Webinar: Midway After the Battle

Enjoy this very interesting webinar about the Battle of Midway from the National Museum of the Pacific War where 80 years later renowned Pacific War expert and author, Craig Symonds and Director of Archives and Library at the National Museum of the Pacific Chris McDougal team up to present this webinar. The museum's Director of Archives and Library, Chris McDougal shows us hidden artifacts from the museum's archive and shares the incredible stories behind them. Special guest, Craig Symonds, gives us a deeper understanding of the decisions that were made before, during, and after the battle and answers some great questions from our web audience.

A month after striking in the Coral Sea, the Japanese launched an all-out assault against Midway Island in what was obviously intended as the first step of a grand attack upon Hawaii and the continental United States. The Navy was ready, and the heroic pilots from naval aircraft carriers inflicted a major sea defeat upon two great converging forces northwest of Midway. The enemy lost four aircraft carriers, at least two heavy cruisers, and a number of light cruisers, destroyers, and transport - all by aerial attack.

Craig L. Symonds is a professor of history emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he taught for thirty years and served as History Department Chair. From 2017 to 2020 he was the Ernest J. King Distinguished Professor of Maritime History at the U.S. Naval War College, in Newport, RI. He is a four-time recipient of the Federal Government’s Superior Civilian Service Medal, and in 2014 he received the Dudley W. Knox Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Naval Historical Foundation. He is a Director Emeritus of the Admiral Nimitz Foundation.
Symonds is the author of seventeen books, including Lincoln and His Admirals, which won the 2009 Lincoln Prize, and Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (2005) which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize for Naval History. His books on World War II include The Battle of Midway (2011), Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings (2014), and World War II at Sea: A Global History (2018). His newest book is Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (2022) which was released this spring.