Dawn, 4 June 1942. Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, four of the most powerful aircraft carriers ever built are preparing to strike. Their crews are battle-hardened, their pilots the finest in the world. Six months earlier, they shattered the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour. Nothing has stopped them since.

They do not know that three American carriers are waiting for them, just over the horizon.

What follows will last less than six minutes.

Everyone knows Japan lost the Battle of Midway. Far fewer know why — or how close it came to going the other way.

In The Battle of Midway, by the Minute, Berdj Anastassian strips the battle down to its bare bones and rebuilds it moment by moment, from the first patrol flights of 3 June to the last dive bomb that sealed Japan’s fate. Drawing on the most authoritative sources available — including Japanese operational reports, pilot testimonies, and the decoded intelligence that changed everything — he asks the questions that history books often gloss over.

Why did Nagumo hesitate at the moment that mattered most? What would have happened if Yamamoto had played his hand differently? And how did six minutes of dive bombing alter the course of the entire war?

This is not a book for specialists only. Written with the clarity of a pilot’s briefing and the pace of a thriller, it places the reader in the cockpit, on the bridge, and in the operations room — minute by minute, decision by decision — as the fate of the Pacific is decided overhead.

You already know how it ends. You have no idea what happened.