Joe Rochefort bump!
Posted on 06/03/2002 5:45:32 AM PDT by E Rocc
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:00:36 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- Sixty years after the Battle of Midway, ceremonies across the nation and on the tiny atoll itself will commemorate the day U.S. forces sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers and turned the tide of World War II.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
-Eric
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
A lot of Americans dying for their country at Midway didn't give us victory. Making a lot of Japanese die for THEIR country gave us victory.
Midway was an epic battle for many reasons....it was also the first naval battle in history where the opposing ships never even saw one another. It cemented the carrier as king, kicking the battleship off its throne as the supreme ship of the sea. Here is a link to photos of the island
I bought a DVD on this battle recently, and one thing caught my attention.
An old Japanese naval officer was being interviewed through an interpreter. Allow me to paraphrase his remarks:
"We could not believe the tenacity and bravery of the Americans. We had never encountered anything like them. Not the Chinese, not the British, no one! They fought like us. They were fierce, cunning, and tenacious! They were warriors."
Count me as one of those, we destroyed their carrier fleet, as they had hoped to do to us at Pearl Harbor.
Many squadrons suffered heavy losses, like Torpedo Squadron 8, whose sacrifice has become part of Navy lore.
Only one of the squadron's 30 pilots and gunners survived.
Can you imagine how that would be reported if a similar loss were to occur today? The media would question the "reckless" loss of life and demand and "bi-partisan" investigation into what did the CIC know...blah.. blah... blah.
Here's links to to some photos of USS Yorktown CV-5
Also, a link to an interview with Lt. George Gay
See: Herman Wouk's "War and Remembrance" .
BTW - Admiral Chester Nimitz and his staff stationed at Pearl Harbor were during their best to get Spruance to follow up the victory. Spruance's caution was the biggest blunder of the Pacific War.
I know the scence you are talking about. It is a priceless scence; the shock of the Japanese officer as three of the Japs priceless carriers are burning hulks within a span of 10 minuts.
There are two versions of the movie "Midway". The one that airs most of the time cuts out the full Battle of the Coral Sea segment (about fiteen minutes to a half hour from the begining of the film). I think it should be left in. I saw it once in the theater and ABC aired the entire movie a couple of years ago. Notice how TBS always cuts the word "Japs" out of their version. Not a nice term i'll admit, but still part of the movie.
Had Admiral Spruace followed up the victory the next day, after sinking all the 4 Japanese carriers, and went after the rest of the Japanese fleet the next day; not only might we have sunk the entire Japanese fleet, the Japanese might have been forced to agree to surrender.Actually, Wouk's "Victor Henry" and "Armin von Roon" characters, based on American and German military historians respectively, disagree.See: Herman Wouk's "War and Remembrance" .
BTW - Admiral Chester Nimitz and his staff stationed at Pearl Harbor were during their best to get Spruance to follow up the victory. Spruance's caution was the biggest blunder of the Pacific War.
Spruance lost one of his three carriers and 150 planes, including most of the torpedo bombers. His remaining pilots were exhausted. His original objective was to protect the island base of Midway from a potential Japanese invasion. He had done that, inflicting tremendous damage on the Japanese task force in the process of forcing them to retreat.
Had he pressed his luck, he may have prevailed. Contrarily, he may not have. Had air attacks failed to destroy the fast and powerful Yamato and Nagato, they could have destroyed the American task force. This would have allowed Yamamoto to turn right back around and take Midway, threating the virtually undefended Hawaiian islands in the process. Had we lost Enterprise and Hornet, there would have been no carriers left in the Pacific. Also, submarines would have had to sail an extra four days to reach Japanese home waters, decreasing their strike time there. The effect of submarine warfare on the Japanese home islands is an often-overlooked key to our victory in the war.
Spruance chose to seal his victory rather than tossing the dice again. Sometimes that's the right thing to do. It may or may not have been in this case, but it certainly was not a blunder. Spruance entirely achieved his pre-battle objective: to defend Midway.
-Eric
Joe Rochefort bump!
That honor actually goes to the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought one month earlier.
Raymond Spruance had extensive experience with destroyers and cruisers, but not naval air power. Even though he discovered that the enemy carriers were vulnerable to air attack, there was no way for him to feel certain that a carrier task force could sink the largest battleships then afloat. At the same time, he knew *exactly* what those battleships could do to his task force. He made the right call, based on the information then available - especially considering the number of aircraft and pilots that he lost at Midway.
That honor actually goes to the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought one month earlier.
Technically wasn't that true of Pearl Harbor? Granted one of the fleets was never at sea.
You are correct Sir!
They interviewed a Japanese reporter who was there on this documentary. He said that he was interned when he got back to Tokyo for 6 weeks. He was not allowed outside contact with anyone.
Since the military ran things in Japan back then, even some people in the Japanese Government were kept in the dark about what happened. The "official" release was that only one carrier was sunk, and one damaged. Only later did they learn the truth.
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