Jim Bresnahan, a broadcast journalist, is also the author of Revisioning the Civil War: Historians on Counter-Factual Scenarios, a book that looks at how Civil War history might have been different, and Play It Again: Baseball Experts on What Might Have Been, a book that focuses on how the history of baseball could have been changed.


The Panel of Experts for Refighting the Pacific War:

Donald K. Allen is the author of Tarawa - the Aftermath, the story of Tarawa Atoll before and after the Nov. 20-23, 1943, assault by U.S. Marines.

Keith Allen is a civilian analyst for the Department of the Navy and an amateur student of naval history and the Second World War.

Michael Barnhart is Distinguished Teaching Professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

William H. Bartsch is the author of Doomed at the Start (1992), December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor (2003), and Every Day a Nightmare (2010).

John Burton is a former naval systems engineer and author of Fortnight of Infamy: the Collapse of Allied Airpower West of Pearl Harbor.

C. Peter Chen is the founder and managing editor of the website World War II Database and is a staff member of the website Imperial Japanese Navy Page.

Clayton K. S. Chun, Ph.D., is a faculty member and department chair at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, PA.

Hal Friedman is the Associate Chair of the Department of History and Professor of Modern History at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan. John V. Gardner joined the Marine Corps at the age of 18 in 1940 and, after boot camp, was assigned to the 6th Defense Battalion. Sent to Midway in the summer of 1941, Gardner and his battalion skirmished with two Japanese destroyers on December 7 and defended Midway during the Japanese attack against the island in June of 1942.

Harold J. Goldberg holds the David E. Underdown Chair in History at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He is the author of two books on World War II, Competing Voices from World War II in Europe: Fighting Words (Greenwood/ABC-Clio, 2010) and D-Day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan (Indiana University Press, 2007).

Donald M. Goldstein teaches public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. With Katherine V. Dillon and the late Gordon W. Prange, he created numerous World War II classics, including At Dawn We Slept; Miracle at Midway; and God's Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor.

James H. Hallas is a military historian who has authored books about the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II and the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I.

Lewis A. Hopkins entered the U.S. Navy Reserve as an apprentice seaman in July 1940 and retired as a Rear Admiral in July 1974. He was designated a naval aviator in September 1941 and saw action in the Pacific Theater of World War II, participating in the Battle of Midway in June 1942.

Timothy H. Jackson is a retired naval officer and Professor of Strategy & Policy at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

Alvin Kernan enlisted in the Navy in 1941 and was aboard the USS Enterprise at Pearl Harbor. An ordinanceman and aerial gunner in torpedo planes he served aboard aircraft carriers in the Pacific for the remainder of the war. Best known of his writings is his highly praised Crossing the Line, a memoir of his navy life, first published in 1995.

Norman J. "Dusty" Kleiss graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1938, became qualified as a carrier pilot after graduation from Pensacola and Oppa Locka, and joined Scouting 6 of the USS Enterprise in May 1941. He was in combat as a SBD dive bomber pilot from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor through the Battle of Midway. He bombed the Kaga, Hiryu, and Mikuma and received a Navy Cross, in addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross he previously received for his bombing of a cruiser in the Marshall Islands.

John Lundstrom is Curator Emeritus of History at the Milwaukee Public Museum where he worked for thirty-seven years. He is the author of several books on the Pacific War, including Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, The First Team, and The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign.

Lex McAulay served for 22 years in the Australian Regular Army, with more time in the Reserves, and had three tours of duty in South Vietnam. He is the author of a number of books on Australian and U.S. military events in World War II and Vietnam, published in Australia, the UK and the U.S., including MacArthur's Eagles.

Robert Mrazek is the author of five books, including A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron 8 in the Pacific War, Stonewall's Gold, and Deadly Embrace.

Jon Parshall is co-author of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway and is the long-time maintainer of the Imperial Japanese Navy Homepage.

Stephen D. Regan received a degree in history and English from Upper Iowa University, and subsequently earned Masters and Doctorate degrees from Winona State University (Minnesota) and the University of South Dakota respectively. Among his articles and books are In Bitter Tempest: the biography of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher and Pioneering Spirit: the history of Upper Iowa University.

Gordon Rottman has served twenty-six years in the US Army in Special Forces, airborne infantry, long-range reconnaissance patrol, and military intelligence assignments in the regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve. He began writing military history books in 1984 and has since published over 100 books.

Ronald W. Russell, a retired chief warrant officer in the Naval Reserve, serves as editor for the Battle of Midway Roundtable. He is the author of No Right to Win: a Continuing Dialogue with Veterans of the Battle of Midway.

William Sager was a second lieutenant in the U.S Marine Corps in 1942, a rifle platoon leader in K Company of the 3rd Battalion, First Marines. On August 7, 1942, the 3rd Battalion, First Marines, under the command of Col. William N. McKelvy Jr., landed on Guadalcanal and Sager and his fellow Marines proceeded to fulfill the mission of their combat team.

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes is an associate professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College. He is the author of two books on World War II: Allies against the Rising Sun: The United States, the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan (2009) and Seven Stars: The Okinawa Battle Diaries of Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. and Joseph Stilwell (2004).

Frank Shirer is the Chief Archivist for the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., specializing in World War II and the Soviet military.

Douglas V. Smith is Professor of Strategy and Head of the Strategy and Policy Division at the U. S. Naval War College's College of Distance Education. He is the author of the book Carrier Battles.

Peter C. Smith is a Member of The Society of Authors, London and the London Press Club. He has had 68 books published worldwide in many different languages, including the recently much-lauded Midway Dauntless Victory, Fist from the Sky, and Pedestal, the Convoy that saved Malta.

Frank Snyder is a retired Navy captain, formerly on the faculty at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI. As a Professor Emeritus there, he gives lectures about naval battles, particularly those of World War II in the Pacific.

Jay A. Stout is a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot. An award winning military writer and historian, he is the author of many books and articles. He additionally works as a senior analyst in the defense industry.

Robert Swan was an Ensign serving as navigator on one of Midway's PBYs, the Catalina flying boats employed in the search for the approaching Japanese fleet in June 1942. Swan's PBY spotted the Japanese Transport Group on June 3. Swan also took part in scouting missions in the Solomon Island chain in 1943.

Barrett Tillman is an award-winning author and historian with more than 40 histories, novels, and biographies to his credit. Tillman is best known for his operational histories of naval aircraft including the Dauntless, Hellcat, and Corsair.

Anthony P. Tully is an independent scholar and historian of the Pacific War and other historical and political subjects. He is author (with Jon Parshall) of Shattered Sword, an acclaimed study of the Battle of Midway, and is the author of Battle of Surigao Strait.

Sumner Whitten graduated from Amherst College in 1940 and enlisted in the Marines. Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in 1941, Whitten fought in the Battle of Midway in 1942 and in the campaign for Guadalcanal in 1942-1943.

H. P. Willmott has written extensively on modern naval and military subjects including Empires in the Balance, The Barrier and the Javelin, When Men Lost Faith in Reason: Reflections on Warfare in the Twentieth Century and The Last Fleet Action, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 22-28 October 1944, the last of which won the Society for Military History's top award for 2006.