To each other, not to the war. Okay, here we go:

1. How effective were US Carrier attack aircraft at the early, mid, and latter stages of the war in the Pacific, please?
By early, I would say, up to and including Midway or Santa Cruz Islands, by middle, I would think up to but NOT including Leyte Gulf, and latter, from Leyte Gulf to the end. If that time frame doesn't work, feel free to correct me as I am a real dilletante as opposed to some of you hardcore historians.

2. I just saw a show on TV that said that at least one American flight crew was bound, had weights attached to their feet, and were thrown overboard during-after the attacks on the Japanese carriers at Midway. Is this correct, and if so, were there any repercussions from those actions? Were there any war crimes trials?

3. Going back to #1 for a minute, how good were the US dive bomber and torpedo planes as compared to their Japanese counterparts please? We used the Devastator early on, correct? And later we used the Avenger? What were the other planes we used?

4. I believe that one enswine (Ensign chuckle) survived the attacks at the early stage of Midway, a guy named Gay. Did he survive the war? If so, is he still alive? What did he do with his life post-war if anyone knows?

5. Last, it seems to me that US Fleet carriers were MUCH tougher than their Japanese counterparts. Didn't it take like 8 bomb hits and 4 torpedos to sink USS Hornet? What did it take to sink Akagi? 3 bomb hits? I know the IJN ships caught fire, and fire is what really kills ships, but didn't they have really good firefighting ability? With the Japanese awareness of fire (paper houses+earthquakes+open braziers in paper houses= 3rd degree burns all around!) didn't it make sense that they had a strong damage control?

6. Woops, really the last one.... What unit shot down Yamamoto, please?


Thank you for your answers and tolerance of my stupid questions. Much appreciated.
Hummel

For no. 1, experience increases, opposition decrease, therefore effectiveness is a function of time in theater. Compare the Hellcat to the Wildcat, Devastator to Avenger, etc.

For no. 4, the Japanese carriers were floating bombs because they took on unrefined oil from the NEI, fuel that didn't have the lighter elements separated out (gasoline for instance,) and the whole ship was filled with fumes waiting to become FAE.

"
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to "Get Yamamoto." Knox instructed Admiral Chester W. Nimitz of Roosevelt's wishes. Admiral Nimitz consulted Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander, South Pacific, then authorized a mission on 17 April to intercept Yamamoto's flight en route and down it.
The 339th Fighter Squadron of the 347th Fighter Group, 13th Air Force, was assigned the mission, since only their P-38 Lightning aircraft possessed the range to intercept and engage. Pilots were informed that they were intercepting an "important high officer", although they were not aware of who their actual target was.
On the morning of April 18, despite urgings by local commanders to cancel the trip for fear of ambush, Yamamoto's planes left Rabaul as scheduled for the 315-mile trip. Shortly after, eighteen specially-fitted P-38s took off from Guadalcanal. They wave-hopped most of the 430 miles (692 km) to the rendezvous point, maintaining radio silence throughout. At 09:34 Tokyo time, the two flights met and a dogfight ensued between the P-38s and the six Zeroes escorting Yamamoto.
1st Lt. Rex T. Barber engaged the first of the two Japanese bombers, which turned out to be Yamamoto's plane. He sprayed the plane with gunfire until it began to spew smoke from its left engine. Barber turned away to attack the other bomber as Yamamoto's plane crashed into the jungle. Afterwards, another pilot, Ace Capt Thomas George Lanphier, Jr., claimed he had shot down the lead bomber, which led to a decades-old controversy until a team inspected the crash site to determine direction of the bullet impacts. The official record of the engagement gave half a kill to each Lanphier and Barber"



Isoroku Yamamoto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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WWII Resources. Primary sources.
The Myths of Pearl Harbor. Demythologizing the attack.
Hyperwar. Hypertext history of the Second World War.
Veteran: USN, 1969-1989

Ensign George Gay was the only survivior of the illfated VT-8. After the battle he would become a Navy Flight instructor. After the war he was a pilot of over 30 years with TWA.

On October 21, 1994, Gay died of a heart attack at a hospital in Marietta, Georgia. Following his death, Gay was cremated and his ashes were spread over the Pacific in the same place his squadron launched its ill-fated attack.
He wrote a book on his wartime experiance called Sole Survivor

__________________
"Like so many of our people, we have now had a personal experience of German barbarity which only strengthens the resolution of all of us to fight through to final victory."-King George VI
"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning."-Colonel David M. Shoup-Saipan

"Effective" is a relative term. It's difficult to describe the effectiveness of any weapons launching platform without including the weapon and comparing it to other contemporary platforms. The US torpedo bomber in the early part of the war was the TBD "Devastator". It was considered to be practically obsolete and did not turn in an effective performance at Midway. But there were many reasons for this not directly related to the plane itself. At Midway, the TBD's had little in the way of fighter cover and were slaughtered by the Japanese fighter defenses. In addition, it was slow and the performance envelop of the Mk 13 torpedo exacerbated this problem. When compared to it's contemporaries, the TBD did not look too bad; the British Swordfish was even slower and more vulnerable, but turned in a creditable performance in many cases. The TBD suffered from where it was used and the way in which it was used more than any deficiencies in the plane itself.

The USN dive bomber was the SBD Dauntless which was also approaching obsolescence. It was marginally better armed and could carry a heavy payload for it's day. It was a small plane, and though slow, was agile. My father flew SBDS in 1942 and claimed it was the most "survivable" carrier plane of the war. It was stable in a dive, very robust, and well liked by it's pilots and air crew.

The Avenger was introduced at Midway as a torpedo bomber, but was used later in the war as an all-purpose bomber, in which role it was very effective. It was bigger, faster, and more heavily armed than the TBD. Probably more important, it served after many of Japan's best pilots had been killed.

I have read that at least one pilot and/or aircrew was captured at Midway after being shot down. According to this account they were tortured during an interrogation and then "executed" (no details given) afterwards. The Japanese officers responsible did not survive the war, therefore no trial was ever held.

Ensign George Gay served with Torpedo Eight at Midway and was the sole survivor of that squadron. he was rescued and served in the Guadalcanal campaign flying the Avenger. After the war he became a pilot for TWA and I believe was with that company for more than 30 years. He died in 1994 of a heart attack.

USN fleet carriers were somewhat tougher than Japanese carriers and had much better damage control especially later in the war. The Hornet actually sustained two bomb hits, a suicide crash, 400+ rounds of 5 " shell fire, and 13 torpedoes (including 4 "Long Lance" type 93's) before sinking. She was, of course, doomed before the final hits were received, but she proved tougher than any other carrier in the war.

The Japanese carriers were not designed with the same level of damage control as US carriers and had less efficient firefighting systems. All carriers were considered "floating bombs" because of the amount of air ordnance they had to carry and the huge volume of av-gas necessary to keep the planes flying for a reasonable period. There is an excellent discussion of the differences between USN and IJN carrier damage control in Parshall and Tully's book "Shattered Sword" about the Battle of Midway. Japanese carriers were, like all carriers, only as good as their battle doctrine allowed. They carried marginally smaller airgroups and had less fleet air defense capability because of technical limitations. But they were effective, especially at hit and run raids, and lagged behind US carriers only because of limitations of the Japanese industrial economy.
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Both sides found dive bombers to be very effective especially vs carriers. US torpedo bombers were effective at the battle of the Coral Sea. Later in the war they also proved quite effective both with torpedos and with bombs. (Some interesting accounts are in Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. The First Team books are also suppose to be very good abut USN aviation during WWII. The F4F had an exchange rate that was pretty near equal to the Zero. Late in the war US pilots had training, numbers, and support that was so superior to their opponents that they would have done well even with inferior equipment. I also defintily recomend Shattered Sword.

As far as CVs being bombs. The Lexington was lost becuase avgas fuemes were ignited by a motor that should have been turned off. After the loss of Lexington the US took a number of stepps to avoid future events of this type. Including filling the gas lines with an inert gas (CO2?). The Japanese CVs at Midway were also caught at a bad time so one has to be very careful making comparisons. Also consider that some early US CVs were actually built on BC hulls.

I was also wondering which sank more enemy shipping, US Torpedo bombers or dive bombers. What was the dive bomber that replaced the Devastator? Was it the Dauntless? Wasn't that a particularly good example of the weapon system? So, the USA was using the Dauntless (if I remember correctly) for dive bombing (did it also level bomb?) and the Avenger for Torpedo attacks. Did the Avenger also do bombing? I don't think it did any dive bombing, right? But it did level bomb, right? I am sorry. I know this is pretty stream-of-consciousness, but, hey...at least I'm not being mean to anyone.
Hummel

"All cruelty springs from weakness"
Seneca