This is an in-depth study of the battle of Midway that reviews the many previous accounts and compares their accuracy and veracity with fresh documentation that has been released recently, including new material on the post-war analysis made by a US select committee. There are new viewpoints on the muddle among the US Admirals; the total failure of the USAAF, despite elaborate claims; fresh thinking on the part played by the US Navy Dauntless dive-bombers in the action; the mystery of the carrier Saratoga's presence; Hollywood's totally wrong take on the battle in all the films since made about it. Also, included are new eyewitness accounts the author has obtained and information from Japanese sources that has never been previously published. The lengthy Appendices will include statistical details of the ships, the planes and the men.

This is an in-depth study of the battle of Midway that reviews the many previous accounts and compares their accuracy and veracity with fresh documentation that has been released recently, including new material on the post-war analysis made by a US select committee. There are new viewpoints on the muddle among the US Admirals; the total failure of the USAAF, despite elaborate claims; fresh thinking on the part played by the US Navy Dauntless dive-bombers in the action; the mystery of the carrier Saratoga's presence; Hollywood's totally wrong take on the battle in all the films since made about it. Also, included are new eyewitness accounts the author has obtained and information from Japanese sources that has never been previously published. The lengthy Appendices will include statistical details of the ships, the planes and the men.

The best way for todays sailors to learn about a battle is from those who fought it. The Battle of Midway, commemorated annually in the U.S. Navy, warrants close attention. This Naval Institute guide includes some of the most vibrant and informed accounts by individuals who fought on both sides of the June 1942 battle. The anthology pulls together memoirs, articles, excerpts from other Naval Institute books, and relevant government documents to help readers understand what happened and explain why the battle was so significant to the naval service. The core of the book focuses on events leading up to the battle and the battle itself, with a separate section examining how others have interpreted the battles often desperate engagements. When the U.S. Navy stopped the Japanese steamroller off Midway Island, it not only turned the progress of the war but set the Navys foundation for future counter offensives. The Navys comeback spread to the Solomon Islands and on to the other key strategic areas in the Pacific. While many know that Midway was a crucial American victory, they often do not know the details of the battle. This book tells how, for example, the American PT boats contributed to the victory, how the carrier planes formed up for their attacks, and what role radar played in the battle. In addition to excerpts from books and articles, the guide includes selections from several important Naval Institute oral histories. From the enlisted mans perspective all the way to the admirals, for both Americans and Japanese, readers see the U.S. Navys greatest victory as the participants saw it.

New York Times bestseller: The true story of the WWII naval battle portrayed in the Roland Emmerich film is “something special among war histories” (Chicago Sun-Times). Six months after Pearl Harbor, the seemingly invincible Imperial Japanese Navy prepared a decisive blow against the United States. After sweeping through Asia and the South Pacific, Japan’s military targeted the tiny atoll of Midway, an ideal launching pad for the invasion of Hawaii and beyond. But the US Navy would be waiting for them. Thanks to cutting-edge code-breaking technology, tactical daring, and a significant stroke of luck, the Americans under Adm. Chester W. Nimitz dealt Japan’s navy its first major defeat in the war. Three years of hard fighting remained, but it was at Midway that the tide turned. This “stirring, even suspenseful narrative” is the first book to tell the story of the epic battle from both the American and Japanese sides (Newsday). Miracle at Midway reveals how America won its first and greatest victory of the Pacific war—and how easily it could have been a loss.

Lt. Phil "Buck" Rogers and his comrades pilot untested dive bombers from the deck of the U.S.S. Yorktown, battling the Japanese in the conflicts at Midway and Guadalcanal.

Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" —Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise’s elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target—the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan’s most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty’s perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier’s deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank—losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history—and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway’s seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty’s remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

The “remarkable” New York Times bestseller about the battle in the Pacific that turned the tide of World War II—from the author of The Miracle of Dunkirk (Los Angeles Times). On the morning of June 4, 1942, doom sailed on Midway. Hoping to put itself within striking distance of Hawaii and California, the Japanese navy planned an ambush that would obliterate the remnants of the American Pacific fleet. On paper, the Americans had no chance of winning. They had fewer ships, slower fighters, and almost no battle experience. But because their codebreakers knew what was coming, the American navy was able to prepare an ambush of its own. Over two days of savage battle, American sailors and pilots broke the spine of the Japanese war machine. The United States prevailed against momentous odds; never again did Japan advance. In stunning detail, Walter Lord, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Day of Infamy and A Night to Remember, tells the story of one of the greatest upsets in naval history. “Graphic and realistic . . . not an impersonalized account of moves on the chessboard of war, [but] a story of individual people facing crucial problems.” —The New York Times

A close-up look at the battle of Midway Island analyzes this crucial naval victory, which marked the turning point for the American fleet in the Pacific theater of World War II.

Recreates the naval battle between Japanese and American forces which was the decisive factor in the Pacific theater during World War II.

Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on 7 December 1941, had severely damaged the United States Pacific Fleet but had not destroyed it, for the fleet’s aircraft carrier force had been at sea when the Japanese struck. This meant that, despite the overwhelming success of Japanese military forces across the Pacific, US carrier-based aircraft could still attack Japanese targets. After the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942, in which both sides had lost one carrier, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, calculated that the US had only two serviceable carriers left. If those remaining carriers could be lured into a battle with the Combined Fleet and destroyed, nothing could stop the Japanese achieving complete control of the South Pacific. It would take the United States many months, even with its massive industrial muscle, to rebuild its carried fleet if it was destroyed, by which time Japan would be able to secure the raw materials needed to keep its war machine functioning and to build all the bases it required across the Pacific, which would enable its aircraft to dominate the entire region. Aware of the sensitivity of the Americans towards Hawaii after the Battle of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto believed that if he attacked there again, the US commander, Admiral Nimitz would be certain to commit all his strength to its defence. Yamamoto selected the furthest point of the Hawaiian Islands, the Naval Air Station on the Midway Atoll, for his attack, which was beyond the range of most US land-based aircraft. Yamamoto launched his attack on 4 June 1942. But the US had intercepted and deciphered Japanese signals and Nimitz, with three not two aircraft carriers, knew exactly Yamamoto’s plans. Yamamoto had hoped to draw the US carriers into his trap but instead he sailed into an ambush. The four-day battle resulted in the loss of all four Japanese aircraft carriers, the US losing only one. The Japanese were never able to recover from these losses, and it was the Americans who were able to take control of the Pacific. The Battle of Midway, unquestionably, marked the turning point in the war against Japan.