Tully, Anthony P. 1961- (Anthony Tully)

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Tully, Anthony P. 1961- (Anthony Tully)

PERSONAL:

Born November 19, 1961. Education: Graduate of Texas Tech University; postgraduate work.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dallas, TX. E-mail—aptully@aol.com.

CAREER:

Information technology and support.

WRITINGS:

(With Jonathan B. Parshall) Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, Potomac Books (Washington, DC), 2005.

Contributed articles to various periodicals, including Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, U.S. Naval War College Review, and Warship International. Also a major contributor to Nihon Kaigun, the Imperial Japanese Navy Web site.

SIDELIGHTS:

Born November 19, 1961, Anthony P. Tully is a graduate of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and works in information technology and support in Dallas, Texas. His articles about nautical af- fairs have been published in several periodicals including the Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, U.S. Naval War College Review, and Warship International, and he has been a major contributor to Nihon Kaigun, the Imperial Japanese Navy Web site, which is devoted to the group's history.

Tully has had an interest in the Imperial Japanese Navy since childhood. He draws inspiration from Incredible Victory, written by Walter Lord, and Lord's meticulous attempts to reconstruct the events surrounding the Battle of Midway during World War II. In 1999, Tully participated in an expedition, hosted by the Nauticos Corporation and the Naval Oceanographic Office, which searched for and found the remains of Kaga, one of the Japanese Imperial Navy's carriers that sunk during the Battle of Midway. Due to his interest in the Battle of Midway, he wrote Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway with Jonathan B. Parshall, who also participated in the expedition to find Kaga.

The Battle of Midway, which began on June 4, 1942, was one of the pivotal battles in the Pacific Campaign of World War II and a turning point for both the Japanese and American fleets. The Japanese had won a string of naval victories after the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and expected to continue operations until the U.S. Pacific fleet was destroyed. The Japanese loss at the Battle of Midway helped to change the course of the war. Shattered Sword analyzes this battle from the perspective of the Japanese, using many new Japanese primary sources. Also, according to the authors and many critics, the book sheds new light on the subject, displacing mythology about both Japanese intentions and American prowess with a more accurate history. Throughout Shattered Sword, Tully and Parshall examine the battle in a strategic context, narrate the events of the battle, examine the reasons for the Japanese loss, and discuss its repercussions for all involved parties.

Critics were enthusiastic about the book. Reviewing Shattered Sword for the Troynovant Web site, Robert Wilfred Franson called it "an important and fascinating book, with not only wonderful tactical texture but some surprising strategic conclusions. Shattered Sword reads like a novel, and it's by far the best history of the Battle of Midway." Jeffrey P. Joyce, in a review of the book for Air Power History, found it to be an important educational tool, declaring, "Shattered Sword is a must for any student of World War II history interested in the naval conflict in the Pacific." Joyce added that the book "will be the standard work on the Battle of Midway for years to come." In a review for the Air & Space Power Journal, Christopher Parrish wrote, "Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully have produced a work designed to do nothing less than fundamentally change our understanding of the Battle of Midway." Moreover, Parrish appreciated the way the authors used new resources in researching the book, and stated that it "exhibits the best uses of both technological and ‘revisionist’ history, fundamentally transforming the historical record in light of new evidence and new techniques—not new social agendas."