Taking Midway
Naval Warfare, Secret Codes, and the Battle that Turned the Tide of World War II
-
-
3.7 • 3 Ratings
-
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
From Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Bill O'Reilly's Killing series, comes a fast-paced, dramatic account of the famous yet little-understood battle that turned the tide of World War II.
1942. Everywhere around the world, the Allies are losing the war. Nowhere is this felt more completely than in the Pacific, where Japanese sea and ground forces claim victory after victory. Singapore falls. Then the Philippines. The vaunted American Navy fights to a draw with the Japanese at the Battle of Coral Sea. America's lone moral victory is Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's bombing raid on Tokyo—though even that is tinged with tragedy as two crew members are shot down and beheaded.
Meanwhile in Honolulu, a brilliant young naval officer is determined to break Japan's top secret codes. Lieutenant Commander Joseph Rochefort is close to cracking the code by April. He is then startled to learn that the Japanese are planning yet another major invasion somewhere in the Pacific. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is planning to send four aircraft carriers to complete this task, in a bold attack that will be even larger than the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Rochefort's methods are unique, and those in power in the US Navy find his data flawed. Simply, many don't believe him. The best mind in the US Navy believes the next big attack will come at New Guinea or Australia.
To prove himself, Rochefort must not only find the precise location but predict the date. What ensues is the cat-and-mouse adventure that will become the epic fight known as the Battle of Midway. American and Japanese pilots duel in the skies. Japan's Yamamoto will go toe-to-toe with American admirals Chester Nimitz, Jack Fletcher, and Raymond Spruance. The dramatic battle will involve strategy, luck, heartbreak—and will dramatically alter the course of World War II.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this dramatic account, Dugard (coauthor with Bill O'Reilly of the Killing series) narrates the events leading up to the June 1942 battle for a remote Pacific Island that became a major turning point of WWII. After Japan's December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was pushed relentlessly back across the Pacific by a superior Japanese navy, which seized Singapore and then the Philippines. The U.S. naval base on Midway, located 1,200 miles from the nearest other port, was critical as a waypoint and refueling station, but U.S. naval intelligence believed that Japan's next attack would be on Australia. However, an eccentric codebreaker, Cmdr. Joe Rochefort, leader of an unconventional team of military cryptographers—who "dressed informally," were "prone to obsession," and "admitted to being ‘nuts' "—developed a unique method for deciphering encrypted Japanese communiques that revealed the next target would be Midway. Sequestered in a Honolulu basement, Rochefort and his team worked tirelessly to find more evidence of their theory for their skeptical superiors, whom Dugard, with cinematic flourish, depicts being slowly persuaded of the intelligence's accuracy. Dugard's clipped, no-nonsense prose (describing British admiral Tom Phillips: "Whites. Epaulets. Five foot two") and raw style ("By all means, full fucking speed ahead") make this into an immersive adventure. WWII buffs will be engrossed.
