The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)
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Narrated by:
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James Lurie
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By:
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Craig L. Symonds
About this listen
There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk, and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever.
In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds, paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice. Symonds begins with the arrival of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after the devastating Japanese attack and describes the key events leading to the climactic battle, including both Coral Sea - the first battle in history against opposing carrier forces - and Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid of Tokyo. He focuses throughout on the people involved, offering telling portraits of Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, and numerous other Americans, as well as the leading Japanese figures, including the poker-loving Admiral Yamamoto. Indeed, Symonds sheds much light on the aspects of Japanese culture - such as their single-minded devotion to combat, which led to poorly armored planes and inadequate fire-safety measures on their ships - that contributed to their defeat.
The author's account of the battle itself is masterful, weaving together the many disparate threads of attack - attacks which failed in the early going - that ultimately created a five-minute window in which three of the four Japanese carriers were mortally wounded, changing the course of the Pacific war in an eye-blink.
Symonds is the first historian to argue that the victory at Midway was not simply a matter of luck, pointing out that Nimitz had equal forces, superior intelligence, and the element of surprise. Nimitz had a strong hand, Symonds concludes, and he rightly expected to win.
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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Islands of Destiny
- By: John Prados
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Acclaimed WWII historian and military intelligence expert John Prados offers a provocative reassessment of the Allies’ battle for the Solomon Islands - a turbulent, dramatic campaign that, he argues, was the true turning point of the Pacific conflict.
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Way too much detail
- By Eric on 01-15-17
By: John Prados
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The Silver Waterfall
- How America Won the War in the Pacific at Midway
- By: Brendan Simms, Steven McGregor
- Narrated by: David DeVries
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Battle of Midway was, on paper, an improbable victory for the smaller, less experienced American navy and air force, so much so that it was quickly described as “a miracle.” This new history demonstrates that luck, let alone miracles, had little to do with it. In The Silver Waterfall, Brendan Simms and Steven McGregor show how the efforts of America’s peacetime navy combined with creative innovations made by designers and industrialists were largely responsible for the victory.
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Read "The Silver Waterfall"
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By: Brendan Simms, and others
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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Tidal Wave
- From Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The United States Navy won such overwhelming victories in 1944 that had the Navy faced a different enemy the war would have been over at the conclusion of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. However, in the moment of victory on October 25, 1944, the US Navy found itself confronting an enemy that had been inconceivable until it appeared. The kamikaze, meaning 'divine wind' in Japanese, was something Americans were totally unprepared for; a violation of every belief held in the West.
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Horrible writing
- By DearMrDear on 06-02-18
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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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Coral Sea and Midway
- The History of the World War II Battles That Turned the Tide in the Pacific Theater
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Ken Teutsch
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
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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.
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The Consummate Treatise
- By Sam on 11-23-20
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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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
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Bloody Sixteen
- The USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 During the Vietnam War
- By: Peter Fey
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Strategy and reality collide in Peter Fey's gripping history of aircraft carrier USS Oriskany's three deployments to Vietnam with Carrier Air Wing 16 (CVW-16). Its tours coincided with the most dangerous phases of Operation Rolling Thunder, the ill-fated bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and accounted for a quarter of all the naval aircraft lost during Rolling Thunder. The Johnson administration's policy of gradually applied force meant that Oriskany arrived on station just as previous restrictions were lifted and bombing raids increased.
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Great Listen!
- By MeathookWX on 09-21-18
By: Peter Fey
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Pacific Payback
- The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway
- By: Stephen L. Moore
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
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Overall
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Sunday, December 7, 1941, dawned clear and bright over the Pacific....
But for the Dauntless dive-bomber crews of the USS Enterprise returning to their home base on Oahu, it was a morning from hell. Flying directly into the Japanese ambush at Pearl Harbor, they lost a third of their squadron and witnessed the heart of America's Navy broken and smoldering on the oil-slicked waters below.
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Excellent companion to Dawn like Thunder
- By G. Bruce Greer on 07-21-14
By: Stephen L. Moore
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Kangaroo Squadron
- American Courage in the Darkest Days of World War II
- By: Bruce Gamble
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
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In early 1942, while the American military was still in disarray from the devastating attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, a single US Army squadron advanced to the far side of the world to face America's new enemy. Based in Australia with inadequate supplies and no ground support, the squadron's pilots and combat crew endured tropical diseases while confronting numerically superior Japanese forces. Yet the outfit, dubbed the Kangaroo Squadron, proved remarkably resilient and successful.
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5 star History!
- By DON COOKE on 03-13-19
By: Bruce Gamble
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What listeners say about The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- David
- 10-14-13
A solid book to listen to...
The author writes the history in a very clear narrative style. The amount of background is sufficient, and introduced in the proper way. In the end he explains not only the Battle of Midway, but the thinking, strategies, limitations, and advantages that eventually led to the US victory at Midway and in the Pacific War.
Mr Lurie has a smooth speaking style. He is the kind of narrator that makes you forget that he didn't actually write the book - he is only reading it.
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- Rex
- 07-10-12
Good read (listen) for history buffs
What made the experience of listening to The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) the most enjoyable?
This is a tale told over and over again. This version was told in a very fresh manner and I enjoyed the narration.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Nimitz: did he have balls!
Which scene was your favorite?
The absolute divine intervention of getting the right mix upstairs and on the deck.
Any additional comments?
I did not realise how badly the Hornet flyers actually did... I was not aware of the Flight to Nowhere
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4 people found this helpful
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- Roscoe's Masked Avenger
- 01-14-15
Excellent account
Even better than Gordon Prange's book. Very good narration. Highly detailed but never boring. Lost sleep in trying to finish the book.
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- Kindle Customer
- 05-10-22
Good performance
The narrator gave a good show, but there are better tellings of the battle of Midway from a tactical, personal, and story perspective.
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- Brian
- 05-19-22
OUTSTANDING
This book is a great insight into the events that lead to the battle of Midway as well as the battle itself.
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- Warf
- 04-24-17
battle of midway
So much information and put in a way that keeps your attention. Enjoyed every aspect of this book filled with so much that it keeps you on the edge even though you know the outcome.
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- Martin See
- 05-07-18
Best Book about Midway
The battle of Midway is a complicated subject . I've read several books about it. None of them explain the battle in such an understandable and entertaining way as this one.
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- William
- 10-22-13
good retelling of the tale
What did you love best about The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)?
corrections that were made due to new information
What did you like best about this story?
the reading kept moving
Have you listened to any of James Lurie’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
This time we get it right
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- Anonymous User
- 05-12-23
Narrator is fantastic
One of the very few audio books that I’ll listen too more than once. The history we know-yet James Laurie’s narration makes it new & exciting, as if heard for the 1st time
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- Mrs. N
- 07-23-23
So much new I did not previously know…
I have been a naval aviator for over 40 years, and long thought I knew and understood this battle. Prof Symonds revealed so much that I had not known or understood, much of it pertinent to developing future naval aviators (e.g., the pre-war design and training philosophies of the opposing fleets, the heroic performance of Yorktown, the embarrassment of Hornet’s air wing, the US losses apart from Bombing 8). I was humored to learn that the chaplain’s center at the Naval Academy was named for an admiral (“Pete” Mitscher) who took 6 years to graduate, due to gross misconduct and lousy grades. Much of the book I’ve listened to twice to capture what I might have missed.
I’ve one disappointment. At the outset, the author takes issue with others’ characterizations of Midway as “Miraculous,” asserting he believes the outcome was more probable than historians have allowed. I would have liked the author to have circled back at the end and summarized his argument. He left the reader/listener to marshall the details and threads that would overrule that consensus. Sure, Japanese admirals’ arrogance made them vulnerable, but a few US pilots had to make up for an appalling inability to get weapons on target for most of the battle. Gifted US leadership’s foresight was for naught if the pilots couldn’t score hits, and the weapons didn’t fuse.
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