1992 will mark the 50th anniversary of the great Pacific naval battles in the Coral Sea and off Midway Island. Occuring within a month of each other, these "turning point" engagements brought an end to Japan's military expansion and six months of Allied defeat and retreat in the Pacific. Fought mostly over the ocean by airmen flying primarily from aircraft carriers, the battles were marked on both sides by courage and luck, forewarning and foreboding, skill and ineptitude. In this partially-annotated bibliography Smith provides more than 1300 citations to the growing literature on these major battles. Materials in seven languages are cited as well as information provided on many of the repositories located in the United States or abroad that have holdings necessary for the continuing reinterpretation of the battles. Following an overview and introduction, the volume contains sections devoted to reference works and sites, general histories, hardware, biography, combatants, and special studies, and separate section for both battles. Access is augmented by author and name indexes.
This volume should become guide for all those concerned with the War in the Pacific and modern military studies.