Last night I saw my first episode of Command Decision on THC. I was kind of underwhelmed. My wife has a love hate relationship with a show on the Crime network called, I detective. In I detective you're taken through a real case where every so often you're asked questions on how YOU would handle the case. Command Decision is like that. Last nigh they did Midway. At one point you, as Nimitz, were given the choice of how you were determine if Midway was the target. The choices were, interrogate prisoners, give out fake information, or spies. The correct answer was to give out fake information. Most anybody who knew much about the actual Midway campaign would probably be able to answer all the questions that were put forth in the show.

My biggest complaint was that they seemed to think Nimitz had operational control of the battle. At one point they made it seem that after the repulse of the torpedo bombers Nimitz decided to send in the dive bombers, when actually that decision was done at the same time, and by Fletcher and Spurance, and not after the fact by Nimitz. They also seemed to think that only one carrier was involved. They kept saying such things as, they launched 15 torpedo planes, or, only one pilot survived.

On the whole it was somewhat interesting, and may have been even more so for somebody who didn't know much about the battle. It just could have been better.

I agree. I was unimpressed with the first two episodes. The writers made some asumptions that weren't true and the questions often are banal, have more than one correct answer, and sometimes wind up combining two of the answers while saying that only one is correct. Plus, if you have a working knowledge of the battle being discussed, the show really doesn't cover any new ground and can be somewhat agrivating. It's fairly decent compared to most of the crap you find on TV these days, but not really destination television.

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, they launched 15 torpedo planes, or, only one pilot survived.
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Ensign George Gay who was the only survivor of the ill fated Devastator attack. This strikes close to home because he was a native of Worcester MA, where I matriculated, lived when I first got married and was the home base for my first model club. An interview with him is at http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-8c.htm

Roger, I drew the exact same conclusion as you did. Having read both Walter Lord and Gordon Prange''s books, it was not mentally challenging. I too wondered about the statement about the dive bombers and where were the other two carriers. Also neglected was the fact that initially, they saved the Yorktown...infact it was struck a second time by a torpedo from a submarine which is what caused US to give up on saving her. You have to realize though that the vast majority of the folks that see this won't be as knowledgable. They start throwing in some of the ancient or Napoleonic battles, and I'll be challenged