By Kevin Seabrooke
In a basement in Honolulu, Hawaii, a team of unconventional military cryptographers known as Station Hypo are led by Lt.-Com. Joseph Rochefort’s, who is sure he is close to breaking Japan’s top secret JN-25b code in April 1942.
Rochefort tells his skeptical superiors that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is planning to send four aircraft carriers for an attack on Midway Island that would be larger than Pearl Harbor. Military intelligence is convinced that Australis is the next target, not a refueling station in the middle of nowhere.
Eventually, a test is devised after Rochefort believes he has the Japanese code for Midway (“AF”) and the Navy transmits a false message from Midway about a shortage of fresh water. Soon after, a Japanese message about a water shortage at “AF” is intercepted. The Battle of Midway in June 1942 was a significant turning point in the Pacific theater of World War II, and the Navy’s ability to break Japanese codes was a crucial part of the victory. Dugard is a New York Times bestselling author of several history books and coauthor with Bill O’Reilly of the Killing series.
Taking Midway: Naval Warfare, Secret Codes, and the Battle that Turned the Tide of World War II (Martin Dugard, Dutton, New York, NY, 2025, 368 pp., $32 HC)
I’m reading this book now. I’m about half way thru and it’s full of fun facts and tidbits of history but it’s not the most engrossing books of WWII that I have ever read. I’ll finish reading it but it only rates a ‘C’ in my humble estimation. I would highly recommend the book below about the battle for Wake Island. It’s a page turner and the type of book that you don’t want to end! It rates a solid ‘A+’ – again in my humble estimation.
Given Up for Dead: America’s Heroic Stand at Wake Island – by Bill Sloan
A gripping narrative of unprecedented valor and personal courage, here is the story of the first American battle of World War II: the battle for Wake Island. Based on firsthand accounts from long-lost survivors who have emerged to tell about it, this stirring tale of the “Alamo of the Pacific” will reverberate for generations to come.
On December 8, 1941, just five hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes attacked a remote U.S. outpost in the westernmost reaches of the Pacific. It was the beginning of an incredible sixteen-day fight for Wake Island, a tiny but strategically valuable dot in the ocean. Unprepared for the stunning assault, the small battalion was dangerously outnumbered and outgunned. But they compensated with a surplus of bravery and perseverance, waging an extraordinary battle against all odds.
When it was over, a few hundred American Marines, sailors, and soldiers, along with a small army of heroic civilian laborers, had repulsed enemy forces several thousand strong––but it was still not enough. Among the Marines was twenty-year-old PFC Wiley Sloman. By Christmas Day, he lay semiconscious in the sand, struck by enemy fire. Another day would pass before he was found—stripped of his rifle and his uniform. Shocked to realize he hadn’t awakened to victory, Sloman wondered: Had he been given up for dead—and had the Marines simply given up?
In this riveting account, veteran journalist Bill Sloan re-creates this history-making battle, the crushing surrender, and the stories of the uncommonly gutsy men who fought it. From the civilians who served as gunmen, medics, and even preachers, to the daily grind of life on an isolated island—literally at the ends of the earth—to the agony of POW camps, here we meet our heroes and confront the enemy face-to-face, bayonet to bayonet.