Stanley Johnstons Blunder, Elliot Carlson
Stanley Johnstons Blunder, Elliot Carlson
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Stanley Johnston's Blunder
The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret Behind the U.S. Navy's Victory at Midway

Author: Elliot Carlson

Narrator: Joe Barrett

Unabridged: 10 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/15/2017


Synopsis

In 1942 Stanley Johnston is embarked in the aircraft carrier USS Lexington during the Battle of the Coral Sea. In addition to recording the crew's doomed effort to save the ship, Johnston displays great heroism, earning the praise of the Lexington's senior officers. They even recommend him for a medal. Then his story darkens. On board the rescue ship Barnett, Johnston is assigned to a cabin where messages from the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Chester Nimitz, are routinely, and carelessly, circulated. One reveals the order of battle of Imperial Japanese Navy forces advancing on Midway Atoll.

Carlson captures the outrage among U.S. Navy brass when they read the 7 June 1942 Chicago Tribune front-page headline, "NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA." Admirals note that the information in the Tribune article parallels almost precisely the highly secret material in Nimitz's dispatch. They fear Japanese commanders will discover the article, grasp that their code has been cracked, and quickly change it, thereby depriving the U.S. Navy of a priceless military asset.

Drawing on never-before-released testimony, Carlson takes listeners inside the grand jury room where jurors convened by the Roosevelt administration consider charges that Johnston violated the Espionage Act.

About Elliot Carlson

Elliot Carlson is a longtime journalist who has worked for such newspapers as the Honolulu Advertiser, the Wall Street Journal, and the AARP Bulletin. Carlson is the author of the Chief of Naval Operation's reading list title, Joe Rochefort's War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Thomas on November 04, 2018

Fun book with interesting details of news reporting and of our military's preparations for the battle of Midway. And, kind of different to see FDR as the villain in a non-fiction book, and on this topic, boy was he ever.......more