Piousbox

Pacific Theatre 
Part 6
“Terrible Naval Photography Edition”
By Lestrade aka Unpopular Opinion
First published: June 2, 2022
No freedom of speech in the UK, but fornicate the constabulary I say.
This one melted with very little effort. The pitch for the Battle of Midway is that the Japanese set up
a trap for the Americans by sending multiple ships to attack Midway atoll. 
From Wikipedia:
“The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took 
place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after 
the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, 
and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under 
Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, ChÅ«ichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, 
inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the 
most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig 
Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking 
alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically 
influential".
Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall 
"barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on 

Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and
Hawaii itself. The plan was undermined by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction 
and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine 
the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own 
ambush.
Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle. The four Japanese
fleet carriers—Akagi, Kaga, SōryÅ«, and HiryÅ«, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked 
Pearl Harbor six months earlier—were sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The U.S. lost the
carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann, while the carriers USS Enterprise and USS 
Hornet survived the battle fully intact.
After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to 
replace its losses in materiel (particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots 
and maintenance crewmen) rapidly became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the 
United States' massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace. The 
Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in 
the Pacific War.”
A few things spring to mind immediately. 
- If it’s promoted as a big deal by the historians then it’s usually false, or at minimum wildly 
twisted.
- We know that the Doolittle Raid was bullshit, because of the faked photos we looked at 
previously.
- We know that Pearl Harbour didn’t actually involve any Japanese activity, again due to the faked 
photos of planes and the nonsense about mini submarines and so on, so the most logical next step is 
this will be a fake naval battle to justify the Americans being able to push west.
- We know that Yamamoto gets spirited away (the faked photo with his men, the fan-fiction of 
“leaning against a tree holding his sword” after the plane getting shot down). We also have extreme 
scepticism on Nagumo (blatantly a spook, shoots himself in the head in a Saipan cave, later 
recovered by Marines).
That leaves us with player 3, our lad Kondo:
His wiki page tells us: 
“Kondō was a native of Osaka. He graduated at the head of his class of 172 cadets from the 35th 
session of the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy in 1907. As a midshipman he served on the cruiser 
Itsukushima and battleship Mikasa. After his commissioning as ensign, he was assigned to the 
cruiser Aso, destroyer Kisaragi and battleship Kongō. From 1912-1913, he was a naval attaché to 
the United Kingdom. After his return to Japan, he served briefly on the Fusō, then in a number of 
staff positions throughout World War I. From 1916-1917, he was chief Gunnery Officer on 
Akitsushima.
After the end of the war, Kondō attended the Naval Staff College, and was promoted to lieutenant 
commander on 1 December 1919.
From 1920-1923, Kondō was stationed in Germany, as part of the Japanese delegation to 
confirm Germany's adherence to the provision of the Treaty of Versailles. On his return to Japan,
he was stationed for six months on the battleship Mutsu, and promoted to commander on 1 
December 1923. From 1924-1925, he was an aide-de-camp to Crown Prince Hirohito. On 
completion of this task, he became an instructor at the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy and was 
promoted to captain. He subsequently served in a number of positions on the Imperial Japanese 
Navy General Staff. He was captain of the Kako from 1929–1930 and of the battleship Kongō from 
1932-1933.
Kondō was promoted to rear admiral on 15 November 1933, Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet in
1935, and vice admiral on 15 November 1937.”
Cool, so he’s a spook. A British asset from the beginning. The naval attaché to the UK bit is a red 
flag enough but saying he spent three years living in Germany as part of a delegation to “confirm 
Germany’s adherence to the Treaty of Versailles” is just ridiculous. What, the Japanese need to get 
involved in monitoring what Germany are up to after WW1? They didn’t do a very good job did 
they? Why even involve the Japanese? Wouldn’t the British/French/Russians/Americans have 
enough admin staff to do this? 
Then the cherry on the cake being aide de camp to Hirohito. That’s personal assistant to the 
Emperor himself – not an insignificant position, this guy is special. So special in fact that his bio 
just ends with no details of his death/arrest. You might think someone would want to arrest the man 
who was such a prominent member of the Imperial Japanese Navy and was directly involved in 
multiple campaigns against the West, including Midway, but nah. He just… retires… I think? Then 
dies in the 1950’s, in Tokyo. I love the idea of the Japanese surrendering and this old Admiral guy 
shrugging, taking off his medals and walking off his aircraft carrier whistling, hands in pockets, to 
live quietly in retirement. 
Again, as we’ve consistently seen, the higher-ups in the Japanese forces get to just walk away clear.

Anyway, we read on:
“Typical of Japanese naval planning during World War II, Yamamoto's battle plan for taking 
Midway (named Operation MI) was exceedingly complex. It required the careful and timely 
coordination of multiple battle groups over hundreds of miles of open sea. His design was also 
predicated on optimistic intelligence suggesting that USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, forming 
Task Force 16, were the only carriers available to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During the Battle of the 
Coral Sea one month earlier, USS Lexington had been sunk and USS Yorktown suffered so much 
damage that the Japanese believed she too had been lost. However, following hasty repairs at 
Pearl Harbor, Yorktown sortied and ultimately played a critical role in the discovery and eventual 
destruction of the Japanese fleet carriers at Midway. Finally, much of Yamamoto's planning, 
coinciding with the general feeling among the Japanese leadership at the time, was based on a 
gross misjudgment of American morale, which was believed to be debilitated from the string of 
Japanese victories in the preceding months.”
It’s not a complicated plan. You send in some ships to attack Midway atoll where the Americans are
sitting around fishing. This pisses off the US Navy who send their ships at you. You spread out 
your fleet so that when they scout you they think you only have X number of ships but you actually 
have more, hidden nearby. This baits a manageable number of Americans into attacking, you then 
smash them with an ambush. 
The plan relies on a bunch of assumptions, which makes it a bad plan. Apparently the Japanese 
have not bothered to set up any kind of scouting / intelligence network prior to or during the war. 
Yorktown is repaired at Pearl Harbour, but nobody bothered to inform Japanese naval command, so
they don’t know there will be at least one extra carrier. Also nobody could be bothered to read any 
American newspapers or listen to their radio broadcasts to gauge public mood. So this whole 
paragraph justifying Yamamoto’s plan is ridiculous and only works if we go with normie “I guess 
they were all just really stupid” cope (which I know is what they’d say if they read this). 
“Yamamoto felt deception would be required to lure the U.S. fleet into a fatally compromised 
situation. To this end, he dispersed his forces so that their full extent (particularly his battleships) 
would be concealed from the Americans prior to battle. Critically, Yamamoto's supporting 
battleships and cruisers trailed Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's carrier force by several hundred
miles. They were intended to come up and destroy whatever elements of the U.S. fleet might come
to Midway's defense once Nagumo's carriers had weakened them sufficiently for a daylight gun 
battle. This tactic was doctrine in most major navies of the time.”
They’ve put that last sentence in to justify a plan where you spread out your forces so they can’t co-
ordinate properly and assist each other. I like how if you have a fleet of ships out on the Pacific they
are magically hidden if you spread them out. As if the Americans don’t have 
scouts/submarines/spotter aircraft of their own. 
“What Yamamoto did not know was that the U.S. had broken parts of the main Japanese naval 
code (dubbed JN-25 by the Americans), divulging many details of his plan to the enemy. His 
emphasis on dispersal also meant none of his formations were in a position to support the others. 
For instance, despite the fact that Nagumo's carriers were expected to carry out strikes against 
Midway and bear the brunt of American counterattacks, the only warships in his fleet larger than 
the screening force of twelve destroyers were two Kongō-class fast battleships, two heavy cruisers, 
and one light cruiser. By contrast, Yamamoto and Kondo had between them two light carriers, five 
battleships, four heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers, none of which saw action at Midway. The 
light carriers of the trailing forces and Yamamoto's three battleships were unable to keep pace 
with the carriers of the Kidō Butai and so could not have sailed in company with them. The Kido 
Butai would sail into range at best speed so as to increase the chance of surprise, and would not 
have ships spread out across the ocean guiding the enemy toward it. If the other parts of the 
invasion force needed more defense, the Kido Butai would make best speed to defend them. Hence 
the slower ships could not be with the Kido Butai. The distance between Yamamoto and Kondo's 
forces and Nagumo's carriers had grave implications during the battle. The invaluable 
reconnaissance capability of the scout planes carried by the cruisers and carriers, as well as the 
additional antiaircraft capability of the cruisers and the other two battleships of the Kongō-class 
in the trailing forces, was unavailable to Nagumo.”
Again, just dumb. I don’t want to armchair general this but if we played a game of Red Alert 3 and 
you kept your fleet so spread out that different ship types can’t support each other so I can smash 
your fleet in sections then you deserve to get mocked. This from an Admiral who has studied naval 
warfare for years and is their top man.
We read on:
“In order to obtain support from the Imperial Japanese Army for the Midway operation, the 
Imperial Japanese Navy agreed to support their invasion of the United States through the 
Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska, part of the organized incorporated Alaska Territory. The IJA 
occupied these islands to place the Japanese home islands out of range of U.S. land-based bombers
in Alaska. Similarly, most Americans feared that the occupied islands would be used as bases for 
Japanese bombers to attack strategic targets and population centers along the West Coast of the 
United States. The Japanese operations in the Aleutians (Operation AL) removed yet more ships 
that could otherwise have augmented the force striking Midway. Whereas many earlier historical 
accounts considered the Aleutians operation as a feint to draw American forces away, according to
the original Japanese battle plan, AL was intended to be launched simultaneously with the attack 
on Midway. A one-day delay in the sailing of Nagumo's task force resulted in Operation AL 
beginning a day before the Midway attack.”
Beautiful. We’ve already established that the entire Aleutian campaign was made up by the 
Americans. Now we see the Aleutians used as a partial justification for why the Japanese lost 
Midway.
Coral Sea happens before Midway and Yorktown is supposed to take a pummelling in that, but it 
can be fixed up and be shipshape in 72 hours:
“Despite estimates that Yorktown, damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, would require several 
months of repairs at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, her elevators were intact and her flight deck 
largely so. The Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard worked around the clock, and in 72 hours she was 
restored to a battle-ready state.”
So that was convenient.
Speaking of Coral Sea, this battle was the reason that the Japanese light aircraft carrier Shoho 
wasn’t able to participate in the attack on Midway, having been sunk. Shoho is also prestigious for 
being the first Japanese aircraft carrier sunk in WW2, so that’s an immediate flag for us to look 
more closely.
From the wiki page on the vessel:
“Shōhō (Japanese: 祥鳳, "Auspicious Phoenix" or "Happy Phoenix") was a light aircraft carrier of 
the Imperial Japanese Navy. Originally built as the submarine support ship Tsurugizaki in the late 
1930s, she was converted before the Pacific War into an aircraft carrier and renamed. Completed in 
early 1942, the ship supported the invasion forces in Operation MO, the invasion of Port Moresby, 
New Guinea, and was sunk by American carrier aircraft on her first combat operation during 
the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May. Shōhō was the first Japanese aircraft carrier to be sunk 
during World War II.”

I think the Phoenicians should do more obvious bird related stuff, like the Penguin in Batman 
comics – have a strong brand identity. It’s not like they are trying to be subtle these days. Anyway, 
here’s the Shoho, larger resolution image here:
We then count the numerology markers:
“Shōhō and the rest of the Main Force were spotted by aircraft from Lexington at 10:40. At this 
time, Shōhō's combat air patrol (CAP) consisted of two A5Ms and one A6M Zero. The Dauntlesses 
began their attack at 11:10 as the three Japanese fighters attacked them in their dive. None of the 
dive bombers hit Shōhō, which was manoeuvring to avoid their bombs; one Dauntless was shot 
down by the Zero after it had pulled out of its dive and several others were damaged. The carrier 
launched three more Zeros immediately after this attack to reinforce its CAP. The second wave of 
Dauntlesses began their attack at 11:18 and they hit Shōhō twice with 1,000-pound (450 kg) 
bombs. These penetrated the ship's flight deck and burst inside her hangars, setting the fuelled and 
armed aircraft there on fire. A minute later, the Devastators began dropping their torpedoes from 
both sides of the ship. They hit Shōhō five times and the damage from the hits knocked out her 
steering and power and flooded both engine and boiler rooms. Yorktown's aircraft trailed those 
from Lexington, and the former's Dauntlesses began their attacks at 11:25, hitting Shōhō with 
another eleven 1,000-pound bombs by Japanese accounts and the carrier came to a complete 
stop. Yorktown's Devastators trailed the rest of her aircraft and attacked at 11:29. They claimed 
ten hits, although Japanese accounts acknowledge only two. As the Devastators were exiting the 
area, they were attacked by the CAP, but the Wildcats protecting the torpedo bombers shot down 
two A5Ms and an A6M Zero. Total American losses to all causes were three Dauntlesses. After his 
attack, Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Dixon, commander of Lexington's dive bombers, radioed 
his famous message to the American carriers: "Scratch one flat top!"
With Shōhō hit by no fewer than 13 bombs and 7 torpedoes, Captain Izawa ordered the ship 
abandoned at 11:31. She sank four minutes later. Some 300 men successfully abandoned the ship, 
but they had to wait to be rescued as Gotō ordered his remaining ships to head north at high speed 
to avoid any further airstrikes. Around 14:00, he ordered the destroyer Sazanami to return to the 
scene and rescue the survivors. She found only 203, including Captain Izawa. The rest of her crew 
of 834 died during the attack or in the water awaiting rescue. Shōhō was the first Japanese 
aircraft carrier lost during the war.”
Then we can see these lovely photos that the Americans (?) kindly provide of their mid-battle 
bombing runs:


Caption reads: “Dramatic shot of the detonation of a 1,000-pound (450kg) bomb on Shōhō during 
the Battle of the Coral Sea.” Larger resolution image here.
See the three little silhouettes drawn in of planes in the distance. The sea is nice and flat, washed 
out grey horizon, no sky detail. No other ships visible, no other planes in the sky. Except maybe a 
huge duck in the foreground. No wait, that's a plane, too, but way too small for the given 
perspective. It should be very much larger than the others in the distance, but isn't. Nice vivid 
smoke with a white line around the main cloud-head on the centre of the ship and that thick white 
line continues around the prow of the ship also. The smoke trailing to the left is so thick that it 
creates a black rectangular line on the ocean. Is this meant to be the carriers wake? Or the shadow 
of the smoke? The person doctoring this picture couldn’t decide so neither can I.

Caption reads: “Shōhō hit by a torpedo launched by a Devastator from Lexington.” Higher 
resolution image here.
This one makes the first one look professional in comparison. The photography is now an old-timey
image from the 1800s. The sea is very dark and then disintegrates with no clear horizon into a white
sky with no clouds or features (e.g. planes dogfighting) other than multiple horizontal black lines 
streaking across the photo. The ship itself is now jet-black silhouette helpfully back-lit at the prow 
to give it a nice white outline. A small mushroom cloud blooms. Is this the torpedo impact? To the 
left we have jet black smoke and a strange triangular section of white, just completely blank. 
Has the wreck of the Shoho ever been found, photographed, investigated? Nope. Is anyone 
interested in doing so? Apparently not. Again, another historical ship being sunk and nobody has 
bothered to locate it in 70 years.
You can also see some awesomely terrible photos of the Japanese carrier Shokaku on this wiki 
page. It “was sunk” during the Battle of the Philippine Sea so I’m skipping ahead there, but just 
wanted to include them now as they’re gold:
Caption reads: “Mitsubishi A6M2 "Zero" fighters from the Shōkaku preparing for the attack on 
Pearl Harbor.” Higher resolution version here. 
I love the white blurred ghost men helping the drawings/cropped in planes take off. 1 layer of 
planes, 1 layer of men, 1 layer of ship deck and a sea backdrop. Paste up.


Caption: “The Japanese aircraft carrier Shōkaku under attack by planes from USS Yorktown, 
during the morning of 8 May 1942. Splashes from dive bombers' near misses are visible off the 
ship's starboard side as she makes a sharp turn to the right.” Original photo here.
The ship is using advanced Star Trek technology to create a luminous white energy field around 
itself that helps it move quicker through the water. The ship also has a completely different profile 
to the ship pictured here, at launch. Looks more like a barge than a carrier. 
And last but not least:

Caption reads: “Shōkaku crewmembers fight fires on the flight deck after being hit by American 
bombs during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands” Original image here.
I like the chap on the far left, standing bolt upright at attention on a shifting deck that is on fire, with
no shadow. Or all the other men, to be fair, who are also layered in. Love that misty smoke effect 
they did right down the middle of the image, that is going in front of the men in the background. 
Anyway, the above would indicate that the Coral Sea, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and the 
Philippine Sea didn’t happen (as if they did, why the fakes?). The Wikipedia page on the Coral Sea 
fight is just a complete mess when it comes to the photographs to be honest.
“USS Neosho is left burning and slowly sinking at the completion of the Japanese dive bombing 
attack.” - original image.
Loving that meerkat-shaped white smoke cloud with a solid black shadow on the water under the 
base of the cloud. The ship is sailing in a slow circle. No horizon. Whited out sky. On higher 
resolution you can zoom in and see the ship appears to be two ships, as there is a gap in the water 
between the left and right sections. 

“HMAS Australia (centre) and TG17.3 under air attack on 7 May” – original here.
This one is cute because they got the scale wrong between the plane they want to show bombing the
ship and the ship itself. One flak cloud isn’t great either if that’s meant to be anti-air (which if you 
look at footage of anti-air is normally a rapid fire thing that fills the sky with clouds of the stuff). 
Also the white chunk in the ocean on the right with a streak of black smoke sat on top. What is that 
meant to be?

“Lexington (centre right), afire and under heavy attack, in a photograph taken from a Japanese 
aircraft.” - original here.
They got very enthusiastic about fake explosions on this one and couldn’t decide if they wanted 
pure white explosions or jet black explosions. The flak is also jet black, on a white-grey sky. A 
small nuclear detonation occurs on the horizon to the left, for no particular reason. The ship wake is 
pure white on a black sea. They were enjoying themselves so much it’s a shame they forgot to add 
planes or any other ships. 
The wiki page on the Philippine Sea isn’t much better either:

“F6F-3 landing aboard Lexington, flagship of Task Force 58.” - original here.
I think Miles can unpack this better than I, but what I’m seeing here are two things: layers and 
scale. The three men standing on the deck on the centre left are much bigger than the men 
immediately to their left on the walkway. The lighting on them has that weird corona/back-lit effect 
we see when they insert. The men also appear tiny in comparison to the plane. In terms of layers I 
think the plane is inserted (it’s too bright) and the foreground gun-turret section is also inserted. The
three men on the deck are inserted to that central “middle” layer of the main deck and walkway.
Yes, the plane is pasted in, though I don't know why they couldn't use a real photo of a plane 
landing. This doesn't prove anything about the war regardless. Planes land in peacetime. 


“USS Bunker Hill is nearly hit by a Japanese bomb during the air attacks of June 19, 1944” - 
original here. The plane is drawn in. I suspect they’ve also edited in the white spume and grey 
spume effect to the ships aft. Again no other planes, no flak, bone white sky (until you get to the 
abrupt cloud layer in the upper third of the image).

“Japanese Carrier Division Three under attack by United States Navy aircraft from Task Force 58,
late afternoon, June 20, 1944. The heavy cruiser circling at right, nearest to the camera, is either 
Maya or Chōkai. Beyond that is the small aircraft carrier Chiyoda.” - original here.
No idea what’s going on here. This is a photo from 1944, not the 1800s. Barely any flak, again 
drawn in. Jet black ship / plane silhouettes. No horizon. Flat millpond ocean. Why are the ships 
moving in tight circles? To benefit the camera crews, no doubt. 
Shout out to the guy in Naval Intelligence who clearly loved the “ink blot” effect and went hog wild
with this image from the Santa Cruz Islands naval battle:
“USS Enterprise (centre left) and her screening ships during the battle, 26 October 1942” – 
original here.
Almost painterly. He forgot to add any planes but they’re more fiddly than just putting blobs (to 
represent flak) of varying shades of black. Most of that fake flak is on the camera lens. 
In the next cubicle over the intern did his best and ended up doing this one:

“USS Wasp burns after being torpedoed on 15 September” – original here.
Poor effort. Obvious paste up. Black and white ship insert on a white background, then lower third 
“choppy sea” layer added in, clear line of the ocean all the way across even where there’s smoke.
Which reminds us that it is strange none of these photos are in color. Color film was patented by 
Kodak in 1932, so the Navy certainly had it. You would think they would try it, at least, since even 
if the colors faded, they would be no worse than black and white. But it is easier to fake b&w 
because then you don't have anyone noticing color anomalies, which point to the fake. 
See also this lovely before and after shot, captioned “A damaged Japanese dive bomber (upper left) 
dives towards Hornet at 09:14”. Original photo here.


This is the USS Hornet, which of course we have seen before being used in the Doolittle Raid.
So to my eyes, what we’re looking at there is an intact carrier with some planes firing harmlessly at 
the water in the foreground and some smoke cropped in on the ship aft. In the extreme top right you
have the edge of some fake “flak” which is just a black blob on the photo.
Then we have this photo, taken “seconds later”:

In the “after” image they visibly tampered with the gamma levels, hence the sea now being black. 
The cluster of black ink blotch “flak” in the top right is rubbish (why only there? Why not more 
flak? Why not more planes?), as is the blobby plane silhouette in the centre. There are two other 
plane silhouettes on the lower right, both added in afterwards. They’ve added in a black “explosion”
layer to the ship and some white points in the sea to pretend to be bullet impacts or something with 
very large white spume effects.
It was getting late and the chap doing the final photo wanted to clock off and have his dinner, so 
then they slapped together this photo:
“Hornet, sinking and abandoned” – original here.
They drop in the carrier silhouette at an angle (to make it look like it’s listing/sinking I guess) and 
then have to gamma-correct the sea and the sky, which makes the sky washed out and weird looking
(see the clouds versus the sky itself versus the water shade I mean). Easier to see on the larger 
original image but the carrier silhouette wasn’t even cropped properly so the bottom of the ship 
outline overlaps at the waterline to create that deep black shadow effect (I hope that makes sense, 
I’m saying that the sea wouldn’t be that dark there, it’s dark because it’s two layers overlapping in 
the collage). Despite being repeatedly torpedoed there’s no smoke/fire. Also no planes or flak in the
sky and no other ships or crewmen / life boats in the water, etc. etc.
Of course I’m just a mean old cynic because Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his investigation 
ship the Petrel have located the wreck of the Hornet in 2019, as per this article. The crew send down
a robot probe and spot the carrier on the sea bed. There’s a lot of talk about positive identification 

and even a photo gallery section on the article page but at no point do we actually see the “C-V-8” 
designation in either the video or the gallery.
I grabbed this, which is the split-second view of what’s supposed to be the bombshell proof:
Is that an 8? Or a 3? Which part of the ship is it on? If you look at the Wikipedia article on the 
Hornet, with multiple photographs of the ship when it’s just been launched and sailing around 
normally, where is the giant 8 painted? 
I have half a mind they then did a Titanic and filmed a miniature model in a fish tank. What do you 
think, Miles? Yeah. That lake in Glendale. 
CNN helpfully tell us that: 
“the crew of the Petrel who were honoured to find the Hornet and the final resting place of so many 
of her brave crew. Another wreck, and in turn, another war grave has been discovered. Its exact 
location is kept secret to protect it, but the memory now has a place and the loss has a memorial.”
Very sensible. If they told us where it was then someone else could check it out to confirm it’s real 
absolutely anyone could dive over 17,000 feet to steal a ship from the ocean floor of the Solomon 
Islands.
So that’s a load of made-for-TV nonsense. Quite elaborate really. They could have just said “wreck 
never found”.
Anyway, a bit of a diversion there, I hope the reader will forgive me but we’ve just “sunk” (ahaha) 
four major naval battles. I’m sure with a bit of digging / browsing you will spot many other aspects 
of these events that are suspect, for example the terrifying giant floating head of US Navy fighter 
ace Alexander Vraciu. 

Yes, good catch, definitely a fake. 
Returning to Midway, I would recommend you watch this hilariously bad War Academy Film 
Collection copy of the Battle of Midway. Here is a link. This quite neatly explains what happened 
on the atoll: they flew out a film crew, they set fire to a single hanger/warehouse building to create a
big black smoke cloud and they did some exercises firing machine guns and flak at the sky. Those 
will be American planes, obviously, not Japanese planes. Nobody is getting shot and only one 
building is damaged (it looks like an old hangar and I imagine they emptied it of anything important
beforehand). In the second half of the film you see American ships on manoeuvres firing their guns 
and no Japanese. This is how they do it: they sail millions of dollars of hardware out on the ocean, 
fire cannon at nothing, film this and tell you they had a battle. At around minute 11 you can see 
what I mean, they are intercutting shots of the sailors firing the flak cannon and shots of the 
American planes doing loop-de-loops. This gives the audience the impression they are seeing 
“Americans shooting at Japanese planes”. You can even get a brief flash of some sailors mugging to
the camera, grinning, at 11:17 – 11:19. Around minute 14 you get shots of the “rescued men” who 
were found at sea after drifting for 10 days or more without food or water. They’re all healthy and 
chuckling as they walk around on deck smoking and mugging to camera. 
I think this video actually by itself is solid proof that Midway is a hoax. 
You can also see “footage” of the battle with this public domain archival footage. Again it’s just 
Americans launching their planes to swoop around while they fire cannon at the water. It’s not a 
battle. It’s a short clip, after the first minute you can see a ship, allegedly Japanese, where they’ve 
set off a smoke signal to make it look like the ship is damaged. As the narrator says, “The toll? 18 
Japanese ships!”. 

The Guardian informs me in this article that the plucky crew of the Petrel (again) have discovered 
the wrecks of the Akagi and Kaga. So we’re seeing now that it’s this one ship, the Petrel, with this 
one crew of guys making all the discoveries. This is obviously quite easy to control. You’ll forgive 
me if I’m not convinced when one of the Petrel crew points at this and goes “here’s your proof”:
The article informs us that the Akagi is (of course) found at a depth of 18,000 feet of water, 1,300 
miles NW of Pearl Harbour and is a 33,000 tonne ship, so someone had fun getting ALL the 
numbers in one article.
Wrapping up now we look at the section on Wikipedia for Midway talking about casualties, where 
we read:
“By the time the battle ended, 3,057 Japanese had died. Casualties aboard the four carriers were: 
Akagi: 267; Kaga: 811; HiryÅ«: 392 (including Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi who chose to go 
down with his ship); Soryū: 711 (including Captain Yanagimoto, who chose to remain on board);
a total of 2,181. The heavy cruisers Mikuma (sunk; 700 casualties) and Mogami (badly damaged; 
92) accounted for another 792 deaths.
In addition, the destroyers Arashio (bombed; 35) and Asashio (strafed by aircraft; 21) were both 
damaged during the air attacks which sank Mikuma and caused further damage to Mogami. 
Floatplanes were lost from the cruisers Chikuma (3) and Tone (2). Dead aboard the destroyers 
Tanikaze (11), Arashi (1), Kazagumo (1) and the fleet oiler Akebono Maru (10) made up the 
remaining 23 casualties.
At the end of the battle, the U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and a destroyer, Hammann. 307 
Americans had been killed, including Major General Clarence L. Tinker, Commander, 7th Air 
Force, who personally led a bomber strike from Hawaii against the retreating Japanese forces on
7 June. He was killed when his aircraft crashed near Midway Island.”
I’m going to need to do a “corpse math” tally at the end of this series where I count up all the battles
I’ve demonstrated are fake and how many dead that reduces the war by. In the meantime, suffice to 
say as we have absolutely no evidence that any Japanese were at Midway, let alone a naval battle, 
we can conclude that nobody died. No ships were sunk (I’ll allow a possible for an old target-vessel
or an effective prop used by the navy if they wanted to leave some evidence but again I don’t trust 



the Petrel to magically find everything and show me dodgy possibly-CGI images of wrecks as 
proof). 
We can also deduce that Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi and Captain Yanagimoto were both fed 
up with playing soldier (seaman?) and bowed out of the production. Retirement villa, military 
pension and an MKUltra Beta Kitten harem? Sounds good. The same would apply for Major 
General Clarence L. Tinker of course. So let’s click on his link to see his page:
Another ridiculous asshole with a Hitler mustache. But what Allied General wouldn't want a Hitler 
mustache in 1943?
Please also note under this section of the Midway page on the Discovery of Sunken Vessels that the 
Yorktown (carrier lost by the Americans) was found by none other than Robert Ballard, who we 
have seen before in previous Mathis papers “finding” the Titanic and the Bismarck. It’s a small 
world, isn’t it?
Outro Music