The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (Yale Library of...

The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (Yale Library of Military ... | Alvin Kernan | making an unknown unknown known

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The Unknown Battle...

	The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (Yale Library of Military ... Alvin Kernan Yale University Press, 2007 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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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.

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Another perspective

The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons

This book is a very quick and very informative read and offers a very different perspective as to the Midway encounter. I recommend it.

making an unknown unknown known

This book covers only one aspect of the battle of Midway and covers it well - the destruction of 41 american torpedo bombers without scoring a single hit on an enemy ship. I found it well written and very readable. It covered the political, strategic and tactical level doctrines that made it almost impossible for the very brave men of the torpedo squadrons to be put to best use. The personal stories and histories of many of these men help bring the book to life. Most interesting was the solution put forward to explain what has always puzzled me about midway. Why did two of the three american carriers (enterprize and yorktown) launch strikes that found the enemy fleet, whilst the Hornet strike (launched from the same area) didnt find anything - apart from Waldron's torpedo 8 squadron. Instead many of the hornet planes found nothing and then ran out of fuel and had to ditch or divert to midway. A highly recommended read for any interested in learning something new about this battle.

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Starts great but falls apart at the end

Now a college professor, the author was, in 1942 a member of the aircrew on the USS Enterprise at the Battle of midway and clearly the loss of his friends in the torpedo squadron in their infamously suicidal attack stayed with him until it flowed out of him into the pages of this work.

The early parts of this book show where the scholar of now blends with the young mechanic of 60+ years ago in detailing the working of a carrier's air group and the now know to be fatal flaws in US torpedos and aircraft.

Unfortunatly he should have stuck with that and either run that theme through the book or have written a shorter book. The second part of the book degrades as Kernan launches his own strike against the CAG (Commander Air Group) of the USS Hornet whom he blames for the destruction of that ship's torpedo squadron and failure of the Hornet's bomber and fighter squadrons to engage at all. The rest of this epic battle is reduced to little more than "you know what followed..." I was reminded of "The midnight Ride of Paul Revre" where it cover's a day's battle as "you know what happened in the books you have read, how the redcoats fired and fled..."

He details that there was a lack of communication between Enterprise and Hornet and that there was a failure to agree between squadron leaders but all squadrons of torpedo planes were decimated in the attack and other leaders don't get the venom that Kernan spreads on the Hornet. As Kernan was on board the Enterprise at the time, it's never clear why he has such a particular ax to grind with the Hornet's command. If the CAG and Captain of the Hornet were praised today as the hero's of the battle you could see this as "setting the record straight," but as the heros are Nimitz, Fletcher, Spruance and the commanders of the bomber squadrons from enterprise and Yorktown, this comes accross as just a personal vendetta without explanation. The end result is that the rest of the book, pancakes into sea making it almost as pointless as the torpedo attacks it documents.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

destruction