Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Midway: Why the US won? Determination? Superior Ships? Damage Control?" video.

@ahorsewithnoname773 Fair enough. I accept that there is some measure of doubt. My comment comes from the belief that, right or wrong, Fuchida probably honestly believed what he was saying, which is a different thing to being ‘full of crap’, as the guy in this video claims. I’m not one who believes in absolutist versions of the truth. I only believe in the best available version of the truth. Even if that guy assumes he knows what Fichida’s motives are, he can’t actually know. Fuchida isn’t around anymore so we can’t ask him.
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@shawnc1016 I always think it's dangerous from a historical perspective to believe there is only one possible version of events. Don't you also think it's possible that U.S. historians had their own perspective. I think it's possible to accept his version of events but give greater weight to other version. There are no 100% accurate and reliable versions. But some are more reliable than others.
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There are lots of book that might be considered "the real, legitimate, objective answer to this question" but I smell a flame war.
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Saying that, "Fuchida's full of crap" is just too bombastic to be credible here. Love him or hate him, he was nevertheless a valuable witness to what happened. Whether you agree with him or disagree, you can't simply dismiss someone of his stature like that. That was a low point of this video for me and quite disappointing.
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@FilipMilenkovic01 Given similar circumstances, it's hard to imagine the outcome being much different on either side. Urgent calls to refuel and ream - with different weapons - will create a pretty chaotic scene wherever it happens.
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There are a lot of people here with an opinion on Fuchida but I suspect that you and I are probably the only one who have read his book. Everything else is hearsay.
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@shawnc1016 I'm not sure which bit of his book you mean. I don'y think anyone can just write him off like that. First of all, he was Fuchida. Secondly, he was there and thirdly, he had an excellent understanding of what was going on. But everyone makes mistakes and he was no exception. I just think ignore his information at our peril. If there is conflicting evidence then we accept that things were not as clear as they first appear. I think it is rare that there is only one point of view. It is a poor historian who simply dismisses a witness like Fuchida. We don't have to accept everything that he says but the idea of him being "debunked" runs counter to good history.
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@shawnc1016 That sounds more like a cultural issue than anything else. Those are the things that history usually seeks to compensate for. But you're probably right.
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Fuchida was there. On board Akagi. In battle. Have you ever heard how unreliable witness statements can be after traumatic events? You can't just dismiss the man out of hand for getting some of the detail wrong. He was a very important officer in the IJN and was ill at the time he had his ship blown out from underneath him. There is this underlying tone in both your comments and those of the American man talking in this video that Fuchida was trying to deceive or that he was simply being dishonest. Those things are rarely safe assumptions. He may well have been wrong but everyone's perceptions are different. He died more than forty years ago and all we have left is his writings. The reader may take or leave those at his or her discretion. Talking about revisionism is like arguing about the weather. Everybody is a revisionist at some point. So who is the real revisionist here?
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Except that, at the time of Midway, the Japanese had a lot more experience in carrier operations than the Americans and they were better at coordinating their forces. Their pilots were also more experienced.
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