"Midway, The Battle That Doomed Japan" by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya

Updated on June 11, 2026: This has been sold.

Full title: Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, The Japanese Navy's Story
by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya. Published in Annapolis, Maryland by the Naval Institute Press in 1992.

With an introduction by Thomas B. Buell Edited by Clarke H. Kawakami and Roger Pineau and a foreword by Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

A Japanese account of the Battle of Midway, written by two Japanese naval aviators who took part in the war.

First published in English by the Naval Institute in 1955 and later added to the Classics of Naval Literature series, this study examines the battle that changed the course of the war in the Pacific.

Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the first air strike on Pearl Harbor, commanded the Akagi carrier air group and later studied the battle at the Japanese Naval War College. Masatake Okumiya, one of Japan’s first dive-bomber pilots, served aboard the light carrier Ryujo and later as a staff officer in a carrier division.

Drawing on their own experience, private papers, and knowledge of Japanese naval records, Fuchida and Okumiya analyze the planning and execution of the Midway operation. They describe the mistakes, assumptions, and failures in leadership that contributed to Japan’s defeat.

Former library book donated by Charles LaForge,  who served in the U.S Navy from 1956 through 1959 as a communications officer on the U.S.S Yorktown.

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