Chapter 3 translator's words

The Battle of Midway in early June 1942 was a turning point in the Pacific War.Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the severe damage to the US Pacific Fleet, the Japanese army frequently attacked the south and succeeded again and again, gaining the strategic initiative.The Japanese army is arrogant and self-confident, arrogant.The U.S. military is in a difficult situation and morale is low.Although the Battle of the Coral Sea frustrated the Japanese army, the two sides only fought a tie.In early June 1942, under the command of Admiral Nimitz, Fletcher and Major General Spruance, the U.S. military set up an ambush with three aircraft carriers in the waters northwest of Midway Island. Quickly sank all four aircraft carriers led by Lieutenant Admiral Nagumo, commander of the Japanese First Air Fleet, that had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, creating another miracle in the history of warfare in which the weak defeated the strong and the few defeated the many.This naval battle fundamentally reversed the strategic posture of the US defending Japan and attacking Japan, and laid the foundation for victory in the Anti-Fascist War on the Pacific battlefield.

The main author of this book, Professor Gordon W. Prange (1910｜1980), is a famous American expert on the history of World War II.Born in Iowa, he studied at the University of Iowa and the University of Berlin in his early years, and taught at the University of Maryland since 1939.During the war he served as an officer in the Naval Reserve.From December 1945 to July 1951, he was a civilian officer of the US Far East Command in Tokyo.During this period, from October 1946 to June 1951, he served as the director of the History Section of the Intelligence Department under MacArthur, and then served as the acting director of the Military History Section for a month.Prange's experience in the Navy and Army provided him with unique conditions for studying the history of World War II.In the thirty-seven years before his death, Prange personally interviewed many American, especially Japanese commanding officers related to the Pearl Harbor incident and the Midway Island naval battle, consulted a large number of archives, and wrote many volumes of manuscripts ( The Pearl Harbor manuscript alone is 3,500 pages long!).The two students of the professor processed, organized and compressed the manuscript in accordance with his wishes.In November 1981, the professor's long-length masterpiece "Dawn, We Are Still Sleeping" on the Pearl Harbor incident was published. The Miracle of Midway was published in 1982, two years after the professor's death.

The book quotes from many sources, describes in detail the course of the Midway Naval Battle, and analyzes the main reasons for the victory and defeat of the United States and Japan in a more objective manner. It is one of the rare good materials for studying the history of World War II and the art of combat command.In view of the fact that our country has not introduced the translation of the Battle of Midway in such detail, we believe that it is a meaningful work to introduce Prange’s book to Chinese readers, and it will definitely attract comrades and the general public who are engaged in the study of the history of the Second World War. reader interest.

The original text jumps up and down, and we have retained the author's style in the translation.The appendix at the end of this book lists the English-Chinese comparison table of abbreviations, battle sequences, etc., for the convenience of readers. Chapters 1 to 19 of this book were translated by Comrade Wang Xiliu, chapters 20 to 38 were translated by Comrade Qi Ahong, and chapters 39 to 42 were translated by Comrade Weng Caihao.Associate Professor Ju Zuchun, who has a long history of research on military English, served as the coordinator of this book.In the process of translation, we referred to the book "The Battle of Midway Island" translated by Comrade Xu Qiuming and Wang Shaofang, and also received great assistance from the teachers of the Japanese language group of Nanjing University of Foreign Languages. We would like to thank you for this.

Due to our limited level, there are inevitable errors in the translation, and readers are urged to criticize and correct. translator In February 1986, at Nanjing Foreign Language Institute of the Chinese People's Liberation Army