Battle of Midway: How it Really Looked

[The Sultan]

The first serious book I ever read was Walter Lord's Incredible Victory on the battle of Midway. It started my interest in military history and the question of what was it really like to be there? A new Japanese movie really shows it. Most impressive recreation I have seen anywhere. A Dambusters of similar quality would be assume. For what it is worth.

The Sultan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzFr-uNTXxc

[KenV]

I will agree that the production values are high and the CGI is top notch. Historically accurate? Not so much.

[Wander00]

Did not realise Japanese carriers had the island on the port side of the flight deck

[The Sultan]

Wander/KenV

For some reason Japanese carriers had islands on either side, maybe because of arrangement of hangar deck level stacks. As to accuracy I agree, time is always compressed for the story. The related Hiryu attacks has a lot more liberties taken on events. Still great effects.

The Sultan

[megan]

The Hiryū and Akagi (both sunk at Midway) were the only carriers with the island on the port side. The reason given apparently it was an experiment to see if that side was better for flight operations by moving the island away from the ship's exhaust outlets.

[Wander00]

Megan - thanks, but would it not have been easier to take the exhausts out the "other" side?

[KenV]

It's not just time compression. In this movie the Japanese fleet is tracking the incoming dive bombers and predicting their arrival to the minute. That never happened. And when the dive bombers arrive, the Japanese aircraft did not have engines running ready for takeoff. The pilots were still below the flight deck. Also a zero pilot defending the Japanese fleet guns jam, and he decides to kamikaze into the American carriers. Not only did that not happen, but it could not happen. The two fleets were hundreds of miles apart.

[KenV]

Megan - thanks, but would it not have been easier to take the exhausts out the "other" side?

It was easier to move the island to the other side rather than moving the exhaust stacks. The island is superstructure (secondary structure) that can be altered/moved relatively easily. Moving the exhaust stacks would have required a major redesign.

[Dysonsphere]

The port side island was an idea for 2 carriers working together with left and right hand circuits