Posted on 06/03/2019 2:32:07 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Why was Midway such a critical victory? First, the fact that the U.S. Navy lost just one carrier at Midway meant that four carriers (Enterprise, Hornet, Saratoga, and Wasp) were available when the U.S. Navy went on the offensive during the Guadalcanal campaign that began the first week of August 1942. Second, the march of the Imperial Japanese Navy across the Pacific was halted at Midway and never restarted. After Midway, the Japanese would react to the Americans, and not the other way around. In the language of the Naval War College, the “operational initiative” had passed from the Japanese to the Americans. Third, the victory at Midway aided allied strategy worldwide.
That last point needs some explaining. To understand it, begin by putting yourself in the shoes of President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the beginning of May 1942. The military outlook across the world appears very bad for the Allies. The German army is smashing a Soviet offensive to regain Kharkov, and soon will begin a drive to grab the Soviet Union’s oil supplies in the Caucasus. A German and Italian force in North Africa is threatening the Suez Canal. The Japanese have seriously crippled the Pacific Fleet, driven Britain’s Royal Navy out of the Indian Ocean, and threaten to link up with the Germans in the Middle East.
If the Japanese and the Germans do link up, they will cut the British and American supply line through Iran to the Soviet Union, and they may pull the British and French colonies in the Middle East into the Axis orbit. If that happens, Britain may lose control of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Soviet Union may negotiate an armistice with Germany.
(Excerpt) Read more at warontherocks.com ...
Dad did not talk much about the battle except they shot at some kamkaze planes.
I don’t know the ship....would it be on the Certificate all got when they crossed the Equator? I have that. I’ll have to find it. Thanks for all your info.
Very good point.
And it teaches our enemies that striking us hard is well worth it.
Think I found the ship...General H. L. Scott...now not sure he was in Leyte....(My great Uncle -his Uncle- told me he was)
Scott was AP-136. She was a troop transport and could well have been at Leyte Gulf.
There were 621 bombs dropped from altitude
onto the Japanese fleet at Midway.
Not one so much as left a scratch.
The devastating losses of early attacks by the US on the Japanese fleet served the main purpose of drawing the protection of Japs from their carriers.
Not often mentioned is the contribution of the submarine USS Nautilus. The sub got up into the Japanese fleet formation but was spotted before doing any damage. They depth charged the sub heavily, then moved on, leaving a destroyer behind to try and finish off the Nautilus. After a while the destroyer moved off to catch up with the fleet.
The Nautilus escaped.
The Jap destroyer, in hurrying to catch up, sailed with a bone in her teeth. That’s an expression derived from how a ship looks from the front as she plows through the water at high speeds.
The wings of her twin bow wakes coupled with the turbulence from her stern had the appearance of an arrow from the air. An arrow pointing right at where she was headed.
An American fighter bomber squadron saw this, and flew in the indicated direction, catching the carriers undefended and unaware.
Thanks...he crossed the Equator on Oct 13...so...yes...seems they may have been heading that way.
A great book (Though hard to find) is “Shattered Sword”
LOL, it USED to be hard to find, I thought, but is apparently easy. I must have had a brain cramp the first time I searched for it a few years ago.
I found the book fascinating, and the author’s conclusions on the intentions of the Japanese leading up to the battle completely plausible...that is, the Aleutians were NOT a feint.
Just doesn’t fit the time frame at all...:)
understood.
That probably required them to use their airbases on rabaul in order to strike guadalcanal targets..a long round trip, for sure, but the initial naval battles around Guadalcanal were cruisers, etc..savo island, for example.
again, not understating the impact of Midway....just presenting a different opinion that it may have not been as much as the decisive turning point that historians have made it to be.
the Japanese Zeros.
With a radial engine that could produce 950 HP, the plane weighed about the same as a modern day SUV. If you can imagine handling an SUV with 950 HP, that’s what the Zero was like.
I am in the middle of Fleet at Flood Tide, from the author of Neptune’s Inferno. He’s an excellent writer.
A primary factor in the USSR’s victory over the German invasion was the weather. Hitler had not provided his troops with any cold weather clothing, leaving them to the mercy of the Russian winter.
Heh. I had the same thought.
Pass it by and let sleeping dogs lie.
The Japs were supposed to have set up a screen of submarines to intercept the carriers coming out of Pearl to defend Midway. One of them never made it out of Kwajalein, and since Nimitz dispatched the carriers before Midway was attacked, the carriers were gone by the time the screen was set up.
Another IJN sub was supposed to go to Pearl and make sure the carriers were there. But the sub got spooked before making it there.
left them to the mercy of the big Jap guns.
Yorktown, badly damaged at the Battle of the Coral Sea, did not even arrive at Pearl Harbor for repairs until May 27. That she could be made battle ready in less than a week was nothing sort of a miracle itself.
When Nimitz asked the yardmaster how long it would take to repair the Yorktown, the yardmaster told him three months. Nimitz said, “You’ve got three days.”
The Aleutians were part of the compromise Yamato (?) had to make with the Army, along with an attack on Port Moresby, to get the Midway attack approved, even though table top war planning showed the would be a loss. Yamato changed the scenario until he got a victory.
The Aleutians were no prize, and would have been worthless to Japan even if captured.
Two or three small islands were captured and were worthless to Japan.
If I remember this right we attacked and took one back & the other two (or one) was abandoned.
Yeah, they couldn’t have kept their new holdings supplied, and there was no strategic advantage to even being there. The forces used to capture the Aleutians would have been better used at Midway, but the Army had to have its due.
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