Coral Sea and Midway
The History of the World War II Battles That Turned the Tide in the Pacific Theater
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Narrated by:
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Ken Teutsch
About this listen
The growing buzz of aircraft engines disturbed the Japanese military construction personnel hauling equipment ashore on the beige coral sand of Tulagi Island at 8:20 AM on May 4th, 1942. Offshore, the large IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) minelayer Okinoshima, flagship of Admiral Shima Kiyohide, lay at anchor, along with two destroyers, Kikuzuki and Yutsuki, and transport ships. Six Japanese Mitsubishi F1M2 floatplanes also rested on the gentle, deep blue swell, marking Tulagi's future as an IJN floatplane base.
The men on the beach, at inland construction sites, or aboard the Japanese ships, looked up towards the huge white cumulus clouds sailing on the ocean wind. Taken completely by surprise, the Japanese stood and stared as 13 sturdy-looking dive bombers dropped through the cumulus layer at 6,000 feet, plunging towards the IJN ships. As they streaked lower, the white star on a black disc insignia of American aircraft grew visible on the underside of each wing.
This was the beginning of the Battle of the Coral Sea, one that even those fighting it could not know would make history. While the battle is not as well-known as other battles across the Pacific, it set a precedent by pitting enemy aircraft carriers against each other, a battle in which the rival navies themselves never sighted each other or fired a gun at each other. Instead, the fighting was done with the carriers' aircraft, something that would become more common over time and would result in decisive actions at places like Midway just months later. Furthermore, while it was in a sense a tactical victory for the Japanese, it would end up helping blunt their aggressive push east in the Pacific, making it a crucial strategic victory for the Allies.
Although not as well-remembered as D-Day or even the attack at Pearl Harbor that preceded it, the Battle of Midway was one of the most unique and important battles fought during World War II. In fact, the turning point in the Pacific theater took place between June 4-7, 1942 as a Japanese fleet moved a sizable fleet intending to occupy Midway Island and draw the American navy near. Instead, American aircraft flying from three aircraft carriers that had been away from Pearl Harbor in December 1941 got a bearing on the Japanese fleet and sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers, permanently crippling Japan's navy. The Battle of Midway was one of the first major naval battles in history where the enemy fleets never actually saw or came into contact with each other.
By the time the Battle of Midway was over, the defeat was so devastating that it was actually kept secret from all but the highest echelons of the Japanese government. Along with the loss of hundreds of aircraft and over 3,000 men killed, the four Japanese aircraft carriers lost, when compared to America's one lost carrier, was critical considering America's huge shipbuilding superiority. However, the Battle of Midway could also have easily turned out differently. Japan began the battle with more carriers, more and better aircraft, and more experienced crews than the Americans, and if the battle of the Coral Sea was any indication, the two sides had irrefutable proof of the dominance of the aircraft carrier in the Pacific. The implications of earlier clashes were now starkly underlined, and the fighting was now clearly about timing. The carrier fleets were incredibly powerful and crucially important, yet at the same time they were hugely vulnerable weapons systems. The protagonists at Midway were putting into practice a newly emerging naval doctrine, one which ultimately meted out a terrible punishment to the side that miscalculated. Carrier versus carrier combat had come of age.
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Shattered Sword
- The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
- By: Jonathan Parshall, Anthony Tully
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange's best-selling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Shattered Sword makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida's Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle.
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Shattered Myths - These authors got it right?
- By Ol'BlueEyes on 05-13-19
By: Jonathan Parshall, and others
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Into the Bright Sunshine
- Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Pivotal Moments in American History Series)
- By: Samuel G. Freedman
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president—the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate—but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium.
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Civil Rights for All not just limited segments of society.
- By Patricia A Gustafson on 06-02-24
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The Cactus Air Force
- Air War Over Guadalcanal
- By: Eric Hammel, Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Adam Henderson
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.
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Excellent Book!
- By Eric Peterson on 09-16-22
By: Eric Hammel, and others
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Storm over Leyte
- The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy
- By: John Prados
- Narrated by: Ricard Ferrone
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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As Allied ships prepared for the invasion of the Philippine island of Leyte, every available warship, submarine, and airplane was placed on alert while Japanese admiral Kurita Takeo stalked Admiral William F. Halsey's unwitting American armada. It was the beginning of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf - the greatest naval battle in history.
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Startling revelations to a 72 year battle!
- By Chiefkent on 07-31-16
By: John Prados
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Miracle at Midway
- By: Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Six months after Pearl Harbor, the seemingly invincible Imperial Japanese Navy prepared a decisive blow against the United States. After sweeping through Asia and the South Pacific, Japan's military targeted the tiny atoll of Midway, an ideal launching pad for the invasion of Hawaii and beyond. But the United States Navy was waiting for them. Thanks to cutting-edge code-breaking technology, tactical daring, and a huge stroke of luck, the Americans under Admiral Chester W. Nimitz dealt the Japanese navy its first major defeat of the war.
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Greatest Book on Midway Battle
- By WISDOC on 04-12-21
By: Gordon W. Prange, and others
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World War II at Sea
- A Global History
- By: Craig L. Symonds
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 25 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina - at the start of the war the fourth-largest navy in the world - and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; and much more.
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Outstanding
- By Patrick on 02-14-19
By: Craig L. Symonds
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Morning Star, Midnight Sun
- The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War II August–October 1942
- By: Jeffrey R. Cox
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the disastrous Java Sea campaign, the Allies went on the offensive in the Pacific in a desperate attempt to halt the Japanese forces that were rampaging across the region. With the conquest of Australia a very real possibility, the stakes were high. Their target: the Japanese-held Soloman Islands, in particular the southern island of Guadalcanal. Hamstrung by arcane pre-war thinking and a bureaucratic mind-set, the US Navy had to adapt on the fly in order to compete with the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, whose ingenuity had fostered the creation of its Pacific empire.
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Very enjoyable popular history
- By Sheldon Campbell on 08-17-19
By: Jeffrey R. Cox
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Clash of the Carriers
- The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II
- By: Barrett Tillman, Stephen Coonts
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The incredible true story of the most spectacular aircraft-carrier battle in history - World War II's Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. Here is the true account of those great and terrible days - by those who were there, in the thick of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Drawing upon numerous interviews with American and Japanese veterans as well as official sources, Clash of the Carriers is an unforgettable testimonial to the bravery of those who fought and those who died in a battle that will never be forgotten.
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OUTSTANDING BOOK!!
- By Bill on 10-30-18
By: Barrett Tillman, and others
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Enterprise
- America’s Fightingest Ship and the Men Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Barrett Tillman
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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America’s most decorated warship of World War II, Enterprise was constantly engaged against the Japanese Empire, earning the title “the fightingest ship” in the navy. Her career was eventful, vital, and short. Commissioned in 1938, her bombers sank a submarine just ten days after the Pearl Harbor attack, claiming the first Japanese vessel lost in the war.
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Great Bio of a Truly Remarkable Ship
- By Aser Tolentino on 09-18-12
By: Barrett Tillman
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Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
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Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
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Tirpitz
- The Life and Death of Germany's Last Super Battleship
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Michael Tamelander
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Whilst the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet, restricted for much of the period after 1919 by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, was relatively small in comparison to the Royal Navy, it did possess a number of highly potent battleships and other capital vessels that could - and did - pose a major threat to British interests in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. Amongst the most powerful were the two battleships - the Bismarck and the Tirpitz.
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A great and compelling saga, wonderfully read
- By Scott on 12-31-14
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
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The Twilight Warriors
- The Deadliest Naval Battle of World War II and the Men Who Fought It
- By: Robert Gandt
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Nazis are collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are vastly overpowering the Japanese in the Pacific. For a group of pilots in their early 20s who were trained during the twilight of the war, the biggest concern is that they'll never actually see real action and will go home without having a chance to face the enemy.
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Excellent Selection: One of the Best in this Genre
- By David on 09-22-11
By: Robert Gandt
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Turning the Tide
- How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-Boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic
- By: Ed Offley
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The U.S. experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, but rather in the period from 1942 to 1943, in the frigid North Atlantic and American coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Nearly seven decades after the event, the Battle of the Atlantic still stands as the longest-running and most lethal clash of arms in naval history.
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Just The Facts
- By PismoPat on 05-15-11
By: Ed Offley
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Neptune's Inferno
- The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the same for the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal. Neptune’s Inferno is at once the most epic and the most intimate account ever written of the contest for control of the seaways of the Solomon Islands.
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The WWII Pacific Theater Explodes In My Lazy Chair
- By Rum Runner on 03-01-11
What listeners say about Coral Sea and Midway
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Brian
- 12-08-22
worth the listen
I nice brief overview of the sea battles that helped turn the tide in the Pacific
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- Tony B.
- 06-14-17
Good listen
Well narrated book, lacking depth. More of thumbnail sketch then a detailed book. Lacks in-depth personal accounts and details of individual action.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-22-21
great story of WW2
I enjoyed the story of the highlights of the Pacific War of the Coral Sea and Midway.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sam
- 11-23-20
The Consummate Treatise
What or whomever the Charles River Editors (CRE) are, they got it right. This, in contrast to Ronald Emmerich's 2019 movie, which was so overreaching, it seemed like canned fruit cocktail. As a WWII buff, I took absolutely nothing away from the movie.
The CRE book was totally a different story, both figuratively and literally. The CRE tangentially mention the Pearl Harbor attack and the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, but the thrust of the writing was about the late spring sea battles in the Coral Sea and near Midway Island.
The authors skillfully told the whole store, including the interrelationship of the two sea battles. The prose is historical and chocked full facts and numbers. There is an old saying that goes, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." Fortunately, CRE had more time. That is, the writing is concise, informative, and entertaining.
Finally, the narration was exceptional. Ten minutes into the book, I knew I would be listening to the whole two hours and 48 minutes in one sitting, even though I did not start it until about 1:00 AM. When I listen to this type of book while driving home, I pick slow lanes and slow down to hit red light. A "red light seeker" is equivalent to a "page turner."
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- Peter W.
- 08-24-20
Thin on details
It’s a fine book if you a very broad stroke on these two battles. It was very thin on details. Not very comprehensive.
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1 person found this helpful