This issue of Naval History commemorates the 65th anniversary of one of the U.S. Navy’s most pivotal battles—Midway—with articles by a pair of historians, a naval aviation legend, and the service’s senior active-duty officer: Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen. The genesis of the CNO’s article dates back about eight months to when his public affairs officer, Commander John Kirby, visited the Naval Institute. Given the significance of the battle to the history of the Navy, I asked if Admiral Mullen would be interested in writing a short piece about the meaning of Midway. Appropriately, his article “Why Midway Matters” links the past to the present while focusing on the Sailors who won that great battle.
As with other battles, scholars are continually reinterpreting Midway, and the two historians contributing articles to our anniversary package represent different schools of thought on the fight. Donald W. Goldstein, author of “Putting the Midway Miracle in Perspective,” helped assemble Gordon W. Prange’s classic 1982 account of the battle Miracle at Midway. His article presents an overview, as well as some analysis, of the complicated, exciting fight.
Jonathan Parshall, meanwhile, is coauthor, along with Anthony Tully, of the widely praised revisionist history Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. In “Ignoring the Lessons of Defeat,” he considers what the Japanese did and didn’t learn from Midway in the wake of the battle. Similarly, Shattered Sword examines Midway from the Japanese perspective, and in the process takes aim at many “myths”—the “most pernicious” of which is that “the Americans miraculously triumphed against ‘overwhelming odds.’”
While the two historians’ articles focus on broad aspects of Midway and its aftermath, Navy ace Admiral John S. “Jimmie” Thach recounts a single mission during the battle when he and five other F4F-4 Wildcat pilots battled swarms of Zeroes over the Japanese fleet. In “Flying into a Beehive: ‘Fighting Three’ at Midway,” which is adapted from the admiral’s Naval Institute oral history, he also explains how his famed “Thach Weave” fared in combat for the first time.
The Naval Institute is dedicated to honoring the service of U.S. veterans, but not just through our oral history program, articles in Naval History and Proceedings, or Naval Institute Press books. The Institute will unveil its latest way of doing so in June when Americans at War, a series of 90-second vignettes, will begin airing nationally on PBS stations. Each will feature a combat veteran reliving what he or she went through in defense of our country, and in so doing will convey a powerful story of pride and patriotism. Made possible through the participation of the U.S. Naval Institute Foundation, Americans at War will allow viewers to make a personal connection to the sacrifices made by ordinary people in extraordinary situations.