80th Anniversary: The Battle of Midway

self | June 4, 2022 | Self

[Macho MAGA Man]

RIP Torpedo Squadron 8.

[Rummyfan]

The Japanese never replaced the carriers they lost at Midway. Meanwhile we in the US built over thirty fast carriers - carriers so fast the old battle wagons couldn’t keep up with them - and a host of carrier escorts. I.e. jeep carriers.

[Rummyfan]

Nor the pilots they lost at Midway…..

[lasereye]

We will never forget the courage of those pilots and seamen. I think we had providential assistance. The battle turned on our planes locating the Japanese carriers before they found ours. Had the reverse happened it would have been a disaster for us.

[BiglyCommentary]

Some great accompanying music for this thread.

https://youtu.be/h3SUB0bWOio

[Rummyfan]

As one admiral was quoted, after Midway we fought the Pacific War just as we had planned it at the Navy War College. That doesn’t mean there was not much blood, sweat, and tears involved. My Dad was a USN Pacific vet. God Bless Him and all sailors, marines, and soldiers.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

I met George Gay. He was shot down and landed between the two fleets. Said he had the best seat in the house to watch the battle.

[minnesota_bound]

Some results from a search. The USA had 5 aircraft carriers just prior to the war.

151 aircraft carriers were built in the U.S. during World War II.
122 of them were Escort Carriers
US Navy had 6768 active ships by 1945
Between Dec 7th, 1941 and Sep 2nd, 1945 the US lost
2 Battleships
5 Carriers
6 Escort Carriers
7 Heavy Cruisers
3 Light Cruisers
88 Destroyers
14 Destroyer Escorts
54 Submarines
3 Minelayers
Hundreds of other ships and craft

How many people died in the Second World War?
Over 60 million people were killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population (est. 2.3 billion).
World War II fatality statistics vary, with estimates of total deaths ranging from 50 million to more than 80 million.

The higher figure of over 80 million includes deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilians killed totaled 50 to 55 million, including 19 to 28 million from war-related disease and famine. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21 to 25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war.

[Rummyfan]

Lucky you!

[DuncanWaring]

For emphasis - this video describes the battle from the Japanese perspective, including the decisions the commanders had to make when and the information that was available to them at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo

[blam]

"The Japanese never replaced the carriers they lost at Midway. Meanwhile we in the US built over thirty fast carriers - carriers so fast the old battle wagons couldn’t keep up with them - and a host of carrier escorts. I.e. jeep carriers."

When WW2 ended the US had 109 carriers in the Pacific. Most were escort type carriers.

[Rummyfan]

Escort carriers had the designation CVE - Combustible, Vulnerable and Expendable.

[PerConPat]

The SBD (Dauntless) is best remembered as the bomber that delivered the fatal blows to the Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The type earned its nickname "Slow But Deadly" (from its SBD initials) during this period. ( Wiki))

Many heroes' names are associated with this battle. The names Spruance and McClusky are among the most illustrious.

Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morrison: "...Spruance's performance was superb. Calm, collected, decisive, yet receptive to advice; keeping in his mind the picture of widely disparate forces, yet boldly seizing every opening. Raymond A. Spruance emerged from the battle [Midway] one of the greatest admirals in American naval history. (Wiki)

In the words of Admiral Chester Nimitz: "McClusky's decision to continue the search for the enemy and his judgment as to where the enemy might be found, "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway". (Wiki)

[Retain Mike]

Thanks for the link. One thing I kept running across in several of my sources was the frustration with the sighting reported by the reconnaissance aircraft from the Japanese heavy cruiser Tone. With a bit more aggression and professionalism on his part it seems they could have reacted sooner.

[Buttons12]

I’ve seen several different youtube videos about Midway. All good!

[SamAdams76]

Nice article.

Interesting to note that Admiral Halsey would have been in command of Midway had he not come down with a severe case of psoriasis, which caused him to be sidelined. This opened the door for Admiral Spruance and the rest is history.

Later in the war, Admiral Halsey would constantly try to make up for that resulting in questionable decisions in the Leyte Gulf and for keeping his fleet moving forward in a typhoon where it would have been more prudent to take the fleet to shelter.

[Retain Mike]

Thank you.

[Rummyfan]

Later in the war, Admiral Halsey would constantly try to make up for that resulting in questionable decisions in the Leyte Gulf and for keeping his fleet moving forward in a typhoon where it would have been more prudent to take the fleet to shelter.

Halsey is the admiral most remembered. But Spruance and Mitscher and Nimitz were real heroes too. Interesting that the Navy never named a class of ships after Halsey, as opposed to Spruance and Nimitz.

And Leyte Gulf was a big SNAFU on Halsey's part.

[Vigilanteman]

My Dad, a Navy veteran of the Pacific War, told me that the designation was an inside joke. The reality was that after the Battle of Guadalcanal was won, the navy found that they could produce CVEs in less than a third the time as standard CVs and that the momentum had shifted so heavily in America's favor that few were actually lost in combat.

Of the five standard CVs which started the war:

1. Lexington was sunk at the Battle of Coral Sea,
   
2. Yorktown was heavily damaged at Midway and was sunk by a chance encounter with a Japanese submarine while being towed back to Pearl Harbor for repairs,
   
3. Hornet was sunk in one of the Guadalcanal battles,
   
4. Saratoga was damaged and repaired multiple times until finally damaged so badly in a kamikaze attack at Iwo Jima that she was towed back and converted into a training vessel for the duration of the war,
   
5. Enterprise thus became the only one of the original aircraft carriers to survive the war as an aircraft carrier.