Thanks.
Interesting.
Also, something I read elsewhere, Nogumu was not a very good commander. He was a rigid by-the-book guy who lacked initiative and only got to command the task force by virtue of seniority.
Yes and no. Admiral Nagumo was a more complex officer than that - and he actually did rather well in the early war engagements. He completely evicted the Royal Navy from the Pacific and sent them fleeing back to East Africa, for example, and not because the Brits were poorly led in theater either. Though he was a cautious officer, he wasn’t completely hidebound; I think a better characterization would be that he was a competent but not great commander who was suffering from age and health issues. His defeat at Midway broke him; he was never the same after. Prior to Midway, the IJN opinion of him was solidly mixed; his appointment to command the Kido Butai was questioned not because of any innate lack of competence but because he was a surface warfare specialist. However, at the same time he did heavily promote and encourage the use and growth of naval aviation and was not afraid to listen to his younger aides or support his aviators.
As I said, the guy was more complex than the simple capsule description went. He certainly didn’t seem to be promoted to the position because of anything like ‘it was my turn’ or purely due to seniority. He was an older guy who supported new technologies and methods that he wasn’t completely familiar with - and doing better than a lot of his contemporaries at it.