The Battle of Midway

On Christmas Day 1941 Admiral Chester Nimitz arrived by Catalina flying boat to take command. He did not bring any staff with him. When the door opened, he was assailed by a poisonous atmosphere from black oil, charred wood, burned paint, and rotting flesh. The boat ride to shore engulfed the party in the panorama of sunken hulls and floating wreckage, punctuated by the bodies of dead sailors still surfacing from the blasted ships.

He spent the first days learning everything he could about his new assignment and confirmed the public’s perception was wrong. The dry-docks, repair shops, and fuel tank farm were intact. The carriers with their escorts, and the submarines stood ready to take the offensive. He immediately sent submarines into Japanese waters, and conducted carrier operations disrupting Japanese Initiatives. Admiral Raymond Spruance said of Nimitz, “The one big thing about him was that he was always ready to fight….And he wanted officers who would push the fight to the Japanese”.

Nimitz decided some very good men had taken a terrible beating and were now suffering terrible reminders and apprehensions. When he officially took command December 31, he told the assembled staffs he had complete and unlimited confidence in every one of them. He related that as head of officer personnel in Washington, he knew they had been selected for their competence. But if any wanted to leave, he would individually discuss their futures and do all he could to get them the assignments they wanted.

However, there were a few key staff members he wanted to stay with him. They included Commander Joe Rochefort, Jr. and Captain Edwin T. Layton. There intelligence unit had not unscrambled the new Japanese call signs or broken into the revised naval code to warn of the Pearl Harbor attack. However, these men later provided the key intelligence convincing Nimitz to hazard all his carriers at Midway.

For the Japanese the battle for Midway was part of their strategy for establishing the next line of their Pacific Ocean defensive parameter. They intended to conquer Port Moresby in New Guinea, Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Western Aleutians. Thereby, Australia would be severed as a base for an American counter-offensive and the northern flank of the Home Islands would be protected. Specifically, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto considered this initiative would provide the opportunity to draw out Nimitz for the decisive naval battle contemplated by American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan.

This sea fight began with Chester Nimitz determined to meet the enemy in a major battle, but he faced long odds. Solid intelligence had discerned a complex plan disbursing Japanese forces, but Nimitz still had to consider the information could be a ruse, because the basic principle of U.S. intelligence that an enemy will act according to the best use of their capabilities. For Nimitz that meant giving weight to concentration as the best option. He was also troubled by the uncertainty of locating enemy dispositions expected because of storms west and northwest of Midway. In fact, weather was to play an important part in hiding Japanese carriers from detection. Both sides experienced Horatio Nelson’s admonition that “something must be left to chance; nothing is certain in a sea fight”.

His final instructions to admirals Raymond Spruance and Frank Fletcher were, “In carrying out the task assigned in Op Plan 29-42, you will be governed by the principle of calculated risk, which you will interpret to mean the avoidance of exposure of your force to attack by superior enemy forces without the prospect of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, greater damage to the enemy”. To understand Nimitz’s and the flyers tenuous position consider that gathering every available U.S. Navy ship achieved an order of battle for Midway, where they might be outnumbered more than three to one.

Author Gordon W. Prange compiled the order of battle for the navies. The Japanese had 4 heavy carriers, 2 light carriers, 11 battleships, 10 heavy cruisers, 6 light cruisers, and 53 destroyers for a total of 86 ships. The United States had 3 carriers no light carriers or battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and seventeen destroyers or a total of 27 ships.

To balance the odds somewhat Nimitz had decided to make Midway Island his fourth aircraft carrier. He crowded the island with 115 aircraft, including the untried (B-17 & B-26) and obsolete (Vindicator & Brewster Buffalo).

This abbreviated narrative now excludes the contribution of thousands, whose combined efforts provided the vital margin needed for victory. Preparing Midway for invasion and assembling the carrier task forces at point “Luck” to attack the Japanese required prodigious achievements in logistics, ship repair, and inspired assessments of naval intelligence. This narrative also does not describe how paying the more bitter price for mistakes in strategic planning, tactical execution, and operational doctrines contributed heavily to the Japanese defeat. Instead the narrative relates the fearful sacrifice of a few brave men, who in close combat attacked the four heavy carriers of the First Carrier Striking Force on June 4, 1942.

The Japanese transport group was discovered on June 3, but the next morning the curtain rose for the carrier battle. At 5:30AM the PBY patrol by Lieutenant Howard Ady radioed discovery of the Japanese carriers. Fifteen minutes later the PBY patrol by Lieutenant William Chase radioed in the clear, “Many planes headed Midway. Bearing 320 degrees distance 150 miles. These warnings enabled the remaining 66 aircraft crammed onto Midway to get into the air. The updates provided by Ady enabled Admirals Raymond Spruance and Frank Fletcher to launch carrier attacks. All Midway aircraft made attacks against the Japanese carriers except for 21 Marine Brewster Buffalos and 7 Wildcat fighters dedicated to repelling the attackers.

In the ensuing Japanese attack on Midway beginning at 6:16AM, 14 of the 21 Brewster fighter pilots died prompting Captain Philip R. White to say, “It is my belief that any commander that orders pilots out for combat in F2A-3’s (Brewster Buffalo) should consider them lost before leaving the ground”. Captain Francis McCarthy, flying one of the Wildcats, was also killed after shooting down one of eight Zeros attacking him and wingman Lt. Roy Corry Jr. Overall only 10 fighters survived the fight and only two were in shape to fly again.

The attacks by land-based planes on the Japanese carriers began at 7:48AM. First six TBF Avenger torpedo bombers lead by Navy Lieutenant Langdon K. Fieberling of Torpedo 8 made their attack. These were some of the new torpedo bombers that should have replaced the hopelessly outdated Devastators Lt. Cdr. John Waldron had onboard Hornet, but the Avengers were 24 hours late reaching Hawaii. The planes obtained no hits, but five of six aircraft were destroyed including Fieberling’s and only two of 18 men survived to return to Midway. Ens. Bert Earnest and Radioman Harry Ferrier thereby became with Ens. George Gay the other two “lone survivors” of Torpedo 8.

Next the Army Air Corps made its first appearance. Captain James Collins lead four Army B-26 medium bombers rigged to carry torpedoes in the first ever attempt to attack enemy ships. They had to launch at less than 1,000 yards to hit 30 knot aircraft carriers with 33 knot torpedoes. Also, most torpedoes failed when released at over 50 feet and at speeds exceeding 126 mph; a speed at which this aircraft often stalled and crashed when attempting to land. Two of four planes with their 7-man crews perished, and no hits were obtained.

Marine dive bombers closely followed the B-26’s. At 7:55AM Major Lofton Henderson (for whom Henderson Field at Guadalcanal was named) attacked with 16 Dauntless bombers of which 8 were lost with their two-man crews. Henderson’s crews were untrained in dive bombing tactics and again no hits were obtained.

Lieutenant Colonel Walter C. Sweeney at 8:39AM lead 13 long range Army B-17’s over Nagumo’s position in a level bombing attack from 20,000 feet and obtained no hits on the carriers or escorts. One aircraft was damaged by a Zero and one man was injured. The Japanese were reluctant to attack the heavily armed bombers, but had no trouble evading the bombs dropped nearly four miles above them.

At 8:30AM Marine Major Benjamin Norris led eleven Vindicator dive bombers to the Japanese fleet. The aircraft were considered so ancient pilots called them “wind indicators”. These planes displayed such fragility their fabric fuselage was reinforced with 4” hospital masking tape. They never reached the carriers and unsuccessfully attacked a battleship. Amazingly only two fell to enemy attacks, but two more were lost at sea with their two-man crews because of low fuel. By June 6 only three were flyable. The Battle of Midway was this aircraft’s only combat use. The plane was pulled from service in 1943.

Next into the battle from 9:18AM to10:15AM came Torpedo 3, Torpedo 6, and Torpedo 8 from the USS Yorktown, USS Enterprise, and USS Hornet respectively. In all Lt. Commander Lance E. Massey, Lt. Commander Gene Lindsey, and Lt. Commander John Waldron lead 42 Devastator torpedo bombers. The squadrons had become separated from their dive bombers and fighters that were intended to accompany them for coordinated attacks. Waldron left the other Hornet aircraft deliberately replying to Lt. Commander Stanhope C. Ring’s order to follow him, “I know where the damn Jap fleet is. The hell with you”. Now alone these 100 mph torpedo bombers had to evade 300 mph Zero fighters, and withstand concentrated task force anti-aircraft fire before launching at less than 1,000 yards.

In pressing home their attacks, 35 aircraft with their two-man crews were lost. Ens. George H. Gay, Jr., who crashed in the midst of the Japanese carriers, was the lone survivor of this Torpedo 8 attack and was rescued by a PBY the next day. The only fighters about were six from Fighting 3 lead by Lt. Commander “Jimmy” Thach that tangled with a horde of Zero fighters and lost one aircraft. Those from Fighting 6 lead by Lieutenant Jim Gray lost track of their torpedo bombers and kept circling at 20,000 feet to protect the dive bombers they never found. Eventually these fighters returned to the Enterprise in total frustration.

The USS Hornet fighters and dive bombers spent a fruitless morning. Lt. Commander Ring led Bombing 8, Scouting 8, and Fighting 8 exactly as ordered by Captain Marc Mitscher and then searched to the south until fuel was critical and each squadron proceeded independently. Lt. Commander Robert R. Johnson leading Bombing 8 was unable to find the Hornet and landed on Midway, but 3 of the 14 aircraft had to ditch on the way for lack of fuel. Lieutenant Stan Ruehlow leading Fighting 8 remained determined to find the Hornet, but all ten aircraft had to ditch, and Ens. Mark Kelly and Ens. George R. Hill were never found. That morning there were 29 empty seats in the Hornet ready room. Fifteen seats belonged to Torpedo 8 pilots slaughtered that morning by the Japanese. The 11 were for Bombing 8 that refueled at Midway and later returned to the Hornet.

The Japanese carrier task force had withstood eight separate attacks over nearly three hours without a single hit. Not counting the B-17’s that stayed at 20,000 feet, Navy, Marine, and Army flyers pressed home attacks with 79 aircraft. Of those 58 were destroyed, 126 of 174 men perished, and no hits were obtained. While the Japanese found satisfaction in thwarting the attacks, they faced complete frustration in efforts to re-arm and spot aircraft from the hanger decks to strike the American carriers.

Now at 10:20AM Bombing 3, Scouting 6 and Bombing 6 from the USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise respectively found the carriers. They arrived over the carriers while most Zero fighters were still at low altitude finishing off the last American torpedo bombers. The 18 planes of Commander Max Leslie’s Bombing 3 delivered three fatal hits to one carrier, probably the Soryu. For Bombing 6 and Scouting 6, Lieutenant Wade McClusky as group commander, and Lieutenants Earl Gallaher and Richard Best as section leaders attacked the Akagi and Kaga. Most of Best’s section incorrectly followed McClusky and Gallaher in attacks that inflicted five hits and five near misses on the Kaga. Best and his two wingmen attacked the Akagi. The two wingmen obtained near misses, but Best’s 1,000 lb bomb exploded amongst aircraft on the hanger deck to start an uncontrollable fire.

The Japanese task forces that had been impervious to harm from 7:48AM to 10:23AM saw three of their heavy carriers turned into burning wreckage in six minutes. However, a price had to be paid. Max Leslie’s planes returned safely, but Scouting 6 and Bombing6 lost 16 aircraft and 11 of 38 two man crews.

The Japanese turn came at 11:52AM when Yorktown radar plot reported, “Bogeys 32 miles and closing”. In spite of fearful losses, the Japanese scored hits with three bombs at noon and at 2:42PM their torpedo plane attacks scored two hits and forced the Yorktown to abandon ship. The defending Combat Air Patrol lost one Wildcat compared to 22 of 30 Japanese aircraft lost to fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

There was still one heavy carrier unaccounted for, and at 2:45PM Lieutenant Sam Adams of Scouting 6 radioed Admiral Spruance its location. The Admiral had no fighters or torpedo bombers, but ordered Lieutenant William E. Gallaher aloft at 3:30PM to lead 24 planes from three dive bombers squadrons. A half hour later the Hornet launched 16 dive bombers lead by reserve Lieutenant Edgar Stebbins. These 40 aircraft encountered anti-aircraft fire, lighting attacks from Zeros, and superb evasive ship handling. However, there were just too many planes and bombs. At least four hits and many near misses transformed the Hiryu into the fourth blazing funeral pyre of the day. All three dive bombing squadrons got hits and three aircraft with crews were lost.

There were attacks before and after June 4 during the Battle of Midway costing the Japanese Combined Fleet other ships. However, the loss of these four heavy carriers and the many superbly trained aircrews and technicians proved fatal to Japanese plans.

This splendid victory by Navy, Marine and Army Air Corps flyers over the First Carrier Striking Force permanently seized the initiative from the Japanese. One could easily paraphrase Winston Churchill to say never have so many who fought in the Pacific owed so much to so few. Not counting the B-17’s that stayed aloft, about 550 flyers closely engaged the Japanese and suffered nearly 300 deaths. Walter Lord and Gordon W. Prange considered this accomplishment incredible and miraculous. For Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, it was the battle that doomed Japan.

The Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy by Paul S. Dull U.S. NAVAL BASE, PEARL HARBOR, DRY DOCK NO. 2 lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/hi/hi0700/hi0748/data/hi0748data.pd

Action Report: USS Hornet (CV-8) Midway http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/logs/CV/cv8-Midway.html

Battle of Midway, Commanding Officer, USS Yorktown, report of 18 June 1942 http://www.patriotfiles.com/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=1096&page=1 http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/logs/CV/cv5-Midway.html

Battle of Midway: 4-7 June 1942, Online Action Reports: Commanding Officer, USS Enterprise, Serial 0133 of 8 June 1942 http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/mid6.htm

MK XIII Aerial Torpedo http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1035 http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_WWII.htm

Vindicator SB2U Dive Bomber http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=731

Douglas TBD Devastator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBD_Devastator I find no evidence the planes flew with bombardiers on June 4 or had Norden bombsights.

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-17_Flying_Fortress

B-17 Crew Requirements and Standard Operating Procedures http://www.303rdbg.com/crewmen-missions.html

Midway Film by John ford http://video.staged.com/localshops/ww_iirare_film__midway__directed_by_john_ford

Valor: Marauders at Midway http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/1986/April%201986/0486valor.aspx

The Nimitz Graybook http://usnwc.edu/Academics/Library/Naval-Historical-Collection.aspx#items/show/849

Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Hiry%C5%AB Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Kaga Japanese aircraft carrier Sōryū http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_S%C5%8Dry%C5%AB Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Akagi (Therefore average top speed 30.6 knots) Japanese aircraft carrier Shōkaku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Sh%C5%8Dkaku“8 May 1942 by dive bombers from USS Yorktown and Lexington which scored three bomb hits: one on the carrier’s port bow, one to starboard at the forward end of the flight deck and one just abaft the island. Fires broke out but were eventually contained and extinguished. The resulting damage required ShÅkaku to return to Japan for major repairs. On the journey back, the carrier shipped so much water through her damaged bow she nearly capsized in heavy seas, maintaining a high rate of speed in order to avoid a cordon of American submarines out hunting for her.

She arrived at Kure on 17 May 1942 and entered dry dock on 16 June 1942. Repairs were completed within ten days and, a little over two weeks later on 14 July, she was formally reassigned to Striking Force, 3rd Fleet, Carrier Division 1”.

At the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8 dive bombers from USS Yorktown and Lexington scored three bomb hits on the Shokaku. The resulting damage required her to return to Japan for major repairs. She arrived at Kure on 17 May 1942 and did not enter dry dock until a month later on 16 June 1942.

In comparison the damage the Yorktown sustained after Coral Sea led to the Navy Yard inspectors estimating that she would need at least two weeks of repairs. However, Admiral Nimitz ordered that she be made ready to sail alongside TF 16. Yard workers at Pearl Harbor, laboring around the clock, made enough repairs to enable the ship to put to sea again in 48 hours.

It was a different time as you know, when there wasn't all this money printing and acceptance of huge debt like we have now. Was a cash & carry world at that time - if no cash, there's no budget thus no transaction. Nobody in the West had any money since there had been a depression sweeping the world since the first world war, and with the demilitarization after that war no one had any will much less excess funds to effectively rebuild - a fact that the Germans and Japanese were well aware of and set out to exploit. Keeping with the Pacific, the various European powers had valuable assets scattered all over the Pacific that were ripe for the picking since they would be lightly defended if defended at all. The Japs knew it and all they had to do was strike and strike hard and it would be theirs. The penny pinching by the future Allies gave the Axis an initial advantage which held until the USA got involved and organized, unleashing our mass of industry (and the debt that came with it) into the war effort.

The malfeasance came into play after it was painfully obvious that something was wrong, things weren't working and there were conscious choices not to do anything about it, even actively resisting attempts to straighten it all out. Quite a bit has been documented/written about that ordeal. Finding and studying all that is available on that subject is the only way to get the full picture, and is infuriating reading. It was also infuriating that I had a close relative on a sub banging away at Jap shipping with those dud torpedoes and not getting crap for his efforts.

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.

But that scare as you put it, ultimately turned to their detriment. The British had a deep concern about Ceylon too since it was a strongpoint gateway to the Indian Ocean - whomever controlled Ceylon controlled the lines of communication through the Indian Ocean. The Japs initially wanted a force to invade and hold Ceylon but could not get those resources built up for such an operation, so they scaled back to making a raid instead to see if they could damage British assets if not wipe out the British Eastern Fleet. They did do damage, but could not exploit it so they withdrew, leaving the area still in British hands with a largely intact fleet. The detriment to the Japs was how the RAF chewed up their aircraft during that action. So much so that three of the carriers had to return to Japan for new planes and train new pilots. That helped us out a lot since there were only two of the five carriers available for the battle of the Coral Sea about a month later, and when we faced them at Midway in June they had a bunch of green, second-string pilots to contest us. Admiral Nagumo would have done well to have skipped engaging in that action. If he had retired and rested his group after Pearl there would have been forces sufficient enough to have made a difference against us at Coral Sea and even Midway.

I must say, that post was one of the most interesting and enjoyable posts on a WWII subject I have read in a while, and it tied a lot of things together.

Thank you-that provides me with fodder for the next get together I have with a buddy. One night a week I have a friend over for dinner with my wife and I, and we do a mix of watching Bill Whittle videos, discussing various subjects, and often watching a movie.

I have one buddy who is a WWII aviation buff like me, and I know he doesn’t know about any of this, but since he works in the electronic industry, he will find it interesting!

Fwiw, the Aleutian Island feint was a dud.

Yeah it was a dud alright but not exactly a feint. Paranoia on the part of Imperial Headquarters drove that operation. Attack and/or invasion moving through that sector was a known theory on both sides. We had discarded that as a line of advance quite a while back but the Japs had no way of knowing that - their lack of securing definitive intel to verify one way or the other was creating sleepless nights for some in Tokyo, so they pulled the trigger to occupy. That also would have been a primo, though miserable, base to harass lend-lease shipping to Siberia once the Red Army had worked their way east enough to join in the Pacific fun. Another strategic blunder that drained resources for their war effort is all that amounted to.

Not sure how the Japanese financed their early war effort

Dig a little further back in history, you will find after they acquired and began developing modern weapons technology they stepped up their expansionism from the 1870's forward. They were systematically sacking up weaker Asian nations long before the adventure in China. Basically they did it mafia style - nice little country you got there, be a shame if it got shelled, bombed & invaded, here, sign onto this Pact with us. Japan gathered up a whole bunch of nervous new best friends forever like that. That was the genesis of their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere plan. When WW2 ended a heck of a lot people got freed out from under Japanese despotism in the East.

I can’t imagine the frustration of the men in those subs when their only weapon was a dud.

They compensated by popping up, loosening up the deck gun and bringing out the small arms for some surface shoot'em up action against something vulnerable. Bit risky but better than nothing. Those guys were burning to contribute their part and if it took going topside to trade shots, so be it was the way they felt.

Those dud torpedoes did create some interesting war stories though. I don't recall the place, the ship or the action, but there was a trashed and sinking Jap ship that was being abandoned. A crewman who had jumped over the side was bobbing along contemplating his fate when a US torpedo came zooming in, essentially to finish the sinking ship off in spectacular fashion. The Jap crewman thought oh crap, this is it, since he was floating right by where the torpedo was going to hit. It was swimming straight & true, perfect shot. It slammed into the side of the ship, the warhead broke off and sank, while the main body remained floating like a piece of styrofoam. The crewman thought what the heck, swam on over and used it for a flotation device until he got picked up later. I don't think our torpedoes being used as lifesavers for enemy sailors was part of the intended design, but there it was.

Another story I know of is very illustrative of the sort of trouble caused by dud torpedoes. A US sub encountered a Jap sub, that was expected to be going through the area according to the code breakers if I recall correctly, putt-ing along on the surface with a good part of the crew sunbathing, eating, reading and goofing off in general. What a setup! Our guys made an easy plot and fired one torpedo submerged. It ran perfectly, and *THUNK* right onto the side of the Jap sub, with nothing happening. That was a 10 alarm OH CRAP moment right there - while the Japs were investigating what hit the side of their boat our guys scrambled to get another shot off, firing a spread from the remaining loaded tubes, blowing the Jap sub to smithereens that time. So they ended up firing 4 torpedoes for what should have taken just one - but they had no choice, they had to be sure since they weren't interested in playing cat & mouse with another sub way out in the middle of nowhere.

The unreliability of those torpedoes created a nasty dilemma for the skippers - they'd get griped at for not firing enough and getting results, then get griped at for firing so many at once. The penny pinchers were also chiming about how much that sort of "waste" was costing. What else were they supposed to do - if a really juicy target was found the best tactic was to fire a spread - sometimes multiple - and MAYBE there would be a live one in the bunch that would actually go off and do some damage. Absolute travesty our submariners had to put up with that kind of frustrating static.

“That was the genesis of their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere plan.”

And now the Chinese are economically enslaving nations with their Belt and Road program. Some things never change. Just the methods.

I had read somewhere that early in the war sub skippers were accused of fudging the numbers on tonnage of vessels sunk.
Maybe one or two did but I expect the vast majority bitched and complained about the faulty fish.
With space at a bare minimum even one faulty torpedo was a major waste.

Once the torpedoes were finally fixed the US subs sank everything in their patrol area. They were so effective they were reduced to sinking fishing ships by wars end.

Submariners were a different breed.
My favorite was the Barb and it’s skipper Commander Eugene Fluckey. Fluckey had his own ideas about submarine warfare and was itching to try them out. He had a cast of characters on his boat who shared his sense of adventure. They included his COB Paul “Swish” Saunders and 3rd class Electricians Mate Bill Hatfield of Hatfield and McCoy fame.

On the boats 11th, and next to last, patrol Fluckey took his boat into Namkwan Harbor, only 6 fathoms deep, on the China coast. The Barb fired all four forward tubes, turned and fired all four aft tubes. They then raced for open water. Japanese defenders were firing at planes that weren’t there because they “knew” the harbor was too shallow for a submarine to sneak into.

For it’s final patrol the Barb took on 72 MK10 rockets and fashioned firing tubes to the forward gun mount.
On patrol the Barb slipped into the jJapanese harbor of Shari and fired a dozen rockets into the factory district. The first known use of rockets by a submarine.

Later the skipper put a landing party ashore to blow up a train. COB Saunders and Hatfield fashioned a mine out of a scuttling charge and a pressure switch. Barb became the first submarine to blow up a train.

I had read somewhere that early in the war sub skippers were accused of fudging the numbers on tonnage of vessels sunk.

It was actually pretty widespread throughout the war. It wasn't like they were deliberately being deceitful, it was just hard to accurately calculate, due to the optics and sort of conditions they had to operate under. They tried to do their reports the best they could under the circumstances so they made their best guesses and sent it on in. There was no credible tally of what actually went on until after war's end when the records project was launched to compile and analyze documents, logs and postwar interrogations of Allied forces and Japanese. Inaccuracies were plentiful on both sides, with the Japs being worse at it with blatant exaggerations - I think they sank some of our battleships and carriers a dozen times or so.

They were so effective they were reduced to sinking fishing ships by wars end.

That ain't no joke - they shot themselves out of a job, LoL. What Jap shipping was left moved at night and hugged coasts in a bid to hide themselves against radar detection. The sub fleet was essentially out of a mission at the end.

Eugene Fluckey & Barb - yeah, I'm familiar with him and his adventures. Great stuff. That sounds like my kind of crew to be a part of - very aggressive and thinking outside of the box. I recall hearing of other incidents where Jap gunners went berserk, firing at nothing. All it takes is one trigger happy gunner and it went downhill from there. There was even an incident - can't recall which sub and where - Jap destroyers got so shocked and confused that they commenced blasting away at each other with deck guns, which created a hilariously convenient distraction for one of our subs to make a clean post attack getaway. I think in those sort of incidents the Japs could not or would not believe that any of our subs had penetrated that far into their turf and therefore assumed that they had gotten jumped by an air or surface fleet attack.

“It wasn’t like they were deliberately being deceitful, it was just hard to accurately calculate, due to the optics and sort of conditions they had to operate under.”

Sub warfare, being a shoot and scoot operation, accurate reporting had to be problematic. Even two solid torpedo hits didn’t equal a sinking. Add in the torpedo exploding too soon due to the magnetic exploder malfunctioning, rough seas, night attacks and limited line of sight and it was virtually impossible for an accurate record of ship types and actual sinkings.
As to the Japanese would you want to be a pilot that returned to your carrier and reported failure?
Me neither.

The Japanese were even worse than the Germans about believing in their own superiority and the weakness of their enemies. After all, they claimed not to have lost a war in 2,600 years.
When a sub did sneak into a supposedly protected area and raise a ruckus they couldn’t believe it.

Regarding the Barb and COB Saunders, Paul Saunders enlisted in the navy in 1936 and served aboard destroyers until 1940 when he qualified for submarines. He served in Barb (SS-220), Cusk (SS-348), Carbonero (SS-337), and Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600).
Saunders made all 12 of Barbs wartime patrols, something no other submariner of the war can brag of. He was slated to transfer to another sub when Fluckey tapped him to be COB of Barb.
Crews were constantly raided after each patrol to send seasoned sailors as leavening to boats with green crews.
After he retired as a Chief Petty Officer in 1962 he worked on missile launching systems for the navy, including the Polaris missile system.

Fluckey retired as an Admiral and wrote a book titled Thunder Below about his wartime experiences and the men he served with.

https://navy.togetherweserved.com/usn/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxReflectionProfile&type=Person&ID=568870

Everything you said about the sub warfare at that time is absolutely correct. Getting a totally accurate assessment in a given situation would have been nothing short of miraculous. The fog of war, squared.

As to the Japanese would you want to be a pilot that returned to your carrier and reported failure?

The thing that always struck me as curious is that their commanders would not deeply quiz them. Fliers would return with ridiculous, even conflicting stories and their superiors would go "okey dokey!" and document them. That hurt their war effort because it is important to know the truth of what is going on, what is working or not, and make adjustments accordingly. Their military culture also did not tolerate input from lower ranks. Their chain of command only rolled one way, from the top down. Orders issued were expect to be obeyed - end of story. A number of competent officers got sidelined due to their insistence at sharing alarming concerns that nobody wanted to hear or follow up on.

The Japanese were even worse than the Germans about believing in their own superiority and the weakness of their enemies.

The Japs had a fakenews problem themselves at the time, on steroids - besides officially sanctioned propaganda, you had people like the aforementioned fliers talking to other personnel about their "great victories", writing letters home, visiting friends & relatives if they were fortunate enough to get to home port, and talking to the local news rags, all of which contributed to spreading exaggerations like wildfire. That also had a negative effect on their war effort, making civilian and military personnel alike complacent. There is an account of a POW working in a shipyard who noticed how slow and disinterested the workers appeared. He asked one about that, saying there is a war on, where is the sense of urgency at. The worker told him why bother, it's in the bag, they have it won, why exert themselves unnecessarily. What I can't get my head around is that Imperial Headquarters knew the truth of how bad things really were but near as I can tell never took steps to constructively correct it, so the self destructive psyops continued until events outstripped the ability to hide or lie about them.

Crews were constantly raided after each patrol to send seasoned sailors as leavening to boats with green crews.

That was a point of contention, especially after the sub fleet began to finally find its footing, shaking off the feckless peacetime culture and tactics. There were guys who wanted transfer to be with "winning" boats, others who were snatched up because they were competent standouts, by skippers who were trying to build a tight & aggressive crew. And even a good crew didn't stay together indefinitely. Standout senior officers would be tapped to get their own command so they could build their own crews, spreading new and workable tactics out to other boats in the fleet. We had to build up from scratch and do it fast - though we had been into subs since the first world war we had never developed the sort of culture to use them to their full potential, so it was on-the-job training at a frantic pace. I think that's what got Mush Morton killed, when Dick O'Kane left the Wahoo for his own command. I can see the logic for O'Kane leaving since good skippers were needed and needed badly, there was nothing new for him to do or learn aboard the Wahoo - Morton & O'Kane functioned well and deadly as a team, revolutionizing American submarine warfare as they went. O'Kane was a steady hand and a check on Morton's level of aggression which at times bordered on recklessness - consequently I think the absence of O'Kane had a bearing on the loss of Wahoo.

“The thing that always struck me as curious is that their commanders would not deeply quiz them.”

As you said, orders were expected to be followed and failure was not allowed for. This showed up in the navy as a lack of damage control training for ships crews. While US forces constantly emphasized training and new techniques the Japanese treated damage control as an afterthought.
Add in the fact that higher officers had little regard for midgrade officers and no regard for the average soldier or pilot and it was a recipe for mediocrity at best, disaster at worst.

Even worse was the lack of communication between the services in Japan. The army and navy operated completely separate of each other. From intelligence to weapons to research and development they were two separate trees in the same forest.
One of the things that hampered their radar development was the fact that both services ran their own R&D and strictly forbid sharing of information between the scientists and technicians, even if they were working in the same building.
Japan could never have run something like the Manhattan Project with it’s many different departments and specialties.

“The Japs had a fakenews problem themselves at the time, on steroids”

Of course they did.
Their easy victory in the 1904-1905 war with the much larger Tsarist Russia fed into their beliefs that the Japanese were invincible.
Then there were the senior officers who didn’t want what they perceived as temporary setbacks to jeopardize their cushy positions. Then the Junior officers who didn’t want to rock the boat.
All that was enabled by an introverted Emporer Hirohito who was much more comfortable with a book than with his cabinet and military leaders.
A complete clusterscrew from top to bottom.

One of the problems was the Japanese believed that if they could make the war costly enough in men killed and wounded then the soft Americans would sue for peace. They didn’t have a clue.

I remember reading about the Wahoo a lifetime ago. :(
Ironic that O’Kanes boat was sunk by a circular run.
All told our submarine forces went from 0 to 100 in record time. Even with defective weapons and no tradition in the silent service.

Oh, a quick and non definitive check shows most of our wartime sub skippers got their starts on destroyers. Maybe they were hardwired for aggressiveness from the get go.

The army and navy operated completely separate of each other.

To the extremes. You ever hear about the Army trying to build their own submarines? They were demanding that the Navy drop what they were doing and make supply runs to their isolated garrisons, Navy said nothing doing, they had their own missions to handle. So the Army went about trying to set up their own navy. Not sure how far they got on that before the war ended. People I knew who had contact with the Japanese military before the war said that the Navy had personnel that were humble, very intelligent, highly trained and disciplined, real squared away kind of guys, while the Army had a hammer and everything looked like a nail to them, including their own navy. Pretty accurate observations I do believe.

All that was enabled by an introverted Emporer Hirohito who was much more comfortable with a book than with his cabinet and military leaders.

Basically, he couldn't do much of squat anyway. There was a clause that once a national emergency was triggered, the military assumed total control of the country - the civilian government stepped back and were essentially spectators with limited advisory input, for what that was worth. The civilian government was on a need to know basis and as far as the military was concerned they figured they didn't need to know much, worked to keep them out of the loop. It was their show as far as they were concerned, had worked for years to finally seize control and were in no mood to relinquish any of it.

I never knew about the Japanese army trying to build their own navy. Insane but sounds right.

I was aware of the cultural differences between the services.
The army was brutal in their training and treatment of recruits. They practiced a very bastardized version of the Bushido code. One that served their purpose of creating servile soldiers who wouldn’t question orders and would brutalize civilians and prisoners without prompting.
The upper echelon of officers were dismissive of all officers under them.

I remember reading that a young officer had a plan for an attack on the British. The officer who had to okay the operation was bathing in the hot tub while the junior officer presented his plan. Never opening his eyes he okayed the attack provided the young officer be mindful of resources.
The way it read was that the junior officer was an annoyance that his senior just wanted out of the way.

I haven’t read much about the culture in the navy but I had heard they were more along the lines of western officers, respectful of one another.

“Basically, he couldn’t do much of squat anyway. There was a clause that once a national emergency was triggered, the military assumed total control of the country”

I didn’t know that. I learned something new.
The Emporer did do great service after the war making appearances around the country to large groups wherever he went. He probably enjoyed more popularity for that than he did during the war. Though he was no longer Divine he become an “Emporer of the people.”

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