78th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway Webinar

[@marcusalexander7088]

Wait! Parshall and Symonds on the same show! EXCELLENT! Two of my three favorite Midway scholars! Perhaps the Ghost of Prange was there as well.

[@garyrunnalls7714]

Thank you, anything with Jon Parshall is Brilliant. I highly recommend his and Tully's book "Shattered Sword"

[@MoCrush]

These men were all true hero's. God bless them and America.

[@walteri.9465]

This was a fantastic webinar. Thank you, PHAM, and Admiral Port, Craig Symonds, and Jon Parshall!

[@bwilie7173]

Excellent presentation. Thank you for putting this together!

[@billmactiernan6304]

I have to comment again, because Mr Symonds said something that I have never heard before and it astounded me! At about minute 105, Mr Symonds says that Mitscher submitted a battle report that said the Hornet squadrons flew southwest, because that's what he was "..ordered to do". (Ordered to submit a false battle report or ordered to fly his squadrons south west? Which order would Spruance have given?) So, Mitscher not only guessed wrong, he violated the direct order of his superior and he arranged for a complete cover up. You don't get court-martialed for guessing wrong, But the direct violation of lawful orders and the knowing submission of false reports to cover it up are both court-martial worthy offenses. One must ask, what if the 40+ fighters and bombers of the Hornet group had not flown 265, but southwest, and found Kito Butai (as Waldron did), would the Hiryu have gone down in the first attack with the other three carriers. If so, the sinking of the Yorktown may be Mitchers fault.

[@chuckw1113]

Loved the podcast. Thanks to the participants. Only a small quibble. The coloring page labeled F2A Buffalo is actually an F4F Wildcat.

[@cheesenoodles8316]

Am am of the older ilk, and I want to print and color the airplanes. Excellent presentation.

[@joebullock3385]

Thanks so much for putting this together. Watching from Texas

[@jerrylipnisky80]

They briefly talk about who should have been portrayed in the recent movie, and how the producer ginned up the Best's personality. Yet the movie would have been better served portraying the conflict between Stanhope Ring and John Waldron.

[@marcusalexander7088]

And now, Japan, you shall begin truly learning fully the meaning of the phrase, "Don't start none, won't be none."

[@jimmyowens1654]

The name of the back seat gunner was James Francis Murray. [ 1922-2015] who was with Dick Best. ''Shattered Sword''. Excellent book, all Hollywood directors should read it, if they want to make a Movie and not like the last load of rubbish recently released. No disrespect meant to all the great Americans that were involved in the conflict.

[@billmactiernan6304]

Someone commented that admiral Nimitz could send out admiral Spruance, (a black shoe admiral) as a replacement for admiral Halsey because Halsey had a great staff. Yet, the "Air Bosses" on the Enterprise, Browning, and the Hornet, Mitscher, turned in abysmally poor performances at Midway. Browning couldn't get his aircraft aloft in a timely fashion and had to be overruled by Spruance. Mitscher is responsible for the Flight to Nowhere.

[@dennisweidner288]

A question. Did the Japanese carriers striking Midway have orders to avoid hitting the air strip? Seems a key and big target to miss unless they were told not to hit it. A am wondering if they wanted to keep it in tact so their planes could use it after they took Midway.

[@f430ferrari5]

It’s my understanding that many of the US planes on Midway had already launched themselves and were in the air en route to the IJN carriers when the IJN planes began attacking. Also, the type of aerial bombs the IJN had were not large enough to cause significant damage to the airstrip and trying to preserve it for later doesn’t make sense as one would allow your enemy to keep landing. You could be right though that this is what the IJN may have been thinking but it was a big mistake. The IJN should have came in with their battleships at night and begin shelling Midway. This would have taken out the planes and airstrip.

[@dennisweidner288]

@@f430ferrari5 You are absolutely correct. Thanks to sitting the Japanese and radar, every plane that could fly was air-born by the time the Japanese attack force reached midway. And you are correct, the Japanese bombers carried smaller bombs than the American dive bombers, but ven small bombs could put a hole in the runways that would take a little time to patch up. I'm not sure what the Japanese were thinking, but given how good the pilots were it seems to me that the only reason that the runways were untouched was that the pilots were ordered to leave them intact. The Japanese hit many small targets such as buildings, but the runways were by far the largest, easiest to hit targets.

[@f430ferrari5]

@@dennisweidner288 thanks for the comment. Not sure if this part is true also but in the 1976 Midway movie Genda recommends to Nagumo that the first waive of attack should be handled by the lesser experienced pilots. Not sure who Osaka is but he was played by Pat Morita and he was an advisor to Nagumo in the movie and said that it seems the lesser experienced pilots couldn’t fully accomplish what was intended. A second strike on Midway was recommended/ordered. This all seemed very weird. You would think with 4 carriers then just split the possibilities. Two carriers stay armed with the torpedo bombs and launch..at least first wave. 8 each of the 3. Two others re-arm ready to strike Midway. In the end the though this is just all semantics. Why speculate anyhow. I never understand why so many interested in Midway focus on this particular aspect of Midway. Nagumo’s dilemma. Who cares. Even if he did whatever we then have Battle of Coral Sea or Battle of Santa Cruz. What ends up happening is that the IJN loses many bomber planes and pilots trying to “sink” US carriers and meanwhile expose their own carriers to being hit and damaged or sunk. They should have already learned their lesson from Battle of Coral Sea and Battle of Wake Island. This is why the surface ships and battleship shelling approach at night should have taken place. Whether the US forces were placed north or behind or south of Midway makes no difference for the IJN. They would have had adequate forces in each position to deal with any scenario. The surface ships in front is all just “bait” for the US to strike first with their carrier planes. The IJN needed to meet that challenge with way more CAP. The carriers should have been loaded 2/3 fighters. Not 2/3 bombers. Even with just 4 carriers this would have put the A6M count at 165 vs only around 85. This is again another part which is not highlighted much. Their is always speculation the A6M’s chased the lower flying torpedo planes and they had no CAP above for the US dive bombers. The real problem is that the IJN simply didn’t have enough fighter planes. So as we can see. Had the IJN had at least 165 A6M’s then it’s doubtful they would have ran out of CAP. In addition, the IJN had 2 small carriers at Midway. Zuiho and Hosho. 30 and 15 plan capacity. For Midway they had 24 with 12 A6M’s and Hosho had 8 bi-planes for whatever reason. Ideally they would have had 10 A5M’s and Zuiho should have had 20 A6M’s and 5 bombers. This is 35 more total planes and would have allowed more strategic positioning of all their carriers. So what they could have done is split the 4 main carriers into two separate groups. They could have added a 3rd group and brought Zuikaku and team her up with Zuiho and Hosho. Each carrier group is responsible for protecting the surface ship group which is ahead of them. Once the US carriers spotted then the bombers of that respective group goes after them and tries to “wound” the US carriers to the extend where they cannot run away from the fast IJN surface ships. Example Yorktown came to a dead stop after the first Hiryu attack. She wasn’t underway until nearly 2 hours after where she got back up to 19 knots. Fast IJN surface ships could do 36 knots. The IJN should have been able to catch the wounded US carriers.

[@dennisweidner288]

@@f430ferrari5 Osaka was Ryūnosuke Kusaka, Nagumo's chief of staff. I think the idea that the best pilots were held in reserve was correct. I think I have read that elsewhere, although I am not sure just where. Tominaga asked for a second strike, though we are not sure why. Some say that it was because the runways were not out of action. Those who say that can provide no source. Only that the runways were not out of action, but as you and I have been discussing, the pilots did not even try to hit the runways. I think it was the heavy AA fire. (Even Tomonagua's plane was hit.) If there had been a second strike, it would have been disastrous for Kido Butai. The casualties from the first raid were heavy and there would have been more on a second raid. It is important because the one thing Japan had going for it was Kido Butai's exceptionally skilled pilots. Given the training program, they could never be replaced. They began to lose them in the Coral Sea, but many were lost at Midway. And in the Solomon, as you point out they were essentially gone, having achieved nothing but incapacitating the basically obsolete American battleships.. I agree that Yamamoto's plan was deeply flawed. That was the basic problem. Nagumo followed the basic IJN doctrine. He probably should have launched an immediate strike on learning about American ships. but IJN doctrine was to attack with a massive, balanced force. The only big mistake he made was turning Hiryu toward the American carriers rather than trying to distance Hiuryu from them.

[@f430ferrari5]

@@dennisweidner288 thanks for the info. Interesting how the movie decided to change the name of Nagumo’s chief of staff. I recall in the movie also that if they don’t take out the airstrip then they invite a counter strike. It does seem the intention was to take it out. A movie isn’t a real source though. I didn’t quite say that the first wave of inexperienced IJN pilots didn’t try. They may have tried but their inexperience and light weight bombs couldn’t fully do the job. It’s no different than the first battle at Wake Island. You would think the IJN would have learned from this. Also as a pilot if you felt a second strike was coming anyhow then why risk getting hit by anti aircraft fire. This is why I have concluded that the IJN’s best option was to begin shelling Midway at night with their battleships. The key was the distance in which they would be firing. If you ask how they hit a target at night but an island is stationary and the IJN used scout planes from their cruisers and battleships anyhow and lit up areas with flares. This is what occurred at the Battle of Savo Island pertaining to night fighting. I would say that the IJN had a lot going for them in 1942. Not only did they have the Kido Butai but they also had their long lance torpedoes and also night fighting experience over the US. The IJN also had the battleships and the US did not. Also while the IJN didn’t know this the US had junk torpedos and lacked armor piercing bombs and lacked fleet oilers. In some ways the over usage of the Kido Butai was actually the IJN’s downfall. They couldn’t envision putting the carriers behind the surface ships and allow the carriers to be used as “support” for the surface ships. The irony is that after losing the 4 main carriers the IJN started to take many chances where they would bring in their surface ships at night because they had no air cover and thus had to leave early because they were afraid of enemy aerial attacks. So the entire formula was there for the IJN to continue to push east and drive the US vessels even out of Hawaii. Good thing they blew it.

[@MegaBloggs1]

You are correct -Nimitz did take an enormous risk-he was risking the us-australian link and the hawiian islands-from nsw-aust

[@livingadreamlife1428]

He had no choice but to go after the IJN. Midway could/would have been a staging pad for a Japanese invasion of Oahu, which Yamamoto knew would be a huge bargaining chip against the Americans. l’ve heard these scholars say as much in previous lectures.

[@kennedysingh3916]

Watching from Jamaica wear the US had 2 magure military air bases during WW2

[@robertdendooven7258]

Was the original broadcast of this open to the public? I would liked to have both Historian's view on whether the US Pacific leadership made enough of an effort getting USS Saratoga out to the battle area by the evening of June 3?

[@Isolder74]

Saratoga was being rebuilt after a torpedo hit. There was no way to get it ready in time for the battle.

[@robertdendooven7258]

@@Isolder74 Your comment is not entirely true, The repairs were finished at Bremerton, WA. in time for the Saratoga to sail on May 22 for San Diego. She arrived there on the morning of May 25. If she was refueled and reprovisioned quickly, she may have been able to sail for Pearl Harbor the next morning. She may have been able to arrive there on the evening of May 30. If it was known that she was arriving then, the Yorktown could have waited one more day to sail with the Saratoga to Midway on May 31. Both carriers probably would have made it to the Midway rendezvous during the afternoon of June 3. Now I will admit some corners would have had to be cut with the Saratoga's post-repair trials, but this scenario may/could have been possible.

[@timf2279]

@@robertdendooven7258 That was very possible. If they had put half the effort in on Saratoga that they did with Lexington she would have made it. Sister Sara always seemed to have some bad luck and timing. However she did survive the war. Fair to say that due to a lot of down time and repairs this helped keep her out of several key battles where the probability of being sunk was great.

[@davidthackray3841]

I don't think Midway was as decisive as Stalingrad in terms of changing the course of WW2.

[@f430ferrari5]

Midway changed the entire course of the war. It was the turning point for sure. Too many US historians cover up as to how much trouble the US had in 1942. Just look at what the US could only muster up at Midway. Most of the planes on Midway were obsolete. 8 cruisers and 15 destroyers. That’s it. In comparison the IJN brought 11 battleships, 17 cruisers, and 49 destroyers. Had they simply used the arsenal they had then the US really couldn’t counter. If you don’t think it’s important then envision the US losing. The entire task force wiped out. If this occurred there are no battles down south. The IJN would target Hawaii next and clear US vessels out. The Hawaii battle would take place in late August or Sep 1942 and the IJN would get back Carrier Shokaku and they already completed Carrier Hiyo 53 planes in July 1942. Battleship Musashi was also completed in August 1942. The US would have had nothing really left. Wasp and Saratoga were both hit by IJN sub torpedos and they may have met a similar fate in some type of counter strike on Midway. Even if they didn’t the US lost their best pilots anyhow in this alt scenario of Midway. The US had junk torpedoes and lacked armor piercing bombs. What would the US planes do anyhow if the IJN was approaching with surface ships up front. Their limited resources would be used to attack the surface ships or do they bypass most of them and go after the IJN carriers which are further back west.

[@dancrenshaw4089]

It's been long enough to stop being polite about Halsey, Nimitz could have had him ("shingles" story just a guess, after the fact); he put Fletcher in charge here; and the next major carrier battle after Midway. Spruance wouldn't have taken over the late battle decisions had Fletcher not separated carrier groups (saving unprotected Enterprise and Hornet). Fletcher keeping a reserve group of fighters which almost saved Yorktown. Sprance never forgave Fletcher for his after-battle report criticized him for not intervening in Mitscher sending Hornet group toward a dumb idea he had in which two additional Japanese carriers were supposed to show up.

[@marcusalexander7088]

There is a worse lack of respect for Naval history and tradition. The Brits keep HMS Victory to this day, and we sold USS Enterprise for scrap. Shameful.

[@timf2279]

When Halsey died, so did the Enterprise.

[@MegaBloggs1]

I believe the hand of the almighty was present-discovery by the dive bombers wasnt just luck

[@paulhamelin7249]

was Japan aware of the build up on midway, if so why did they go ahead with the operation?

[@Rocketsong]

Honestly, even with the build-up, the airfields got plastered pretty hard in the 1st attack. The Japanese assumed they would have days to attack the island and neutralize it before the American surface forces showed up. The actual priority was to lure out the US Navy to have a battle. Actually capturing Midway was considerably secondary.

[@marcusalexander7088]

Emmerich did rewrite history. No Dauntless flew down a flight deck like Luke Skywalker in an X-Wing in the final battle against Hiryu! It does happen that a B-26 Marauder did just that early in the battle.

[@robertdendooven7258]

Also there were only 4 B-26's in the attack of the Midway air group, not the about 12 that are shown on screen. Also, VT-8 attacked about 15 minutes before VT-6 did, not the other way around as was shown in the movie.

[@marcusalexander7088]

@@robertdendooven7258 That's right.

[@tedpeters896]

Naw. It's more important that our military focus on CRT and gender fluidity issues. No?