Taking Midway Naval warfare, secret codes, and the battle that turned the tide of World War II

In this dramatic account, Dugard (coauthor with Bill O'Reilly of the Killing series) narrates the events leading up to the June 1942 battle for a remote Pacific Island that became a major turning point of WWII. After Japan's December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was pushed relentlessly back across the Pacific by a superior Japanese navy, which seized Singapore and then the Philippines. The U.S. naval base on Midway, located 1,200 miles from the nearest other port, was critical as a waypoint and refueling station, but U.S. naval intelligence believed that Japan's next attack would be on Australia. However, an eccentric codebreaker, Cmdr. Joe Rochefort, leader of an unconventional team of military cryptographers--who "dressed informally," were "prone to obsession," and "admitted to being 'nuts' "--developed a unique method for deciphering encrypted Japanese communiques that revealed the next target would be Midway. Sequestered in a Honolulu basement, Rochefort and his team worked tirelessly to find more evidence of their theory for their skeptical superiors, whom Dugard, with cinematic flourish, depicts being slowly persuaded of the intelligence's accuracy. Dugard's clipped, no-nonsense prose (describing British admiral Tom Phillips: "Whites. Epaulets. Five foot two") and raw style ("By all means, full fucking speed ahead") make this into an immersive adventure. WWII buffs will be engrossed. (May)