Originally Posted by
Olympic Fan
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