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Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway

Jonathan Parshall,

Anthony Tully

4.43 · Rating details · 2,511 ratings · 228 reviews

Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, Shattered Sword makes extensi ...more

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Hardcover, 612 pages

Published November 1st 2005 by Potomac Books

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Mar 28, 2010 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: world-war-ii, world-war-ii-pacific

“The conditions in [the Japanese aircraft carrier] Kaga’s hangars immediately after the bombing were horrific beyond description. Bodies and pieces of bodies of Kaga’s armorers and mechanics lay strewn everywhere among the wreckage of her aircraft. In the open air, a 1,000-pound general purpose bomb has a 50 percent chance of killing anyone standing within a thirty-foot radius of the blast center. Inside the confines of the hangar deck, these lethal effects were greatly magnified…Mechanics, plan ...more

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Nov 13, 2019 Sweetwilliam rated it really liked it

I always thought that a stroke of good fortune was the reason for the United States Navy’s victory over at Midway. Others may say it was divine providence. The authors of Shattered Sword do not see it this way. They break down the Japanese Naval war machine step by step, and weigh each factor that contributed to their demise; chief of which was the IJN’s belief that quality was more important than quantity. The result was that Yamamoto divided his forces by sending two carriers to the Aleutians ...more

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Dec 11, 2019 Boudewijn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: english, downloaded, non-fiction, world-war-2, audible, audio

Parshall and Tully deal with some of the fallacious ideas around the Battle of Midway. These are either untrue, or at least require careful clarification. Some of these ideas have been implanted in the Western accounts as a result of misunderstandings of the records of the battle. Some have resulted from a faulty understanding of the basic mechanics of how the battle was fought. Some are misrepresentations of the truth that were deliberately introduced by participants in the battle. And each has ...more

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Aug 28, 2014 Sumit rated it it was amazing

Shelves: military-history, to-read_history-wwii

A full five star, Often we hear that History being written by Victor and get shrouded in myths. However Battle at Midway was one of rare event where both victor and loser painted a image which served there purposes in specific circumstances well. America was able to portray it's Navy as real life example of David vs Goliath while Japan was trying to scrape up some shreds of respect by trying to hide its own follies under the guise of tough luck.

Several reasons can be cited for the outcome which ...more

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Feb 22, 2010 Matt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aviation-reference, wishlist, battleship-history, destroyer-history, naval-history, cruiser-history, intelligence, imperial-japanese-navy, naval-aviation, aircraft-carrier-history

Shattered Sword is a fine naval history book. It is a well researched book that has a multitude of facts on every page. This is a book that will be an often quoted source for many years about the Battle of Midway. The authors claim to change the way the battle will be viewed, in that the book focuses on the Kido Butai or the Japanese carrier fleet this claim can be accepted as true. The author meticulously researched the minutiae of where the Japanese aircraft were during the battle and who pilo Shattered Sword is a fine naval history book. It is a well researched book that has a multitude of facts on every page. This is a book that will be an often quoted source for many years about the Battle of Midway. The authors claim to change the way the battle will be viewed, in that the book focuses on the Kido Butai or the Japanese carrier fleet this claim can be accepted as true. The author meticulously researched the minutiae of where the Japanese aircraft were during the battle and who piloted those aircraft. Their research is admirable but possibly misplaced. The book is 436 of text with nine different appendices and often the book does bog down with which pilot was doing what at what point with instances of which sailor was doing what at the battle. This was interesting but the authors went into minutiae in details that would be better served with a few well placed examples that would best support their well thought out conclusions.

The authors did have some well thought out conclusions which do seem to put long held beliefs about the battle into context or refute them. For example its been long held that VT-8 from the USS Hornet pulled down the Japanese CAP (Combat Air Patrol) but the authors refute that fact very well. They argue that Admiral Yamamoto had forced the Midway plan without fully allowing for the US Navy’s intentions and capabilities which is true however this conclusion does ignore that Yamamoto was operating with the belief that the US had only two aircraft carriers because the belief was that the Lexington and Yorktown were sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the only available carriers to the US was the Enterprise and Hornet. The authors did not take that into account in their conclusion however, their conclusion that Yamamoto’s plan was needlessly intricate and that he should have never split his forces or wait for the Japanese Carrier Division 5 was spot on.

The authors took great pains to explain how the Japanese used their carriers and the development of Japanese carrier doctrine which makes the Japanese decision’s in the battle more accessible, for example fueling and arming the aircraft in the hanger decks. This leads to the great myth they disabused that the Japanese carriers were about to launch an attack on the US carriers. Through their meticulous and excellent research they show good evidence that the Kido Butai was not ready to launch an attack but at least forty minutes from the launch. The book is worth the price just for this conclusion.

The book did have its distractions that were needless and hopefully “rookie” mistakes. The first major distraction was the tone of the book where it felt as if the authors felt superior in their information and certain arrogance came through the writing. A good example is they often said the professional historians focus on the gun directors rather than the guns because the guns are of an interest to amateurs. This made me go to the back of the book and read the authors biographies and found out that both authors are It professionals which made their other attempts resemble that of putting their book into a piece of academic research rather than a “popular” history. It is true that many histories do ignore the fire control equipment but that is usually because the equipment of that time seems as advanced to people as using an abacus. It is true fire control was critical but the machines were crank driven and until radar, the veritable fuse and the stable element were married together by the US Navy around mid 1943 most fire control was by guess and by God and since the focus of the book was June 1942 in Japanese aircraft carriers it has to be concluded that the Japanese fire control might be critical only to IT professionals.

The tone of the book was often trying to achieve a superiority over the readers and seemed as if the authors were unsure they would be taken seriously, they should have trusted their research more. The research was fantastic but the tone made me question if they were translating the Japanese primary sources or if they were relying on translations. The difference is if they were translating they would be creating their own conclusions but with a translation they would be reading the primary source through the lenses and bias of the translator. Without that information available I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were translating the primary sources rather than relying on translations. The unneeded tone and dealing in minutiae became a distraction to a fine and excellent book. I look forward to reading Anthony Tully’s (one of the authors) new book on the Battle of Surigao Strait to see if his second effort improves on a terrific first start.
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Jan 07, 2017 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: war, military-studies, history, non-fiction

You think you know something, and then you discover that in fact most of what you know is wrong.

I love reading.

This is masterful treatment of probably one of the most analyzed battles of all time, which by examining closely the Japanese sources of the battle revises much of what we think we know about the battle. In particular, the author's patient explanation of the exact operational details of Japanese carrier operations is endlessly fascinating and enlightening, and serve to show that much o You think you know something, and then you discover that in fact most of what you know is wrong.

I love reading.

This is masterful treatment of probably one of the most analyzed battles of all time, which by examining closely the Japanese sources of the battle revises much of what we think we know about the battle. In particular, the author's patient explanation of the exact operational details of Japanese carrier operations is endlessly fascinating and enlightening, and serve to show that much of what has been written about the battle is clearly misguided if not outright impossible. The writing also never falls prey to that cardinal sin of the historian - being dull. Instead, the informal tone and willingness to employ humor, together with the lurid and compelling descriptions of the violence of battle, causes the book to read more like a Summer blockbuster action-adventure movie than the serious textbook of operational analysis that it also is.

If the book has any flaw at all, it is one inevitable to the recounting of a true narrative - the climax of this story occurs rather suddenly early on in the account and the denouement is rather longer and more anticlimactic than one would wish, precisely because that is what actually happened. As a minor nitpick, I was also mystified that - when broaching the taboo subject of national character and culture which a historian must tread if he wishes to be truthful despite the prevailing political climate - that no mention was made regarding the abundant evidence of the defects of the Japanese martial culture so on display prior to Tsushima. The author might leave a new reader with the impression that these defects arose after Tsushima rather than were - as a result of their own literature and philosophy - deeply written into the Japanese character right back into at least the middle ages. They are evident in philosophy of the martial art of Iaido, in the 'Book of the Five Rings', and the conduct of Japanese battle time and again long before WW2 or even the Sino-Russian War. Appealing to sources like Sun Tzu or their admiration for the Royal Navy seemed to me to appealing more to Parshall's 'proximate causes' rather than 'root causes', since the Japanese undoubtedly choose to admire these things only because they saw their own beliefs reflected in them, and only where they saw their beliefs within them. Parshall is right when he asserts a cultural strength is also a cultural weakness - the same culture that produced the miracle of the Meiji restitution also produced the horrors of Nanking and Manila and for much the same reasons - but he seems not to want to track this particular thread back as far as he could despite making oblique mention to it in his final paragraph.

Still, very highly recommended. ...more

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Sep 10, 2009 Chad Sayban rated it it was amazing

More reviews at The Story Within The Story

When most people hear the term ‘history book,’ they typically think of those watered-down texts we all read in high school where large swaths of time are melted down into paragraph-sized blubs to be memorized for a test and quickly forgotten. Even so, many of us – myself included – have become infatuated with history and long after leaving the public education system behind seek out books that provide a detailed look into a our past. These focused books More reviews at The Story Within The Story

When most people hear the term ‘history book,’ they typically think of those watered-down texts we all read in high school where large swaths of time are melted down into paragraph-sized blubs to be memorized for a test and quickly forgotten. Even so, many of us – myself included – have become infatuated with history and long after leaving the public education system behind seek out books that provide a detailed look into a our past. These focused books can bring us a much greater understanding of an event and as a result, a greater understanding of present day events. But as time goes on, a consensus is usually reached by historians. Subsequent writings become nothing more than reaffirmations of earlier works. However, every so often new information is brought to light about an event that allows for a reassessment of the conventional wisdom. Shattered Sword provides just such a platform.

The Battle of Midway has been chronicled in books and films countless times in the sixty-six years since the battle between the Japanese and American navies during the Second World War. The summer of 1942 has forever been stamped as the turning point in the war in the Pacific and Parshall & Tully do nothing to discount its importance. What the do is provide accessibility to information – most notably large amounts of Japanese writings and documentation – and make them available to English readers in many cases for the very first time. One thing this book is not is revisionist history. If anything, it is a clarification of the facts of what actually happened and – more importantly – the chain of events that took place to bring about one of the most decisive battles in history. The most important result of all of the research is to throw into doubt the idea that the Japanese naval force was vastly superior to the Americans in every way and it was only due to luck and circumstance that the American navy was able to win the day. This is a view that was championed most notably by Mitsuo Fuchida – a Japanese naval officer who participated in the battle - in his book Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. This view has been echoed throughout the years, notably in the movie Midway, not just because of Fuchida’s first-hand knowledge and a lack of substantial documentation to the contrary, but because of our American love of being a victorious underdog. But by pouring through stacks of Japanese documentation, Parshall & Tulley are able to piece together a somewhat different account demonstrating that the two navies were far more evenly matched than anyone thought going into the battle. A combination of Japan’s poor military communication, the limited training of the Japanese ship crews, the flawed construction of their ships and their low opinion of the capabilities of the American sailor contributed as much to the outcome of the battle as the tenacity, daring and exquisite training of the American navy. Ultimately, overconfidence and poor planning all but doomed the Japanese navy before the battle even began. Sun Tzu would be proud.

The book provides a thorough view from the Japanese side to compliment the detailed American accounting of books such as Miracle at Midway. Throughout the book, Parshall & Tulley provide the reader an in-depth, well researched treatise. Better yet, they write it in such a way that the reader becomes a part of the events from the very first page all the way to the conclusion, taking you from the conferences of the Japanese leadership to the bridge of Admiral Nagumo’s flagship to the view from the water as a young sailor watches his proud ship go under. The result of this is a book that balances all the facts and provides a clear accounting of everything that led up to the most important single battle of the Pacific War while simultaneously keeping the reader engaged in the drama of the events. Not only is this the best, most thorough book on the Battle of Midway, it is one of the best written and researched books on the Second World War ever produced. If you are going to write history, Parshall has provided the roadmap on how to do it right with Shattered Sword. This book sets the bar extremely high for any future works on the topic. Shattered Sword is as good as history writing gets.
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Jul 17, 2017 Phrodrick rated it it was amazing

You do not know the Battle of Midway if you have not read Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully’s Shattered Sword, the Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. While it can be a tough read for the casual reader of history, scholars, history buffs and anyone who enjoyed the otherwise uneven Movie called Midway have cause to celebrate Shattered Sword. Highly recommended. My copy was the paperback so I missed the problems shared by the Kindle readers.

Common wisdom is that history is written by the winne You do not know the Battle of Midway if you have not read Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully’s Shattered Sword, the Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. While it can be a tough read for the casual reader of history, scholars, history buffs and anyone who enjoyed the otherwise uneven Movie called Midway have cause to celebrate Shattered Sword. Highly recommended. My copy was the paperback so I missed the problems shared by the Kindle readers.

Common wisdom is that history is written by the winners. If this is true, a reason may be that only the winners may be able to teach the technique of winning. Authors Parshall and Tully prove that a careful study of the losers can teach you how to avoid losing when you should be winning. By a careful and honest read of:
Japanese records, ship logs, pilot diaries,
Comparative analysis of Japanese and American doctrine, and strategic thinking
Comparative analysis of ships and aircraft, and weapons
Critical evaluations of the Japanese analysis of their progress and chances for eventual victory
Results in a meaningful understanding of how the heretofore mighty Imperial Japanese Navy set themselves up for defeat.

Midway was a battle we studied 40 years ago at the Naval Academy. Additional and later readings reinforced what I had been taught. Reading Shatter sword taught me the importance of reading more than the home team version of events.

Rather than continue detailing the many reasons for recommending Shatter Sword, I will mention a point or two that the authors, in their enthusiasm got wrong.

In their final analysis of Midway as an “Incredible victory” they make their case very convincingly. However I think they misunderstand why pride in this victory is a reasonable attitude. In quoting Walter Lord’s [[ASIN:1580800599 Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway (Classics of War)]]
they repeat his listing of the relative strengths of the American and Japanese Navy at the outset of the battle. Also repeated is his conclusion that America had no “right to win”. They refute Lord, by among other things pointing out that Nimitz was too good at his job to commit his fleet to an impossible victory. The also demonstrate the value of a USN determined to win. Yet the authors had listed several ways the Japanese could have used their superior forces to make American victory unlikely. In fact, the same authors make it clear that the Battle was one for the Japanese to lose rather than one America could expect to win. Victory by America was assured by the code breakers, something the IJN could not assume and the many flaws in the Japanese deployment of and doctrine for employing what were not only more numerous ships and air craft, but also better weapons and experienced pilots. In this case the authors want it both ways. Even so the total weight of their argument on this point is convincing.

Parshall and Tully also argue that Midway was not an absolute turning point in the War in the Pacific. Japan knew they were fighting for time and that the American economy and determination to fight the war to end meant American Victory was as nearly certain as anything in a war.

This is a very well-reasoned argument. My hesitation is in their estimate that US defeat at Midway would at most delay American victory by a year or 14 months. Defeat at Midway could have contributed to Japanese conquest of the islands that would make the supply to run to Australia look like the Murmansk run. (Their analogy). Once possible view of this scenario is a steady piece meal defeat of American new construction, defended by inexperienced pilots. Eventually the sheer weight of American production and the inability of the IJN to replace, maintain or supply its remotely located navy would produce something like America defending interior lines while shifting the balance of power. All this in 14 months? Perhaps.

On the short side, once America Had the Atomic Bomb and high altitude, long range bombers, Japanese defeat happens quickly. A few flights out of China and the Japanese homeland -already hurting from submarine attacks on dwindling numbers of Japanese merchant marine hulls- would collapse. ...more

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Nov 13, 2019 Jimmy rated it it was amazing

Want to read one of the best book on the Battle of Midway? I remember as a young kid reading about this battle and how it turned the tide of the war in Pacific in favor of the United States in which Japan suffered serious loss in this battle. This work simply exceeded my expectation and I was thoroughly hooked from page to page, which might sound almost unbelievable concerning a military operational book but the two authors did a good job telling us the story of the Battle of Midway and througho Want to read one of the best book on the Battle of Midway? I remember as a young kid reading about this battle and how it turned the tide of the war in Pacific in favor of the United States in which Japan suffered serious loss in this battle. This work simply exceeded my expectation and I was thoroughly hooked from page to page, which might sound almost unbelievable concerning a military operational book but the two authors did a good job telling us the story of the Battle of Midway and throughout the book they also critically interact with previous presentation of the battle by historians and popular misconception and argue for their account of what happened in a way that is informative while displaying an attitude of being concern for truth of what really happened.
I think the best part of the book is the fact that the two authors knew so much about the battle. The book was also unique in that unlike the majority of previous authors and historians writing about the battle of Midway, both Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully is informed and critically interact with Japanese sources such as record books, rosters, witnesses and also other important government documents. The data on the Japanese carriers in terms of technical information is simply incredible. Then there’s the description of the Japanese naval leaders who participated in the Battle of Midway. The personality profiles of these men are a window into the Japanese Imperial Navy. I’m very impressed with the authors’ knowledge of Japanese aircraft carriers from their history, their design, their strength and weaknesses. These details of the carriers is so vast from their size, speed, their weapons, what kind of Japanese planes were on them along with how they operated down to how do planes get prepped on the carriers, how the Japanese dealt with hazards and the kind of materials for the carriers’ deck. The book’s discussions about Japanese and American types of military planes and other ships were equally remarkable; I mean there’s even an appendix on what the markings on Japanese planes mean! The authors are truly military history nerds and I mean it as a compliment! But they aren’t just throwing trivia at you; the book is enjoyable for how it is narrated. I was totally amazed at how the book talked about how the Japanese doctrines for Carriers was different than the doctrines for the US carriers and how we must take that into account in understanding how the Japanese fought and also what happened in the battle of Midway. I thought it was amazing that the author consider the role of gun placement on carriers, the ways Japanese bombs and torpedoes were armed onto warplanes (the kind of hooks that held bombs and torpedoes) and how long it would take for this to happen along with the role of radio and communication contributed to the outcome of the battle. Yet the authors weren’t loss with the tiny details but was also able to see things at a larger strategic picture. For instance in evaluating the importance of the battle they considered the economy of Japan and the United States and how in the long run the economic factor at the start of the war was already stacked against the Japanese. But this is compounded with the Japanese inability to learn lessons from their military operations but their leaders intentionally wouldn’t consider the possibility of a strengthened and much wiser enemy. They would pay a serious price for that in the battle of Midway.
Read this book if you want to know the individuals and personalities on both sides of the battle; read this book if you want to know how the quality of leadership and quality and quantity of the technology and tools of war affected the outcome of the battle. Read this book if you want to get a feel for the men fighting this battle in terms of air units, ships and squadrons. Read this if you want to see how ships, planes, men and leadership and also individual courage led up to the US victory against Japan in the battle of Midway.

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Apr 30, 2010 Steven Peterson rated it really liked it

This book is functionally written and provides considerable detail on the Battle of Midway, with much new information being used. One useful feature of the book is that we see a lot more of the battle and the runup to it from the eyes of the Japanese. We leartn of how Japanese and American carrier doctrine, operational ideas, even use space differed between the two carrier forces. As such, we get a different perspective than is common. The author also analyzes many of the decisions by Japanese A ...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Andy rated it it was amazing

Recently read the new Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) by Craig L. Symonds. A nice summary, which brought up a few points I'd either forgotten or never learned. It did extensively reference Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway and hinted at a the Imperial Japanese Navy point of view. I had to track down this book.

Shattered Sword goes back to air operations logs and is the first English publication that sources the updated Japanese accounts published i

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Dec 15, 2015 Yong Lee rated it liked it

I started and stopped reading this book five times. The fact I tried it the sixth time is due to its reputation among military historians. This is not an academic history but a book by passionate amateurs. Their love for the subject matter is clear and their expertise is clear. This book will teach you more about the battle of midway than you would ever like to know. I'm glad I finally finished it. ...more

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Jul 01, 2015 Chad rated it it was amazing

Shelves: world-war-ii-pacific-theater, favorites

While it is not written with the classical prose of a Walter Lord or a Bruce Catton, the authors have produced the greatest battle analysis I have ever read. This book instantly became one of my all time favorites!

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Nov 03, 2020 Wai Zin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aviation, ww2, pacific-theater, non-fiction, navy

This is not the first work I read about battle of Midway. But by far this is the best.

Even though it is quite a large book, I can steadily devour this book due to the authors clear and digestable writing. And having abundance of sketches and drawing to visualise the complex battle helps a lot as well.

In this book Parshall and Tully will put you in the shoes of Nagumo. They rarely tell us what the US forces were doing and you will see the battle from the Japanese perspective only. So I hope you ...more

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Sep 25, 2019 Sonny rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, world-war-ii, wwii-pacific

Numerous books have been written about the battle of Midway. And why not? Midway was a pivotal naval battle that took place only six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The United States Navy under Admirals Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Battle of Midway has often been called "the turning point of the Pacific". It was the Allies' first major naval victory against the Japanese, won despite the Japanese Navy having mor ...more

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May 28, 2013 Bob rated it really liked it

Shelves: war

An extremely detailed look at the inner workings of the Japanese military strategic thinking processes during WW-II. Interesting that many of their problems came from mutual distrust between the Japanese army and navy, also that the highest reaches of the military hierarchy had an ineffective checks and balances procedure.

I was surprised to learn that Pearl Harbor was Yamamoto's idea, and he had enough clout to get it through despite the urgent protest of most of the other high ranking military ...more

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Feb 09, 2008 Josh Liller rated it it was amazing

Shelves: world-war-2, military

The authors set out to bust myths about the Battle of Midway while providing a very in-depth account of the Japanese side of the battle, which hasn't been properly done before. They provide a huge amount of information but deliver it with style and a very amusing snarky attitude. This is military history at its finest. ...more

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Dec 08, 2007 Lee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reading-again, world-war-ii, aviation

On my third time through, to see what I can pick up.

The level of detail is amazing.

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Oct 21, 2020 Tom Brennan rated it really liked it

Shelves: own

Respect. Lots of it. That is what I had for the authors at the end of this work. Mad respect. The copious amounts of work necessary to produce a book of this kind beggars the imagination. No, the writing is not the best in the sense of holding your attention, though it isn't terrible either. No, it comes nowhere near the soul of wit i.e. brevity. But what it does it does with absolute conviction - walk you through the Japanese side of the battle of Midway in painstaking detail. That detail could ...more

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Nov 29, 2017 David Runyon rated it it was amazing

Excellent, detailed, and balanced history of the critical Battle of Midway.

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Feb 21, 2020 Rodney Harvill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history

So, why does the subtitle claim to be the untold story of the battle of Midway? It is written from the Japanese perspective and includes some of the most extensive details I have ever seen in a World War II naval history. While earlier books on Midway incorporate the account of Commander Fuchida Mitsuo, the authors note that it was long ago debunked in Japan and use other Japanese sources, including official records, that tell a quite different story. If anything, this book is a bit of a myth-bu ...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Roger Burk rated it really liked it

This is indeed the untold story: it is entirely from the Japanese point of view. The authors have made a new and thorough analysis of the Japanese sources, rejecting some that were translated early and set American understanding of the battle. Americans interested in the Battle of Midway will find many new details and insights here, and it is well enough written to be pleasurable to read.

However, the authors claim too much. They think they have completely overturned our understanding of the batt This is indeed the untold story: it is entirely from the Japanese point of view. The authors have made a new and thorough analysis of the Japanese sources, rejecting some that were translated early and set American understanding of the battle. Americans interested in the Battle of Midway will find many new details and insights here, and it is well enough written to be pleasurable to read.

However, the authors claim too much. They think they have completely overturned our understanding of the battle, but they have not. They have added interesting and important detail. For instance, the Japanese counterstrike was not spotted on deck and about to take off when the American dive bombers arrived and destroyed them and their carriers. They were fueled and armed on the hanger deck below, and that's where they were destoyed; the flight decks had to be clear for the constant cycling of the combat air patrol fighters that were defending the fleet. Okay, noted, but that doesn't change the overall course of the battle. The authors don't want us to call the battle "miraculous"--the forces engaged were actually about evenly matched: 4 Japanese carriers vs. 3 American carriers plus aircraft based on Midway, and the Americans had the advantage of surprise. But this is curmudgeonly quibbling. It was a smashing American victory that came after defeat after defeat, against what the authors call "the finest carrier force in the world" that had "performed brilliantly" up to that day. Surely that's miracle enough, even if we in hindsight can trace its causes. The authors don't want us to call the battle "decisive" because the Japanese would have lost the war even if they had won at Midway, once the American industrial capacity got mobilized and produced fleet carrieres by the dozen. Well, maybe, but the counterattack would have to be based in California and cross the entire Pacific. A victory at Midway would have given Japan a fighting chance at exhausting America and getting a negotiated victory that left their empire intact.

The conventional wisdom is that the Americans won because they broke the Japanese code and were able to surprise the Japanese. This book concentrates on the reasons the Japanese lost. Foremost was folly born of overconfidence. We've known this since the war, but now we have new detail. The simultaneous attack on the Aleutians was not a feint to draw out the American fleet, as has often been said--it was a parallel economy-of-force operation to forestall an American advance from that direction. It was also an ill-conceived division of forces before a decisive battle, as was also the New Guinea operation that led to two Japanese carriers being badly damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea a month before Midway. The Japanese did not believe in America's willingness to fight, even after American air raids on Rabaul (Feb), Guam (Mar), New Guinea (Mar), and Tokyo (Apr), and Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese reconnaissance the morning of the battle was inadequate to cover the necessary area, and by chance it missed the American fleet until too late. Even when their attack on the island found the defenders well-prepared and full of fight, the Japanese were slow to realize that the Americans expected them and that the risk of an attack was grave.

One new tidbit worth knowing: the repeated air strikes on the Japanese fleet from Midway, which failed to hit a single ship and suffered some severe losses, were not in vain. The need to keep the combat air patrol fighters up occupied the flight decks and kept the Japanese from spotting their attack planes and getting off a strike until it was too late. ...more

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Aug 25, 2020 Fred Svoboda rated it it was amazing

A great and terrifying book, "Shattered Sword" corrects misperceptions by drawing on decades of Japanese scholarship on the battle. From a Japanese point of view many elements of what happened make more sense: just as U.S. forces fought in ways dictated by U.S. culture and beliefs, so did the Imperial Japanese Navy, in a mixture of naive idealism and great cruelty that tends to baffle easy western understanding. To that end we get a fine-grained discussion of everything from carrier architecture ...more

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Feb 03, 2020 Bruce Cline rated it it was amazing

Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully (audio book, 24+ hours). This book purports to bring significant new facts to, and a major reinterpretation of, the Battle of Midway. The authors bring to bear a somewhat old (20 years) reconsideration of the most respected Japanese authority on the battle as well as a much better understanding of Japanese carrier operations, naval doctrine, and other operational details hitherto fore not understood
Shattered Sword, The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully (audio book, 24+ hours). This book purports to bring significant new facts to, and a major reinterpretation of, the Battle of Midway. The authors bring to bear a somewhat old (20 years) reconsideration of the most respected Japanese authority on the battle as well as a much better understanding of Japanese carrier operations, naval doctrine, and other operational details hitherto fore not understood or fully appreciated by other authors/historians. I am not in a position to support or dispute their assertions, and can only say the sometimes excruciatingly fine details of the wide ranging and extended engagement are fascinating. In fact, some of the details — like the names of specific aviators, both Japanese and American, and exactly how and when (minute by minute) they were shot down — are so precise they almost defy credibility. However, it’s clear that the authors sifted through reams of sailor and pilot accounts, official records, memoirs, naval records, log books, and other original sources. The main contention is that numerous widely accepted “facts” about the battle are either outright falsehoods (by the now discredited Japanese survivor and historian), honest errors, misinterpretations, conjectures based on incomplete records, or previously unexamined details (like understandings of elevator speed and its effect on launching planes, flight operations, communications, naval doctrine as it influenced it dictated decision-making, etc.). Having read other accounts of the battle, this book provides far more details than any of the others. The authors contend the U.S. victory was not the miracle it has been represented as, was not a true turning point in the war, the battle timelines of popular histories are at variance with official records, the U.S. decision to engage was not as risky as has been argued, the outcome was not as surprising as some contend, and other facts and interpretations are flawed or more nuanced than popularly believed. My admittedly non-expert assessment is that the additional details are fascinating and illuminating, but I did not finish the book thinking I’d been materially misled (intentionally or not) or that everything the authors added changed my overall understanding. I do think this is better history, in no small part because Japanese records, doctrine, operational minutiae, culture, and interpretations are incorporated into the previously one-sided (U.S.) view. In fact, the authors largely present the battle from a Japanese perspective which, in and of itself, is fascinating. (As an aside, I had never thought about the voluntary but culturally normative practice of suicide as an alternative to the shame of defeat, removed expert warriors, and impaired some post battle re-assessment of planning and practice.) In any event, I loved this book and recommend it to Pacific theater operations. ...more

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Jan 04, 2019 Andy Lawless rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: military-history, history

Excellent book from the Japanese side

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May 16, 2018 Mac McCormick III rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, military

A few years ago, I read Craig L. Symond's The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) and saw Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway: The Japanese Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully referenced in it. I took a look at the book on Amazon and it had a plain simple cover, giving it the feeling of an academic work, so I added it to my reading list but didn't put it very high on the list. Recently, I finally got around to reading it.

S A few years ago, I read Craig L. Symond's The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) and saw Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway: The Japanese Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully referenced in it. I took a look at the book on Amazon and it had a plain simple cover, giving it the feeling of an academic work, so I added it to my reading list but didn't put it very high on the list. Recently, I finally got around to reading it.

Shattered Sword presents a new way of looking at the Battle of Midway. It is well researched and well documented with extensive endnotes and a lengthy bibliography. It is detailed yet captivating. Most of all, it presents strong arguments, backs up those arguments with documented sources, and effectively turns the traditional narrative of the Battle of Midway on its ear. The authors explore doctrine, strategy, planning, and tactics from the Japanese perspective; in doing so, they don't just challenge the conventional wisdom about the battle and its after effects; to borrow from the title, it shatters them.

To put it mildly, this book is not what I thought it was. It is not a dry academic work, it is well written in a witty, conversational style. You're not only getting a completely new understanding of the battle, you're being entertained. It truly is hard to put this book down. Very seldom do you come across a book that presents an all-new way of looking at a historical event, but this book fits that bill. I've purposely not included any of Shattered Swords' conclusions in order not to spoil the book. Buy it read it, you won't be disappointed and you'll come away with a whole new understanding of one of World War II's important battles. I also think that those interested in military history can come away with important lessons, one of them being not to apply one side's doctrine and operational practices to its opponent, analyze both sides' actions in the light of their respective doctrines. It's helpful to have about the Battle of Midway previously and have an understanding of how the US Navy fought the battle, but this truly is a five-star book and one that anyone interested in the Pacific Theater of World War II must read. ...more

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Jun 24, 2016 Jared rated it it was amazing

Fantastic book, worth every bit of five stars. The authors cover the Battle of Midway nearly exhaustively from the Japanese perspective. They consider and analyze previous works on the subject and explain common misconceptions about the Battle, giving a full view to those who may have little to no experience with the history of the Battle of Midway.

The Japanese made many huge mistakes in the Pacific War. Their first big mistake was starting the war. The economic might of the US was going to cru ...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Matt Caris rated it it was amazing

A phenomenal revisionist work that adds what has always been missing to the stories of Midway - a detailed account of how the IJN and especially the Kido Butai operated, right down to the deckplate level.

Armed with this information, Parshall and Tully rip many of the famous Midway myths to shreds, to show how the battle truly unfolded. The authors are able to show that so many of the Midway "what-if" moments - a more extensive search plane operation, division of labor for CAP vs strike between ...more

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Jun 18, 2015 C. Patrick rated it it was amazing

This was an impressive work by the two authors. It is revisionist history, and arguably needed to clarify the conventional wisdom that has long surrounded this battle. While American historians have long had thorough access to US source material, the reach of US scholarship into the Japanese source documentation has probably been inhibited by numerous factors, not only language barriers, but more than anything a tacit acceptance of accounts from key Japanese participants that didn't receive dili ...more

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Oct 28, 2020 Patrick Wikstrom rated it it was ok

the battle of Midway drawn out in endless details. The interesting parts about the actual battles are just a tiny fraction of this 24.5 hr. overlong audiobook. Probably very interesting beginning to end if you’re a naval historian. For me 6 hrs would have been enough. 2**

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