Product Description

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 extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida’s Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle. The authors examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading WWII naval historian John Lundstrom, Shattered Sword will become an indispensable part of any military buff’s library. Winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and cited by Proceedings as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26193 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 568 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781574889246
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"The best naval history book of 2005." - The Naval Review "To really know about the Battle of Midway, you must read this book." - From the foreword by John B. Lundstrom, author of The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway "A remarkable book... The breadth and quality of the information about the Japanese air groups provided here is simply staggering." - John Jordan in Warship 2006 "One of the two or three most important books on the Pacific War published in the last decade." - Douglas V. Smith, professor of strategy and policy, U.S. Naval War College, in Air and Space "To really know about the Battle of Midway, you must read this book." - John B. Lundstrom, author of The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway "Jon Parshall and Anthony Tully explain, in an entirely new light and from a fresh perspective, how the Japanese navy fought the Battle of Midway. Extensively researched, soundly reasoned, and engagingly and colorfully written, Shattered Sword is the most original piece of scholarship on this decisive event since John B. Lundstrom's groundbreaking The First Team." - Robert J. Cressman, editor and principal author of A Glorious Page in Our History: The Battle of Midway "At last, the Japanese side of the Battle of Midway has been limned in English with accuracy, lucidity, authority, and objectivity. The authors' specialized knowledge of the tactics and technologies of Japanese naval air power, their careful reading of surviving Japanese air unit records, and their appreciation of the larger meaning of the battle combine to give us a combat narrative and analysis that superbly balance expert detail and grand historical import. I suspect it of being a classic." - Mark R. Peattie, author of Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 and Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941 "A lot has been written about Midway since 1945. Yet everyone who thinks that they know the last word about this momentous event must examine Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully's book on the subject. Shattered Sword, packed with new information, will certainly become the definitive volume on the most important naval battle of World War II." - Eric Bergerud, professor of military and American history at Lincoln University and author of Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific "This incredible book shatters all previous notions on how the Battle of Midway was fought. It also shatters all the standards for military reference works. Shattered Sword will come to be regarded as a benchmark in modern history, for it brings to bear all the tools of modern communication technology in a way that has never been done before. [It] utterly refutes the conclusions of most of the previous accounts of the battle.... This book is a page turner, but its importance and its wealth of detail will demand an immediate re-reading." - Walter J. Boyne, former director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and author of Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the United States Air Force, 1947-1997 "This book releases a large number of bombshells, blowing apart the account of Mitsuo Fuchida, the air commander who wrote a book on Midway. [The authors] also tell a gripping story that is backed up by evidence in a massive book that sets the new starting point for the discussion of Midway.... This book brings a well-presented case, one that places the 'Incredible Victory' in a whole new context.... Shattered Sword is a superb work that should become the definitive reference when the Battle of Midway is discussed. Gordon W. Prange and Walter Lord have been thoroughly eclipsed by this new work creating a full perspective of the pivotal battle of World War II in the Pacific theater." - www.strategypage.com "Forget what you think you know about Midway. Shattered Sword is a landmark study that redefines the crucial 1942 carrier battle, widely considered the most important naval engagement of the last century.... Parshall and Tully dissect the reasons for the Japanese defeat at every level - tactical, operational, and strategic.... It has taken sixty years to begin undoing the enduring myths of Midway, and Shattered Sword will likely become the ultimate reference.... Sixty-three years is not too long to wait for the authoritative word on the Battle of Midway." - Barrett Tillman in The Hook "Why would anyone who has read Walter Lord, Gordon Prange, and Mitsuo Fuchida on this subject think that anything more is to be said, especially by a couple of relatively unknown writers? The short answer is, simply, get this book. Parshall and Tully have pulled off what every author/historian aspires to do: take the body of literature on a chosen topic to a level of insight and understanding not formerly attained or perhaps even imagined.... Shattered Sword can justifiably be labeled a groundbreaker, a landmark work that belongs at eye-level center in any naval historian's bookcase." - Naval History "This meticulously researched and thoroughly documented study is an essential corrective. It is essential reading for anyone interested in carrier aviation, past, present, or future. Although imposing in scale, Shattered Sword is a bargain, and a highly engaging read. Every page seems to throw up a new perspective - from the pathetically low Japanese aircraft production figures, to the political infighting both within the Naval High Command and between the services. The best naval history book of 2005." - The Naval Review "While most of their predecessors have fallen into the same mold - looking at the battle from the American vantage only - Parshall and Tully break new ground in bringing the Japanese perspective into the picture.... The authors state that their book attempts to do three things - present the battle from the Japanese side, study it almost exclusively from an aircraft carrier viewpoint, and point out the errors and exaggerations in a group of myths that have surrounded the battle. The authors succeed in all three goals.... [They] have produced a superb volume." - The Journal of Military History "Will earn its place in the already impressive library that focuses on one of the great moments in naval history." - Naval Institute Proceedings "Provides a much-needed reassessment of the Battle of Midway.... The chapters devoted to the actual battle are a treat, starting with an in-depth description of Japanese flight deck procedures and activities, something rarely detailed in Western publications. This new treatment is basically the Battle of Midway as seen through Japanese eyes.... The authors are to be congratulated. Writing on a topic that might not first seem to have anything new to be divulged, they have created something that is as fresh and vital as if it were the first account written at war's end instead of more than sixty years later. I believe that Shattered Sword will become the preeminent narrative history of this crucial battle, and I consider it to be one of the most important books on WWII naval operations to be published in the last twenty years." - Peter B. Mersky in Naval Aviation News "Parshall and Tully have set a new standard for researching, evaluating, and synthesizing material from sources around the world to provide a complete account of the Battle of Midway and the underlying causes of Japan's defeat.... At least eleven 'urban myths' universally accepted by scholars and sailors have been shattered, providing a whole new level of understanding of the Battle of Midway. Parshall and Tully have provided one of the most readable accounts of the Battle of Midway available anywhere.... Experts will certainly agree that this is one of the two or three most important books on the Pacific War published in the last decade." - Douglas V. Smith, professor of strategy and policy, U.S. Naval War College, in Air & Space "Shattered Sword is a must for any student of World War II history interested in the naval conflict in the Pacific.... The book will be the standard work on the Battle of Midway for years to come. Parshall and Tully's original approach demonstrates how much can still be revealed about World War II even after sixty years of research and writing." - Air Power History "Magisterial in its coverage... revelatory... Parshall and Tully's work is deeply researched, all-encompassing in its perspective, painstakingly detailed in its exposition, and lucidly written. It makes an invaluable contribution to the literature of the Pacific War, especially for bringing the vast research of Japanese scholars to the fore, and is absolutely essential reading for every student of the history of World War II at sea." - Nautical Research Journal ".... this is arguably the most important book on Midway yet written. The authors have made extensive and extremely thoughtful use of Japanese records, particularly pilot log-books and the like, blended this with technical expertise of a high order and produced an account which challenges conventional understanding of this battle.... the definitive book on Midway." - Journal for Maritime Research, October 2006"

Review
"To really know about the Battle of Midway, you must read this book."

"A lot has been written about Midway since 1945. Yet everyone who thinks that they know the last word about this momentous event must examine Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully's book on the subject. Shattered Sword, packed with new information, will certainly become the definitive volume on the most important naval battle of World War II."

"This meticulously researched and thoroughly documented study is an essential corrective. It is essential reading for anyone interested in carrier aviation, past, present, or future. Although imposing in scale, Shattered Sword is a bargain, and a highly engaging read. Every page seems to throw up a new perspective - from the pathetically low Japanese aircraft production figures, to the political infighting both within the Naval High Command and between the services. The best naval history book of 2005."

Review
"While most of their predecessors have fallen into the same mold - looking at the battle from the American vantage only - Parshall and Tully break new ground in bringing the Japanese perspective into the picture.... The authors state that their book attempts to do three things - present the battle from the Japanese side, study it almost exclusively from an aircraft carrier viewpoint, and point out the errors and exaggerations in a group of myths that have surrounded the battle. The authors succeed in all three goals.... [They] have produced a superb volume."

Customer Reviews

The Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway
. Don't be misled by the title, this is not just another telling of the entire Battle of Midway story. Instead it's an exhaustively detailed new account of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) at Midway, accomplished with a depth of research and analysis not previously seen. The book is crammed with a dazzling set of graphics, including brilliant computer-generated charts and diagrams that very signficantly aid the text.
. Of course, anyone attempting to rewrite the history of the IJN at Midway needs to convince potential readers that the new book offers something signficant over the time-honored resource for that subject, Fuchida and Okumiya's "Midway, the Battle That Doomed Japan." The authors of "Shattered Sword" not only accepted that challenge, but they convincingly demonstrate that Fuchida was very loose with certain key facts in his Midway book, done in order to serve personal aims that didn't necessarily require telling the truth. The result has been a number of deeply-entrenched myths that permeate the popular history of the battle. "Shattered Sword" ably exposes those myths and convincingly demonstrates in each case what really happened and why.
. This reviewer frequently has occasion to recommend references on the Battle of Midway to students and others beginning a study of that epic clash. In such cases I always recommnend Robert Cressman's "A Glorious Page In Our History" as the best overall account of the battle. I now need to add "Shattered Sword" to the short list of works that those doing serious research on Midway really must have. In particular, anyone who has read Fuchida's "Midway" and puts significant stock in it really ought to read "Shattered Sword" to learn what the earlier work either omitted or got quite wrong.

Groundbreaking history
Very few histories can be considered groundbreaking treatments of an event more than 60 years afterward, but "Shattered Sword" meets that exceptional standard. As the authors conclusively prove, much of what has been written about the most important naval battle of the 20th century was incomplete, inaccurate, or simply fabricated. No future account of Midway will be worthwhile without reference to "Shattered Sword".

Parshall and Tully delve far beyond their unmatched mastery of the technical aspects (some more detailed than accounts of US Navy operations!) to explain why Japan lost the battle. The reasons are many and varied, extending from procedural, operational, and strategic concerns to the very culture that produced the Imperial Navy. In the process, the authors not only provide rare clarity to their analysis, but they raise the bar for naval histories of the Second World War. Readers yet unborn will be grateful to them. I know that I am.

Barrett Tillman, "Clash of the Carriers"

A modern perspective on America's greatest naval battle
This piece is essentially a modern analysis of the causes of the Japanese defeat in the great Battle of Midway. It is more an analysis of Japanese defeat than American victory which, while fascinating, only tells part of the story of the greatest naval battle in American history, and one of the great battles of all time.

The main thrust of this work is to refute the common wisdom that a major cause of the Japanese defeat was that American dive bombers hit three Japanese aircraft carriers while these vessels were in the process of loading bombs onto their own dive bombers and torpedo planes on their flight decks. Here, the authors are persuasive. They give detailed accounts which convince the reader that Japanese doctrine would have had the planes being refit below decks. Further, the authors claim with convincing evidence that the incessant American attacks throughout the morning kept the Japanese fleet largely on the defensive, as it tried to augment its Combat Air Patrol with additional launchings of fighter aircraft. This is a new perspective on the battle, and this appears to be the major finding of this book.

Beyond these tactical considerations, the authors further argue that Japan lost the battle for other more strategic reasons. The authors argue that Yamamoto's Midway strategy lost sight of the principles of Mass and Objective. The principle of Massing of Forces (Mass) was violated as the Japanese dropped one aircraft carrier from the battle due to moderate damage that it suffered at the Battle of Coral Sea (first) and, even more importantly, diverted one carrier group to support a simultaneous sideshow in the Aleutians, which diverted a considerable number of planes from the main battle which was to take place at Midway. These planes could have been decisive in the great battle that was to occur. Further, the Japanese lost sight of the principle of the Objective--were they there to defeat the American fleet or invade Midway and the Aleutians, or both? The Japanese strategy was a hodgepodge of conflicting objectives, and indeed the conflict as to whether they should strike Midway or turn to engage the American fleet that seemed to lurk on their flank plagued the Japanese fleet at a decisive moment.

By contrast, the Americans, as the authors point out, "moved heaven and earth" to put the Yorktown back into the battle, after that carrier was heavily damaged after the Coral Sea battle. So badly damaged was Yorktown that the Japanese never dreamed that the US Navy could produce her at the Midway showdown. As the authors put it, the US Navy simply "wanted the win" more desperately than did the Japanese. The Japanese, argue the authors, where overconfident after years of victories over both Asian and Western adversaries, and had contempt for their American foe.

I found the authors' arguments largely persuasive, but also incomplete. This book is told almost entirely from the Japanese perspective in that it focuses mainly on what the Japanese did wrong. It tells the reader much less about what the US Navy did right. The American victory at Midway largely turned on the decisions of one man, the great Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance. Spruances' decision to launch early, at long range, to get in the first blows against the Japanese was decisive, especially if we apply and accept the authors' analysis. Even though, at this early stage of the war, the American torpedo bombers were not very competent (none of them struck Japanese targets and they were slaughtered by Japanese fighers) and the launchings of the coordinated attacks did not come off well, this early strike that Spruance ordered kept the Japanese on the defensive after the first Japanese strike against Midway. This set the stage for the deadly-competent American dive bombers to strike. This is the very point that the authors make, but this was not due to Japanese incompetence, but rather to a carefully thought-out strategy by Admiral Spruance. Spruance then wisely protected the fleet, avoided exposing it, and kept it in position to protect Midway if necessary. He came in for savage insider's criticism even during the battle as well as thereafter. This criticism was incorrect, as history has judged. Unlike the Japanese, Spruance never forgot his objective (protect the fleet, defend Midway), and always applied the principal of Mass as he struck a lethal blow at the heart of the Japanese Navy with everything he had. While the American Navy at the Battle of Midway had not yet shook off all of the peacetime inertia, it executed its well thought-out doctrine against the Japanese under Spruance's leadership, and won a great victory. Victory was won by the US Navy at Midway, not lost by the Japanese.

"Shattered Sword" is an excellent analysis of the Battle of Midway which all readers with an interest in this great battle will want to read. Its main strength is its analysis of the Japanese side and its command of detail in this regard. Recommended