It has been called "the greatest naval battle since Trafalgar." On June 4, 1942, near a tiny island 1,500 miles from Hawaii, the course of the Pacific War changed dramatically. Before the battle of Midway the forces of Imperial Japan seemed unstoppable. After Midway the Japanese would never again take the offensive.

Fifty-six years later, famed underwater explorer Robert Ballard embarked on a search for the lost ships that had sunk in that historic battle. Accompanying him were a group of Japanese and American veterans who had once faced each other as enemies. Their memories of the epic conflict act as an affecting counterpoint to the story of the high-tech hunt for this great sunken battlefield.

Dr. Ballard's search area was enormous and his targets -- the Yorktown and four Japanese carriers -- lay over three miles down, far deeper than the Titanic or the Bismarck. Equipment failures and time constraints kept working against him, and it often seemed that he might return with nothing. But finally, on May 19, 1998, Robert Ballard and his team located the remains of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown.

Astonishing underwater photographs of the Yorktown by David Doubilet and Ken Marschall's haunting paintings of the nearly intact carrier are among the visual highlights of this richly illustrated book. In addition, archival and modern images and paintings by leading aviation and maritime illustrators complement this gripping account of one of history's great air-and-sea encounters and the mission to document the lost ships that today bear witness to it.

On the morning of May 19, 1998, Robert D. Ballard stared into a video monitor hoping for a glimpse of metal on the bottom of the sea. "Thar she blows! Bingo!" After almost three weeks out, painstakingly scanning the ocean floor with high-altitude sonar, and many months of research and planning, Ballard and his crew had spotted the Yorktown some three miles down. The wreck was in remarkably good condition: "It was as if we had stumbled on the ship a few minutes after it made its death plunge."

In Return to Midway, Ballard weaves a compelling narrative, blending the story of the famous battle with his battle to find the sunken ships--the Yorktown and the USS Hammann, as well as four Japanese aircraft carriers. First-hand accounts by the men who were there, including two Japanese and two American servicemen who joined Ballard and his crew for the hunt, as well as paintings and archival photographs, detail the battle in all its horror, while capturing the honor of the men who fought on both sides. Military-history buffs will find this book--the first in decades specifically about the Battle of Midway--especially valuable, though fans of Ballard's work as an oceanographer will be equally captivated. --Sunny Delaney