[eeman]

What really could have lost the battle for the Americans and probably did lead to the loss of the Yorktown was the American attack planes not knowing where the Japanese fleet was. This is despite that a US submarine was in constant contact, the Midway Island-based planes were also in contact with the Japanese all morning long. This information was never passed on to the carrier based planes. Except for the skill and initiative of Waldron, McCluskey,et al, the US carrier planes may never have found the Japanese fleet. I don't think this can be blamed on Fletcher.

If you really want to play a "what if" scenario, think about what might have been had Halsey not been sick and Spruance was not given command. Halsey got suckered by the Japanese at Leyte Gulf. He might have got suckered by the Japanese at Midway into a follow up engagement and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

[hchutch]

My beefs with Fletcher are more his incompetence during the Wake Relief Expedition and in pulling out prior to the battle of Savo Island. He did not make that many mistakes at Midway (although had he sent BOTH squadrons of SBDs out on June 4, as opposed to using one on a scouting mission early on), he might have been able to take Hiryu out in that first strike. His best move was turning things over to Spruance once yorktown was hit that first time.

Also, Halsey was not dumb, and I don't think he'd have been suckered in June of 1942. Leyte Gulf was not even all Halsey's fault. There were two chains of command, and there was a distinct lack of communications. Furthermore, the carriers were thought to be the greatest threat at the time.