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You are correct, “Shattered Sword” is a very good addition to the other literature on the battle of Midway.

One of the authors gave a 50 minute presentation which is well worth the watch as he raises some very interesting and contrary opinions on how it all played out.

Go here and enjoy: https://youtu.be/Y9rkKtK1b44

Ah, excellent! I am looking forward to watching it tonight.

I have to buy a copy of the book as well. It is one that I want to own...with books like this, I usually get the physical book, the audio book, and the Kindle version that I can mark up for reference.

It is that good.

I use the battle of Midway as a reference to how historical events can be interpreted differently over time. I usually have people read "Miracle at Midway" by Prange, then "Midway" by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, and end with "Shattered Sword". The interesting thing is how the story changes based on each author biases.

If you are interested in another good book I am currently reading "The Fast Carriers - The Forging of an Air Navy" by Clark Reynolds. It goes into the history of the leaders on the American side. It also details the struggles to change the orientation of the Navy's strategic thought from being dominated by battleship to the carrier. And how the change in thought once fully realized changed the way the war was fought.

Go here and enjoy: https://youtu.be/Y9rkKtK1b44

I did and I did. The new thing I learned was that with the ability of a Zero to get to fifteen thousand feet in minutes, the sacrifice of the air groups that brought the CAP down too low, was not a decisive factor. Moreso were the two attacks that ‘bought time,’ meaning they delayed the IJN’s ability by about forty minutes to launch a counterstrike, allowing the dive bombers to get there first.

That was very good, thanks very much for posting the link.

I appreciate the need to have people like the author who can look at an event with a different set of eyes, even if I don't always agree.

For example, his statement that VT-8 drawing down the IJN CAP from altitude wasn't the reason the dive bombers later came in unmolested, and he backed it up with timing statements (asserting accurately) that the CAP could have climbed back up to fifteen thousand feet in five minutes in their Zeroes (which is accurate as well). I appreciate that analysis, but...in the end, he assumes (I say he assumes due to the way he words it) that they DID climb back up to altitude.

I took a bit of issue with that (UNLESS he actually knows they did climb back up) because it isn't out of the realm of possibility that they didn't. They had just completely destroyed two full squadrons...I could see the confused nature, everyone exulting, and not realizing they should be back at altitude all contributing to a delay to get back up.

But I follow his logic. It is that same logic that does ring a bell of truth abut the Aleutian "feint" and how...it wasn't.

I had a remarkable experience some years ago, back in the late1990's.

I used to play an online war flight simulator called "Warbirds" and did it extensively for about four years. I had the whole setup, a chair I built with stick, rudders and throttle controls, so I was into it. It was a massive online environment, the first of its kind for a flight simulator, so you might have 300 people online. All that is so common now, but it was unique back then, especially for a flight sim.

Most of the time, it was simply going up in the air and looking for an opponent to dogfight, and sometimes it was flying in a squadron setting (I was a member of a squadron called "The HellFish"...I recall about forty guys...a navy squadron, flying Wildcats, Hellcats, Dauntless, TBFs, etc.

But sometimes, we would take part in a "scenario". For example, one of the scenarios was the Schweinfurt Raid. They were very structured, they only allowed a certain number of people to register to participate so that the number of planes on both German and American sides were similar to the actual historic numbers, though you would never have a full crew in a B-17 anywhere from 2-5 guys, though some of the hardcores would go up with full crews. You had to assemble on the ground in the planes, line up, take off, climb to altitude, form up into formations take directions from a leader who would tell your formation where to go. It would take 20 minutes of boring climbing to altitude with a full bomb load, go out across the channel, the whole nine yards. Then, when you approached the target in your B-17, there they were, imperceptible specs that grew and grew in number. German fighters, all being flown by real people. I found it pretty incredible...you could almost visualize how it must have looked to those bomber crews as they approached the target with that huge swarm of hundreds of ME-109's and FW-190's getting ready to dive in on you, with no fighter escort. Anyway, one of the "scenarios" was the Battle of Midway, where it was set up historically the same way from a ship position perspective. You knew what quadrant to find them in, and they didn't know you were there if you were on the American side. I was flying a Dauntless doing search. That is, me and one other guy in the backseat on the gun were given a piece of the ocean to search in, and radio back to the rest of the planes if we spotted the Japanese ships...which we eventually did. Funny thing was...it played out exactly as it had in real life. It was astonishing. Nobody planned it that way...nobody was going from a historical knowledge, everyone was just flying it and playing it like a game, but...the torpedo bombers got there first, the Japanese CAP came down in their Zeroes and shot nearly all of them down, and the dive bombers appeared on the scene above, dove in and bombed the Japanese carriers! I found that to be completely amazing that it worked out the same way with no overt orchestration. That was a huge amount of fun, for me being a total aviation nut who will never get my pilot's license...I guess as close as I will ever get...:)