[Consim-l] opinions on the book _Shattered Sword_ ?

[Markus Stumptner]

On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Dave Kohr wrote:
> So thanks to (I think) Pat Collins mentioning it a few months ago, I
> found out about this fairly new, "revisionist" history of the battle
> of Midway, called _Shattered Sword_:
>
>    http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889230
>
> Who else has read it, and what did you think of it?

Well, I think it is an important book simply insofar as it brings Western 
readers up to speed on what the Japanese have known about Midway for a 
long time, and it is best where it describes the actual goings-on in the 
battle (basically the hot phase when airstrikes were being exchanged). For 
example, the explanation of how Hiryu escaped being attacked is 
fascinating and revealing.

That said, once they go beyond describing the events on the day into 
analyzing plans and capabilities, I think they toot their own horn too 
much.  They appear (which is surprising for people who have obviously read 
a great deal) to analyse carrier combat and both sides' capabilities and 
vulnerabilities as if Midway was the only carrier battle out there, and as 
a result some of what they write must be taken with a large grain of salt. 
They are also sometimes quite fanciful in their conclusions, putting 
thoughts into people's heads in clearly speculative fashion, and even 
doing the same thing with events. (I recall a passage where they described 
some particularly chaotic goings-on and just as I was thinking "wow, if it 
was really like that, it's good that they finally bring the sources to 
light" and then they wrote "We have no source that says it was like that, 
but surely it must have been like that".  Apparently Tully's new book on 
Surigao Strait is worse.) And sometimes they are very aggressive in 
putting across a point when there seems to be no argument in its favour.

Even when they analyze carrier operations, the book suffers from the fact 
that they seem to look only at Midway.  For example, they sort of convey 
the impression that the reason Japanese searches at Midway had to be 
ineffective was that they used floatplanes for search, and iron doctrine 
kept them from using carrier bombers the way the US did. Both is wrong. 
In the other three battles of 1942, Japanese searches were as much if not 
more effective than the US ones despite the primary reliance on 
floatplanes, and in fact Japanese commanders readily used carrier planes 
to bolster their search when they decided it was warranted, both before 
and after Midway.

There is one thing where T&P's comments on doctrine appear to be correct: 
where they point out that Japanese doctrine did not require a two-phase 
search until after Midway. But that's only part of their claims.
There's no doubt that the Japanese search plan on the day of the battle 
was sloppy and thin, but neither doctrine nor equipment dictated that it 
had to be so.  For some things, "we goofed" (as Genda supposedly said on 
the day) still is the best explanation.

This is only one of the issues, there are others.

So, it's good that the book brings some important factors out.  It's sad 
though that this is mixed with speculation and some very narrow analysis. 
I recommend the part on the real battle, say page 90 to about the 
penultimate chapter.  The rest I can't really recommend.

To understand the setting of the battle and the pressures behind, I 
recommend looking at H.P.Willmott's The Barrier and the Javelin, recently 
out in paperback.  For example, much of their criticisms of the Japanese 
plan is taken from him, and IIRC, ironically their Japanese air OOB (of 
which they rather fullmouthedly claim it requires "rewriting the book") 
differs from Willmott's by one plane shifted to another carrier and one 
reserve plane added.

Markus