198: The Pacific Tide Turns at Coral Sea & Midway

History That Doesn't Suck

Prof. Greg Jackson

History, Education

4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“It was almost unbelievable, but I was seeing it. Almost simultaneously, three [Japanese] carriers were wiped out. I knew what it meant. By golly, we did it!”

This is the story of a battle that changed how wars are fought at sea—and of the thin margin between disaster and destiny. In the spring of 1942, Japanese forces surge across the Pacific, confident their next move will finish what Pearl Harbor began. But beneath the surface, American codebreakers are listening, watching, and waiting.

Fresh from the hard-fought Battle of the Coral Sea, the U.S. Navy limps forward with damaged carriers, exhausted pilots, and an untested commander named Chester Nimitz. Across the ocean, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku sets an intricate trap meant to lure America’s carriers into annihilation near a tiny atoll called Midway.

What follows is not a clash of battleships, but a duel fought primarily in the air—where minutes matter, mistakes are fatal, and pilots will dive straight into fire with no idea if they’re already too late.

By the morning of June 4, 1942, both sides believe victory is within reach. Only one is right.

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1:34.4	Music 100. It's mid-morning, May 7, 1942.
1:38.2	And 20-year-old naval fireman, third class, Bill Liu, is in the depths of the oil
1:43.0	tanker, USS Neo Show, part at work with
1:45.9	two other sailors in the stuffy and cramped number one magazine as their vessel cuts through
1:50.8	the waters of the Southwest Pacific's coral sea.
1:54.1	I can only imagine what exact duties he might be fulfilling at the moment.
1:58.4	Is he assisting in moving ammunition to the guns above?
2:01.6	Perhaps he's inspecting for fire hazards. After all, the Neo Show may have just refueled
2:07.6	the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and the cruiser USS Astoria yesterday, but it's still the
	...

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