What if the USS Yorktown was still under repair and unable to participate in the Battle of Midway. All occurrences of the battle are still the same for this discussion. The Japanese would not be affected so they change nothing in there strategies for attacking the Island. Would Tone’s no. 4 search plane still find the US Fleet? (IIRC it was Yorktown that was spotted)? Given that the Hornet’s air crews preformed poorly and not many planes even found the fleet, would the Enterprise’s air crews do enough damage to the Japanese fleet? When the Japanese counter attack the US CV’s could they have sunk both carriers from TF-16? Would the US even commit themselves to countering the attack? Finally, with Yorktown not participating it leaves her for future operations since she doesn’t get sunk. What effect could this possible extra carrier early in the war have?

IMHO, the Japanese do not find the US task force and conduct raids on Midway until the US planes are overhead. At least one carrier is still sunk with the first waves and the Japanese begin to scramble to find the US carriers. Eventually they will find them but not until one day later. Japanese strikes on the second day claim one carrier because there are far more planes available at this time. The US sinks another carrier on this second day and with only one carrier left in battle they return to the safety of Pearl.

Let’s leave any landings on Midway out of this discussion please, as that is for another day.

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"When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." -General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
"The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."-Karl von Clausewitz

A What if that I can actually enjoy.

I've never thought about it this manner, Mike. I need to do some reading and thinking on it.

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Best Regards,
JW

It would obviously put the USN at a distinct disadvantage having one flat top less but i am looking forward to what Slipdigit can provide.

Ha, don't get your hopes up too high, von Rund, I'm actually stallling, waiting on Terry to hit the thread and then say I agree with him.

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Best Regards,
JW

The most likely solution, and certainly the one I would use is deck load the Enterprise and Hornet with the Yorktown's air wing and then fly them off to Midway to operate from land. I would then alter the US plan to allow a closer Japanese approach before a counterstrike as the Japanese don't know the US carriers are present.

The likely result is still three Japanese carriers sunk. But, even if the US just cripples the Kido Butai through massive losses of aircraft and crews the result is still largely the same too. Given Midway had radar and the Navy fighter aircraft would be just as effective flown from land the Japanese could expect as much as 50 to 75% losses among their strike aircraft.

The US strikes on the Japanese carriers worked mainly becasue the Japanese CAP doctrine and coordination was so poor. Lacking radar they relied almost entirely on their fighter CAP spotting and intercepting raids. This typically happened at less than 20 miles from their carriers giving them little time to work a raid over.
With a large CAP they were able to put crippling losses on the US torpedo planes that showed up first. But, as a result of this their CAP was not set to take on a second raid at high altitude and there was no means of detection (eg., radar) and poor communications to call the fighters back in a timely fashion. The result was the loss of three carriers.
Compounding this was the lack of a coherent air defense doctrine by their surface ships. If you look at the Japanese deployment it was one of maneuver by column of divisions much as WW 1 battleships would do.

Anyway, the Yorktown's air group could have launched a strike from Midway just as easily as from the flight deck of a carrier. Deck loading them on the other carriers and striking down their own air wings was not only possible but easily doable as US doctrine did not normally call for hangering the air wing so there was plenty of space to do so while deck parks were the norm.

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Truth is stranger than bullshit!

Hi T. A.
That is not something I had thought about. Would you alter the Yorktown’s Air Group? Maybe cut the fighters in half for more torpedo planes or bombers? By letting the Japanese come closer to the Island does this allow the PT boats there to make attacks? One possibility I thought of after my original post is using the island as a refueling base for the carrier planes, allowing two attacks before the air crews return to the carriers. I’m not sure of the size of the airfields at Midway. After all the Marine planes that was sent to the island before the battle, could it have held another 75 planes?

__________________
"When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." -General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
"The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."-Karl von Clausewitz

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Best Regards,
JW

Well,

The PT's in the Pacific were for the most part never very successful with torpedo attacks against large enemy warships, three out of four fish would not detonate which were launched from the early boats, or those early torpedoes would run wild in circles, or catch fire in the tube.

They did run up quite a score against jap landing barges, mostly by gunfire.

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All the Best
Jack

No, I'd send it as formed along with USN fighter controllers who already knew how to handle a CAP far better than the US Army or USAAF did. If anything, I'd see if I could send along some additional Navy fighters that were laying about at Pearl too.
My primary goal would be crippling the Japanese ability to launch air strikes at all. A combination of shooting down their strike aircraft and sinking carriers. Do either or both and you are successful.

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Truth is stranger than bullshit!

Historically speaking, the Saratoga's air group worked very well a few months later when it was forced to operate out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, providing just the measure needed during the heavy fighting that was done there.

two japanese carriers knocked out in the morning of june 4 instead of three.

The "Ferry" answer is a Guddn.
Not like it hadn't been attempted/done umpteen times before from Norway-Malta-Guadalcanal-Wake, and to bring replacement aircraft to replenish Carrier losses all throughout the war.
Many types could take off from a carrier, but would have to land on the ground. Doolittles B-25s, P-47s to name a few.
I believe the same amount of planes, pilots, groups would've been there, and perhaps...fewer losses to sink with the ship, and less damage to Midway

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"Danger Will Robinson!"

Although Yorktown's air group was cobbled together from Saratoga's squadrons and its own VB-5, there was no attempt to board a deckload of other squadrons because there were none available - Lexington's had gone down with her, and Enterprise's and Hornet's were on their respective ships. The closest example I can think of, at that point, was when Hornet carried the Doolittle B-25s while her air group was hangered - Enterprise furnished air cover until the bombers' launch. As has been mentioned, I think just 2 Japanese carriers would've been sunk the morning of June 4 (Kaga and Akagi would've still been sunk by Enterprise's bombers but Soryu, which was sunk by Yorktown's, would've escaped under this "what if"). So, Japan's counterstrike the afternoon of June 4 would've consisted of planes from Soryu and Hiryu, resulting in at least one US carrier sunk, and possibly the other as well because the Japanese strike force would've been doubled (and would've faced a smaller CAP). We can assume that Hiryu would've sunk the afternoon of June 4 only if we assume that Enterprise escaped the earlier Japanese counterstrike (Hiryu was struck by a combined Enterprise-Yorktown force). If we assume just one US carrier lost, it would've been a wash because Yorktown woud've been available for service after the battle; if we assume 2 carriers lost, that would've had repercussions in the Solomons later. And if Hiryu wasn't sunk under this "what if", it would've increased Japan's force available in the Solomons.