Pacific Payback: The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway

As a former Marine aviator, I thoroughly enjoyed the book "Pacific Payback". Stephen Moore has done an exemplary job of detailed research on a pivotal time during World War II. His accounting of flights by SBD crews details their courageous battle against the Japanese naval forces during the battle of Midway. I highly recommend "Pacific Payback" to readers interested in history and military aviation.

If you want to know what it was like to attack the Japanese Navy as a US Navy aviator, then you should read this book. Based largely on the recollections of those who fought, the reader gets as close to a ringside seat as is imaginable. Antiaircraft shells explode all around, bullets rip through US attack airplanes, so do shells from 20 mm cannons, US airplanes get shot down, Japanese airplanes get shot down, Japanese vessels sink, shore installations are destroyed, US forces attack their own Naval aviators, airplanes fail mechanically, they crash on landing, they go into the sea on take off, Japanese bombs destroy a US aircraft carrier, torpedoes hit it, and far too many young members of the US Navy die. Japanese Navy personnel die too but they are just statistics. The deaths of Americans are much more personal. You can almost feel the bullets rip into them, or see them as they are forced to "walk the plank" on Japanese ships that rescued them and then sacrificed them. You can almost feel the emotions of the pilots who decide to fly their own course back to ship and mistakenly fly off to nowhere, never again to be heard of. So, for those who wish to fly with the Naval aviators against the Japanese from Pearl Harbor through the Battle of Midway, this is your book. The book is a record and testimony to the courage of the "boys" who were instantly pushed into manhood by the reality of air combat against the Japanese early in the Pacific War. The author meticulously records the names and units of the aviators in these battles and thereby does them the honor of remembrance. There are other books about WWII that read more smoothly, but there are none that better recognize the specific contributions of individuals in the armed forces who stood toe to toe with the enemy and who were shot at and who fired on the enemy. For those who are too young to remember this war, do your best to realize that you live as well as you do today, in part because these aviators lived and died. For those of us who remember the war, let us not forget for one day men like these and their comrades in arms and let us keep the memory alive by telling others when we get the chance.

There wasn't much of a story, here. It was more like a list of names and dates strung together with a rather threadbare narrative. Which is not to meant to diminish the men and events that the book was about, but the way the book was written.

Deeply researched and well told tale of the dive bomber crews that devastated the IJN carriers fleet at Midway. From the last days prior to Pearl Harbor through the end of the Battle of Midway, Stephen Moore takes us through the early days of the naval war as the dive bomber crews experienced it, culminating in the victory at Midway. It's extremely gratifying to see that the enlisted gunners/radiomen receive their due in this book. The pilots usually get the glory - and they deserve it - but they aren't the only people facing the enemy in the air and the enlisted crew members were integral to the success of the dive bombing mission. Moore is extremely thorough in his treatment of his subjects, providing what I'm sure is an eye-opener for many with his details, including how many aircraft and crew members were lost in accidents or were lost with no knowledge of what happened to them. This is a side of wartime operations that's normally ignored in the wartime histories. I could go on but will conclude by stating that this is an excellent, well written, thoroughly researched and engaging book.

The book is packed full of precise data of each squadron and who was lost etc. However there is nothing to gain the reader's attention or interest.

Received as a gift and I'm now trying to decide whether to read it. It looks like it's written by a cheerleader-style history buff in the passionate style of a novel rather than one committed to historical facts. This is what I found while scanning a few pages:

I immediately found some technical errors. For instance, on page 51, it says "As a prospective aviation cadet, Tony was enlisted in the Navy Reserves as a seaman, second class petty officer". There is no such combined thing. There are seamen and there are second class petty officers. Huge difference between the two, and one cannot be both. He claims that one needed at least an associates degree or two years of college to qualify for Navy flight school. Associates degrees did not exist back then.

On page 36, the author mentions the "New York Merchant Marine Academy" as an institution rather than a location. It's actually the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Page 7, he wastes words telling us what Morse Code really is rather than assuming the reader would know. He often uses the popular contemporary words "opt" and "opted" when these words didn't exist back then. Chose or chosen would have been more appropriate. There was also controversy surrounding a fighter squadron that didn't engage and chose to orbit high above the battle. This squadron returned without a scratch. This wasn't mentioned. I do like the facts such as the names of squadrons and their aircrews.

This is an engrossing account of the Battle of Midway. What I liked were all the human interest accounts obtained by personal interviews with participants in the Battle. The reader is drawn into the events as they unfolded, leaving the reader with a real understanding of what life was like aboard an aircraft carrier during those trying times. Not only life, but death as it was encountered in a variety of forms.

Anyone interested in WW II aviation will find this book both interesting and enjoyable. Stephen Moore has done an awesome job in assembling so many firsthand accounts after all these years. It is so impressive that it disturbs me to take issue with a detail that will seem of minor importance to most readers.

As a former WW II naval dive bomber I have one reservation, and it does not detract from the excellent work of the author, who trusted the sources he consulted. My concern is that leaders of our aviation contingent engaged in the Battle of Midway are unfairly maligned by the book's account of the disastrous performance of the carrier Hornet's air group.

Admiral Nimitz planned to ambush the Japanese carriers as they were occupied attacking the islands of Midway. The author embraces the theory that Admiral Mitscher and Commander Ring conspired to disobey the orders laid out in the Nimitz plan. Instead of dispatching the Hornet squadrons on a flight of 240O degrees southwest of the Hornet to attack the last known position of the Japanese, they are depicted as dispatching the Hornet squadrons 265O, almost directly west, searching for a mythical second Japanese task force. This was the so called Flight to Nowhere.

The author relied on a list of eight impressive source notes (41 to 48, page 408) in support of this scenario. However, on examination all eight really have only one origin. All are based on an unsupportable theory concocted by Major Bowen Weisheit, and privately published in 1993, 50 years after the Battle. Even Note 46, which gives John Lundstrom's book, First Team, as its source, was a secondary source, since the noted source for the First Team was originally Major Weisheit!

The controversy seems to emanate from authors of recent books about the Battle of Midway who quote The Flight to Nowhere in unjustly disparaging the contributions of airmen like Lt. Cmdr. Wade McClusky, Admiral Marc Mitscher, Commander Stanhope Ring, and Captain Miles Browning, all of whom did their best at Midway to overcome the obstacles placed before them by an inept leader... airmen who continued to serve our sea going navy well for the balance of the war after Midway. Black shoe Admiral Fletcher, tactical commander of our forces in the Battle, was reassigned to a desk job in Seattle, Washington.

The Flight to Nowhere is a perfect example of how an unsupported theory can be repeated often enough to become embedded in history as factual.

This is how the author of an excellent book like Pacific Payback may have been led astray. Read the book and decide for yourself. Then, if you become interested in a full account of The Flight to Nowhere, check out this blog:
http://theflighttonowhere.blogspot.com/

Wow! The detailed descriptions that lead up to the, 'Pacific Payback' are eye-opening. The author, Stephen Moore, has obviously done his research and should be commended. On that note, however, I personally had difficulty keeping up with the dozens of different aviators and radiomen outlined in this historical tribute. The price paid at the Battle of Midway was enormous. Approximately 110 USN carrier planes from their three flat tops lost, (about half of their aircraft). At the same token, the Japanese lost all 4 of their carriers and a heavy cruiser. Granted this was accomplished through a combination of luck, courage, and some would say divine intervention. The loss of life the Japanese paid was 2,181 sailors, (about the same total that the Americans had realized during the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor). Stephen Moore also informs the reader that the United States Naval fleet consisted of 31 surface vessels and 19 submarines. Conversely, the Japanese Navy was backed by 168 vessels. So great intelligence gleaned from the code breakers really paid huge dividends. Had Midway fallen the whole outcome of WWII as we know it would be turned on it's head. The Japanese needed that island for a strategic base from which they could launch further attacks on Hawai'i as well as the main land.

The United States Army Air Forces B-17 involvement was included as well... The USAAF erroneously claimed to have sunk the entire Japanese carrier fleet. History now shows that none of their high altitude bombing raids hit their mark. It was the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber that ruled the day. Great tribute!

A very narrow slice of WWII history in the Pacific. Specifically, the dive bomber and torpedo bomber pilots and their gunners lives, from their arrival in Pearl Harbor during the December 7th attack to the aftermath of Midway. No punches are pulled. The many tragic and seemingly unnecessary losses of life even in victory, are described. Well researched and seemingly exhaustive look at the aviators in the Pacific during this time period. The reader is often left wishing even more was known of these men and what their deeds meant to them. An excellent read.

Americans owe a deep debt to the navy pilots that fought in the skies over the Pacific during WWII. This book is a detailed story of how the pilots fought against all odds to defeat Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They faced Japanese aircraft that were faster and more agile then their own. If they survived the anti-aircraft weapons they faced the the experienced Japanese fighters. If they survived that they then have to pray that they have enough fuel to make it back to their aircraft carriers. If they ran out of fuel they then had to survive a controlled landing into the Pacific. If they survived that they had to to avoid being sucked down with their aircraft as it went below the surface to settle on the ocean floor. If they were lucky enough to get free of their aircraft and into their emergency raft they had to pray that enemy aircraft didn't strafe them or that they weren't picked up by the enemy and executed. The courage demonstrated by the Navy pilots goes beyond all that can be expected of any man. This book certainly made be thankful for the pilots that gave their lives and suffered severe injury. How they could survive these odds and climb back into there cockpits to do battle again is a testament to their courage. Thank you to our veterans of all wars and those serving in our military today.