About The Battle of Midway (1942)
The story behind the film
When the United States Navy sent Commander John Ford — the director of Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath, then serving in the Navy's photographic unit — to Midway Island in mid-1942, it was supposedly to film routine footage of the base. Two days before the battle, Ford learned that the Japanese planned to attack. On the morning of June 4, 1942, he and cameraman Joseph August were filming from the base's power plant, at the highest point on the island, when Japanese planes struck. Both men were wounded while filming, but kept shooting on handheld 16mm colour film.
The Battle of Midway, fought June 4–7, 1942, became one of the turning points of the war in the Pacific: the US Navy sank four Japanese aircraft carriers. Ford's 18-minute film combines his combat footage with scenes of the men on the island before the battle, and voiceovers by Donald Crisp, Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell, Hollywood actors who had appeared in Ford's films.
Cast & crew
- Directed and produced by John Ford, with Robert Parrish as editor
- Narration by Donald Crisp, Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell
- Cinematography by John Ford, Joseph August, Jack Mackenzie Jr. and Kenneth Pier
- US Navy; distributed by 20th Century Fox
Why it's worth watching
The combat footage is extraordinary: smoke pouring from burning fuel tanks, anti-aircraft gunners firing at diving planes, the camera shaking with explosions. At one point the image visibly jolts as an explosion shakes the camera. Ford was a master storyteller, and he surrounds those few minutes of chaos with intimate, emotional moments — the young pilot from Springfield, Ohio, whose family appears in a short scene back home; the memorial service for the men lost — that turn a newsreel into something deeply moving.
It's short, but it's one of the most famous American films of World War II.
Fun facts
- Ford worried that military censors would suppress the footage, so he had it edited quietly in Los Angeles by Robert Parrish. He included shots of James Roosevelt, a Marine officer and the President's son; after a White House screening, President Roosevelt said he wanted every mother in America to see it.
- The Battle of Midway won one of the first four Academy Awards ever given for Best Documentary.
- Ford later became an admiral in the Naval Reserve.
Public-domain status
The film was produced by the US Navy. Works created by the US federal government are not protected by copyright (17 U.S.C. §105), so it is in the public domain. See "Rights & source" below.