraft strikes precise and deadly. Many times the effectiveness of Japanese air strikes were primarily limited in their destruction only by how much ammo they could carry on takeoff. To contrast, American carriers were relatively inexperienced and were essentially incapable of coordinating multiple carrier strikes. Tragic consequences abounded. Japanese fighters cut thorough whole flight groups at a time. Some American flight groups got lost, ran of out fuel, and crashed into the Pacific never seeing combat.
On the other hand, the argument can be made that the uncompromising intensity of Japanese naval culture was intimately tied at least one of the major causes of their loss at Midway. Japanese leaders were rigidly opposed to admitting any mistakes and limiting material and human losses from mistakes, and terrified of criticizing faulty leadership (if that leader was nationalistic and aggressive). In short, Japanese leaders were more inclined to die in a blaze of glory than endure the embarrassment of owning their mistakes and saving what ships and sailors they could. As a result, Midway went from being a slight mishap, to a major crisis, to a national catastrophe in very short order. Ironically, the very leaders who ultimately were to blame for the defeat were not allowed to die in glory and instead had their reputations purged by a propaganda campaign and cover up after the battle. As part of that campaign, the sailor and pilots who survived these terrors and performed heroically for Japan were outcast and thrown into concentration camps.
For the more plebeian audience (like me), the story is filled with dramatic critical decisions made with insufficient information, and cascades of consequences, both catastrophic and triumphant. Shattered Sword details the fascinating complications of operating aircraft carriers, complications which further amplify the drama of the events. Shattered Sword also allows a critical look at the intense, uncompromising culture of the Japanese military at the time, and both the benefit and drawbacks of managing people in that environment. I started Shattered Sword because I craved an in-depth, uncompromisingly detailed treatise on a major historical event, and certainly got what I wanted.
The foundation of the book is both the power and the complexity of WW2 aircraft carriers. Just before Midway, the importance of carriers over battleships was just becoming clear to most navies of the world, to varied extent. Carrier design and operations are tremendously complex. Its hard to use few words to convey it. One example is the process to launch an air group. The appropriate munitions (anti-ship vs. land-based) must be elevated to the hanger, distributed, and installed. The aircraft must be pushed into another elevator and brought to deck. On deck, the wings are unfolded, the fuel tanks filled, and the engine warmed. Because of the power of carrier aircraft engines, if the engines aren't precisely warmed, they may shatter and explode. A flywheel powers the engine initially and low-intensity fuel starts the engine. Slowly more and more powerful fuel is added as the engine is brought to full power, and left running for at least a minute. The carrier then turns into the wind and steams full power while the airplanes take off. Dive bombers, torpedo aircraft, and fighter aircraft must all be flown together for a balanced, effective strike force. Several aircraft carriers working in concert must coordinate this complex procedure so that all types of all aircraft are ready to attack nearly all at the same time, or else some aircraft waste their precious fuel awaiting completion of tasks. Needless to say many many thing can go wrong even outside of battle conditions.
The Japanese navy at the time was exceptional at this aspect of carrier warfare. The intense discipline prized by the Japanese military at this time made their carrier operations and aircraft strikes precise and deadly. Many times the effectiveness of Japanese air strikes were primarily limited in their destruction only by how much ammo they could carry on takeoff. To contrast, American carriers were relatively inexperienced and were essentially incapable of coordinating multiple carrier strikes. Tragic consequences abounded. Japanese fighters cut thorough whole flight groups at a time. Some American flight groups got lost, ran of out fuel, and crashed into the Pacific never seeing combat.
On the other hand, the argument can be made that the uncompromising intensity of Japanese naval culture was intimately tied at least one of the major causes of their loss at Midway. Japanese leaders were rigidly opposed to admitting any mistakes and limiting material and human losses from mistakes, and terrified of criticizing faulty leadership (if that leader was nationalistic and aggressive). In short, Japanese leaders were more inclined to die in a blaze of glory than endure the embarrassment of owning their mistakes and saving what ships and sailors they could. As a result, Midway went from being a slight mishap, to a major crisis, to a national catastrophe in very short order. Ironically, the very leaders who ultimately were to blame for the defeat were not allowed to die in glory and instead had their reputations purged by a propaganda campaign and cover up after the battle. As part of that campaign, the sailor and pilots who survived these terrors and performed heroically for Japan were outcast and thrown into concentration camps.
March 25, 2022
This is a Very Good Book. The authors did a real superb job looking at the Battle of Midway from the perspective of the Japanese Navy. Tactical and strategic considerations are discussed in detail, as are their doctrine, procedures, and hardware.
It's hard not to compare it to The Rules of the Game, because they both discuss well-known battles and reevaluate them through the lens of the culture and environment in which the battles took place.
There are a few minor nits to pick with this book:
1) The authors start discussing the IJN doctrine before mostly saying that it's boring and they won't discuss it much. I wish there was a bit more discussion of the framework in which the leadership was operating
2) American details are almost too lacking. I liked that it was told from the Japanese view with just a small smattering of American narrative when required, but the book doesn't even have a listing of the forces that the US was using as an appendix. There's no listing of the ships, airplanes, or their details. Not critical, but would have been nice to have as a reference.
It's hard not to compare it to The Rules of the Game, because they both discuss well-known battles and reevaluate them through the lens of the culture and environment in which the battles took place.
There are a few minor nits to pick with this book:
1) The authors start discussing the IJN doctrine before mostly saying that it's boring and they won't discuss it much. I wish there was a bit more discussion of the framework in which the leadership was operating
2) American details are almost too lacking. I liked that it was told from the Japanese view with just a small smattering of American narrative when required, but the book doesn't even have a listing of the forces that the US was using as an appendix. There's no listing of the ships, airplanes, or their details. Not critical, but would have been nice to have as a reference.
March 18, 2022
A truly great book. Excellent piece of scholarship. Expertly researched, tremendous amount of work went into this book. You can see that on every page. Beautifully written as well. It's not overly long, or too short either. The author's conclusions are excellent. Well researched and well thought out. It's worth reading the conclusions more than once. Lots of information on the Japanese carriers and why things happened the way they did. You won't find stuff like that in any other book on Midway.
The book is written for adults with a prior knowledge of Midway and WWII. I love history books like that!! It's meant to plow new ground on the subject and set the record straight on the battle, which has been distorted for 50 years by early Japanese works. The whole 'miracle at Midway ' business was meant to convey extraordinary good luck by the Americans, not skill, resolve, better planning as well as leadership.
The book is written for adults with a prior knowledge of Midway and WWII. I love history books like that!! It's meant to plow new ground on the subject and set the record straight on the battle, which has been distorted for 50 years by early Japanese works. The whole 'miracle at Midway ' business was meant to convey extraordinary good luck by the Americans, not skill, resolve, better planning as well as leadership.
October 21, 2020
Respect. Lots of it. That is what I had for the authors at the end of this work. Mad respect. The copious amounts of work necessary to produce a book of this kind beggars the imagination. No, the writing is not the best in the sense of holding your attention, though it isn't terrible either. No, it comes nowhere near the soul of wit i.e. brevity. But what it does it does with absolute conviction - walk you through the Japanese side of the battle of Midway in painstaking detail. That detail could have been done with a bit less of "here's why we hold this position", but painstaking detail nonetheless. The authors also did an excellent job of explaining the strategic and tactical situation prior to and after the battle.
Respect for the work, and a much greater understanding of this pivotal naval battle. Good work here.
Respect for the work, and a much greater understanding of this pivotal naval battle. Good work here.
June 24, 2021
Often when I eventually get around to reading a book that has been so highly praised, I am disappointed. Not in this case . Shattered Sword is every bit as good as its reputation and I would say vital to understanding the story of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II in general and the Battle of Midway specifically.
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