A half-hour of video from a couple years ago National WWII Museum Conference on WWII. Nothing terribly new, although it does give a straightforward simple explanation of what was written, and to be fair, a little complicated reading unless you were nautical or aviation minded. I think it shows the difference in thinking today, where people expect HD live surround sound footage of any sort of military confrontation, as opposed to 1942, where you can literally count the photos taken during the battle on the fingers of one hand. The pilots there were lucky to have a Brownie, never mind a proper strike camera, and also tended to be somewhat busy at the time. Almost all the clear shots taken of Kido Butai were shot from the B-17 strikes, which at 20,000 feet were more or less unmolested. It is interesting that the photographs were the impetus to dig deeper when they were researching their book, since their research guy was studying them, comparing times and matching events...and things weren't lining up with Fuchida's book at all. They were operating under the assumption that Fuchida, a well-regarded national hero, was above simple reproach. Imagine their surprise when the Japanese historian's response was the oriental equivalent of not just no, but FUCK, NO!
Turned out his stuff had been discredited - harshly - for over a quarter-century. That little detail just hadn't gotten through yet. The data had always been there too, just that no one had sat down and looked at the actual flight deck records and compared that to his book. Doing that, takes about 10 min and the conclusion is drawn immediately that his stuff is pure fiction. Since the records match up precisely with photographic evidence shot independently. If you were to take 10 people off the street and ask them, their recollection would likely be based on the 70s-era MIdway movie, which took its cues mostly from Fuchida's book. We need a new movie.
