book on midway

does anyone here know any good books that talk about the strategies used in the battle of midway? thanks in advance

'Miracle at Midway' by Gordon Prange is good:

written by two IJN officers. The library should have a couple more. ;- Look for Dull's History of the IJN in WW2.

'The First Team' by John Lundstrom. This book covers fleet carrier fighter operations from the opening of hostilities to after the battle of Midway.

In particular it covers the amazing story of fighter pilot Jimmy Thach who developed the defensive weave later assigned his name: The Thach Weave.

This book also explains how the Navy emphasized deflection shooting and has Navy training diagrams to show how it was taught. Accurate deflection shooting played a big part in the navy pilot's ability to hold their own with the Japanese fighters in the early part of the war.

Corky Scott

'Miracle at Midway,' 'The First Team,' and 'Midway: The Japanese Navy's Story' have been mentioned. I would add, 'A Glorious Page in our History,' by Cressman et al.

You might have a look at 'Midway - The Battle that Doomed Japan' by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya. Both were aboard ships involved in the battle, and in responsible positions. They go over the Japanese strategy and tactics thoroughly. There's a lot of materal from the American side. Too much to list. Do a search under 'Battle of Midway' on Google.

John

Layton's book, And I Was There, is a good narative of the Pacific radio intelligence war. He tells of the conflict between the Washington navy buereaucracy and his own code-breaker, Joseph Rochefort, as to the next Japanese navy objective. Rochefort said the Japanese would hit Midway. Washington said otherwise. Rochefort was correct, and was rewarded with command of a floating dry-dock in San Francisco Bay. The interesting thing about this is that Admiral Nimitz, pacific fleet commander, was not able to protect Rochefort.

I suggest Samuel Elliot Morrison's History of Unites States Naval Operations in World War II. It's published by Little Brown, but it is out of print. Try to get the revised (1957?) edition if you can. The entire serries is pretty bood, but you will want Vollume IV. I believe it is called Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions.

Quite frankly, if you want to take a serrious look at the Navy in World War II, I believe Morrison's book to be required reading. I'm up to Vollume VII (it's thirteen vollumes en toto), and it is simply fantastic. The problem with most historian's books are that they don't have any understanding of what actually goes on in a war, while most military officers have no sense of history (and few write decent English). Morrison was commisioned into the Navy by Roosevelt to write his history. Regardless, it is a very fair history, both for and against the Navy. He also interviewed darn near everyone, had access to darn near everything, and fought in various theatres throughout the war.

My problem with the 'Prange' vollume on Midway is that it is written in a barely litterate fashion, and Prange shows much less apreciation for pretty much everything then most other historians I've read. It's sole redeeming value is that it is filled with quotes, which give him a bare minimum of competance, coherence, and expertise.

The annalysis of the war games leading up to Midway in Perla's The Art of Wargaming is fairly interesting, though I don't especially recomend the book as the discussion about Midway makes only a short apearance.

Clash of Cultures presents another interesting analysis, though I am not sure that I agree with it.

some snips

some more snips

I wouldn't count on Morrison all that much. I have the complete set and have read them all more than just a few times. While Morrison is quite readable and provides a lot of information, he has two basic a strikes against him: 1.) He was writing shortly after the events and as such really did not have available to him all the information that writers, especially those from 1980 on, had or have available to them. His Midway account suffers accordingly. Other parts of his narratives, and not just relating to Midway, have what are now perceived as curious little voids in them that are now explainable with modern knowledge of signals intelligence and analysis. Morrison, not being privy to that information, and from his castigation of folks like Fletcher he obviously was not, drew his conclusions based on what he perceived with the information at hand, thus you get an incomplete picture and lopsided analysis. 2.) If you read the whole series very carefully you should be able to draw the conclusion that Morrison really wasn't all that familiar with carrier operations, especially Fast Carrier operations, and never bothered to find out. This leads IMHO to some built in biases against some folks, Fletcher again comes to mind, that are not truly justified, mostly from an obvious lack of understanding of the true circumstances, operationally and, again, with regard to intelligence issues. Still, these books are a good place to start as you get a lot of the period flavor and they certainly provide a starting point for OOB's and who is who. If you want to point fingers at errors in Prange's account it is easy to do, some major, some minor. My Prange volume has forty some odd margin notes where he, or his ghost writers, made mistakes. But, surprise, surprise, there's quite a bit more than a few margin notes (in my handwriting - the amateur historian - and my father's ^Ö who was there, XO of VF-3) in my copy of Morrison's Midway account (never bothered to count them ^Ö I can if you want). For the money, the best overall volume on the Battle of Midway is Cressman and Ewing, et.al. 'A Glorious Page in our History.' Close on its heels, from an aviation standpoint, is Lundstrom's 'The First Team ^Ö Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway'. You can't go wrong with either.