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Thread: Midway

  1. #1

    Midway

    Today is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway -- probably the most amazing military victory in American history.

    Novelist Herman Wouk best described the importance of the battle: Three times in human history, he wrote, the navies of the East sailed out to challenge the West. And in three decisive battles -- Salamis, Lepanto and Midway -- the outnumbered navies of the West won monumental victories.

    The first two major books about Midway were titled Incredible Victory (by Walter Lord) and Miracle at Midway (by Gordon Prange). The victory by the greatly outnumbered American fleet is hard to believe -- the Japanese were not only far more numerous, but at that point of the war, they had much better planes, far more experienced pilots and a far more advanced doctrine of carrier operations.

    Just an example, at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were able to launch and coordinate two attack groups of approximately 170 plays each. At Midway, the Americans couldn't coordinate a two carrier strike (we had a third carrier, but it was in a different task force and didn't try to coordinate its strikes). What we did was launch two groups of fighters, three torpedo squadrons and five dive bomber squadrons, who attacked almost piecemeal. The various squadrons followed their own paths -- as a result the three torpedo squadrons attacked first -- one by one -- without fighter protection and were slaughtered. Two of the five dive bomber squadrons turned the wrong way when they got to the point where the Japanese were supposed to be and never made an attack.

    It all came down to two dive bomber squadrons from Enterprise and one from Yorktown, which arrived over the Japanese fleet at the same time and found the air clear because the combat air patrol was largely on deck, finishing up the torpedo planes. Even then, the American inexperience showed when both Enterprise squadrons dove on the same carrier. They blasted the Kaga (while Max Leslie's Yorktown boys were smashing the Soryu), but the flagship Akagi would have been untouched if Richard Best hadn't noticed the mistake. He managed to signal two wingmen and their three planes dove alone on the Akagi -- and smashed it.

    Three of Japan's six big carriers were wrecked in a five-minute period. Later in the day, the American dive bombers found the Hiryu and smashed the fourth big carrier the Japanese had at Midway (two big carriers, bloodied at the Coral Sea, missed the battle). The Americans lost the Yorktown (already damaged at Coral Sea).

    The five minutes at Midway totally turned the tide of WWII in Pacific. I just thought that on the 75th anniversary, we ought to celebrate one of the most amazing and most important military victories in our history.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Today is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway -- probably the most amazing military victory in American history.

    Novelist Herman Wouk best described the importance of the battle: Three times in human history, he wrote, the navies of the East sailed out to challenge the West. And in three decisive battles -- Salamis, Lepanto and Midway -- the outnumbered navies of the West won monumental victories.

    The first two major books about Midway were titled Incredible Victory (by Walter Lord) and Miracle at Midway (by Gordon Prange). The victory by the greatly outnumbered American fleet is hard to believe -- the Japanese were not only far more numerous, but at that point of the war, they had much better planes, far more experienced pilots and a far more advanced doctrine of carrier operations.

    Just an example, at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were able to launch and coordinate two attack groups of approximately 170 plays each. At Midway, the Americans couldn't coordinate a two carrier strike (we had a third carrier, but it was in a different task force and didn't try to coordinate its strikes). What we did was launch two groups of fighters, three torpedo squadrons and five dive bomber squadrons, who attacked almost piecemeal. The various squadrons followed their own paths -- as a result the three torpedo squadrons attacked first -- one by one -- without fighter protection and were slaughtered. Two of the five dive bomber squadrons turned the wrong way when they got to the point where the Japanese were supposed to be and never made an attack.

    It all came down to two dive bomber squadrons from Enterprise and one from Yorktown, which arrived over the Japanese fleet at the same time and found the air clear because the combat air patrol was largely on deck, finishing up the torpedo planes. Even then, the American inexperience showed when both Enterprise squadrons dove on the same carrier. They blasted the Kaga (while Max Leslie's Yorktown boys were smashing the Soryu), but the flagship Akagi would have been untouched if Richard Best hadn't noticed the mistake. He managed to signal two wingmen and their three planes dove alone on the Akagi -- and smashed it.

    Three of Japan's six big carriers were wrecked in a five-minute period. Later in the day, the American dive bombers found the Hiryu and smashed the fourth big carrier the Japanese had at Midway (two big carriers, bloodied at the Coral Sea, missed the battle). The Americans lost the Yorktown (already damaged at Coral Sea).

    The five minutes at Midway totally turned the tide of WWII in Pacific. I just thought that on the 75th anniversary, we ought to celebrate one of the most amazing and most important military victories in our history.
    Thank you for this.

    And in only two more days we commemorate a watershed event on the western front--the D-Day landings in Normandy.

    Quoting Sir Winston, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Today is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway -- probably the most amazing military victory in American history.

    Novelist Herman Wouk best described the importance of the battle: Three times in human history, he wrote, the navies of the East sailed out to challenge the West. And in three decisive battles -- Salamis, Lepanto and Midway -- the outnumbered navies of the West won monumental victories.

    The first two major books about Midway were titled Incredible Victory (by Walter Lord) and Miracle at Midway (by Gordon Prange). The victory by the greatly outnumbered American fleet is hard to believe -- the Japanese were not only far more numerous, but at that point of the war, they had much better planes, far more experienced pilots and a far more advanced doctrine of carrier operations.

    Just an example, at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were able to launch and coordinate two attack groups of approximately 170 plays each. At Midway, the Americans couldn't coordinate a two carrier strike (we had a third carrier, but it was in a different task force and didn't try to coordinate its strikes). What we did was launch two groups of fighters, three torpedo squadrons and five dive bomber squadrons, who attacked almost piecemeal. The various squadrons followed their own paths -- as a result the three torpedo squadrons attacked first -- one by one -- without fighter protection and were slaughtered. Two of the five dive bomber squadrons turned the wrong way when they got to the point where the Japanese were supposed to be and never made an attack.

    It all came down to two dive bomber squadrons from Enterprise and one from Yorktown, which arrived over the Japanese fleet at the same time and found the air clear because the combat air patrol was largely on deck, finishing up the torpedo planes. Even then, the American inexperience showed when both Enterprise squadrons dove on the same carrier. They blasted the Kaga (while Max Leslie's Yorktown boys were smashing the Soryu), but the flagship Akagi would have been untouched if Richard Best hadn't noticed the mistake. He managed to signal two wingmen and their three planes dove alone on the Akagi -- and smashed it.

    Three of Japan's six big carriers were wrecked in a five-minute period. Later in the day, the American dive bombers found the Hiryu and smashed the fourth big carrier the Japanese had at Midway (two big carriers, bloodied at the Coral Sea, missed the battle). The Americans lost the Yorktown (already damaged at Coral Sea).

    The five minutes at Midway totally turned the tide of WWII in Pacific. I just thought that on the 75th anniversary, we ought to celebrate one of the most amazing and most important military victories in our history.
    Oly,
    If you haven't read it yet (and I suspect you have), 'Shattered Sword' by Parshall and Tully, is a must-read about Midway. It uses primary Japanese sources and gives much of their side of the battle. Lots of photos, diagrams and discussion, and almost more detail than you could ask for. Potomac Books, 2009.
    JStuart

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by JStuart View Post
    Oly,
    If you haven't read it yet (and I suspect you have), 'Shattered Sword' by Parshall and Tully, is a must-read about Midway. It uses primary Japanese sources and gives much of their side of the battle. Lots of photos, diagrams and discussion, and almost more detail than you could ask for. Potomac Books, 2009.
    JStuart
    I've read it and recommended it on this forum.

    A fantastic book that presents the Japanese side of the battle and corrects many of the myths about the battle.

    For instance, it's long been recounted that the delay in the launch of the Tone No. 2 scout -- which finally located the American fleet -- was a bit of good fortune for the Americans, delaying their discovery. But Pashall and Tully actually plot the Tone scout's course and conclude that if it had launched in time, it would have missed the Americans entirely. So the delayed launch was not a stroke of American luck, but bad luck.

    I've always been struck by how even those Americans who failed at Midway played a part in the victory. For instance, the submarine Nautilus was stalking Nagumo's carrier force. It was actually detected early before it could get in position to launch. The Japanese fleet turned away and a destroyer was left to pin the Nautilus down. After an hour, the destroyer raced to rejoin the fleet.

    Well, about that time, American dive bombers were looking or the Japanese fleet. Wade McClusky's two Enterprise groups were making a box search around the estimated location of the fleet when McClusky saw the destroyer -- left behind to sit on the Nautilus -- racing to catch up with the fleet. He followed the destroyers' path and found the Japanese carriers, barely at (and in at least a few cases, beyond) his fuel supply.

    Then there were the torpedo squadrons, which sacrificed themselves for no hits -- considering the lousy quality of the torpedoes, even a hit might have not damaged the Japanese. They were flying terrible planes, the Devastator, slow with little maneuverability or protection. Torpedo Squadron 8 from the Hornet went in alone with fighter protection and lost 15 of 15 planes and 29 of 30 fliers (one downed pilot was rescued a week later). Three of 31 planes from the Enterprise and Yorktown went down without scoring a hit. But their sacrifice did two things -- it delayed the Japanese from launching a counterstrike against the American carriers just discovered by the Tone scout and (2) it sucked the Japanese combat air patrol down to the deck -- giving the high flying dive bombers a clear run to the target.

    PS Famous film director John Ford was at Midway and he won an academy award for the documentary he made about the battle. He had crews on the various carriers and the one on the Hornet made some pre-battle shots of the men of Torpedo Squadron 8. Ford turned that footage into an eight-minute film that he sent to the families of the 29 men lost that morning. It never got a wide release to the public. It's a strange experience -- there is almost no action ... most of it are posed shots of the two-man air crews with their planes. But to me, it's almost like seeing shots of the 300 posing with their spears before Thermopylae ... incredibly moving:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CBTnCqkkwU

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by duke74 View Post
    ...

    And in only two more days we commemorate a watershed event on the western front--the D-Day landings in Normandy.

    Quoting Sir Winston, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
    Maybe this is what MJ was thinking about: "the ceiling is the end of the beginning of the roof"

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by duke74 View Post
    And in two mire dates, we commemorate a watershed event on the western front--the D-Day landings in Normandy.

    Quoting Sir Winston, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
    You know the Churchill quote was referring to the victory at El Alamein in November of 1942.

    As for the D-Day anniversary, you are right, that is Tuesday -- the 73rd anniversary of that momentous day.

    I just thought the 75th was a more significant landmark, but in truth, that's just our obsession with certain "round" numbers -- a decade, a century, 25 years, 50 years, 75 years.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by duke74 View Post
    Thank you for this.

    And in only two more days we commemorate a watershed event on the western front--the D-Day landings in Normandy.

    Quoting Sir Winston, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
    This is not to denigrate the efforts of the thousands upon thousands who fought at Normandy and beyond, but the reality is that this vastly shaped postwar Europe, but didn't affect the war nearly as much. The reality, often forgotten, is that had the UK simply held out, and required any expenditure of resources whatsoever, the USSR was defeating Germany by itself. The end was more swift, but the Russians were marching on Berlin without a western front.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    You know the Churchill quote was referring to the victory at El Alamein in November of 1942.

    As for the D-Day anniversary, you are right, that is Tuesday -- the 73rd anniversary of that momentous day.

    I just thought the 75th was a more significant landmark, but in truth, that's just our obsession with certain "round" numbers -- a decade, a century, 25 years, 50 years, 75 years.
    I just learned something, Oly. Thought it was a quote re D-Day. Apologies.

    And wasn't criticizing or downplaying the events and implications of Midway. I was going to start a thread on Tuesday, but thought I'd hook it into yours instead.

    I find it remarkable that even very educated folks have no conception of what June 6th represents, even after all the "Greatest Generation" books and movies a few years ago.

    Personally, it was also the date, 40 years ago in 1977, that I began my career with Haskins & Sells, now Deloitte. So it's a confluence of events for me - one being only a bit more important to Western civilization of course.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Deslok View Post
    This is not to denigrate the efforts of the thousands upon thousands who fought at Normandy and beyond, but the reality is that this vastly shaped postwar Europe, but didn't affect the war nearly as much. The reality, often forgotten, is that had the UK simply held out, and required any expenditure of resources whatsoever, the USSR was defeating Germany by itself. The end was more swift, but the Russians were marching on Berlin without a western front.
    Understood, but wasn't Stalin pushing (hard) for the opening of a western front to reduce the pressures on Russia?

    And I think hastening the end of the war is in fact a significant effect (...and I guess I can't separate the war and post-war related implications. Russia embedded to the borders of France through Germany is a chilling thought from 1945+. Just me I guess)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Deslok View Post
    This is not to denigrate the efforts of the thousands upon thousands who fought at Normandy and beyond, but the reality is that this vastly shaped postwar Europe, but didn't affect the war nearly as much. The reality, often forgotten, is that had the UK simply held out, and required any expenditure of resources whatsoever, the USSR was defeating Germany by itself. The end was more swift, but the Russians were marching on Berlin without a western front.
    I'm not a historian, and probably don't even qualify as a buff, but I think this is seriously wrong. I'm not so sure Germany loses to Russia if Germany can concentrate on one front. Most importantly, from everything I've read, Germany's rocket program was scant months away from truly changing the course of the war. If Hitler had put more resources into the technology earlier, we'd probably be looking at a very different world today.

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    Quote Originally Posted by duke74 View Post
    I just learned something, Oly. Thought it was a quote re D-Day. Apologies.

    And wasn't criticizing or downplaying the events and implications of Midway. I was going to start a thread on Tuesday, but thought I'd hook it into yours instead.

    I find it remarkable that even very educated folks have no conception of what June 6th represents, even after all the "Greatest Generation" books and movies a few years ago.

    Personally, it was also the date, 40 years ago in 1977, that I began my career with Haskins & Sells, now Deloitte. So it's a confluence of events for me - one being only a bit more important to Western civilization of course.
    I hate to be "that guy," but ...

    isn't it sobering to realize that more years have transpired since the start of your career than lapsed between D-Day and the START of your career?

    We grew up in the shadow of the greatest generation; to the generations after us, WWII is just like the Civil War, just something to be studied in History class. Sigh.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by dudog84 View Post
    I'm not a historian, and probably don't even qualify as a buff, but I think this is seriously wrong. I'm not so sure Germany loses to Russia if Germany can concentrate on one front. Most importantly, from everything I've read, Germany's rocket program was scant months away from truly changing the course of the war. If Hitler had put more resources into the technology earlier, we'd probably be looking at a very different world today.
    Deslok raises as fascinating counterfactual. He (or she?) makes the one valid point, that D-Day shaped postwar Europe. Without the invasion, one of three things could have happened -- (1) German, able to focus on the Eastern Front, might have won. Disaster for the world; (2) Stalin, disgusted by the refusal of the Western Allies to open a second front and facing the full strength of the German military (almost a third of the German troops were deployed in the West), reaches a separate peace with Hitler. A disaster for the world; (3) the Russians defeat the Germans and the T-34s roll to the English Channel. Postwar Europe is totally Communist (except maybe Spain ... even Italy would have gone commie after the Allies pulled out troops). Disaster for the world.

    So even if D-Day wasn't necessary to win the war, it was vital to assuring a free Europe. It was a fact that the nations reconquered by the Americans/British retained a democratic government, while everywhere the Russians conquered became a Communist government.

    It would make an interesting novel -- but as I said, I would expect Stalin to react by signing a separate peace. As dudog suggested, that would give Hitler time to develop his rocket program and pulverize England.

    I guess my main point is that D-Day WAS worth the effort.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Deslok raises as fascinating counterfactual. He (or she?) makes the one valid point, that D-Day shaped postwar Europe. Without the invasion, one of three things could have happened -- (1) German, able to focus on the Eastern Front, might have won. Disaster for the world; (2) Stalin, disgusted by the refusal of the Western Allies to open a second front and facing the full strength of the German military (almost a third of the German troops were deployed in the West), reaches a separate peace with Hitler. A disaster for the world; (3) the Russians defeat the Germans and the T-34s roll to the English Channel. Postwar Europe is totally Communist (except maybe Spain ... even Italy would have gone commie after the Allies pulled out troops). Disaster for the world.

    So even if D-Day wasn't necessary to win the war, it was vital to assuring a free Europe. It was a fact that the nations reconquered by the Americans/British retained a democratic government, while everywhere the Russians conquered became a Communist government.

    It would make an interesting novel -- but as I said, I would expect Stalin to react by signing a separate peace. As dudog suggested, that would give Hitler time to develop his rocket program and pulverize England.

    I guess my main point is that D-Day WAS worth the effort.
    All this. Much better articulated than my similar argument above about the importance -- short and longer term -- of the Normandy landing.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    I hate to be "that guy," but ...

    isn't it sobering to realize that more years have transpired since the start of your career than lapsed between D-Day and the START of your career?

    We grew up in the shadow of the greatest generation; to the generations after us, WWII is just like the Civil War, just something to be studied in History class. Sigh.
    It is ... as is the fact that Sept 11 is now an item for history as the younger generations enter and advance through school.

    All that being said, all of these events need to be fit into a context of history - not just dates to be memorized.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Then there were the torpedo squadrons, which sacrificed themselves for no hits -- considering the lousy quality of the torpedoes, even a hit might have not damaged the Japanese. They were flying terrible planes, the Devastator, slow with little maneuverability or protection. Torpedo Squadron 8 from the Hornet went in alone with fighter protection and lost 15 of 15 planes and 29 of 30 fliers (one downed pilot was rescued a week later). Three of 31 planes from the Enterprise and Yorktown went down without scoring a hit. But their sacrifice did two things -- it delayed the Japanese from launching a counterstrike against the American carriers just discovered by the Tone scout and (2) it sucked the Japanese combat air patrol down to the deck -- giving the high flying dive bombers a clear run to the target.
    It reminds me of a quote from Stephen Ambrose's book about D-Day: "War is waste. Men, and equipment, and generals are expendable so long as their destruction contributes to the ultimate goal of victory." Translation: Yeah, you and many others might get slaughtered, but if your slaughter distracts or occupies the enemy enough to let your comrades get into position to do some real damage, it's not only worth it, that's actually the whole point."

    And that delay itself had (at least) two critical ripple effects. First, and most directly, it kept Nagumo from launching an attack against the American carriers. Without the delay, he would've been able to put hundreds of planes into the air against all three American carriers. Instead, he had to wait. Which led to...

    The hangar decks of the Japanese carriers were brimming with fully loaded and fueled planes, ordnance, and fuel trucks, waiting for the all-clear so they could launch their attack. At the moment the American dive bombers found and attacked the Japanese carriers, they were floating tinderboxes just waiting for someone to throw in a match. So the American bombs that hit the Japanese carriers set off chain-reaction explosions that obliterated men by the hundreds and set the carriers ablaze beyond any hope of control or salvage.

    Ultimately, Nagumo was only able to launch an attack against the American fleet from one carrier -- the Hiryu, which was the one Japanese carrier that escaped unscathed from those critical few minutes on June 4. The Hiryu's attack did manage to find and bomb the Yorktown, which eventually sank two days later. It appeared for a while that the Yorktown would be saved, until a Japanese submarine found the crippled ship on June 6 and torpedoed the Yorktown and the destroyer that was laying alongside her (the USS Hammann) to assist with damage control and salvage efforts. Obviously, had Nagumo been able to launch an attack from all four of his carriers against the American fleet, he could've done a lot more damage -- but the "waste" of the American torpedo squadrons prevented it, thereby opening the door for the American dive bombers to attack and neutralize three of the four Japanese carriers before they could do any harm to the American fleet.
    "I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Novelist Herman Wouk best described the importance of the battle: Three times in human history, he wrote, the navies of the East sailed out to challenge the West. And in three decisive battles -- Salamis, Lepanto and Midway -- the outnumbered navies of the West won monumental victories.
    Midway was a great victory and turning point of the war, but I'm uncomfortable with this East vs. West narrative. What did the Japanese have in common with the Persians or Ottomans, other than that they were expansionist empires? Not to mention the other side: ancient Greeks, imperial Spain, Renaissance Italy, and the U.S.

    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    The first two major books about Midway were titled Incredible Victory (by Walter Lord) and Miracle at Midway (by Gordon Prange). The victory by the greatly outnumbered American fleet is hard to believe -- the Japanese were not only far more numerous, but at that point of the war, they had much better planes, far more experienced pilots and a far more advanced doctrine of carrier operations.
    "Outnumbered" here is a bit subjective. The Japanese had quite a few more ships and sailors, but the number of planes (the decisive weapons) was about the same - land-based planes from the island supplemented the American carrier forces.

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    There is a website dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway:

    http://midway75.org/

    Midway was the turning point in the war and perhaps the second greatest sea battle of the war after the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. Admiral Raymond Spruance, a battleship man, was placed in charge of Task Force 16 (Enterprise and Hornet) after Admiral William Halsey was stricken with shingles and hospitalized at Pearl Harbor. Spruance executed his duties with genius.
    Bob Green

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    Here's an interesting addition to the story from recently released docs, as told by the WaPost.

    Apparently, the Chi Trib implied that the US had broken Japanese codes and predicted it...

    -jk

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    Gordon Prange's Miracle at Midway was an excellent read many years ago. Also the movie Midway, starring Charlton Heston, from about 1976, is an excellent movie and is pretty much historically true. Another movie Tora Tora Tora, from about the same time period, was also a good movie and fairly historically accurate.
    Tom Mac

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    Here's an interesting addition to the story from recently released docs, as told by the WaPost.

    Apparently, the Chi Trib implied that the US had broken Japanese codes and predicted it...

    -jk
    The Chicago Tribune was owned and edited at that time by Robert McCormick, a right-wing Republican who hated Franklin Roosevelt with every fiber of his being -- so much that he was willing to risk American lives to embarrass the President. On Dec. 4, 1941, his paper made headline news by reporting FDR's "Victory Plan" -- which was nothing more than a manpower study by the Army that suggested that the national could put 7 million men in uniform in event of war without harming war industries, but it wouldn't be able to field a substantial army until 1943. It was a huge scoop (that gave the Nazis a close look at our potential) and a major political setback for FDR's attempt to prepare us for war -- or would have been had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor three days later.

    The June 7, 1942 article, reporting that the victory at Midway was the result of US code-breaking may have been the most unpatriotic act by an American newpaper in our history, It could have ruined a key source of intelligence for the war going forward. Fortunately, Japan never learned of the article (or else didn't believe it).

    FDR wanted to prosecute McCormick and/or shut the Tribune down, but aides convinced him that either act would stir up so much publicity that the Japanese would realize the importance -- and the truth -- of the Tribune's story.

    If there is karmic justice it came in the fall of 1948 when the Tribune famously headlined the election "Dewey defeats Truman." That's the Tribune that Truman is holding in the famous photograph.

    As crimsondevil's note about the numbers of airplanes involved at Midway ... he's right that the raw number of planes wasn't that lopsided -- The Japanese brought 303 first-line naval aircraft (Zeroes, Vals and Kates) ... the Americans countered with 261 Wildcats, Dauntless dive bombers and Devastator torpedo bombers -- the Wildcats were good planes (although inferior to the Zero) and the Dauntless was probably a bit better than the Val. But it was a joke to call the 44 Devastators a front-line plane. Now, the US did have a number of less useful planes based on Midway, plus six of the next-generation Avenger torpedo bombers. Unfortunately, they were flown by raw aircrews and carried the unreliable torpedoes of the period. There were also a number of second-line planes on Midway, including 17 obsolete Vindicator bombers and 21 Brewster Buffalo fighters (deathtraps against the Zero). There was also a squadron of 17 B-17s and four B-26s -- high altitude bombers that were useless against ships.

    Of course, I'm not counting the Japanese 4th carrier division, which was supporting the invasion of the Aleutians with two carriers and 76 more frontline planes. There were able to get south in time to cover the withdrawal of the Japanese fleet.

    So in terms of raw numbers, there wasn't much difference in the number of planes involved. Quality, yes .. quantity, no.

    And while we know now that planes were the decisive weapon, nobody knew that at the time. The fact that the Japanese outnumbered us 6-3 in carriers (the Japanese had four big carriers and two smaller carriers at Midway), and 11-0 in battleships, 16-8 in cruisers and 46-20 in destroyers certainly could have been important. Indeed, on the night of June 4-5, after the carrier battle, Admiral Kondo took four battleships and a strong force of cruisers and destroyers in a high-speed run east, hoping to catch the US carrier fleet under his guns, Spruance's staff wanted him to move west that night, to be in position for followup attacks on the retiring Japanese the next morning. Spruance rejected that advice and moved east for six hours before turning back to the west. Had he listened to his staff (actually Halsey's staff that he inherited), the Japanese edge in surface ships could have played a bigger role in the battle.

    As for the Wouk quote, sorry that made you uncomfortable, but Wouk was talking about the survival and triumph of Western Civilization. True, the victors at Salamis, Lepanto and Midway were very different states, as were the losers. But to me, there is no doubt that the Persians, the Turks and the Japanese all represented totalitarian states, while the victors of Salamis and Midway were clearly democratic states. The Holy League at Lepanto represented a less democratic alliance, but it was far less totalitarian than the Turkish forces.
    Last edited by Olympic Fan; 06-06-2017 at 12:06 AM.

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