The movie from 1976 “Midway” with Charles Heston was partially responsible for the story. I loved it for the lack of ludicrous CGI effect, for the depiction the palpable fear, determination and luck.
I hate the 2019 remake and honestly, it couldn’t get much worse if the pilots had bungie-jumped out of their planes and back inside. There were so many 21st century tropes forced on the protagonists it was just absurd. Roland Emmerich once was a good director but nowadays he is just Uwe Boll with more money to sink per movie. I won’t sugar coat that just because they are from my home country.
The other reason was a remote relative who was with the Carrier Yorktown (CV-5) till the last minute. That ship refused to sink after several brutal attacks. My relative claimed “there was a little chance we might have saved her after the final torpedo hit but things became really complicated way beyond keeping her afloat and closing the holes”.
I can only guess what he meant by that, maybe risk, complications, time, politics and so on.