ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
The only thing that bothered me about Shattered Sword is the authors' insistence that they were debunking long-standing myths about Midway by proving that the Japanese strike was not on the deck being readied for launch, but was rather in the hangar being readied for a launch. In the long run, it doesn't matter whether they were on deck or in the hanger... the ordnance and fuel present still contributed heavily to the sinking of the ships. Indeed, being in the hangar may have made it all worse, since that internailzed many of the explosions ...
In fact, Sword claimed exactly that; IJN CVs incorporated the design disadvantages of both Brit and US carrier configurations; enclosed hangers w/unarmoured flight decks, respectively (pp 245-8).
ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
As far as i am concerned, the myth they did debunk was the one that the land based strikes proved useless - the authors pointed out that the many piecemeal land based strikes were what prevented the Japanese carriers from getting their strike readied in time due to the constant need to defend against those LBA strikes.
Sword said these LBA attacks robbed Nagumo of time like a man bleeding to death.
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