Battle of Midway (Images of War)

The front cover of this book tells us that it’s one of the ‘Images of War’ series, providing an immediate clue as to its format and contents - lots (and I do mean lots) of images and maps complementing a well-structured and wholly readable text that, together, take the reader hour by hour and day by day through each phase of the battle that became the early turning point of the Pacific naval war. While many may already be aware of the dramatic events of 4 June 1942 that saw the four fleet carriers of the Japanese Kido Butai (‘Mobile Force’) destroyed, the book casts its net wider, covering the whole period 3-7 June to present the battle in its full context - the first long-range contacts on 3 June, the attack on Midway Atoll itself on 4 June and the destruction of the Japanese carriers for the loss of just one American that same day and subsequent actions that included the sinking of the heavy cruisers Mogami and Mikuma. Its introductory chapter, “The Build-Up to Battle”, sets the scene very well, explaining the key events preceding it and the strategic thinking governing both sides’ approach. For the Japanese it involved a switch from the stunningly successful offensive campaign that had secured her all of South-East Asia and most of the Pacific from the Philippines to just a few hundred miles west of the Hawaiian Islands, of which Midway itself was the most north-westerly, to one of consolidation. This involved the creation of an impregnable defensive ring around her acquisitions that would force the United States and her European allies to the negotiating table on Japanese terms. This, however, implicitly required the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers, these having been at sea when Pearl Harbor was attacked and their continued existence now preventing completion of that grand strategic plan. This, the author explains, is what ultimately led to the Battle of Midway. The Japanese C-in-C Admiral Yamamoto had devised a plan centred on an invasion of Midway itself to draw the Americans and their carriers into a decisive battle that would see them destroyed. His complex plan, however, was predicated on two key beliefs, firstly that the Americans would conform to his plan and, secondly, that they had only two carriers to his four, when in fact they had three, the Yorktown having been repaired in record time after the earlier Battle of the Coral Sea. One of his own carriers, the Shokaku, had also been severely damaged in that same battle and was unavailable for the Midway operation. Grehan surmises that, had she been there as well, the outcome might well have been very different, an interesting point. The other crucial advantage the Americans had was that they had broken the Japanese naval code so knew virtually from the outset what they were up to, while Admiral Nagumo of the Kido Butai in particular, as the man on the spot, could only hope the Americans’ own moves would conform to requirement, which of course they didn’t. This is a very well-researched, well-presented and extensively illustrated book that succeeds in actually taking you to the battle, not least through the many personal stories it contains. Highly recommended.