. . . were pivotal in allowing America to defeat her sneak attackers and triumph with a resounding victory in World War Two, but THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY proves that these successful nuclear bombings were merely the icing on the U.S. cupcakes. When Midway turned the tide on the Pacific Theater, future President Harry "I pushed the button" Truman was selling hats or something, and A-Bombs were not yet even a gleam in his eye. However, as the Japanese aircraft carriers that had blind-sided Pearl Harbor began littering the seabed around Midway, Japanese Prime Minister Tojo told the Emperor that he could already feel a hangman's noose tightening around his neck. How could he expect anything else, as THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY shows Japan always going out of its way to bomb U.S. hospitals and churches? But the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" blares as this war crimes carnage is documented during the final portion of THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY to remind viewers that God was on America's side.

This Oscar-winning documentary – by one of the most revered American film-makers who would have celebrated his birthday on the day I watched this – is quite celebrated, having even been treated to a 2-page spread in the early 1980s British periodical "The Movies". However, the passage of time has not been at all kind to it: not only, at just 18 minutes, does it not dwell in sufficient detail on the famous conflict that purportedly changed the course of the Pacific War…but the whole is lent the director's typically homespun – read sappy – approach, which really dates it! The film obviously retains historical value for its rare colour footage of the battle (some of which was actually incorporated in the star-studded 1976 Hollywood rendition of these same events, MIDWAY!) and, for the record, Ford regulars Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell supply the intermittent narration.

John Ford's celebrated 19-minute documentary about America's first major victory of World War Two earned him a shrapnel wound, a Purple Heart and an Oscar. The first 10 is impressive without being that interesting - hard-won battle footage that largely consists of some stuff setting on fire, the camera shaking, the film cutting, then something else setting on fire - though the raising of the flag is a lovely moment, narrator Irving Pichel intoning: "Yes, this really happened". The second half is more obviously Fordian, the elegiac tone reinforced by hymns, slanting shadows and Jane Darwell's frenzied, corny, but effective narration. Audiences wept and fainted during the passage where she urges ambulance-men to rush injured soldiers to a hospital. Ford would make his definitive statement on the war, and the nature of heroism, with 1945's They Were Expendable, but this short is well worth a look.

Battle of Midway, The (1942) *** (out of 4) Henry Fonda and Donald Crisp add narration to the battle scenes shot by John Ford where the director was even wounded by enemy fire. There's really no story being told in this documentary but instead we just see a part of history in beautiful Technicolor. God knows everyone has seen countless war films but there's something unique seeing real ones here. They certainly look a lot different than what we've seen in countless fake movies.Ford's World War 2 shorts are out there in various forms ranging from public domain companies to the Ford at Fox set. Quality various but the version in the Fox set is the best.