1 We want a do-over!

2 Thanks for the reminder. But I think the movie's just called "Midway"--Tora! Tora! Tora! is about Pearl Harbor. Both are very good, though.

3

actually the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! is a reasonably accurate portrayal of the battle.

 

ah actually thats about pearl harbor midway would be the best movie to watch about midway

4 The movie, "Midway"?

5 "I can run wild for six months Â… after that, I have no expectation of success" Admiral Yamamoto.

Simple rundown of the battle, the low level dive bombers sacrificed themselves against Japanese air defenses. The japanese lowered their combat air patrol, and some lucky breaks for the americans helped the SBD pilots dive bomb into history. Everyone should know the history of Midway.

6 Ah loves the young people!

7 To commemorate the sacrifice of these brave men, Anthony Weiner's next dic-pic will be at half-staff.

8 Ah don't want to be a burden!

9 Most important battle of WWII, IMO. And, yeah, as others noted the movie you want is Midway. Watched it last weekend for about the 20th time.

10

I can't wait for the Dayton Air Show this year.

The last time I was there a production called Tora! Tora! Tora! was there with restored Zeros and Oscars and a shit ton of pyrotechnics to simulate Pearl Harbor.

It was frickin' bad ass!

11 Tora Tora Tora (Tiger Tiger Tiger) was the Japanese code phrase (used over an unencrypted radio circuit by the strike commander) for "complete suprise/success achieved" in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

12 Related: My wife, a handful of colleagues and 15 college students from NC were at Normandy all day today. Haven't heard yet how their day went, but I'm glad the kids will be there thinking about it at least a little bit. 

13 I'm waiting for the day that digital technology becomes cheap enough for some patriot filmmaker to make good movies about some of the great american victories, cause hollywood sure ain't gonna. Don't even talk about Flags of our Fathers, it was a victim-poor-me story and Eastwood gave the Japanese side far better heroic treatment.

Btw, Admiral John Ford was wounded at Midway while shooting this film.
http://youtu.be/vi4HwxOZDJw

John Wayne wasn't, and John Ford never let him live it down.

14

I knew that, I just screwed it up.

 

I do that.

15 I'd like to thank the armed forces for helping me out at Midway. And I'd like to give a shout out to all the fine folks staying at Manzanar: love your sushi, but why's it always fish?

16

For a great telling of Midway, try Wouk's Winds of War.  You'll have to commit, as it's a 1000 pg book, but it's a fantastic telling of the tale.  He combines a great overview of the historical significance of the battle with a gripping fictional personal story.  You'll walk away very proud of your countrymen as well as awestruck by the valor of the Navy fliers who beat the Japanese at Midway, and stopped their onslaught cold.  I thought the movie Midway was just a tad hacky, although it was a brave attempt to cover such a huge & complex event.

17 Thanks rickinstl, this is why I need to spend time here and not on effing reddit. Corporations maaaaaan!

18 My personal belief is that God intervened at Pearl Harbor to ensure that the attack came when the American carriers were at sea, and again at Midway to ensure that the American scout planes found the Japanese carrier fleet before the Japanese could locate the American carriers.

If either of those events had turned out differently, the world we live in today would be a much darker place.

As it happened, the destruction of the Japanese carrier fleet enabled the USA to divert resources from the Pacific to Africa and Europe, ending the Third Reich before it developed atomic weapons.

19 An amazing victory on so many levels. Even though we broke their code, Nimitz feared that the Japanese knew we broke the code and that Midway was a trap. Also, the bomb release mechanisms on the SBD Dauntless dive bombers were constantly malfunctioning. And all of the old TBD Devastator and 11 of 12 new TBF Avenger dive bombers were shot down without scoring a hit. Still, we sunk 4 Jap flat tops and killed the cream of their naval aviators in one fell swoop. G-d bless all of our Army, Navy and Marine vets who won one of our greatest victories.

20 Some further reading on the Battle of Midway:

Japanese Attacks on USS Yorktown, 4 June 1942
Overview and Special Image Selection

21 Nah not even close. Yes very important to the US/UK in the fight in the Pacific agains Japan, but the real enemy ( as the Europe first War Plans clearly state was Nazi Germany) and the biggest most important Battle of WW2 was the Russian Victory at Stalingrade. In my opinion

22

There's a movie that was made in Japan in the 1950's called (English dubbed version) "I Bombed Pearl Harbor".

It tells the story of the Japanese Navy from Pearl Harbor to Midway, from the Japanese point of view.  It was actually pretty good, but it's been at least 40 years since I've seen it.

Torpedo  Squadron 8 of the Yorktown, died to all but the last man on that day. They got separated from the F4 Wildcats and SBD Dauntless dive bombers and came in alone to attack the Japanese. Ensign George Gay was the only survivor.

Before Gay died some years ago, he asked that his ashes be scattered over the ocean where his friends all died that day in 1942.

A whole squadron, died to all but the last man. Something to remember.

 

23

I was mistaken, it's Wouk's War & Remembrance, the sequel to Winds of War, which covers Midway.

Particularly impressive is his stopping of the narrative to list for posterity the members of Torpedo Squadron 8, who died together (only 1 survivor) in the initial attack.

24 Posted by: nevergiveup at June 04, 2011 05:07 PM (BZbqK)

Ya beat me to it.
But I would go with most important land battle of WW 2.
Battle of the North Atlantic most important sea battle.
Just my opinion.

25

Posted by: jules at June 04, 2011 04:57 PM (P7Hj2)

Dogfights on the History Channel is cool but I get what you mean. There has to be talented filmmakers out there who are conservative and would love to make a factual, patriotic movie.

God knows there's a market for it!

26 I haven't seen the Wouk/Mitchum Movie forever? Has it even run on TV lately?

27 the biggest most important Battle of WW2 was the Russian Victory at Stalingrad. In my opinion

Posted by: nevergiveup

The scale of the battle was different, of course, and so was the length of time.  The Battle of Stalingrad took place over months, from the summer investing of the city by the Germans, to the encirclement and defeat by the Russians in January of 1943.  It is estimated that the Russians lost nearly 1 million men in that battle alone.  The Russians have hidden that fact, but there are tens of thousands that were buried in unmarked graves, and even now remains from the battle are still being dug up.  There were also a whole series of encirclement operations that the Russians tried along the front at the same time that failed and have never gotten much notice - more bad generaling by the Soviet Generals.

The Battle of Kursk in July of 1943 (Operation Zitadelle- called by the Germans) was also a turning point, as that nearly destroyed the German armored formations in a huge battle of attrition.

28 Ya beat me to it. But I would go with most important land battle of WW 2. Battle of the North Atlantic most important sea battle. Just my opinion. Posted by: YIKES! at June 04, 2011 05:15 PM (sdRJs) And lets not leave out the Battle of Britain where so few did so much for so many

29 Actually, nevergiveup is right concerning Europe, and stuiec is wrong. In Europe, World War II was Russia versus Germany, and Russia won. The Allies' part in Europe was about about salvaging the rest of that content from Russia's victory.

If "The Pacific Theater" had lasted longer and America not entered the war, Russia still would have won. It's just that the Red Army would have taken over the whole European continent (and north Africa) instead of having to settle for the Iron Curtain.

America's main contribution to Germany's defeat was to supply Stalin with equipment.

(BTW, this is not to denigrate the Allies' courage; I had grandparents fighting for the UK in WW2. And yeah, I have to admit - sideshow. Germany and Russia were much, MUCH bigger than the UK.)

30 The scale of the battle was different, of course, and so was the length of time. The Battle of Stalingrad took place over months, from the summer investing of the city by the Germans, to the encirclement and defeat by the Russians in January of 1943. It is estimated that the Russians lost nearly 1 million men in that battle alone. The Russians have hidden that fact, but there are tens of thousands that were buried in unmarked graves, and even now remains from the battle are still being dug up. There were also a whole series of encirclement operations that the Russians tried along the front at the same time that failed and have never gotten much notice - more bad generaling by the Soviet Generals. The Battle of Kursk in July of 1943 (Operation Zitadelle- called by the Germans) was also a turning point, as that nearly destroyed the German armored formations in a huge battle of attrition. Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes... at June 04, 2011 05:16 PM (sJTmU) Those 2 Battles. along with Hitler's moronic military leadership, broke the back of the German Military

31 26 I haven't seen the Wouk/Mitchum Movie forever? Has it even run on TV lately? Not that I'm aware of.  And that's ok.  I just don't think you can do Midway justice in that format. 

32 Stalin's military leadership was shite. He just had more military men that he was willing to throw away.

33 America's main contribution to Germany's defeat was to supply Stalin with equipment. I don't believe that for a minute. The Allies made a significant difference in the War in Europe. And since Stalin saw fit to make a devil's packed with Hitler, the Russians difficulties were in the early years of the War are of their own making to some extent and also put the Allies in the unhappy position of having to retake Europe from England since Hitler did NOT have to worry about Russia when he invaded to the West

34 where so few did so much for so many Didn't I say that? That quote sounds so familiar, I swear it was right here in this office, on some statue...

35 Stalin's military leadership was shite. He just had more military men that he was willing to throw away. Posted by: Zimriel at June 04, 2011 05:23 PM (Vh7aI) Also not really accurate. Yes in the early stages Stalin was much like Hitler, but as the Russians regrouped around Stalingrade and in War going forward from then, Stalin learned to trust, to some extend, his Military Leaders and let them run the War with much less interference than Hitler ever did

36 To me the turning point battles were:

Japan:
Naval: Midway
Land: Guadalcanal
Air: Mariana Turkey Shoot

Germany:
Naval: North Atlantic
Land: Stalingrad
Air: Battle of Briton

37 What if the Russians would have had crossbows, and the Germans had longbows?

38 Japan: Naval: Midway Land: Guadalcanal Air: Mariana Turkey Shoot Germany: Naval: North Atlantic Land: Stalingrad Air: Battle of Briton Posted by: YIKES! at June 04, 2011 05:26 PM (sdRJs) Sounds pretty accurate to me, but the main Air Victory in the Pacific was probably also MIdway, since the Japs lost so many experience Pilots and also the ability to project Air Power offensively anymore really due to the lose of their 4 Carriers

39

Midway exposed a serious weakness in the ability of the IJN to replace pilot losses with qualified and well trained pilots.

 

Marianas demonstrated that.

40 Posted by: nevergiveup at June 04, 2011 05:28 PM (BZbqK)

True dat.
But the Turkey shoot was the coup de grace for the naval air wing for the IJN.
The IJN still had carriers but hardly any pilots after that battle.

41 Yeah, I definitely need to read up more on the "Great Patriotic War" 1943-spring 1944.

My knowledge of the eastern front is an outline, with highpoints in Stalingrad. So the impression this gave me is that Stalin was willing to expend pretty much every Russian in order to beat Hitler. I read a lot more about Stalin's early mistakes than about him wising up later.

Another impression I got - some of which has been floated in this thread - is that the Russians were gaining ground up to spring 1944 and that, post Stalingrad and Kursk, the Nazis didn't have the men to keep the Russians at bay.

42 True dat. But the Turkey shoot was the coup de grace for the naval air wing for the IJN. The IJN still had carriers but hardly any pilots after that battle. Posted by: YIKES! at June 04, 2011 05:35 PM (sdRJs) Yup. My dad was in the Pacific-Iwo Jima. And I want to thank Dave in Texas for reminding me about the Midway Anniversary. We were so busy to day here on the Sub Base it was not mentioned. But tonight we are having a send off for one of our Corpsmen who is deploying for her 2 holiday in Afganistan, so I am sure we will lift a few to Midway also

43 Stalin was willing to expend pretty much every Russian in order to beat Hitler. I read a lot more about Stalin's early mistakes than about him wising up later. Another impression I got - some of which has been floated in this thread - is that the Russians were gaining ground up to spring 1944 and that, post Stalingrad and Kursk, the Nazis didn't have the men to keep the Russians at bay. Posted by: Zimriel at June 04, 2011 05:37 PM (Vh7aI) Pretty much accurate, but the Russians had some good Generals and some great Equipment. Their tank the T-34 was a great tank for it's time. It introduced slanted protective armor. The Russians also built a shit load of artillary and also some pretty decent Planes

44 Posted by: Zimriel at June 04, 2011 05:37 PM (Vh7aI)

Once the Russians started Operation Bargration, they weren't stopping till they got to the Reichstag.

45 Hitler couldn't win a full scale war in Russia. With that in mind, the decisive battle of World War II as where ever the front line was six weeks after the beginning of Barbarossa, around the city of Smolensk.

As Hitler hadn't executed Stalin by then (or encircled 40-60 million Russians in Moscow and Leningrad by then), only the stupidity of his enemies could have postponed the inevitable decision. The broken timetable resulted in the aftermath, the battles around Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk.

The Japanese timetable indeed did not outlast the Battle of Midway. But there was always a chance, peculiar to sea power, of a spectacular naval victory over a superior fleet, even after Midway, as at the Solomons, Leyte, (where is Task Force 34 the world wonders).

The IJN survived to restrict the movement of the USN. The decisive battle of the Pacific War is the capture of the Marianas Islands, the Japanese knew this, allowing LeMay to inaugurate low-level bombing using incendiary, later atomic weapons.

46 Should you visit the Carolina Inn at UNC  Chapel Hill you will be rewarded with a picture of LT. Henry Fitts US Army.
Resplendent with the Silver Star awarded for bombing and sinking a Japanese aircraft carrier during the battle of Midway. Almost 70 years have passed and generations of tarholes have walked past this picture and taken it for gospel.
Everlasting shame on the the Inn.

47 At Midway, one of the more heroic if heartbreaking efforts was by Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT- of the U.S.S. Hornet. They were equipped with the hopelessly obsolete Devastator torpedo bomber, which was slow and ungainly.

The entire squadron of 15 Devastators was shot down on June 4, 1942, when making a torpedo run on Japanese carriers. VT-8 attacked even though the squadron had no fighter cover. The men knew they wouldn't live through the mission but carried it out anyway.

Of the 30 men in VT-8, only one--Ensign George H. Gay, Jr.--survived. He carried out his torpedo run wounded and was shot down by five Japanese Zeros. After splashing down he held a seat cushion on his head to disguise himself as floating debris, since the Japanese relentlessly strafed the area trying to kill him.

Gay spent 30 hours in the water and witnessed the sinking of three Japanese carriers by American dive bombers. He was rescued by a PBY, survived the war, and flew airliners for 30 years. After his death in 1994, he was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific at the site where VT-8 was destroyed.

48 The Marianas was a kick to the ribs of a guy who's already on hands and knees from previous blows.  Midway was the axe handle to the forhead that stunned him & enabled you to give him that kick.

49

Let's not forget:

 - El Alamein, leading up to the surrender in Tunisia; about 250,000 mostly German troops that could have been extremely useful anywhere else, .. like in Russia.

 - the UK/US bombing of the Reich, which eventully tied up perhaps 1,000,000 German troops and many aircraft, and hurt German industrial production badly. Recalculate German tank and aircraft production without the losses to bombing ... things look real grim for the Soviets.

Kursk is the end of the German ownership of the strategic initiative.  depending on which source you read, the Wehrmacht lost too many men and tanks / was able to recover most of the tank losses / etc., etc., but the fact is that starting August 1943, the Soviets held the strategic initiative.  It was then simply a question of when and how the Nazi regieme would end.

50 The War of the Rats is a great ficitionanlization of the sniper war during Stalingrad

51 The American Navy knew the Japanese fleet was coming, but the Pacific ocean is huge, and they  did not know exactly where, so obviously they had picket submarines out scouting.  I think it was the Nautilus which heard a huge fleet coming and surfaced exactly dead center in the formation of Japanese capital ships, literally in the box of 4 carriers.  The sub quickly fires a few torpedoes and dives.  All miss.  The Japanese dispatch a cruiser to depth bomb the crap out of the sub, while they steam on full speed.    The entire outcome of the battle   rested on this small skirmish.  When the main action is joined, virtually all the first wave of American carrier planes are wiped out, the old, slow torpedo planes.  The second wave, the dive bombers, are on the way, but really do not have an exact fix on the fleet.  They show up at the site of the Nautilus's brief attack, in patchy overcast. and can not spot the Japanese fleet.  Fuel is running low, no time to look around.  Thru the clouds, one flyer sights a very faint track left by the wake of the cruiser which leads like a hiway to the Japanerse fleet.  The dive bombers get there at just exactly the right time, with the  Japanese planes almost all on the deck, being re-fueled and armed.   Three carriers were sunk and one damaged in the next 15 minutes, the last one knocked off later.  The dive bombers had only  a few minutes of look time before they would have had to return to their carriers.  

52

... not, of course to minimize the importance of Midway, Guadalcanal, Stalingrad, ... and every other battle or action in WW2.

  Midway, Guadalcanal. Stalingrad and El Alamein mark the turning points in WW2.

53

"What if the Russians would have had crossbows, and the Germans had longbows?"

 

I damned near got banned a few years back for a similar comment.  The circumstances were unique, though.

54

DinT:

Nice post.  My middle child has this date as a birthday.  And a nice shout out for George Gay upthread.  He had a most interesting (and unenviable) location from which to witness history.

55

CDR John Thach, piloting an escorting fighter:

 

"I was utterly convinced that we weren't any of us coming back because there were still so many Zeros.... And then I saw a glint in the sun that looked like a beautiful silver waterfall. It was the dive-bombers coming in."

56

Great post and great comments. 

I actually make a point each time this year of visiting some monument (many of them to WWII in San Diego area) and usually bring up Midway in conversation with people. 

I highly recommend Shattered Sword - The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Parshall and Tully.  I actually am going to re-read it starting tonight - read it when it first came out a few years ago.  From memory, the key points mostly concerned a new understanding of the Japanese side, which had long been based mainly on  Japanese officer Mitsuo Fuchida's account.  The book goes back to basics, developing an understanding of Japanese carrier operations, and I believe using such info as flight ops logs from the Akagi, to come to some significant conclusions at variance with Fuchida's version (Midway:  The Battle That Doomed Japan). For example, it is very unlikely that the Japanese carrier decks were crowded with armed strike planes at the time of the attack - the surviving records and the operational rhythm of these ships in air operations indicate that all the Japanese carriers were in waiting mode, having been prevented from spotting an attack force on the flight deck for hours by the various heroic US torpedo attacks.

I believe the authors also got more detail that merely added to the "miracle" aspect of the US success.  I recall that one SBD squadron leader and two planes of his unit just hesitating before pushing over to dive on Kaga, as another entire squadron was attacking her.  They moved on to Akagi, where only one bomb found its mark - enough to set the carrier afire and doom her. 

Another Pacific theater book I highly recommend is Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by Hornfischer.  Compelling account of the - truly - most amazing US stories in WWII, the heroics of Taffy 3 at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. 

To join in the whining regarding movies - why the Leyte story has not been made into a quality film is beyond comprehension.  A stone-cold literal telling of the tale would be better than the best fiction.  Same goes for Midway - and I think that story hugely deserves a modern re-make, taking advantage both the huge advances in special effects and the better understanding of the battle as noted in the book above.

I dunno, is Latrell's Lone Survivor being made into a movie?  Another better-than-fiction tale, this time from today's wars.

Ditto to the commenter above who slammed Eastwood's film versions of Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima.  Considering the yawning gulf that separates the power and insight of the books from the movies, and what an inexcusable wasted opportunity this represents, I like to call these films the last two atrocities of the Pacific War.  Of course who knows what happened with the Flags author - his next book started with a bizarre and absurd lecture in moral equivalence apparently aimed at softening the impact of the Japanese brutality documented later in the book.  My theory is that Bradley's personal social environment exacted a price on him for Flags, which was an extremely powerful and unassailable positive recounting of America in WWII, and the first ridiculous 70 pages of Flyboys was his penance .....

57

As noted above, the Shattered Sword nearly completely revises the conventional thinking about Midway. Almost everything we thought was true about it turned out to be false.

For example: the Japanese carriers were not filled with planes and bombs on their decks. Nearly all of their aircraft - with the exception of a few CAP fighers - were still below deck. 

Second, nearly all of the best Japanese aviators escaped the battle. Very few were killed. However, the Japanese lost a large number of their best engineers and mechanics who went down with the carriers.

The authors also discovered that the Japanese fighter aircraft -while superior to the US only had 50 rounds of ammunition to use, or 2 quick 3-second bursts. After using that up, they had to land and be re-supplied. This forced the Japanese to continually land and re-supply their CAP aircraft.

Most important of all, the authors show that the US victory at Midway wasn't luck.

 

58 IMO, Midway put the Japanese on the defensive. After that, it was up to us to determine the tempo of the Pacific fighting, which allowed us to provide the resources for "Germany First".

59

One other interesting point revealed in Shattered Sword was that all Japanese carriers had enclosed hangars. Since most of them were converted battleships, they weren't able to open up the hangars.

But US carriers had the capability of opening up the hangars.

Since it took about 20-25 minutes to warm up the engines of the planes, American carriers were able to get their planes ready while still stored below since they could open up the hangars. They didn't need to bring them to the deck and then start the engines up.

The Japanese, however, had to laboriously bring up each plane to the deck, start them up and run them for the 20 or so minutes to get ready to take off.

This was just one more advantage that US carriers had over the Japanese.

Of course it didn't matter anyway since the Japanese never were able to get their attack aircraft on the decks. They were too busy fighting off attacks from the bombers stationed at Midway and the carrier-based aircraft.

As the authors of the book argue, it wasn't luck that led to the US victory. It was tactics and technology and planning.

60

AreopagiticaCelebrates, thanks for adding those key points from Shattered Sword.  I had meant to respond to the several comments earlier that Midway had cost Japan most of its best pilots - in fact, however paradoxical, this was not one of the results.

On a related point, another commenter earlier had noted that Japan still had carriers towards the end of the war, but few (well trained) pilots.  One chief reason for this was Japan's system of not returning its better pilots home to train others - the opposite of the US system, which succeeded in producing ever greater numbers of pilots operating with an expanding base of lessons learned from others.  Part of this was neccessity - they simply didn't have the numbers to take their best people off the line, esp. once the US pressure became unrelenting.  Part probably was bushido code - warriors served at the tip of the spear, not training others.

Another Japanese carrier aviation quirk that brings us back to Midway - Japanese carriers and air wings trained and operated always as a unit, helping them make among the best carrier force in history, but imposing a key limitation.  At the Battle of the Coral Sea, Shokaku received bomb damage and required repair, whereas Zuikaku was unscathed, but its air wing suffered heavy losses. The US would have swapped air wing and carrier and had one more carrier available, but Japan didn't do this sort of thing.  Result: both carriers were dropped from Yamamoto's order of battle for Midway - what might one more fleet carrier (nearly the full Dai Ichi Kido Butai, or First Strike Force) have meant for Japan at Midway?

 

61

My neighbor growing up was the widow of a torpedo plane pilot lost at Midway.  She was a remarkable lady, and had remarried to another man, who was also a hero in his own right.  When I was old enough to appreciate history and the sacrifices made for me before I was born, it really gave me a remarkable insight into how extraordinary ordinary people can be.

62

Non-purist: Thanks and thanks for that additional information.

I read Shattered about 2 years ago and was stunned at what they uncovered. It really does turn much of Midway on its head.

What is fascinating though, as they pointed out in the book, a number of our dive bombers had cameras on them that took pictures of the Japanese carriers being bombed. If you look closely at some of the available photos you can see that the decks were empty. No attack aircraft at all. No bombs. No fuel lines.

Mitsuo Fuchida's book - he was as you know the lead pilot at Pearl Harbor - really did give out a lot of misinformation. Ironic that he later became a US citizen and converted to Christianity.

63

Yes - in fact, I believe Fuchida was the one tasked with giving the "tora tora tora" signal, signifying the first wave had achieved complete surprise at Pearl.  I knew about the conversion to Christianity - didn't know about the citizenship change.  Wow.

You referred to Japanese carrier design features in your first comment - one other huge difference in the two navies, which grew as the war went on, was in damage control.  US Navy damage control became nearly unbelievable as the years passed - by Okinawa (by far the greatest losses and damage the USN has ever seen), the US was working miracles several times a day saving ships ravaged by kamikaze attacks.  At Midway, as evidenced by Lt. Dick Best's single killer shot to the Akagi, the Japanese carriers proved very "soft".

Thanks for your comments - and again thanks to Dave in Texas for the post.  And all ye morons with an interest in Midway - get thee to a bookstore/website and get Shattered Sword.

64

 And all ye morons with an interest in Midway - get thee to a bookstore/website and get Shattered Sword.

Yes, even though we gave away the best parts of it <g>. Another hint: the good guys win at the end.

Here's a link for the book online: Shattered Sword.

65 Good info all. I didn't know that many/most of Japan's "best" navy pilots weren't eradicated that day. "Shattered Sword", another book I'll have to check out. But ditto to everything non-purist said re "Tin Cans"/ Taffy 3 @ Leyte, no (4?, 6?, 8? hour) movie

A salute as well to those Doolittle Raiders- don't recall if it was remembered here back around the 18th of April, who put Japan on the rush to "AF".

Also the supposed "Midway diversion" into the Aleutians.
June 4th, 1942- also the date Koga crash landed on Akutan and his Zero would be recovered about a month later and it's strengths and weaknesses would be further discovered esp aileron effectiveness in turning to the right in a dive above 200 knots.

66 Non purist, thanks for the comments. Fact of the matter is, even the most neutral tales about soldiers and heroism are being nixed by hollywood. They turned down the option to make Horse Soldiers (about special forces taking Kandahar with a cavalry style charge) because the iraq war was going on and it would have been called propaganda by liberals.

I'm just a lowly internet commentator, but I think the best way to reconnect the american public and especially men (who play a lot of video games rather than watch weepy soldier dramas) with the military and patriotism is through video games, comic books and CG movies that are pro-USA.

67

HELL-DIVERS!--Surprised Jap at Midway.

Apparently Wouk got some things wrong, as made clear in the thread. but you can't beat his pure America-love in his account of Midway: "It was a perfect coordinated attack.It was timed almost to the second. It was a freak accident. . .

"What was not luck, but the soul of the United States of America in action, was this willingness of the torpedo plane squadrons to go in against hopeless odds. This was the extra ounce of martial weight that in a few decisive minutes turned the balance of history. . ." 

I blubber every time I read that, and I've read it roughly 5000 times.

 

 

 

68

Also the supposed "Midway diversion" into the Aleutians.

Shattered Sword (I get 10% of every sale <g>, just kidding) also goes into this as well. According to their findings - although other historians have also discovered this - this "diversion" really wasn't designed to be one; it was intended to be a separate operation and a deliberate or serious attack on the Aleutians.

Which, of course, made no sense since it meant Yamamoto was splitting up his forces, something that made no military sense - e.g., What was the objective? Midway? The Aleutians? Why both?

 

69 This is an excellent post. It is very informative. Thank you so much. I'll be a regular viewer. Replica Handbags wholesale lingerie

70

Is this officially a "dead thread" by now?  Have never known exactly how that's determined.

Oh well - mick, thanks for bringing up the Aleutians/captured Zero.  Continuing the stream-of-consciousness style commenting, you are exactly right.  The Zero picked up off the mud of that Aleutian island - with limited damage - was carted off to San Diego's North Island Naval Air Station, where the USN flew it and explored its limitations - among which the one you noted, the reduced responsiveness to a right turn in a dive (result of engine-induced torque, no?). 

And thanks for one more thing - one of my favorite least known aspects of the Pacific War - that Midway itself was a direct consequence of the Doolittle raid.  The chain is fascinating, and (it seems) not often appreciated - Coral Sea reduced Dai Ichi Kido Butai by one carrier; the Doolittle raid forced the high command's hand, allowing Yamamoto his last chance to draw out and destroy the US carrier force; he took his reduced force to ultimate destruction, while the Aleutian operation resulted in the capture of the Zero and a big assist to the remarkably successful efforts by USN pilots to compete in their Wildcats against the generally superior Zero.

With that, on a perfect sunny day, I'm heading down to Pt Loma/Ft. Rosecrans cemetery to enjoy the view, which includes a commanding one of NAS North Island - from where the Lexington rushed off to its destruction at Coral Sea, and where Thach and others studied the captured zero and invented their ingenious tactics for battling the tremendously effective pilots of the IJN.

 

 

71

I'll never understand why Yamamoto after Pearl - where he combined all of his forces in a spectacular victory - decided at Midway to split them up.

The Aleutian campaign makes no sense at all. If he failed at Midway, the Aleutian campaign meant nothing. It was Midway or nothing else.

Wouldn't have mattered, I think. Once Spruance found the Japanese carriers and was able to launch first, the die was cast.

 

72 Simple rundown of the battle, the low level dive bombers sacrificed themselves against Japanese air defenses. The japanese lowered their combat air patrol, and some lucky breaks for the americans helped the SBD pilots dive bomb into history. Everyone should know the history of Midway.

Posted by: jules at June 04, 2011 04:46 PM (P7Hj2)

This is correct-but it was Jimmy Thatch(inventor of the "Thatch Weave")'s squadron of Wildcats off Yorktown that kept the zeros on the deck after they came down to slaughter the Devastators. Yorktown was the only carrier to get it's strike over the Japanese fleet intact, and without those Wildcats tying down the Zeros, they very possibly might have had time to climb and disrupt Leslie and McClusky's attacks (and contrary to what you usually read, it was Leslie and VB-3 that got Kaga, not McClusky and VB-6. Fascinating stuff, history)

Torpedo  Squadron 8 of the Yorktown, died to all but the last man on that day. They got separated from the F4 Wildcats and SBD Dauntless dive bombers and came in alone to attack the Japanese. Ensign George Gay was the only survivor

Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes... at June 04, 2011 05:09 PM (sJTmU)

VT-8 flew off of Hornet, not Yorktown.

73 I have the movie MIDWAY on DVD has CHAERLTON HESTON and EDDIE ALBERT as well as HENRY FONDA and TISHIRO MAFUNI the great air combat sciens espcialy when the SBD davebombers attack the japanses carriers and in the BATTLE OF MIDWAY we sunk four of the six carriers that luanched at PEARL HARBOR and it was the turning point in the pacifuc theater

74 I never know when threads die. I'll check back from time to time on this one.

Non-purist, it was either the torque of the engine or the prop itself and heavy ailerons at higher speed. I am a little over halfway through "Whistling Death" by the F4U Corsair test pilot Boone Guyton. He goes into detail how Vought had him test a bunch of combination of aileron set ups until just the right balance was achieved to give it a fast roll rate at extremely high speeds without too much difficulty for the pilot. Those Zeros were lightweight fighters though so the torque of the radial has to come more into play.

And just to show how "prepared" we were for ww2, Koga's Zero had a licensed copy of our own Hamilton Standard propeller on it. When his got all bent up in the crash landing, (his plane flipped and he broke his neck in the landing) Hamilton Standard had replacement ones that allowed it to fly for those performance tests and mock fighting.

And Doolittle went on to unleash Mustangs from pure escort to attacking Luftwaffe fighters when he joined the 8th AF, making them truly offensive fighters.

AreopagiticaCelebrates, I am not sure why they would do that. It might go back to Doolittle as well- if it is true that they suspected he might have launched from there and were worried about future attempts.

As for major battles, I came across a USAAF Historian's paper about how it was important here in the States that Britain's defeat of the Luftwaffe in the skies over and beyond those White Cliffs  helped America get over it's isolationist feelings (America loves a winner) and support their effort more. So the Battle of Britain is very important.

Would have posted something about 6 hours ago but got too busy.

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76 And...here's a Power Metal Tribute to Midway by Sabaton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyhZvkmwWtI \m/