Talk:Battle of Midway

Perspective of a non-military history-inclined editor

I don't normally spend much time in the military history areas of Wikipedia, but I remember Midway being interesting enough from high school that I decided to give this page a read to refresh my memory. Here are some thoughts, judging against the FA criteria:

Criterion 1: Overall, it is generally well-written, with only a few small copy errors that I corrected on my read-through, and a few cliches. File:Battle of midway-deployment map.svg lacks an adequate legend (e.g. it's not immediately clear that the yellow fire icons represent attacks, rather than sinkings, and some of the numbers aren't explained). Also, this is probably hard to avoid, but some of the military terminology got a little hard to parse. After the first wikilinked mention of things like VF-6, I forgot what they stood for, so when I encountered them later, I had to do a ctrl+f search for the first mention to get reminded. This could potentially be addressed with extensive use of {{abbr}}, although I'm not sure whether that'd require a change to the MOS.

1D: It's generally good on neutrality, although a few passages (e.g. about "tears in their eyes") go over the line into sentimentality and Euphemism, avoiding direct phrasing. If those lines are kept in, there also should be some additional description of the extent of the suffering of the casualties (e.g. what was it actually like to be on board one of the burning aircraft carriers?). Qualifications like Fortunately for the U.S. are certainly needed.

Criterion 2: The level of detail allowed me to get a good impression of the military technology of the era (e.g. the difficulty of communications). There didn't seem to be too much extraneous details, although with some of the Americans killed who received individual mention, it wasn't always clear to me why (that's not much of a problem, so long as there's a consistent standard). However, when it came to the larger picture, i.e. the overall sweep of the battle, this article is not where it should be for a FA. After reading the battle section, I got lost in the details so much that I sought out Midway order of battle to try to get a better overview of what the actual major events/turning points were over the course of the battle (that page unfortunately has basically no lead section, and thus didn't help). The importance of aircraft carriers was generally sufficiently reinforced, but without things like section headings that referenced what happened to different carriers at different points, it got a little confusing.

2C: I didn't dive into the citations extensively, but one of the few I did follow was a dead link; those need to be archived.

Criterion 3: The media is generally good; perhaps make some size adjustments. There's room to add more if more good images are out there, and an oral audio account or two might be nice if freely licensed ones are available.

Criterion 4: Length seems fine.

I hope those thoughts are useful for keeping this page maintained and up to status. I'm giving this section a DNAU, since some of these issues may take a while to address. Once they're resolved, feel free to remove it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:16, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

"Battle for Midway" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Battle for Midway has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 5 § Battle for Midway until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 07:24, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Number of US carrier pilots lost at sea

From what I understand, a large percentage of the US carrier dive bomber and fighter aircrews who died were not from combat action, but were lost after running out of fuel and ditching in the ocean on the first day of battle. Do we have the numbers of fuel-depleted, ditched US airplanes and aircrew who perished or were subsequently rescued? 152.130.15.15 (talk) 14:10, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Turning Point of the War in the Pacific/South West Pacific

The article states that Midway and the Guadcanal Campaign were considered the turning points of the Pacific war however the Japanese suffered their first defeat at Milne Bay and later major defeats in the Gona Buna and Sanananda Campaigns. US Troops were involved in these campaigns but the bulk of the troops involved were Australians. The Allied campaign victories in New Guinea also needs to be considered as a "Turning Point" in the Pacific War. 2001:44B8:126:9200:990A:702A:DA50:9973 (talk) 10:19, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Caption of image of the Japanese commanders

The caption does not state if the commanders referred to are in the row that is sitting or standing, hence they cannot be positively identified (my bold):

"Commemorative photo of Combined Fleet Headquarters staff on board the Yamato. The sixth person from the left is Commander-in-Chief Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, and the fifth person his Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki."

...but, is that standing or sitting? Dawnvawn (talk) 22:24, 24 May 2025 (UTC)