Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway by Walter Lord
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Incredible Victory is the story of the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The author does an amazing job of telling the story of the battle using both American and Japanese sources. The narrative unfolds literally minute by minute, so it is a compelling read to say the least.

Briefly, the Japanese planned the operation involving Midway (and the Aleutian islands) in order to bring the American fleet to battle and destroy the remaining US aircraft carriers. The Americans had broken the Japanese code and so knew what the Japanese objectives were, and were able to deploy the three active carriers to counter the Japanese fleet. I won’t go into the details, other than the US fleet was victorious.

One of the big takeaways, for me at least, is how much chance figured into the American victory. If the weather had been slightly different, if the Japanese search plane had been launched on time, if Admiral Nagumo had not hesitated after the first strike on the Midway ground installations – the results of the battle could have been quite different.

I read this book many years ago – it was the first book I read about the Battle of Midway. It was originally published in the 1960s, but the text had held up pretty well. I highly recommend this book.