AFSCME 3357-HOF'S BLOG

Memorial Day Book Review
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tulley


I'm going to diverge from the automotive and economic focus of this blog to thank and honor our servicemembers, past and present, for their sacrifices. The past year has seen the release of two new books about the Battle of Midway, the June 1942 turning point of the Pacific Theater in World War II. I've read both of these books, and found them both worthy reading. The Parshall & Tulley book, in particular is a standout, so I'll go over it first.

Shattered Sword is a thorough examination of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective. Even though this book is primary author Parshall's first full-length book, it stands beside John Lundstrom's: The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway, to bookend all modern treatments on the subject. Whereas Lundstrom's book focuses on the American aviators who fought the first six months of the Pacific War, Parshall's book focuses on here-to-fore unexamined Japanese source material. With this material in hand, Parshall has the amunition to unwisen conventional wisdom concerning the battle. Although the title is Shattered Sword, actually myths are what this book shatters.

The first shattered myth is that the American forces were overmatched by the Japanese. By examining Japanese records, Parshall determined that several of the Japanese carriers were sailing with incomplete compements of aircraft. Since each American carrier carried more planes than a Japanese carrier, there was not a big difference in carrier aircraft. When American shore-based planes from Midway are counted, the Americans had the advantage. He also shatters the myth that Miday atoll would have been defenseless hd the Americans lost the naval battle. Pashall goes over the Midway defenses and suggests that the Marine garrison could have repelled the Japanese invasion. The Midway defenders were dug in with heavy weapons and even a few tanks. They roughly matched the number of Japanese invasion troops. There are other tidbits for the true WWII wonk, including technical details on the Japanese carriers. Did you know that first Japanese carriers were originally built with three flight decks?

Here are links to the shatteredsword.com website. The Amazon Webpage for the book and Pashall's main website, combinedfleet.com. The combinedfleet.com site has information on virtually every Japanese Navy ship.

Shattered Sword

Shattered Sword Amazon

Combined Fleet