The Silver Waterfall How America Won the War in the Pacific at Midway

A vivid new history of the Battle of Midway that transforms our understanding of the iconic turning point of the Second World War. 
 
 The stunning and decisive battle of Midway was perhaps the most crucial naval battle in the Pacific theater during World War II. Walter Lord explained away the US victory at Midway against a numerically superior and apparently more skilled Japanese fleet due to ‘Lady Luck.' In The Silver Waterfall acclaimed historian Brendan Simms and historian and military veteran Steve McGregor show it was no such thing. Luck had little to do with it.

Instead the authors show how the forces of industrial dynamism and innovation were central to the US being able to win the war in the Pacific. Engineers, machinists, test pilots, and a willingness to experiment at scale were vital to the creation of the decisive element that would sink the hopes of Japan along with the pride of their aircraft carrier fleet: the Douglas Dauntless Dive Bomber dive bomber, whose vicious near vertical plummet from the sky to deliver a brutally accurate attack was the “silver waterfall” that the Japanese quickly came to dread. In a few deadly minutes they changed the course of the war in the Pacific.

Equally important, the Navy drew on the skills of a wide variety of immigrants or descendants of immigrants--especially those from Germany, the principal hostile power. The engineer who designed the plane which decided the Battle of Midway was Ed Heinemann, the strategist who decided America would defend Midway Island was Chester Nimitz; and the pilot who symbolized American performance on the day was Dusty Kleiss. Without these men, America could not have designed, planned, or done what was needed to win. The Silver Waterfall offers a revelatory new history of Midway, showing that if the Americans were lucky, they made their own luck. 

Brendan Simms is author of The Longest Afternoon (2014) a dramatic description of the defence of the farm of La Haye Sainte during the battle of Waterloo. In 2019 he published an acclaimed biography of Hitler (2019). His most recent book, co-written with Charlie Laderman, Hitler’s American Gamble. Pearl Harbour and Germany’s March to Global War, appeared last year.

Steven McGregor deployed to the Sunni Triangle of Death as an Infantry Officer in the 101st Airborne Division.  There he earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and the Purple Heart.  After his military service he moved to England and completed post-graduate studies in History.  This will be his first book.