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Summary
Summary
The Battle of Midway is considered the greatest U.S. naval victory, but behind the luster is the devastation of the American torpedo squadrons. Of the 51 planes sent to attack Japanese carriers only 7 returned, and of the 127 aircrew only 29 survived. Not a single torpedo hit its target.
A story of avoidable mistakes and flawed planning, The Unknown Battle of Midway reveals the enormous failures that led to the destruction of four torpedo squadrons but were omitted from official naval reports: the planes that ran out of gas, the torpedoes that didn't work, the pilots who had never dropped torpedoes, and the breakdown of the attack plan. Alvin Kernan, who was present at the battle, has written a troubling but persuasive analysis of these and other little-publicized aspects of this great battle. The standard navy tactics for carrier warfare are revealed in tragic contrast to the actual conduct of the battle and the after-action reports of the ships and squadrons involved.
Author Notes
Alvin Kernan is Avalon University Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, Princeton University. He served in the U.S. Navy, 1941-45. Among his previous books are The Fruited Plain: Fables for a Postmodern Democracy and In Plato's Cave , both published by Yale University Press.
Reviews (1)
Booklist Review
Author of a notable war memoir ( Crossing the Line,0 1994), Kernan returns to1942's Battle of Midway, in which he was ordnance man on the aircraft carrier Enterprise0 . Considered the strategic turning point of the Pacific War, Midway is seen by military historians as an improbable American victory, one marred by the near-total annihilation of American torpedo bomber squadrons and whose story, Kernan remarks, has never been thoroughly studied. Because of the obsolescence of torpedo, or "Devastator," planes, mounting a coordinated strike was the pilots' only hope of survival, one that failed to materialize due to snafus that Kernan grimly but rivetingly relates. Attacking alone, the Devastators had the sacrificial effect of distracting Japanese fighter planes from dive bombers that eventually sank the Japanese carriers. "In the years since," Kernan writes, "this unintended action has become the official justification for the tragedy." Those justifications are the telling component in Kernan's autopsy, as he detects deceptions between the lines of after-action reports. An incisive and laconic writer, Kernan knows his facts and presents them with deep feeling. A World War II must-read. --Gilbert Taylor Copyright 2005 Booklist
