62 years ago today...
It was 62 years ago today that the Imperial Japanese Navy's self-image of invincibility was irreparably shattered, when a rag-tag force of American ships (one barely out of the repair yard) took on the cream of the Japanese fleet and sent four of the aircraft carriers who attacked Pearl Harbor barely seven months before to the bottom of the Pacific.
The Battle of Midway was, arguably, the most important naval battle not only of World War II, but of the 20th Century. IT began a virtually unbroken streak of American victories and Japanese defeats, a chain of battles that finally came to an end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And many consider it the birth date of America as a global superpower.
On that beautiful day in 1942, Americans found themselves vastly outnumbered and outgunned. The one concrete advantage we had was that the Japanese were convinced that we had one or two aircraft carriers available. Thanks to truly heroic work by the yard workers at Pearl Harbor, the Yorktown (barely patched together, and in dire need of far more extensive repairs) joined her sisters Enterprise and Hornet for the battle.
However, we had another advantage, one strictly on paper, but worth at least another two aircraft carriers. We had broken the Japanese code, and knew their battle plans.
Horrible mistakes were made on both sides. Errors and misjudgments and miscommunications all added together in the inevitable fog of war. Just to cite one example, American torpedo bombers got separated from the dive bombers and fighters, and made solo attacks on the Japanese fleet -- with catastrophic results. Of two squadrons of bombers, only one man survived.
But their sacrifice was not in vain. They drew all the Japanese defenses down to sea level, leaving the skies bare for the arriving dive bombers. In short order, the Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu were blazing wrecks, leaving only Hiryu still intact. The Japanese managed to strike back, crippling the already-wounded Yorktown and leaving her vulnerable to a submarine attack. The Hiryu herself was sent to a watery grave the next day.
Japan never recovered from this blow. Four of their front-line carriers -- and more importantly, their highly skilled aircrews -- were gone, never to be fully replaced.
On this day, we should all pause to remember those died 62 years ago.
By: Jay Tea at 02:00 PM | Link | Filed under: History | Technorati Links | | Trackbacks (2)
- Winds of Change.NET linked with Battle of Midway - 1942
- Murdoc Online linked with Midway
Might I recommend: Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story, by Mitsuo Fuchida. Fuchida had been an airman at Pearl Harbor, but was too sick to fly at Miday, so we see what happened on the Japanese Carriers.
Nit: 64 years, not 62.
David: I've had that book for a couple of years now and just haven't had time to get to it. My favorite remains "Incredible Victory" by Walter Lord. I read it in seventh grade and I was a changed person. Really.
"We had broken the Japanese code, and knew their battle plans."
Wondering whether the contemporaneous ACLU-type moonbats expressed any outrage that we likely violated someone's privacy rights in breaking the code. Or maybe we did a better job of obtaining proper search warrants then. Just curious.
I like just about everything Lord has written and Incredible Victory is great. ANd even though current scholarship debunks a lot of Lord's thoughts on "A Night to Remember", that remains my favorite book of his. Next vacation take both Lord and Fuchida, read Lord first and then hit Fuchida. That was essentially the combination I did when I was a kid (I went through my everything Midway phase).
Japanese were fueling their planes and there were bombs stacked on the decks of their aircraft carriers when out dive bombers struck and set them ablaze and they were four of the six that had luanched aircraft on peral harbor
Having that material available on that many ships simultaneously was a tactical decision. They had either been pressed into it or it was calculated risk that failed. There's a difference between luck and opportunity.
62 years, 64 years, whatever.
There's a new book about Midway titled "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway'.
Excellent book, dispels some myths. i.e. few Japanese planes were on the carrier decks when the dive bombers attacked. what doomed the carriers was poor damage control and fire fighting techniques.
The winning of the Battle of Midway can be attributed to one man. Yes folks, that man was John Joesph Rochefort, the head of HYP0. It was his brilliant insight and dedicated hard work that broke the Japanese JN25 code. It was also his brilliant idea of having Midway to send a message in the clear about the fresh water distillers, that confirmed the real target. For this was the foundation that took us all the way to Japan. This man never got the recognition that he deserved, even after all of these years.
The sailors and airmen deserve a lot of credit for executing Admiral Nimitz's plan, but without Rochefort, there would have been no decisive victory at Midway.
I have read several volumes on the service that Rochefort did for his country in the time of dire circumstances and everyone of the authors reached the same conclusion--the brilliance of Rochefort, was the major contributing factor to our naval and land victory over the Empire of Japan.
While it is true that we lost the Yorktown, there were already new aircraft carriers coming of the building ways and were on the way to being commissioned. It took a little while for these ships to reach the battle zone, but when they did, it was all over but the shouting.
Don't forget about the submarine force too. They are the ones that sank most of the merchant shipping of Japan. Without the vital supplies to carry on the war, Japan was doomed.
