Posted on 12/01/2019 3:22:05 PM PST by Retain Mike
Agreed.
It’s still pretty amazing that the Bismarck was basically taken out because of lucky rudder hit from a torpedo from a Fairey Swordfish, which was basically WWI aircraft technology. Not to mention their success at Taranto, which influenced the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The knowledge and personal experiences of all y’all is amazing.
thank you !
But then look what happened to the Swordfish and the rest of the Fleet Air Arm craft in the Channel Dash. A lot of the Swordfish drivers that successfully attacked the Bismarck got made very messily dead by the Kriegsmarine.
I remember how thankful we were to return to Yokosuka and have the Japanese yard workers swarm over our ship. Many of those who helped build the Imperial Japanese Navy that attacked Pearl Harbor were in charge of the shops that did exquisite work repairing our ship before we headed to Vietnam again. The piers, cranes, drydocks, and shops were never bombed, because the U.S. Navy had determined to homeport the 7th Fleet there.
You are welcome. With the movie making the rounds, I plan to post it again in a couple weeks.
“And I Was There” was a references I forgot to list. Another great book to read is “The Codebreakers” by David Kahn. I decided I had to have it after visiting the NSA museum in DC. A copy was on exhibit by itself. I paid $40 for my copy and then found another at St. Vincent DePaul for $3 to give to my son.
The new Midway movie is good and seems to follow the history in the definitive book on Midway “Shattered Sword”.
The movie prompted me to reread the book. I am just about to get to the place where the actual battle begins.
My criticism of the movie has to do with what I consider very excessive antiaircraft fire. There is footage made during the actual battle that clearly shows the lack of AA and certainly no where near the rate depicted in the new movie.
One of the factors noted in Shattered Sword is the Japanese battle doctrine of attack, attack, attack with overwhelming force. The result of that doctrine was vessels lacking enough antiaircraft capability and un armored zeros that got pilots killed.
The computer graphics guys making the movie let the AA get out of hand to make the movie more exciting
Ditto. You could almost make out the edge of the bathtub it was filmed in.
They used a lot of footage from Tora, Tora, Tora, in the 76 Midway movie.
I don’t think the movie was that bad but the sub plot was poorly done. It just seemed stupid rather than believable.
I thought so, too, but I believe I have it right.
The British really wanted to be sure we were as involved as possible in the Atlantic.
The British were also quite concerned with Singapore.
I always wondered what the Japanese Navy did after Pearl Harbor?
They sailed into the Indian Ocean and scared Churchill something fierce.
Pretty sure you’re wrong. The closest thing to it was the Arcadia Conference of December 22, 1941 to January 14, 1942. The upshot of that with regards to what we’re discussing is that we agreed to base US bombers in England for multiple uses including maritime patrol and the British agreed to strengthen/reinforce their forces in the Pacific. It also agreed that Germany would be the priority and set a limit on forces of all nations that would be committed to the Pacific. That last kind of went out the window as the U-Boat threat diminished with the closure of the air gap, the Kriegsmarine was steadily converted into an interesting series of artificial reefs for sealife conservation, and the naval forces committed to Europe ran out of things to do.
A lot of that in turn can be traced back to the RFP that created the A6M. The A6M was the result of a government requirement for a new carrier fighter possessing performance specifications that were conventionally unachievable in a normal balanced design. They wanted long range, high speed, fast climb, high maneuverability and 20mm cannon armament. Most of the Japanese aircraft industry took a look at the requirements and noped out of it. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries looked at the specs and realized that they could actually meet all of them if they made the plane as light as possible. They literally were shaving every ounce they could off the aircraft to meet the requirements - and besides the deletion of self-sealing fuel tanks and pilot-protecting armor, the ignition wires had only just enough metal shielding to prevent crosstalk in the quest to save weight - which is where the interference with the radios came in. The radios, as noted in the prior link, were specially made to be as lightweight as possible (no shielding) as well, so that didn’t help either.
This is why the Japanese had serious problems trying to counter US aerial tactics like the Thatch Weave (they never really did come up with a solid counter to it) and they never were really able to implement the Weave in their own air forces. The Weave required either personnel who had trained with each other to the point where they were almost telepathic - or working radios. At Midway, the Japanese lost most of their hardened combat vet pilots that could do the former so they had an uphill struggle to implement that.
The closest they came to a good counter was using energy conservation tactics, barrel rolls and constant, radical yawing/slipping to try to exploit their airspeed advantage. They also tried to go for the altitude advantage at all times (as did most pilots) but it was more like an obsession with the Japanese, particularly post Midway. The Zero had maximum advantage over any other type in a diving attack, particularly in the late war when the heavy, armored American fighters had so many performance upgrades they were easily able to pace the Zero. The Japanese did change from their three-aircraft formations to use a US style fingers four or 2+2 minimum formation, but by the time that became common for the Japanese, US equipment and training upgrades were coming fast and furious - and US pilots knew how to exploit the disadvantages of fingers four, high-low and 2+2.
Related reading - a transcribed and annotated lecture from one of the few veteran Zero pilots that survived the war. He comments about the poor radio performance and the fact that they couldn’t change frequencies in flight unlike American radios: http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/naoaki_ooishi/My_Aviation_Experience.pdf
Great to hear about your experiences in Japan and the Philippines.
Another good book I recently heard on Audio CD was Bill O’Reilly’s Killing the Rising Sun, which focuses on the last year and a half of bloody battles between the US and Japan.
O’Reilly and his co-author go through the horros of Battle of Peleliu and Okinawa and the butchery and rapes of the Japanese in the Philippines were discussed as well.
By the you got to history of the A-Bomb you knew it was absolutely the right decision for Americans and Japanese.
Highly recommend that book. I just love the Audio CD format because I can listen to it in the car and kill dead time on my commute.
Were they all supposed to go after the first targets?
Clearer orders to them (“Half go after the Torpedo planes the other half go after dive bombers.”) might have made a big difference.
Indubitably “clearer” orders might have made a big difference - but what you are suggesting is more like prescient orders - orders based on a knowledge of the composition of the American naval air attack and the effectiveness of their own defenses. You can only attack what you know its there, with the forces you have.In retrospect half the zeroes would have been adequate to get the torpedo bombers, and in retrospect a lot of dive bombers showed up when all the Zeroes had been sucked down to attack the torpedo bombers.
Glad you also had a good experience with the later generation of Japanese.
Thanks for again for the great post and reference guide. I'm doing much of my independent writing work at the UGA library where they have a fantastic collection of military history books. Surprised they even allow me to take the books out of the library -- I'm not even an alumnus. Great deal.
Across the street is a plaque commemorating the pre-flight training center that occupied the University of Georgia campus. Here's what the plaque says:
So this is another big reason we won the war: we invested a lot in pilot training.
In fact, check out this link for Military Production in World War II. It shows that America built more training aircraft than the Japanese built combat aircraft during WW2. Smart.
Thanks for pointing that out, bert. The anti-aircraft fire was overwhelming in the movie.
Thanks, FreedomPoster. I’ll check that out.
Look at The ABC Conferences.
We seized French ships and were very worried about a Nazi attack in South America.
The details of American military thought in the summer before Pearl Harbor are amazing.
I think the need for clear guidance is significantly displayed in the Japanese actions at Midway.
Yamamoto knew that Japan couldn’t compete industrially with the US.
The priority should have been clear.....protect the carriers.
Much is made about the shift from ground attack weapons to naval attack weapons.
The focus should have been on defending the carriers.
That did not require the ability to see into the future.
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