As I live outside of the USA but have a strong interest in the WW2 Pacific Theater, I tend to buy books en masse at the US Amazon.com site when I am in the USA, as the prices and selection for topics in the field are better than elsewhere.

Therefore, I threw this book into the shopping basket along with dozens of others, and, to be honest with you, I didn't think much of it. The title/subtitle, paperback format, and cheap looking cover illustration to me suggested led me to believe that this was to be a collection of minor oral histories. Furthermore, I thought that because of the book's recent vintage and, shall we call it "historically questionable", title, this would be just chock full of exaggerated / oversentimental recollections by perhipheral players, like then 18-year old cooks on screening destroyers or something.

I could not have been more wrong.

"No Right to Win" is the judiciously edited and narrated treasure trove.. meta analysis.. I'm not sure how you characterize it, so let's just call it the "masterwork" of Ronald W. Russell, the editor of the Internet-based "Battle of Midway Roundable."

Russell has taken the very best of the vast corpus of information about the Battle of Midway and has distilled it into a sort of digest format. This includes a sober discussion of various points of contention among historians and just tons and tons of interesting details (mostly on the tactical and operational levels) that have come up during his tenure as Roundtable editor. I don't really want to spoil it for you, but it's really, really good stuff for those of you who already have a solid fundamental background in the Battle of Midway and have read at least some of the canonical books, including Fuchida's, Prange's, Lundstrom's, and, of course, Parshall & Tully's.

As readers, we tend to associate writers with their books. For example, if book X was written in 1970, we tend to associate book X's author with those views, even now. Because many of the writers of key works on the BOM participate in the Roundtable, we see how their views have been refined and modernized with updated scholarship. That this book helps get the latest thoughts from such experts into print is worth the price of admission alone, though there is much more to be had.

I want to make perfectly clear that this book is superb and gets my highest recommendation. I won't dwell on the books positives (which are many), but would however like to bring up one criticism, since I suspect that Randall reads these reviews and will see this.

Randall is in a tough position in some sense - he is clearly has a proper historian's compass for uncovering the best possible truth. This is the singular purpose of the Roundtable. He calmly and convincingly separates the wheat from the chaff in many cases, and has the fortitude to respectfully question veterans' recorded recollections when they so obviously diverge from the evidentiary record (George Gay, etc).

Nevertheless, this role it seems is a bit at odds with his role as community builder and editor of the Roundtable. For exmmple, on page 196 he let "screenwriter Paul Corio", a person who we learn elsewhere is penning someting for the silver screen about the Midway torpedo squadrons, effectively have the last word about the effectiveness of their sacrifice. Corio's words are passionate and include the phrase "the decks of the Japanese carriers were packed with fully armed and fueled planes.."

Wait.. what? Such a statement should be highly contentious, and that it should be put into a conclusion like that as a baldfaced assertion is troubling. Such a statement is just too provocative to belive that Russell just missed it. But the alternative explanation, that Russell chose to play community builder rather than truth-discusser in this one case seems difficult to accept as well.

To make my biases more clear, for the most part I have come to believe Parshall and Tully's analysis in nearly everything (and Lindstrom as well, for the most part), and so perhaps I come to see anything that just repeats the old thinking on BOM issues without substantively addressing the Shattered Sword objections to be, well, troubling.

That said, problems like this are the exception in this book. I'm not a BOM Roundtable participant (no time, alas), but I feel that I've been caught up to a large extent thanks to this book. Highly recommended.

As I live outside of the USA but have a strong interest in the WW2 Pacific Theater, I tend to buy books en masse at the US Amazon.com site when I am in the USA, as the prices and selection for topics in the field are better than elsewhere.

Therefore, I threw this book into the shopping basket along with dozens of others, and, to be honest with you, I didn't think much of it. The title/subtitle, paperback format, and cheap looking cover illustration to me suggested led me to believe that this was to be a collection of minor oral histories. Furthermore, I thought that because of the book's recent vintage and, shall we call it "historically questionable", title, this would be just chock full of exaggerated / oversentimental recollections by perhipheral players, like then 18-year old cooks on screening destroyers or something.

I could not have been more wrong.

"No Right to Win" is the judiciously edited and narrated treasure trove.. meta analysis.. I'm not sure how you characterize it, so let's just call it the "masterwork" of Ronald W. Russell, the editor of the Internet-based "Battle of Midway Roundable."

Russell has taken the very best of the vast corpus of information about the Battle of Midway and has distilled it into a sort of digest format. This includes a sober discussion of various points of contention among historians and just tons and tons of interesting details (mostly on the tactical and operational levels) that have come up during his tenure as Roundtable editor. I don't really want to spoil it for you, but it's really, really good stuff for those of you who already have a solid fundamental background in the Battle of Midway and have read at least some of the canonical books, including Fuchida's, Prange's, Lundstrom's, and, of course, Parshall & Tully's.

As readers, we tend to associate writers with their books. For example, if book X was written in 1970, we tend to associate book X's author with those views, even now. Because many of the writers of key works on the BOM participate in the Roundtable, we see how their views have been refined and modernized with updated scholarship. That this book helps get the latest thoughts from such experts into print is worth the price of admission alone, though there is much more to be had.

I want to make perfectly clear that this book is superb and gets my highest recommendation. I won't dwell on the books positives (which are many), but would however like to bring up one criticism, since I suspect that Randall reads these reviews and will see this.

Randall is in a tough position in some sense - he is clearly has a proper historian's compass for uncovering the best possible truth. This is the singular purpose of the Roundtable. He calmly and convincingly separates the wheat from the chaff in many cases, and has the fortitude to respectfully question veterans' recorded recollections when they so obviously diverge from the evidentiary record (George Gay, etc).

Nevertheless, this role it seems is a bit at odds with his role as community builder and editor of the Roundtable. For exmmple, on page 196 he let "screenwriter Paul Corio", a person who we learn elsewhere is penning someting for the silver screen about the Midway torpedo squadrons, effectively have the last word about the effectiveness of their sacrifice. Corio's words are passionate and include the phrase "the decks of the Japanese carriers were packed with fully armed and fueled planes.."

Wait.. what? Such a statement should be highly contentious, and that it should be put into a conclusion like that as a baldfaced assertion is troubling. Such a statement is just too provocative to belive that Russell just missed it. But the alternative explanation, that Russell chose to play community builder rather than truth-discusser in this one case seems difficult to accept as well.

To make my biases more clear, for the most part I have come to believe Parshall and Tully's analysis in nearly everything (and Lindstrom as well, for the most part), and so perhaps I come to see anything that just repeats the old thinking on BOM issues without substantively addressing the Shattered Sword objections to be, well, troubling.

That said, problems like this are the exception in this book. I'm not a BOM Roundtable participant (no time, alas), but I feel that I've been caught up to a large extent thanks to this book. Highly recommended.

While most books on this subject try to tell what happened to result in stopping the Japanese forces at Midway, and often err on the details, this book tells the story from the first hand perspective. You can ride with VF-3's Tom Cheek as his F4F Wildcat fighter is first almost bombed by Max Leslie when the SBD's overhead armed their bombs; later you ride with him through various manuevers as he shoots three A6Ms defending the TBDs and finally witnessing the results of the divebombing attack. You can also sit on the shore with Marines and hear their first hand stories in a similar manner. There is very little hearsay history in this book, compared to most.

In addition to being a new way to read about history the book is fast paced, and entertaining. Well oganized and edited.

well researched and thought out book using information from those who were there well done
paul turner

Ronald Russell has givin us a unique look at this often written about battle. The book length compilation of veterans memories of Midway is unlike anything I've seen before and is an informative as well as enjoyable book. If you think you know all about Midway, think again. There are still questions and confusion about the fight and Mr Russell and the veterans shed much new light on one of the more remarkable battles in our history. A first rate work.

This book represents not only a milestone in Midway history, but in naval historiography. The access of WW II veterans, students, and enthusiasts to one another on the internet affords a case study in how history is being preserved in the information age. Altogether an absorbing study.

This is not a sweeping chronological narrative of the vital Battle of Midway such as Prange's "Miracle at Midway," nor is it an engaging scholarly debunking of historical myths like Parshall's "Shattered Sword." It is however something equally unique: a preservation of the thoughts, insights and personal experiences as reflected in the electronic remembrances of a rapidly diminishing number of veterans who were actually in the trenches (defending Midway Island), in the cockpits (sending the Japan's carriers and fighters to the bottom) and on the decks (sending the enemy's bombers to the same place and trying to keep our pilots and sailors from following them when their own means of transportation were shot out from under them). It is also a sharing of the scholarly observations of renowned experts on these veterans' thoughts, insights and experiences. I believe it was said in the 19th century that gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's' mail -- but just as Commander Rochefort learned when he read the mail of the Imperial Japanese Navy and figured out Admiral Yamamoto's plan to attack Midway, we learn from the author and editor Ronald Russell that reading the mail of these gentlemen can be very satisfying indeed. Good work and well done Mr. Russell -- and please, by all means, carry on.