Talk:Battle of Midway

Perspective of a non-military history-inclined editor

I don't normally spend much time in the military history areas of Wikipedia, but I remember Midway being interesting enough from high school that I decided to give this page a read to refresh my memory. Here are some thoughts, judging against the FA criteria:

Criterion 1: Overall, it is generally well-written, with only a few small copy errors that I corrected on my read-through, and a few cliches. File:Battle of midway-deployment map.svg lacks an adequate legend (e.g. it's not immediately clear that the yellow fire icons represent attacks, rather than sinkings, and some of the numbers aren't explained). Also, this is probably hard to avoid, but some of the military terminology got a little hard to parse. After the first wikilinked mention of things like VF-6, I forgot what they stood for, so when I encountered them later, I had to do a ctrl+f search for the first mention to get reminded. This could potentially be addressed with extensive use of {{abbr}}, although I'm not sure whether that'd require a change to the MOS.

1D: It's generally good on neutrality, although a few passages (e.g. about "tears in their eyes") go over the line into sentimentality and Euphemism, avoiding direct phrasing. If those lines are kept in, there also should be some additional description of the extent of the suffering of the casualties (e.g. what was it actually like to be on board one of the burning aircraft carriers?). Qualifications like Fortunately for the U.S. are certainly needed.

Criterion 2: The level of detail allowed me to get a good impression of the military technology of the era (e.g. the difficulty of communications). There didn't seem to be too much extraneous details, although with some of the Americans killed who received individual mention, it wasn't always clear to me why (that's not much of a problem, so long as there's a consistent standard). However, when it came to the larger picture, i.e. the overall sweep of the battle, this article is not where it should be for a FA. After reading the battle section, I got lost in the details so much that I sought out Midway order of battle to try to get a better overview of what the actual major events/turning points were over the course of the battle (that page unfortunately has basically no lead section, and thus didn't help). The importance of aircraft carriers was generally sufficiently reinforced, but without things like section headings that referenced what happened to different carriers at different points, it got a little confusing.

2C: I didn't dive into the citations extensively, but one of the few I did follow was a dead link; those need to be archived.

Criterion 3: The media is generally good; perhaps make some size adjustments. There's room to add more if more good images are out there, and an oral audio account or two might be nice if freely licensed ones are available.

Criterion 4: Length seems fine.

I hope those thoughts are useful for keeping this page maintained and up to status. I'm giving this section a DNAU, since some of these issues may take a while to address. Once they're resolved, feel free to remove it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:16, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Turning Point of the War in the Pacific/South West Pacific

The article states that Midway and the Guadcanal Campaign were considered the turning points of the Pacific war however the Japanese suffered their first defeat at Milne Bay and later major defeats in the Gona Buna and Sanananda Campaigns. US Troops were involved in these campaigns but the bulk of the troops involved were Australians. The Allied campaign victories in New Guinea also needs to be considered as a "Turning Point" in the Pacific War. 2001:44B8:126:9200:990A:702A:DA50:9973 (talk) 10:19, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Caption of image of the Japanese commanders

The caption does not state if the commanders referred to are in the row that is sitting or standing, hence they cannot be positively identified (my bold):

"Commemorative photo of Combined Fleet Headquarters staff on board the Yamato. The sixth person from the left is Commander-in-Chief Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, and the fifth person his Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki."

...but, is that standing or sitting? Dawnvawn (talk) 22:24, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

History, of Phantasy?

This is a comment on the general mien of the article, not any particular detail. Over and over, I read in the article about what might have happened in the Battle of Midway if it would not had happened as it actually did. An encyclopedic article about a historical event should be about history, and not about possibilities of events that might have happened, but didn't. I also do not agree with the "Perspective of a non-military history-inclined editor" that "Length seems fine". There is definitely too much detail about particular units of the US Navy, or Army that should go to their own respective drawers. Aso, for a non-American, reading the plentitude of unexplained abbreviations (such as VT-3, VT-4, VT-45, PBY, F2A, SB2U, PBY, and so on), makes the reading difficult and tedious. Grzdacz (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi - comments are more constructive if they are specific with proposed changes rather than "this sucks - you need to fix it".

However, regarding your one specific, the use of abbreviations for squadrons or aircraft, this is Wikipedia's nomenclature (and that of essentially every scholarly or professional document regardless of your native tongue) - you write the whole name the first time its mentioned (with a Wiki link if/when possible) with the abbreviation in parenthesis and then you use the abbreviation for the rest of the document. If you scroll up a little from whatever section you were reading, there should be a definition of the term you are unclear about.

Cheers - Ckruschke (talk) 18:51, 17 September 2025 (UTC)CKruschke

"considering the Japanese Navy's superiority in night-attack tactics at the time, there is a very high probability his cruisers would have been overwhelmed and his carriers sunk." Needs added context as the IJN has to get within range of the faster USN ships. The USN has radar, faster ships and would have retreated

I'm a pacific war history buff but rarely edit wikis. I tried to added context but sources are needed, if someone wants update this, it's appreciated. In short, 6 USN ships (7 if we included the disabled but not yet sunk Yorktown) had CXAM-1 radar which would have detected an approaching IJN surface fleet from 70-100 nmi allowing ample time for the USN to flee. Furthermore, the remaining USN carriers could reach speeds of 32.5kts which is faster than all IJN battleships. Furthermore, while the USN had minimal nighttime carrier ops training, while retreating if the USN carriers thought they were in danger, as a last resort, they could launch strike aircraft

I suggest something along the lines of the following be added:

On the other hand, six U.S. Navy ships, including the carriers Enterprise and Hornet, as well as several cruisers, were equipped with CXAM-1 radar capable of detecting large surface targets at ranges of 70 to 100 nautical miles. This early warning advantage, combined with the carriers' superior speed of over 32 knots, gave the U.S. fleet ample time to avoid contact with the slower Japanese battleships, which could not close the distance before daylight. As fleet carriers, while minimally training in night operations, they retained the ability to launch strike aircraft while retreating as a last resort, posing a serious threat to any pursuing Japanese force. NotBond007 (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

all that's great, but it can't be added unless it's sourced.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:04, 15 November 2025 (UTC)