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Bateman, Sam --- "Book Review. Shattered Sword - The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" [2007] MarStudies 37; (2007) 157 Maritime Studies 26

• BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

Shattered Sword – The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway

SHATTERED SWORD – THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2005. ISBN 1-57488-923-0 hard cover, xxvi & 613 pp, maps, indexed. US$35.00

This is a hugely impressive work. There have been numerous books on the Battle of Midway published over the years but this is by far the best. It makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources, including Imperial Japanese Navy operational records, never before used by Western authors. It reconstructs the actual sequence of events of 4 June 1942 to provide new insights into the decisions of the US and Japanese commanders and to place them within the rarely appreciated context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. In so doing, it destroys some of the myths about the Battle of Midway that have been widely believed over the years.

The Battle of Midway was one of the major battles of World War Two. Fought in the waters to the northwest of Midway Island in the Central Pacific, it was a comprehensive victory for the Americans that turned the tide of the Pacific War. A large Japanese naval force under the command of Admiral Yamamoto and comprising the First Carrier Striking Force of four large aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu) supported by various groups of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and other vessels was engaged by a much smaller American force of three large carriers (Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown) and escorts, which had some support from land-based aircraft operating out of Midway Island. All four of the Japanese carriers, as well as one heavy cruiser, were sunk by successive attacks by US aircraft. The Americans lost Yorktown but although she was severely damaged by aircraft attacks, she probably would have survived if not torpedoed by a Japanese submarine while being towed out of the battle area.

The main myths to be destroyed by Shattered Sword relate to the accounts of the battle put out by the Japanese naval air group commander, Commander Fuchida Mitsuo, after the war. His account of the battle in Midway: The Battle that doomed Japan published in English in 1955 paints the picture of a very closely run affair and has been widely accepted as an accurate record by many later writers. However, Parshall and Tully believe that Fuchida deliberately distorted details surrounding crucial events that determined the outcome of the battle. The major myth here is that at the time of the decisive American attacks on the Japanese carriers, the latter ships had armed and fuelled aircraft on deck ready to launch an attack against the American carriers. If the American attack had come a short time later, the Japanese aircraft would according to Fuchida, have been in the air and on their way to attack the American force. Parshall and Tully by their detailed reconstruction of events, including research into aircraft handling and deck spotting practices of the Japanese Navy, argue that this was not so. The aircraft were still in their hangers where their presence during the American bombing attacks helped fuel the major fires and ultimate destruction of the Japanese carriers.

Shattered Sword conclusively examines why Japan lost the Battle of Midway. The first reason was the over-confidence of the Japanese after six months of easy victories that had started with Pearl Harbor. As Parshall and Tully summarise the Japanese attitude:

The Japanese were overconfident going into battle. They were guilty of ignoring the various warning signs that manifested themselves from the time of Coral Sea onward. They did underestimate the resolve and the fighting abilities of the Americans.

(Shattered Sword, p. 401)

Then there were the personal tactical and operational blunders. First, the Japanese still lacked radar at the time of Midway and failed to put in place an effective air search plan that stood a reasonable chance of detecting the American carriers. Secondly, the Japanese search aircraft did not search or report as efficiently as they should have. But more importantly, there was the complete failure of Admiral Yamamoto’s battle plan. He had too many objectives – crush the Americans in one great battle at sea, and seize both Midway Island and the Aleutians. In drawing up this plan, he made the dangerous assumption ‘That the Americans were beaten, and therefore had to be baited into fighting’ (Shattered Sword, p. 402). He lacked the same signals intelligence that the Americans had on his movements and under-estimated the number of American carriers able to put to sea. Yamamoto did not even countenance the scenario that not only were the Americans not beaten but they actually might be lying in wait for him!

The overall conclusion of Shattered Sword (p. 408) is that the Japanese Navy had ‘a learning problem’. They failed to appreciate that their basic principle of the central importance of the big gun, big surface battle carried down from the Battle of Tsushima was no longer applicable. They failed to grasp the lessons of the war that they themselves had launched, particularly the overriding importance in carrier warfare of numerical superiority.

Midway turned the tide of the Pacific War. From then on, the Americans held the naval initiative in the Pacific and it was a downward path for the Japanese Navy until its total ruination in 1945. A direct outcome of the battle was the inability of the Japanese to proceed with their planned operation to seize Fiji and Samoa and cut off the lines of communication between Australia and North America.

Parshall and Tully are somewhat circumspect about the overall strategic importance of the Battle of Midway. They see this as not as profound or as decisive in the longer term as some previous writers on the battle have seen it. The Japanese were already overstretched and could not in any foreseeable circumstances have captured the Hawaiian Islands which were increasingly heavily fortified and for the Japanese at the end of very long and vulnerable sea lines of communication. Most importantly, the American industrial machine had swung into action and was producing war material, including aircraft carriers, at a rate well beyond anything that the Japanese were capable of.

By the time of Midway, the authors of Shattered Sword argue that America was not going to lose the Pacific War. However, the consequences of an American loss at Midway would have been extremely serious for Australia. Fiji and Samoa were not well defended and may have fallen to the Japanese. Although severely mauled at Midway, the Japanese Navy was still able to fight vigorous engagements around the Solomons later in 1942. The Battle of Midway was an extremely important engagement that helped save Australia during World War Two. Shattered Sword is an enthralling and detailed account of the battle that is highly recommended.

Sam Bateman

Australian National Centre for

Ocean Resources and Security

University of Wollongong