They did the impossible!
Posted on 06/04/2007 2:29:23 AM PDT by Zakeet
The Battle of Midway was a pivotal naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It took place from June 4 to June 7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, about five months after the Japanese capture of Wake Island, and six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor that had led to a formal state of war between the United States and Japan. During the battle, the United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll (located northwest of Hawaii) and destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser while losing a carrier and a destroyer.
The battle was a crushing defeat for the Japanese and is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of World War II. The battle permanently weakened the Japanese Navy, particularly through the loss of over 200 naval aviators. Strategically, the U.S. Navy was able to seize the initiative in the Pacific and go on the offensive.
Much more information about this decisive battle can be found HERE and HERE.
They did the impossible!
Losing four carriers was a blow that sent Imperial Navy reeling. That WAS the turning point.
The demorats and their media toadies would have sold this to us a great failure today.
Murtha would be bemoaning the loss of 307 men in one week for “a handful of Jap rust-buckets”.
You’re right about that. “Was the carrier Yorktown lost due to incompetence or overreaching?” would have been the lead editorial of the New York Slimes.
“Four Japanese Carriers Sunk - Overkill or Racism in Action” screams the Washington Post.
Thank G-d for our brave military - they made it possible for me to be able to write this!
Bravery made this one possible, but the most major factor involved was a victory in the realm of information and code breaking. Americans had the edge in information, the Japanese had every other kind of edge in this battle; the info edge trumped all the rest of it.
Yep, the headline, if written by today's standards would state:
U.S. loses carrier and a destroyer in battle. Democrats demand Congressional investigation.
Thanks for the Day in History reminder...love these post!
God Bless the USN and Aviators....and God Bless the USA
Frank Jack Fletcher would have backed them up with a quote.
The Democrats in Congress would never have sent the U.S. fleet to Midway to begin with. They would have said it was too provocative.
Let’s all take a moment to remember CDR Waldron and the valiant men of Torpedo 8...
The United States Navy suffered another blow in its attempt to stem the Japanese juggernaut ravaging the Pacific Ocean. Midway Island, perhaps the most vital U.S. outpost, was pummeled by Japanese Naval aviators. The defending U.S. forces, consisting primarily of antique Buffalo fighters, were competely wiped out while the Japanese attackers suffered few, if any, losses.
In a nearby naval confrontation, the Japanese successfully attacked the Yorktown which was later sunk by a Japanese submarine. A destroyer lashed to the Yorktown was also sunk.
American forces claim to have sunk four Japanese carriers and the cruiser Mogami but those claims were vehemently denied by the Emporer's spokeman.
The American carriers lost an entire squadron of torpedo planes when they failed to link up with fighter escorts. The dive bombers had fighter escort even though they weren't engaged by enemy fighters. The War Dept. refused to answer when asked why the fighters were assigned to the wrong attack groups. The Hornet lost a large number of planes when they couldn't locate the enemy task force. Despite this cavalcade of errors, Admirals Fletcher and Spruance have not been removed.
Lofton Henderson...
Imperial Navy Pilots Doomed by Sinkings
US Guilty of War Crimes?
Or, more likely, the NY Slimes or the Washington Compost would have leaked the battle plan....
The “Sleeping Giant” knocked their socks off.As they japs were withdrawing from midway they knew it was over.The rest of the war was mopping up and included the most brutal fighting of the war.We were justified in nuking them in ‘45.The Greatest Generation.
Red Parks and the heroes of VMF-221.
Spruance, you magnificant bastard!
Not really. The US victory is far too often attributed to luck, "a miracle" or solely to intelligence. Frankly, we won because we were, overall, better.
Anyone with any interest in the battle should read "Shattered Sword" the recent book based largely on new research into Japanese sources.
There actually were about equal numbers of aircraft on both sides (our CVs carried more planes), and there were fundamental, egregious flaws in Japanese CAP techniques and damage control. While the Japanese pilots were the most thourougly trainedi in the world and many had combat experience, the gap between them and the USN pilots is often greatly exagerrated(same goes for aircraft,the Zero often gets overrated.)
Yeah... in the bag. /s
From (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-8c.htm) recount of Lt. George Gay, the sole survivor from Topedo 8:
“I might just as well start down. Well, Torpedo 8 had a difficult problem, we had old planes and we were new in the organization. We had a dual job of not only training a squadron of boot [inexperienced] Ensigns, of which I was one of course, we also had to fight the war at the same time, and when we finally got up to the Battle of Midway it was the FIRST time I had ever carried a torpedo on an aircraft and was the first time I had ever had taken a torpedo off of a ship, had never even seen it done. None of the other Ensigns in the squadron had either.
Quite a few of us were a little bit skeptical and leery but we’d seen [Lieutenant Colonel James H.] Doolittle [USA] and his boys when they hadn’t even seen a carrier before and they took the B-25s [twin-engine “Mitchell” bombers] off, we figured by golly if they could do it, well we could too. It turned out the TBD [Douglas “Devastator” Torpedo Bomber] could pick up the weight, so it was easy. We learned everything that we knew about Japanese tactics and our own tactics from Commander Waldron and Lt. Moore and Lieutenant Owens as they gave it to us on the blackboards and in talks and lectures. We had school everyday and although we didn’t like it at the time, it turned out that was the only way in the world we could learn the things we had to know, and we exercised on the flight deck, did all kinds of things that we’d have to do artificially because we couldn’t do our flying most of the time.
In the Coral Sea Battle we tried to get there and missed out on most of it but we were able along about that time to get in some bombing practice and to do some submarine patrol. However, the squadron didn’t get to fly near as much as we should have. In the actual battle do you want me to say anything about the actual Battle at Midway and what we had there?
I am not too familiar with the critiques of the battle. Is it generally thought that Torpedo 8, being an inexperienced unit with obsolete equipment, was sacrificed in order to get the Japanese air cover out of position and at low altitude?
That was just happenstance. The torpedo planes & dive bombers were supposed to coordinate their attacks, but got separated.
Here is a podcast on the Battle of Midway that you might enjoy.
In their honor, write it like this:
Thank God for our brave military - they made it possible for me to be able to write this!
Remember the US Aviator who went down and watched the whole battle while floating in the water? Lt. Gay, if my memory serves me well.
I believe you are correct! I remember his story in the movie.
Post or FReepmail me if you wish to be enlisted in or discharged from the Navair Pinglist.
This is a medium volume pinglist.
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Thank GOD for my loving World War II Mother EVELYN’s getting ready to give birth to me 65 years ago today, as the Japanese were just’a headin her way to America’s West Coast.
Yes, Sir ..ALOHA RONNIE was blessed to thankfully arrive on scene on June 10, 1942 to a still Free United States of America because of the heroism of many at the Battle of Midway.
I have recently met and personally thanked a surviving Midway Island Veteran Pilot who was fighting against Japanese Fleet offshore on June 4th & 5th, 1942. To end his last mission, he landed dead stick on a Midway Island airstrip ..completely out of gas.
And here we come together 65 years later to share our mutual stories.
Miracles do indeed seem to happen in some very loving ways..?
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"Shattered Sword" is a very good read. I highly recommend it.
That's not what he said. What is true is that the US Navy wasn't quite the underdog coming into the battle that's always been portrayed.
And that doesn't demean the men who fought the battle and won a great victory in any way.
How so?
There also would have been a constant reporting of the number of American casualties, proclaimed like a sports score, that the leftist media has played incessantly since the Viet Nam war, and continues to this day with Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t expect the media not to report our losses, but the incessant reporting of troop deaths, over and over and over again, and the gleeful trumpeting of milestone troop deaths (such as the 3,000th soldier killed in Iraq) makes me filled with rage and anger at our useless and sycophantic mass media.
And, is our “real world” training and simulation now (under all the limits of “safety” and OSHA and bureaucracy) reveal the problems that real war (not a phony politician’s “war” and ROE under the democrat’s media’s eye of reality TV)?
It’s better now: but under Carter? Under Clinton (again?) will we be training effectively?
Thats a bunch of crap.Id like to have someone tell me that face to face.I would “straighten” that ill informed person out.
Depending on which version of the historical record you believe, she either fired a full spread of topedoes that detonated against the carrier Soryu or didn't detonate against Kaga.
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