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Harrold, J. E., ed. Turning the Tide: The Battles of Coral Sea and Midway. Plymouth, Devon, U.K.: Univ. of Plymouth Press, 2013. 232pp. £35
The latest volume of the Britannia Naval Histories of World War II revisits the Royal Navy's official histories of two pivotal naval battles. Taken from the previously classified battle summaries, numbers 45 and 46, this newly printed edition is a valuable aid to the study of two groundbreaking carrier battles in the Pacific War.
Originally drafted and written between 1946 and 1951, these insightful summaries were meant to provide lessons learned for the Royal Navy officer corps studying maritime warfare in the first decade of the postwar era. As noted in Philip Grove's introduction, these official histories "cross-refer and blend the official publications more than published works of the same era." Turning the Tide enables twenty-first-century readers to revisit the myths of the battles and reconsider the decisions that the leaders of the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy faced during those months of uncertainty in...