There’s a chapter in Craig L. Symonds non-fiction The Battle of Midway which recounts, in gripping detail, perhaps one of the most infamous incidents in the Pacific leg of the Second World War, but which stands out as a particular tense and churning highlight in a book full of them. The incident involves the ill-fated American carrier Hornet. Not ill-fated to be sunk, it survived such a fate, but to practically miss the battle entirely. This particular infamous incident has been called the Flight to Nowhere, which just sums up all you need to know.

Reading in detail the stacked deck of lost chances, mistakes and plain bad luck, through which the American forces repeatedly suffered makes it astonishing to believe they won the battle at all, an outcome which shouldn’t be considered a spoiler given its vaunted position in American culture, perhaps because the victory was so momentous. And also Craig L. Symonds says so on the blurb.

But win they did, and against such odds the many determined efforts made by a seemingly endless number of pilots and aircraft crew here appears all the more heroic. It’s an unassuming,  straightforward courage, aided just as much by ignorance of the experiences ahead as it is by heroism. The desire for revenge after Pearl Harbor is unmistakable, but the people described, in this book at least, are thankfully free of any John Wayne style jingoism.

Acknowledging the close run nature of the battle, Symonds quickly states a widely held belief in the outcome as more miracle, an act of God, especially amongst those who fought there and then. Instead Symonds attributes the outcome to the sailors, aircrew and assorted others who populate the story, and fittingly gives them all colour and liveliness. Just as the excellent Stephen Ambrose seemed to personally introduce you to everyone involved in D-Day, Band Of Brothers, et al, so does Symonds provide just enough insight into the character of everyone, from the great players at the board, Admirals Chester Nimitz and Yamamoto Isoroku, on down to the often forgotten submariners.

Wisely Symonds stops short of going for full biography, which would be besides the point anyway, and only describes each person’s nature to the extent you’ll understand the actions they took during those eventful days. Inevitably, however, despite its focus on the people, rather than a more distant, abstract concept of units and squadrons moving around like a harmless game, the comprehensive and fast-moving nature of the battle meant that people introduced early on are dropped entirely. Interesting distractions, like a subtle power play between Nimitz and his Washington boss, Ernie King, and the famous Jimmy Doolittle, him of the Doolittle Raid, are entertaining throughout much of the early segments of the book, but are ultimately background detail for the main event.

There’s certainly a worthwhile argument to be made about the realism of depicting more intently those pilots committed to a terrifying bombing run, or the even more terrifying torpedo attacks, during which the slow and bulky planes are vulnerable to being shot down, than the senior commanders waiting in a relatively safe bunker in Hawaii.

In all honesty most of us will read non-fiction books like The Battle of Midway to safely satisfy a curiosity towards the human experiences of such dramatic moments. We wonder what its like to be flying fifty feet above the ocean, into smoke and gunfire. But while the book willingly goes to where the action is, there is a lack of a reader-surrogate, there’s no, since we might as well use a nautical term, anchor. Last year’s excellent In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson hewed close to two members of one family, and in no way skimped on any dramatic incidents. But focusing on those two people alone very much acted as a centre to hold onto amidst the huge, inhuman scale of World War 2.

All of which is only really a mild criticism, and not limited to the otherwise excellently told account, but is more indicative of a certain style of non-fiction writing. Going some way to voiding the criticism altogether, and as a stroke of brilliance, though, Symonds has turned it to his advantage. Frequently throughout the several chapters dedicated to the battle, the second half of the book, Symonds will cycle his timeframe back to early events, performing a Rashomon style re-inspection of the battle. A great example includes yet another American squadron committing to yet another attack, while mention is simultaneously made of an attack on one of the American carriers. Similarly, and returning to the Flight of Nowhere, the infamous incident mentioned at the start of the review, a torpedo squadron breaks formation and heads in a different direction. In a great use of deferred pleasure, Symonds makes the reader wait a chapter or two before switching tracks to catch up with the torpedo pilots, or to return to the American carrier being attacked.

This is perhaps the stand-out selling point of the book. A simple A to B to C account is actually given suspense by purposefully withholding certain little pieces of information till Symonds is ready. It’s a far more exciting way to cover such a large event, particularly when it covers a similarly large area of the world as Pacific naval battles clearly were.

The Battle of Midway is not a small book, but is a quick read, which can be held to Craig L. Symonds engaging writing and readability. There’s always a danger of new books covering well-thumbed topics being slightly redundant. Thankfully there’s no danger of that here.

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