An interesting thing that I saw in the book “Shattered Sword“ was something I didn’t know… The Japanese did not have radio control for combat air patrol in the way that we had it. They vectored planes in their CAP by having ships in the screen firing their guns to alert the planes in the air.
I thought that was extremely odd, but apparently that’s the way it was.
I think that the Japanese fighter pilots were too eager to get kills and forgot their mission was to protect the fleet.
I read a book written by a British naval pilot in the Pacific during WWII.
I was shocked at how many planes and pilots they lost in non-combat operations.
If the Japanese had similar losses?
We forget that these Japanese carriers took a cruise into the Indian Ocean after Pearl Harbor trying to destroy the British Fleet.
We also forget that we had an agreement with the British where we took the lead in the Atlantic and they took the lead in the Pacific.
First time I’ve ever heard that. Might explain fighter cover all coming down for the torpedo planes. It fried their arse if that’s what happened.