The Silver Waterfall, a Novel of the Battle of Midway

摘要

Retired Captain Miller, himself a former A-7 and F/A-18 aviator, has the basic wherewithal, i.e., aviator experience, but not-how could he?-the actual knowledge and feeling of what it was like to fly American or Japanese prop-driven dive bombers, torpedo bombers, or fighters, into heavy antiaircraft from opposing enemy ships or thickets of enemy defending fighters, whose crews were all at the beginning of a major hemispheric war whose participants were, for the most part, still at the top of their game, and not weary after three or four years of heavy and often indecisive combat is perhaps the most difficult task of all. He had to read a lot, talk to many veterans-those who still survived- and then imagine or invent their feelings and speeches for himself. To say he has succeeded in producing a major novel is a two-edge sword for any reviewer, even one who has read many accounts of this singular battle than many still say shaped the next three years of the Pacific war. The initial problem is the author spends too much time and page count presenting characters, especially the Japanese, their philosophies, outlooks and the movement of the Imperial fleet as it approaches Midway preparing for combat. Only when the first strikers meet does the novel pick up momentum and become a readable story that shows what each side was doing and thinking from inside a character's true soul.