Thread by @puddleg

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend - Roland Emmirich's new film of Midway looks excellent, but this screen shot of the SBD attack on Soryu from the trailer illustrates the power of myth. @johnzahorik
Note the "planes crowding the flight deck". 1/n

That the USN divebombers attacked the Japanese carriers when planes were changing armament loads on the flight decks is legend - but the IJN didn't do that, and it would have made no sense, as the carriers were also flying combat air patrols so needed to land zeros on and off.

"the Japanese carriers had no strike aircraft on their flight decks, and were nowhere near ready to launch a counterattack against the Americans when they were bombed." Jon Parshall and Tony Tully, who studied Japanese records and carrier doctrine 3/n
combinedfleet.com/MidwayBook.htm

The Japanese carriers armed their aircraft in the hangars (as most navies did before the introduction of crash barriers), so every aircraft except the Zero taking off or landing was below decks at the time of the attack.
So how did the "crowded flight deck" legend start? 4/n

Mitsuo Fuchida's book, Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, published in US in 1955: "Fuchida's misstatements, which have lain undetected in the West until very recently, have had manifold negative effects on the veracity of the standard English-language battle accounts." 5/n

"His were not minor errors of omission that can be brushed off or explained away-they were fundamental and willful distortions of the truth that must be corrected. Intriguingly, Fuchida's account was overturned and discredited in Japan more than twenty-five years ago." 6/n

Fuchida was an IJN carrier pilot and at Midway, but he played fast and loose with the truth repeatedly in his book, see for example here: being a war hero doesn't always make someone honest (see "Pappy" Boyington controversy) 7/n
combinedfleet.com/ThreeMoreWhopp…

Parshall and Tully published "Shattered Sword", debunking this & other myths about Midway and telling the Japanese side in 2005, but the error persists.
If you've read Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey) or The Big Fat Surprise by @bigfatsurprise this will be drearily familiar. 8/n

Of course, the idea that the Japanese were mere minutes away from launching a devastating attack on the US fleet when they were defeated is hugely attractive, but it's not not the truth and the truth is flattering enough to the USN. 9/n

But hey, print the legend on the big screen if you must, Roland. But if you're really interested in the truth about the Japanese at Midway, read Shattered Sword. 10/10
amazon.com/Shattered-Swor…