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John FordThe Battle of Midway (1942)

The Battle of Midway chronicles a significant moment in U.S. History, as have other Ford films like Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and My Darling Clementine (1946), but the focus here is on ordinary Americans filmed at the time, not famous historical figures seen in retrospect.
Although the use of a hand-held 16mm camera will strike some as uncharacteristic of Ford's style, there are many ÂFordian touches throughout the film.

Ford weaves voiceover and music into the real footage of the battle, shaping the material to show us the conflict as he saw it, and moulding these elements into a narrative to show the American people why they're fighting.


This movie is part of the collection: Feature Films

Director: John Ford
Producer: John Ford
Production Company: U.S. Navy, War Activities Committee/20th Century Fox
Sponsor: k-otic.com
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: WWII; war; documentary; midway
Contact Information: www.k-otic.com

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Jilly9 - - January 22, 2012
Subject: there's a better quality print
there's a better quality print here at FedFlix

http://www.archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.65422.b

Reviewer: picfixer - - July 12, 2011
Subject: Inaccurate home-front morale booster
Unquestionably Midway was a stunning, lopsided US victory, and the turning point of the Pacific war. However this wartime propaganda piece is misleading or blatantly inaccurate in several areas.

It does not mention the successful Japanese bombing of Dutch Harbor and invasions of Attu and Kiska, which were part of Japan's Midway operations.

The USAAF attacks on the Japanese invasion force had no success, and the Army and Marine, Midway-launched strikes on the Japanese carrier force were costly, complete failures.

The loss of the carrier USS Yorktown isn't mentioned.

The claim "28 Jap battleships, cruisers, destroyers sunk or damaged," in addition to the 4 carriers sunk, is wildly inaccurate. The actual Japanese warship losses from all five of their task forces were:

4 carriers sunk (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu)
1 heavy cruiser sunk (Mikuma)
1 heavy cruiser damaged (Mogami)

Well, it was wartime and Midway was our first major victory, so all of the above can be forgiven. However it does significantly reduce this movie short's documentary value.

A highly accurate, capsule view of the Midway battle is found here:

http://combinedfleet.com/battles/Battle_of_Midway

A detailed view of the entire battle including a timeline is found here:

http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=6

Reviewer: rclo - - July 11, 2011
Subject: Interesting look at the battle, but light on naval action
The short film focuses on the island proper during the battle, but the real action took place at sea. Nonetheless, the film reminds us that real Americans fought the war and that they were our neighbors, fathers, uncles.