National Geographic's The Battle for Midway
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bob Ballard, John Ford, Peter CoyoteDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-03
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Nat'l Geographic Vid
Movie Reviews of National Geographic's The Battle for Midway
Movie Review: mother of all naval battles
Summary: 4 Stars
Unlike the guy below who said the US would have won the war 3 years later if Japanese had won Midway - based on historical reference and insights, had the Japanese Navy not made blunder after blunder in their attack plan at midway - they would have altered history in a way that would change our history and way of life.
5 minutes changed the course of the battle! Jpn Admiral Nagumo had his planes on the decks of the carriers warming up and getting ready to launch on all carriers for an attack on the US carriers....they were turned into the wind and would no doubt have destroyed the american carriers if launched...they needed 5 minutes - that's all to change history. fortunately for the americans the dive bombers hit the japn carriers with all these planes on the decks loaded with fuel and bombs and it was a shooting fish in a barrel at that moment in time....
Japan made 5 major mistakes that led to the defeat:
1. Did not anticipate the US Carriers by scouting for fleet prior to mission
2. Did not communicate effectively the dangers ahead and instead maintained radio silence not knonwing the americans knew exactly what was coming
3. Did not levy entire naval force together in one massive force - thereby increasing anti aircraft strength.
4. Did not have scout planes do their jobs in locating enemy dangers
5. Did not react quickly enough when american carriers were discovered - hesitated and wasted time switching from torpedos to bombs
Despite all these major mistakes, they were 5 minutes away from changing the world!
Had the Japn launched their some 150 aircraft to attack the carriers they would undoubtedly destroyed at least 2 of the carriers (only 8 planes destroyed one carrier in reality)...even if americans still sunk the 3 japn carriers...us would be left with practically nothing to defend hawaii and the pacific ocean....
Hence japan would push for negotiations to peace with the USA and keep all the territory they captured including all the natural resources oil and rubber..., the USA would not have been able to assist in the D Day landings thereby Germany would win there and we would have 3 super powers in the world as germany and japan probably would have destroyed russia in WWII....hitler would have taken over all of europe and gained enormous power and industrial might not to mention murding millions and implementing his racist and hatred philosophies...Japan would be ruled by military dictatorship and would have eventually taken over all of asia, including china, korea, and the entire southeast asia....meanwhile there would probably have been a world war III within 25 years between the 3 nations and their allies with thermo nuclear exchanges....imagine 5 minutes!
Had the USA lost their carriers and not accepted peace with Japan, then japan would have invaded Hawaii and California without any resistance and just shelled those areas with their battleships and aircraft carriers until the USA would have to surrender or risk having the entire west coast population decimated with casualties.....
Japan would have taken Hawaii by August of that year and invaded california by Oct.....the USA would not have been able to rebuild their aircraft carriers or fleets by then while Japan still had the armada of carriers (6 remaining even if they americans destroyed 3 in midway) they would just keep launching val's bombers over hawaii and california while the battleships just unloaded from miles away.....
scary thought - 5 minutes
Summary of National Geographic's The Battle for Midway
One thousand miles from anywhere lies a lonely outpost of coral and sea called Midway. It was here in 1942 where the U.S. and Japan fought one of the greatest naval battles of World War II that changed the course of history. And it is here again where Titanic discoverer Dr. Robert Ballard now leads a team of experts and four World War II veterans on the voyage of their lives. They're on a race against time to do the impossible: find at least one of the five downed aircraft carriers, including U.S.S. Yorktown, more than three miles underwater. Hear the heart-wrenching stories of four remarkable men and how each survived the war despite incredible odds. And join them as they pay their final respects to their fallen comrades in THE BATTLE FOR MIDWAY.The man who found the Titanic, Dr. Robert Ballard, took on the greatest technical challenge of his career when he traveled to the Pacific waters off Midway Island, site of a critical turning point of World War II, in search of the sunken aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown. This documentary not only details Ballard's challenge in finding the Yorktown, which rests three miles below the surface, a mile deeper than the Titanic, but also provides an intelligent and gripping narrative of the Battle of Midway, in which four Japanese carriers were also sent to the bottom in a furious day of fighting that turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. On the expedition with Ballard are four veterans, two Japanese and two Americans, who had been involved in the decisive 1942 battle, and who are at times overwhelmed by emotion as Ballard looks for their old ships. The dogged search for a Japanese carrier is fruitless, but finally Ballard finds a debris field that leads him to the Yorktown. Ballard's remarkable underwater cameras scan the great carrier, which rests upright on the ocean floor, its antiaircraft guns still pointed skyward as if to ward off yet another furious Japanese attack. As one might expect from a National Geographic production, this documentary is both intelligently conceived and beautifully photographed. --Robert J. McNamara
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