Miracle at Midway
by Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Donald M. Goldstein, Gordon W. Prange, Katherine V. DillonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1983-11-17
ISBN: 0140068147
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Miracle at Midway
Book Review: A Good Sequel
Summary: 5 Stars
Gordon Prange devoted the second half of his life to researching and writing about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He spent seven years in Japan during the occupation collecting material on this operation. He is the author of the book "Tora, Tora, Tora" and the screenplay for the film of the same name. His masterpiece on the attack is "At Dawn We Slept." He died before he could finish this book and two of his students, Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, turned his unfinished manuscript into a publishable book. In the course of his work on Pearl Harbor, he kept stumbling upon material related to Midway. Prange decided to write a book on Midway as well, which was also unfinished at the time of his death. Goldstein and Dillon finished this book as well.
The strength of "Miracle at Midway" is that Prange tells both sides of the story, American and Japanese. He offers more coverage of the American side for understandable reasons. The Japanese commander, Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi died later in the war, and valuable records were destroyed when the four aircraft carriers sank during the battle. Prange, though, makes up for these shortcomings with interviews he conducted during the occupation years with a number of survivors and important pilots and staff officers at this battle like Genda Minoru and Fuchida Mitsuo. On the other hand, developing the American side of the story is pretty easy. All the major figures in this engagement survived the war as did their records and written reports.
Developing the Japanese side of the story is important, because Prange basically argues that Japan lost the battle more than the Americans won it. The problems the Japanese faced were not the work of any one individual, but rather were large, systematic shortcomings like a flawed battle plan that had two conflicting objectives, overconfidence in their abilities, poor command and control, lack of resources, and sloppy intelligence work. The Americans owed their victory more to luck than any other factor. With those points made, Prange gives a lot of credit to Chester Nimitz for knowing how to use his theater resources, to Raymond Spruance and Frank Jack Fletcher. Prange also argues that Nagumo, who is often seen as being indecisive, made the right decision with what information he had at the time in shifting the armaments of his planes.
Luck was what carried the day for the Americans and Spruance admitted as much. The Japanese had little regard for American torpedoe attacks and with good reason. The U.S. Navy had poor equipment and lousy training. It was only Lt. Cmdr. Wade McClusky's decision to use an unconventional search pattern as his fuel was running low that allowed the Americans to pounce on the Japanese at the moment when their ordinance was unsecured and the fighter coverage was too low to stop the dive bombers.
The shortcomings of the book are more minor than substantial: the writing at times seems overly flowery. The story builds slowly. When it gets to the sexy parts, the fighting, it really gets going. The maps vary significantly in quality. Some are quite good, others are atrocious and appear to have been hand drawn.
To wrap it up: this book is a good sequel to Prang's study of Pearl Harbor. It won't be the last word on the subject, but it is an important one.
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