Battle of Midway

Some call this battle the turning point in the Pacific War, since the Americans went on the offensive after it ended until VJ-Day. I propose to have a thorough discussion of the fighting, along with the units and men that fought it, air, land and naval. And the commanders, of course. I'd like to start this off with a point that I haven't seen anyone here make when Midway has come up in other topics: Namely, that many American officers (and some Japanese ones, too) couldn't believe that Yamamoto was gunning for Midway, because keeping the place supplied after its occupation would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. What do y'all think about this?

 

I know little about Midway but I thought it was a Japanese trap to lure the pacific fleet and their carriers out to be attacked not a land grab.

Anyone think the Japanese were unlucky getting caught with fueled planes and ammo on their decks?

FNG

 

My impression too, It was, surely a group of lost bomers who found the Jap carriers, as they were rearming.

 

I believe the Japanese were wanting Midway because of the airfield. It was capable of handling bombers which would be nice for us and them. They simply couldn't leave it.

 

Miday was a plan to lure all the carriers into a trap. The IJN plan to strike another island(can't remember) and let them USN sent out its carrriers to attack.But this was a diversion, the real attack was aimed at midway, and hence trapping the remainding USN.

However, the intelligent broke the japanese code and knew what was going on. Instead, the USN sailed its carriers to midway and waited there.
When the japanese attack midway...there was very little resistance but the aviotors failed to strike a damaging attack and hence the second wave was called and many planes are armed with covential bombs instead of ship-killing ones.

It was at this time Numugeo(spelling?) spotted the carrier fleet and orddered to attack. As the japanese planes have no ship-killing bombs, they failed to do much damage.( I'm not too clear on this part)

They americans timing when they attack was perfect, they attack when the Japanese is refuelling and reloading most of their planes.

Although almost the entire flight of avengers torepdoes was lost in the attack, they allowed the dauntless dive-bomber to slipped pass the air defences and strke a crippling blow on three carriers and sunk soon after.

One day later, the last remanding carrier air wing destroyed the USS lexington but was soon hunted down and sunk as well.Admiral yamamoto tried to trick the allies into fighting a classic ship to ship battle but failed

Without air cover, the IJN fleet could not last long annd retreat. The fleet that greatly outnumbered the usn in all aspects...

 

For what I can remember your pretty far off the mark. Your right in that the whole Midway offensive was an attempt to lure out the remaining US carriers.

However the Japanese plan had two immediate flaws.

1) the Americans had cracked their codes. *

2) The Americans had more carriers than the Japanese thought, Yorktown had been badly hit at the Corel Sea but had been bodged into working order.


The reason the Japanese were armed with bombs was that they were preparing to attack Midway a second time when scout planes found the American carriers. The Japanese had to remove the bombs and rearm with torpedoes for the strike against the American carriers. It was for this reason that the were largely caught on the deck.


The actual fatal strike by the American was, if you ignore the three sunk carriers for a moment, a shambles. The American bombers went in piece-meal without fighter support. The torpedo bombers arrived first and were basically butchered. However the Japanese allowed all their fighters to be sucked down to attack the torpedo bombers. This allowed the dive bombers that arrived second to attack unmolested.


A counter strike by the remaining Japanese carrier fatally wounded the Yorktown (she was later finished off by a Japanese sub). However the last Japanese carrier was destroyed by a second American strike.

The Japanese attempted to during the night to close with their battleships and cruisers but the Americans turned away and the Japanese ultimately retired.





* However always bear in mind that code breaking doesn't mean you know everything the enemy is up to. First you have to intercept the transmissions then decode them. Much of what you decode won't be important so it is a case of finding the diamond in the dross

 

midway was the combat debut for the avengers, all of which were losses or write-offs. most of the torpedo duty fell to the devastators. many people remember midway and dismiss the tbd as a hopeless antique, forgetting that the tbf did no better. in fact, the main problem for both planes (apart from the lack of cover fighters) was the fragile torpedo they had to use. not one tbd had been shot down in combat prior to midway.
sorry for my poor typing, but i broke my collarbone and i'm having trouble.

 

Indeed, but as they say "fortune favors the bold". The American flyers pressed home their attacks despite the losses suffered by the Torpedo squadrons and as you earlier indicated their loss was not in vain as they pulled all the Japanese fighters down to the deck which permitted the dive bombers to get in close and be accurate with their drops.
Despite the difficulties finding the Japanese fleet it was not entirely luck. They sent out torpedo bombers, which attack low, and dive bombers that come in very steeply, a kind of one-two punch that was practised by the various squadrons. Of course ideally there should have been some fighter support as well.
The timing, as it worked out was lucky, without doubt.

BTW the Japanese lost 4 heavy carriers. There was luck involved for the Japanese as well in I-168 finding the Yorktown which would likely have been saved otherwise.

 

The diversionary attack was against the Aleutians with the aim of drawing the USN there while the main attack hit Midway then engage and finish off the USN as it came to Midway's aid.

However, as you say, the USN was reading the Japanese communications and worked out that Midway the main target and so could put 3 carriers where the IJN were expecting none.

Tironu - what do you think would have been the result if the IJN had abandoned the Aleutian diversion and concentrated all its ships in one force (3 additional small carriers) instead of splitting them up as they historically did and what would have been the effect if Shokaku and/or Zuikakau had been available to the IJN following Coral Sea as Yorktown was to the USN?

 

I have just finished a book on 'military errors of WW2' (Kenneth Macksey - http://uboat.net/books/item/1716 ). The books are ok, but some areas rely a little too uch on hindsight, and the assumption that people are / should be 100% perfect...
In it, he puts forward the argument that:

(um - this is written from memory - I may edit this after I get home & check it)
Basically, Japanese commanders were a tad over-confident. Coral Sea they believed to be a big victory, having sunk (or at least disabled) all the US carriers there (this is what they thought). They also assumed that the remaining US carriers were en-route to Hawaii after the Dolittle raid. Therefore, they were happy to split up their forces, have 3 operations on the go at once, and still reckon they'd win. Midway was both a diversion to create the 'decisive battle' and a plan to extend the Japanese island fortification line. He does point out that the Japanese seemed to be trying to lure American carrier forces into battle at a time when they believed that they were all sunk/inoperable or not available to fight. Which is odd.

The battle itself - the second strike was ordered by the leader of the first strike, who was less experienced that the guy who should have lead it, but was ill. The Commander who sanctioned it was the guy who had failed to launch Strike 3 at Pearl Harbour, and believed that he was still in the bad books for this, and was anxious not to repeat the mistake.

As for the American strike, yes that was very happy timing. The 3 lots of Aircraft (fighter cover, Torpedo bombers & dive bombers) never met up, and the planned simultanious attack never happened. However, the outcome was very successful - provided you were not an Avenger crew, of course.

 

what the japanese should have done was to send a nice hallmark card to nimitz:
dear chester--
we are planning a big get-together at midway island on june 4. you are invited, and feel free to bring all your friends. see ya there.
luv,
yami
it takes only a cursory glace to realize the aleutian effort was not simply a needless use of resources but fully antithetical to the main plan. if you want to lure the americans to a fight at midway, then why risk luring them northward? i've heard speculation that the aleutian operation was something forced on yamamoto against his wishes. it certainly has the look of a plan-by-committee, but i'm not familiar enough with battle histories to address the subject with any authority.
those of you familiar with jon parshall's nihon kaigun website will be glad to know his midway book will be released soon.

 

"The Commander who sanctioned it was the guy who had failed to launch Strike 3 at Pearl Harbour"
this is one of the persistant myths of the war, and it's closely tied to some midway myths too. there was no third strike at pearl harbor. it was never planned and never in the cards. because the americans expected one, and would likely have accommodated one in their planning had they been the raiders, they have assumed the japanese planned the same. this false belief was confirmed by mitsuo fuchida, the leader of the air attack who later suffered an appendicitis and missed flying at midway. fuchida was an extremely nice fellow, apparently, so when the americans interviewed him postwar, he was happy to tell them anything he thought they wanted to hear. he told them of his argument with nagumo over the decision to cancel the third wave--it never happened. he said that the japanese flight decks at midway were crowded with refueling, rearming aircraft--it never happened. such a thing was not possible within the strictures of ijn flight operations, but it would fit with the way americans did things. yes, the japanese planes were being serviced when surprised by the american dive bombers, but they were in the hangars where they belonged, not on the flight deck. so what, big deal. actually, yes. if the japanese were working on the flight deck, then they were capable of relatively quick changes and it's only nagumo's vacillation that opened the way for disaster. but if you realize that japanese procedures were much slower and deliberate, then you can realize that nagumo was doing his best within a sluggish system.
facets of this situation have already been mentioned in this thread. in american carrier practice, speed was a top priority--get in the first punch even if it's a clumsy one. it's no surprise that the american attacks were piecemeal and uncoordinated; on the contrary, it's exactly what you'd expect, and you may recall that coordination did not improve all that much right through the end of the war. in contrast, the japanese took the time to institute considerable precision in their attacks. at midway, the american system proved superior.

 

Thanks Tiornu!
So Kenneth Macksey is talking though his...

Fair 'nuff.

 

Indeed. The three additional carriers would have been a big help to the Japanese at Midway. The late Gordon W. Prange believed that Yamamoto's battleship force should have been sailing with Nagumo's carriers, instead of cruising 300 miles astern of them. He felt that had the BBs been there, many of the American dive bomber pilots would have attacked them instead of the Japanese carriers. Mr. Prange's book, "Miracle At Midway", is about the best account of the fighting that I've ever read.

 

Most of this is over my head but I do know that the USS Lexington survived the war. The "Lady Lex" was the US Navy's training carrier until sometime in the '90s. The Lexington is now a museum in Texas. She was replaced by the USS Forrestal.

 

the first lexington was badly damage at the coral sea battle and was abandoned and sunk by 2 torpedos fired by the uss destroyer phelps

 

Yes, this first Lexington, CV-2 was converted battlecruiser, just like her sistership. She was also nameship for this class.
Second Lexington was short-hulled Essex-class ship CV-16, originally Cabot but renamed prior to launching.
CV-2
CV-16

 

Interesting, I didn't know there were two Lexington's.

 

all the carriers lost in 1942 were replaced in 1943 by renamed essexes: lexington, yorktown, hornet, and wasp.

 

and the orginal fleet of carrier remain til the end of the war...enterprise!