Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Midway

[taterguy]

Just proof that it's better to be lucky than good.

Remember that.

And hope you're not one of those poor bastards in VT-8.

All snarkiness aside, that battle really fascinates me. So much history changed just because of a bunch of fluky things.

What are the odds that American planes could end up over the Japanese carriers at the precise moment they were most vulnerable?

And what was up with that malfunctioning Japanese scout plane?

Any fiction writer who wrote that would be laughed out of the room.

[NJmaverick]

1. Well it wasn't all luck. With the US having broken the Japanese codes

they were playing with a marked deck.

[pokerfan]

2. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

[Captain Hilts]

8. The timing was lucky. Also lucky that Halsey was not in charge that day. nt

[JVS]

3. What are the odds that American planes could end up over the Japanese carriers at the precise moment

Well they're pretty darn good when you have your carrier commander going back and forth between loading bombs for ground attack and loading torpedos.

[Midlodemocrat]

4. Which pales in comparison to the ass kicking NC got a few months back from VA.

:thumbsup:

Sorry, dude. Truth hurts sometimes.

[taterguy]

5. Exchanging snarky messages via the Internet vs. genuine heroism

You've got a point there

[Midlodemocrat]

6. Thank you.

:patriot:

[mix]

7. what was this battle about?

what was at stake?

[Captain Hilts]

9. Actually, it was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. After Midway, Japan was on

the retreat.

[mix]

10. so was this another attempt t o push the Americans

back to the mainland once and for all?

[Captain Hilts]

13. Hard to say, it took place west of Hawaii. No doubt they wanted to give US a knockout punch.

[Ikonoklast]

12. Japan lost the war at Pearl Harbor.

That was the end of the battleship era and those that still championed them in the Navy, and the ascendancy of the carrier.

All it took was time, but the conclusion was inevitable.

[Captain Hilts]

17. Yes and no. Battleships no longer battled other ships, but they proved to be a versatile

weapons platform and did other things well, such as bombard the crap out of islands.

My uncle was radioman on IOWA.

[Ikonoklast]

18. Yes, they were well used as mobile gun platforms for covering

amphibious landings.

But the long-range reach to project offensive capability over the horizon by air power spelled the end of the era.

Was your uncle known as 'Sparks'?

[Captain Hilts]

20. Actually, he never mentioned it, but he must have been called that at times...

he realized what a dude he was to be assigned to IOWA. He was among the first and toured it in the Brooklyn Navy Yard where a very nice chief gave him and a friend a grand tour.

He took FDR the ship's newspaper every day and was the talker for the captain when the torpedo was shot at them by the escort while FDR was out on deck.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RandomThoughts]

11. It was a turning point in the war in the pacific.

But it still would have turned later if the battle of midway had gone the other way, the Axis could not sustain any battle due to production advantages of the Allies. Unfettered production in the US, and to some extent east of the Urals in USSR, plus the number of people in USSR, China, And the mostly Allied aligned Western hemisphere made the outcome of WW2 inevitable.

As are all wars against tyranny.

:shrug:

[JVS]

24. It depends on how it would have gone the other way.

While US production would have made the conquest of the continental US impossible, the strategic situation of the US at the time of the battle was precarious. Before discussing that though, I'd like to point out that for the USSR the war was a European war and their entry into the Japanese theater was only after Europe had been won and neither Japan nor the Soviets were ever that eager to fight each other after a few clashes in the late 1930's. China was too politically fragmented to really defeat Japan and is more analogous to an Iraq style pain in the ass occupation.

Anyway, a month before Midway the US had lost the Lexington and had the Yorktown heavily damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Even after the victory at Midway the US navy suffered losses in late 1942 that ended up leaving only the Enterprise as an operational large carried. This is after Midway of course, but it demonstrates what a narrow margin we were dealing with. Japan still had 2 of the Pearl Harbor 6. Fortunately the Essex class of carriers began entering action in early 1943, but had we lost in Midway the way the Japanese lost there (i.e. a net loss of 3 carriers) then Japan would have been able to use six large carriers and its assorted light carriers against a US carrier force that had been stripped down to basically the Wasp. In all probability this would have caused us to lose in Guadalcanal and prevented the US from conducting any offensives until Mid-1943. Meanwhile Japan would have naval superiority to do things such as invade Hawaii and disrupt US West coast shipping. I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that a negotiated settlement might have taken place after that.

[RandomThoughts]

26. The only arguement would be that it is possible to guess that

their could have been a negotiated capitulation on the part of America.

You are right that if Japan had got the US to agree to some truce then, that would have been a different end.

I however do not think even pressure on west coast America would have led to US capitulation to Japan or Germany. It is a question of both social pressure and political will, so I understand the argument. I just disagree on the premise that the US would have negotiated while many understood it was also a war to fight Germany and the rise of authoritative/military states.

China was a manpower and resource drain on Japan, I agree it was not a real threat to them. And until Germany was crumbling USSR did not act in pacific.

At the height of production, one Boeing plant in Seattle was building a new bomber every hour. And construction of new carriers, although extending the war by causing a delay in pushing back, would have occurred if Midway would have gone differently.

However I do believe things like that work out for the best with what some call luck, or good timing, or just the right sequence of events. And the destruction of I think was three Japanese carriers at Midway, ended their pacific dominance.

The sequence of events, the search planes, the arming and rearming of planes leaving fuel and explosives on the decks of Japan carriers, the weather, the breaking of Japan code, and use of 'Midway Water message' to confirm it was Japanese target, and the good thinking of many commanders all made a huge difference in that battle, and it was a big event in that year, and a turning point in history.

It is a focal point I will agree with that.

[MicaelS]

29. Invade Hawaii?

Do you believe Japan would have had sufficient sea lift capability to move enough troops and material to support an invasion and subsequent occupation?

[JVS]

32. I don't see why not. With the US carriers gone, Japan would dominate the waters to Hawaii

Hawaii consists of several islands with some small ones to the west, ideal for setting up a base and then moving on.

Japan had not had any difficulty invading and occupying the Philippines. Hawaii is a fraction of that.

[Deep13]

14. Speaking of fiction, the broken radio on the scout plane...

...seems like a Hollywood creation to me. The real problem for the Japanese Navy (JN) is that they were so convinced that the two surviving USN carriers (they did not know the Yorktown had been fixed) were still hanging around Hawaii that they made only a half-adzed attempt to find them. There were few JN planes used and each had to cover huge areas of ocean with a single pair of peepers. It would have been a shot in the dark to find them. OTOH, the USN used proper scouting planes and used a lot of them. Unlike the JN, the USN knew for sure the JN was coming and about where to look for them.

As far as the vulnerability, the JN attacked ships with torpedoes. Unlike the USN's or the German's, Japanese torpedoes were actually reliable, so there was no back-up for aerial bombing. When it became clear that USN carriers were present, they had no choice but to swap over to torpedoes. And when fighters came close to running out of gas, the attack planes had to wait until they all landed. That meant a deck stacked with bombs and gasoline. Another thing that killed the JN was their aggressive, officer-driven mindset. JN personnel were trained to attack, not to defend. They had no appreciable damage control system and if men were separated from officers by fire or other damage, they really had no idea what to do. Some of those JN carriers were sunk with a single bomb. OTOH, the USN placed heavy reliance on damage control. This is what allowed them to save the Yorktown after Coral Sea and to keep it fighting after it was attacked.

So while luck played a factor, I don't think it was as fantastic as the film made it seem.

[Captain Hilts]

23. Patron Saint/Ship for damage control...

USS FRANKLIN:

[JVS]

25. There were some planes that would have helped the Japanese not think the carriers were in Hawaii

A second attempt at reconnaissance, using four-engine Kawanishi H8K flying boats to scout Pearl Harbor prior to the battle (and thereby detect the absence or presence of the American carriers), part of "Operation K", was also thwarted when Japanese submarines assigned to refuel the search aircraft discovered that the intended refueling point—a hitherto deserted bay off French Frigate Shoals—was occupied by American warships (because the Japanese had carried out an identical mission in March).<37> Thus, Japan was deprived of any knowledge concerning the movements of the American carriers immediately before the battle. Japanese radio intercepts also noticed an increase in both American submarine activity and message traffic. This information was in Yamamoto's hands prior to the battle. However, Japanese plans were not changed; Yamamoto, at sea on Yamato, did not dare inform Nagumo for fear of exposing his position and assumed that Nagumo had received the same signal from Tokyo.<38> Nagumo's radio antennae, however, were unable to receive such long-wave transmissions, and he was left unaware of any American ship movements.<39>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway#Japanese_shortcomings

[Deep13]

27. How 'bout that. An example of the "fog of war." nt

[LostinVA]

16. My grandafther was there

[Xipe Totec]

22. You must be rightfully proud

:patriot:

[LostinVA]

31. My other GF landed at Normandy and fought all through the Bulge

I have a bunch of stuff he took off WEhrmacht prisoners -- helmets, bayonets, canteens. He wouldn't give me the Luger. My GREAT grandfather (was in his 40's) also landed at Normandy and fought the Bulge.

The grandfather at Midway (my mother's father) fought all through the Pacific.

I am proud of both of them. Tbey went through Hell, and they really did fight to make people free.

[Xipe Totec]

19. Fog of War

and awesome signals intelligence.

[NJmaverick]

21. and superior US damage control

[Aristus]

28. The only torpedo squadron pilot to survive the initial American attack was Gay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Gay,_Jr.

[NJmaverick]

30. In hindsight- considering that the US torpedos didn't work worth a damn

it was terrible that they sent any of those squadrans into battle. The only thing they did was consume the ammunition and fuel of the Japanese CAPs