Battle of Midway, 4-7 June 1942

http://www.history.navy.mil/index.html ^ | Unknown | DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

[Antoninus]

How do you imagine the rest of the pacific theater would have been affected? How do you imagine the war effort in total would have been affected?

The "turning point" would have been postponed a few months, that's all. Within a year, our new carrier-based aircraft (Hellcats, Corsairs, Helldivers, Avengers) totally outclassed everything the Japanese had. These carriers, had they not been destroyed at Midway, would have been sunk somewhere else. Probably by our submarine fleet which effectively did to Japan what the German U-boats failed to do to England.

[Sparta]

What would have happened had the Japanese carriers not have been found, or if the battle of Midway had not occurred?

They would've continued for Hawaii which was the ultimate Japanese target.

How do you imagine the rest of the pacific theater would have been affected?

I think if we would've lost Midway, I think Hawaii and the Panama Canal would've been in danger from the Japanese. We would've had to take a little longer, but we would've still defeated the Japanese.

How do you imagine the war effort in total would have been affected?

I think the Soviets would've conquored more of Europe, but the Axis would've still been defeated.

[eeman]

Not only were the planes better, the new (Essex) Class of Carriers were better also. In the first 11 months of the Pacific War, we lost 3 major carriers (Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp,Hornet), plus the Langley, which was primarily for airplane transport.

After the Essex carriers came on line, none of them were lost to enemy action in 2.5 years of naval action. The Essex class carriers could sustain damage better than older carriers could. The USS Franklin sustained severe damage in the Sea of Japan but did not sink.

USS Franklin Fact File

I took a tour of the USS Hornet (CV-12) and the guide said the that the generators on the Essex class were redundant & distributed through the ship so that when they were attacked, they did not lose generator capacity so they could power the pumps to fight fires, pump out sea water

[eeman]

Should read....we lost 4 (not 3) major carriers (Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp, Hornet)

[Antoninus]

Not only were the planes better, the new (Essex) Class of Carriers were better also.

Bingo. And not only that, but we produced a sh!t load of them during the war. In comparison, the Japanese completed two maybe three fleet carriers during the course of the war, none of which had any significant impact as their early losses left them with practically no ace pilots left.

[eeman]

They sure did crank out a lot of carriers. I just looked at the Navy.mil fact file page on carriers. Between December 1942 and the end of the war, there were 23 fleet and escort carriers commissioned!

[eeman]

I guess since it's June 4, the anniverary of the battle, they put it on. I wonder how many people would make that connection? I wonder how many people under the age of 40 would know what the significance of Pearl Harbor Day is?

[eeman]

I am 42, so not that much older than 40 (not yet anyway). I was always amazed in high school what people did not know. I remember this shop class I took I think my senior year and the shop teacher was also a Normandy vet. Anyway, on Dec 7th, he was giving us a lecture about its meaning when several smirking students didn't know or didn't care or both and he just lit into them for about ten minutes...."HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE RIDING IN A LANDING CRAFT AND WATCH THE GUY'S HEAD NEXT TO YOU TURN TO GOO??"

I thought about him after seeing "Saving Private Ryan",

Since your dad is an Omaha vet, have you been to Normandy?

[HarryDunne]

bttt