Midway

The Spectator:

For many of us the Battle of Midway is just one more Hollywood spectacular in, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, a far-away sea of which we know little. But having recently taken a closer look at the battle I am struck both by what was at stake and what the consequences of the American victory were for the Allies at the time and geopolitics since then.

When the Japanese attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 they sank four battleships, destroyed 188 aircraft and damaged 159 other planes. Because, by sheer chance, there were no American carriers at Pearl Harbour on that day, the Japanese failed in their strategic aim: supremacy of the Pacific Ocean. They would have to fight again.

HT Quot'd

Comments

[John Chittck]

"...by sheer chance, there were no American carriers at Pearl Harbour on that day...." - coincidence?

I read an allegedly non-fiction book by one Michael Crichton (not of Jurassic Park fame), "Operation JB", where the author claimed to have been a double agent with MI-5 and colleague of Ian Fleming and allegedly free to expose the "truth" after Churchill's death. Among other topics (with just enough credibility to feed the latent conspiracy theorist in us all), he claimed that a Dutch Sub seconded to the Royal Navy reported the Japanese fleet steaming toward Pearl Harbor days before December 7th, 1941. Churchill allegedly reported the finding to FDR where it was sat-on to raise US War sentiment to where he wanted it. The Sub was quickly sunk by this Agent by a detonating Christmas present to hush the information. For what its worth!