The Ship Model Forum

Greetings:

I have a Barnes & Noble gift card burning a hole in my pocket. One of the books I'm considering is Midway: Dauntless Victory by Peter Smith. Anyone read this one? What did you think? Is it worth adding to the Battle of Midway collection?

Thanks:
Charlie

Yes, I have it. Very good book indeed. In-depth study of the battle and very complementary of J.Parshall & A.Tully's "Shattered Sword". Highly recommended.

Cheers

Gilbert

Thanks, Gilbert. I appreciate the review.

I've started reading this. For $60, I'm somewhat torn.

First off, silly grammatical errors belong in high school papers and model warshipper posts. There are random misspellings, incorrect words (correctly spelled, thus not flagged by a spell-checker), and incorrect apostrophe usage ('s does not make a noun plural) throughout the text. It's pretty ridiculous for a professionally published work.

I believe endnotes would have done this work far more justice. More often than not, the footnotes own more page real estate than the main text.

That's the negative. As a positive, the book does serve as a fantastic companion to Shattered Sword. I believe the UK author does provide an interesting viewpoint for the retelling, often referencing British battles for perspective. I have an admittedly narrow focus in my historical research (WWII US naval history), and often am unable to draw his parallels without further outside reading. This isn't a negative at all- this is how we learn!

All in all, there's good stuff here, but the format and grammar are really inexcusable, distracting the reader from the work itself. I'd wait for an edited edition, should one ever appear.

Hello,

I just received this book today--on loan from a friend (it is quite pricey!)--and have had (at least initially) much the same impression. Fantastic details, loads of juicy insights, atrocious editing, inexcusable errors of spelling & facts, some very rare and valuable photographs, and as ill-conceived a format as one could envision, with horrendously flatulent footnotes crowding the text off the page more often than not.

It seems worth the effort, but it is a very ramshackle production next to the massive but streamlined and professional job done by Jon & Tony on SHATTERED SWORD.

$60? Ouch!

For anyone interested in a copy try ABEbooks where it is less than $40(US) new including postage.

_________________
“We are off to look for trouble. I expect we shall find it.” Capt. Tennant, HMS Repulse. 8 December 1941
“A review of the situation at about 1100 was not encouraging.” Capt. Gordon, HMS Exeter. 1 March 1942