Well, not it’s not.
1) Spruance was with the Enterprise/Hornet, NOT at Pearl when the battle commenced.
2) Nimitz would not have been at all surprised about the “AF” confirmation because he approved it.
3) Yorktown was NOT with the Enterprise/Hornet task force but sailed later, which made its arrival all the more timely.
4) Yamamoto never said “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant.” He may have believed that, but there is no record of him ever saying it.
5) The Japanese were NOT planning to extend their perimeter until the Doolittle raid. Despite logic, they somehow thought the raid came from Midway.
6) The movie doesn’t mention Yamamoto’s fateful (and poor) decision to send two carriers to the Aleutians in a feint. This was SOP, but in this case, those two carriers would have finished off the American carriers had they been in the fight.
7) The movie most importantly completely missed the fact that Spruance, the senior commander at Midway, willingly turned over all operational flight control to Jack Fletcher, his junior, because Fletcher had carrier experience. This was something you never would have seen in the Japanese Navy, nor even the Royal Navy for that matter.
While these didn’t substantially damage the film, it’s far less historically accurate than the 1976 “Midway.”
Editorially, while it was ok, the movie tried to do way too much by including Pearl and Doolittle. It took away from the real tactics and skill (and luck) of the American forces in battle.
AND BOY DID THE 1976 FREAKING SUCK!!!
:)
Thank God for remakes, even if they are not PERFECT.
Few things in life are.
The proper word is not "luck." Giving credit where credit is due, the correct attribution is "Providence," overwhelmingly so.
Chance is blind, God is not, especially when His Will is carried out by determined Christians. I think we can say that of the plurality of American men of that time.
"Dieu et mon droit!" (Motto of British royalty)
"The Sword of the Lord and Gideon!" (Battle of King's Mounrain, uttered by Rev. Samuel Doak (click here to the 900 righteous American defenders)
Now being bred out of the American youth by our misdirected schools, universities, and religious denominations. Farewell, Columbia!