Battle of Midway, 1942 (video in color) - Fantastic

notoriouslyconservative.com ^ | 05 18 09 | Notoriously Conservative

[GATOR NAVY]

Shattered Sword is a new, definitive account of the Battle of Midway, focusing primarily (but by no means exclusively) on the Japanese side of the battle. Throughout the book, the authors make extensive usage of new Japanese primary and secondary sources that have not been utilized in prior studies. These include the official Japanese War History series (Senshi Sosho), the translated carrier air group action reports of the four Japanese carriers involved in the battle, the comprehensive Japanese casualty figures found in Sawachi Hisae's groundbreaking volume on the battle (Midowei Kaisen Kiroku), and many others. The result is an account that is grounded less on first-hand personal accounts (although these are found in plenty as well), and more on concrete operational data. This shift in focus has led to many important, and potentially provocative, re-interpretations of the conventional wisdom on the battle.

Shattered Sword

It's an excellent read. Be sure to check out the introduction at the link above. It explains the book in much more detail.

[Pistolshot]

Re-interpretations?

Not sure what they can do to change the loss of 4 carriers, or the facts that the planning was not as stringent as for Pearl.

The Japanese made a LOT of mistakes from the begining, the lack of more scouting of Pearl, or of the area in front of the fleet. The lack of training the fliers, no flexibility for the orders given, especially if the U.S. fleet arrived earlier rather than later.

Had the Japanese planned the Midway campaign based on intelligence reports, instead of guessing, it might have been a totally different outcome.

But the Japanese did make mistakes, by not having half the fleet armed for ship to ship attack, the time needed to rearm was too long, enabling U.S aircraft to catch them flat-footed. By concentrating the carriers together instead of spread out, made them even easier targets. Hiryu falling behind in recovering aircraft is a good example of that. Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu were too close in formation and too easy a target. Had the fleet turned South instead of NE, the American forces would have missed them altogether.

So many things that make up winners and losers. In our case, God, dumb luck, the Great Pumpkin or whatever gave the American fleet a break.

[Little Ray]

The Corsair was in development and the Lightning was deployed before the US had an example of a Zero to play with. Both were excellent Zero killers. There is some truth that the F6F was designed to pit its strength’s against the Zero’s weaknesses.
However, well before the Hellcat or Corsair became available, American aviators had developed tactics to deal with Zero, like the “Thach Weave.” They fighting on even terms or better using Wildcats and P-40s. By the time the Corsairs and Hellcats became available in large numbers, the balance had already tilted in favor of the Allies.

A good book on this is Fire In The Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific by Eric M Bergerud.

[RinaseaofDs]

Many thanks. We wrote it using their information.

Has any Japanese historian written about Midway? We’ve written plenty about Pearl, Viet Nam, and all kinds of tactical or strategic defeats - and pretty critically.

I’m starting to see more Japanese write about Unit 731.

[GATOR NAVY]

Read the Introduction at the link provided before you rush to attach a negative connotation to “re-interpretations”.

[21twelve]

I recall some movie where I think it was Midway where they didn’t know WHAT island the Japs were attacking because of the code. The Americans then put out a false report of “water pump is broken on Midway...” (or something), and heard the Jap’s radio chatter regarding it and figured out it was Midway.

Although I seem to recall that part was historically accurate.

[pfflier]

Regardless, his is an incredible story. He floated with a seat cushion over his head, while watching 3 carriers sunk.

There are unsubstantiated accounts that the IJN picked up American survivors then executed them.

[tanknetter]

The Hellcat, as designed and built with this knowledge, had an armored tub for the pilot, as all U.S. aircraft, self sealing tanks, and a speed to weight ratio twice that of the Zero. It also had 6 .50 Browning mg's in the wings. It was faster, as manueverable, better at all altitudes.

The prototype Hellcat took to the air on June 26, 1942, only 20 days after Midway. Design/engineering and construction had been going on long before that and the Hellcat is properly seen as a significant evolution of the F4F. The captured A6M was used to verify the Hellcat's capabilities and make some improvements. Also to validate the tactics best suited to give the Hellcat maximum advantage over the Zero.

[tanknetter]

There are unsubstantiated accounts that the IJN picked up American survivors then executed them.

I don't think those are unsubstantiated. I've read that the crew members of the retreating Japanese ships that did pick up downed US fliers weren't exactly shy when it came to bragging about how they beat and tortured (we ain't taking waterboarding here, either), then tied them to pieces of scrap metal and dumped them overboard.

[pfflier]

That’s the version I read but I can’t find anything substantial when I search for it.