Shattered Sword

[kham]

Just completing a 2nd go-around of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. It can be had online at various sources, and as an e-book through Amazon.

Probably the best modern look at the event of the battle, and certainly THE one that shatters a great many myths about the battle that have persisted for over 50 years.
The Primary Myths are:
•
The Americans triumphed against overwhelming odds at the Battle of Midway.
•
The Aleutians Operation was conceived by Admiral Yamamoto, the commander
in chief of Combined Fleet, as a diversion designed to lure the American fleet out of Pearl Harbor.
•
During the transit to Midway, Admiral Yamamoto withheld important intelligence information from Admiral Nagumo, the operational commander of the carrier striking force. As a result, Nagumo was in the dark concerning the nature of the threat facing him.
•
Had the Japanese implemented a two-phase reconnaissance search on the morning of 4 June, they would have succeeded in locating the American fleet in time to win the battle.
•
The late launch of cruiser Tone's No. 4 scout plane doomed Admiral Nagumo to defeat in the battle.
•
Had Admiral Nagumo not decided to rearm his aircraft with land-attack weapons, he would have been in a position to attack the Americans as soon as they were discovered.
•
The sacrifice of USS Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron Eight was not in vain, since it pulled the Japanese combat air patrol fighters down to sea level, thereby allowing the American dive-bombers to attack at 1020.
•
Japan’s elite carrier aviators were all but wiped out during the battle




The USN had 3 carriers, the IJN had 4, but this fails to include Midway, an 'unsinkable' deck

Operation AL was conceived as a separate operation, not a diversion at all. In fact, both AL and Operation MI used nearly every single combatant in the entire IJN

Nagumo was not lacking in any intel that Yamamoto did not have or forward to him; this is simply a red herring that crops up in Fuchida's book

The entire 2-Phase recon sweep is utter bullshit, promulgated again by Fuchida, who while had thought of the concept, did not even begin to implement into IJN search doctrine until 1943.

On the contrary; actually the late launch of Scout 4 allowed them to detect TF17

More bullshit; they had calculated a 2nd strike would have been probably required before the first launch, and planned accordingly. What stopped them was the near continuous attacks from around 0800-1020 which prevented them from even attempting any deck spotting; plus the need to cycle the CAP required with the ongoing air attacks.

Sadly, Torpedo 8's sacrifice was in vain, since it happened long before the 1030 time frame where the SBDs arrived overhead

Aviator losses were actually fairly light considering; it was the Solomons Meatgrinder that destroyed the flower of IJN aviation permanently.

The key factor (beyond the morons should not have engaged in warfare against a power who's economy was 7x greater than theirs, IN THE DEPRESSION...) was likely the failure to concentrate, and a serious lack of proper staff work regarding the complexity of the operational plan. Failure to allow for any unforseen events (the USN always just blunders about like cattle to slaughter) and a complete lack of honesty regarding enemy capabilities (Coral Sea should have told them the First Team of USN Aviators were NOTHING like the opponents they had dismissed before) pretty much hammered their coffin shut. Further, in June 1942, the IJN had 6 fleet type carriers, with one under construction; several lesser units would join her, but that would be it. They should have regarded them as irreplaceable assets, especially since inside of a year, the USN would be commissioning an Essex-class CV every MONTH, plus CVLs and CVEs. Once Kido Butai was lost, they were gone forever.

[nachtjaeger]

Will have to check that out. Nothing so much fun to read as a really well-researched work of history.

[kham]

They did spend a great deal of time getting it right, as it were; they consulted with many sources, not the least of which was Walter Lord, who's own "Incredible Victory" book on Midway is no slouch; but it is important to note that even he at the time was suckered by the myths, most of which came from Fuchida's book. The interesting thing there is that it had been discounted for around 20 years in Japan, but that had not broken through the signal-to-noise ratio of the west.

The obvious question of course, is 'why would he lie?'
Two reasons: a) cover his ass b) cover his ass; his report, along with others immediately after the battle to IJNGHQ, made the myth "Kido Butai, was moments away from launching its counterstrike, when American dive bombers struck..."

This is the bullshit that prevailed for over 50 years, in books and in film. It looks better to say that, instead of saying, we had to spot the decks, so the earliest we could have launched was around 1100. And, oh, btw, the way our doctrine is set up, the planes on the hangar deck waiting to come up are fully fueled and armed......

The Strike pilots from Enterprise and Yorktown didn't need decks "packed with aircraft"; hits that penetrated the decks would cook off things belowdecks in a far worse conflagration. This is not to say that it was a perfect attack -- on the contrary, the Kaga was struck by basically 2 squadrons worth of SBDs, with only Dick Best of Scouting 6 having the sense to abort and reposition on the fly to hit Akagi. Soryu was struck by VB-3 from Yorktown. So luck was a part of things, for Akagi only took one direct hit (from Dick Best, dead centre amidships he was very likely at the time the best dive bomber pilot in the USN) Kaga took 6-8 hits depending who you talk to but was basically smothered, and Soryu 3. Hiryu was busy dodging VT-3's attack until about 1035 but was not under threat really

[PM2K]

Fascinating stuff. I'll have to make an effort to locate this...

Two questions then, if I may...

First, I've heard some historians consider Coral Sea and Midway as parts of the same battle, or a continuation of a similar campaign. Was it really?

Second, I understand design and damage control were crucial on the flat tops in terms of the US carriers being able to withstand more of a beating and staying afloat thanks to being designed that way, while the Japanese carriers were more vulnerable to damage in that they lacked the basic design the Americans had to keep fires contained. Is this true, or did I hear it wrong or what?

[kham]

Not really, the battles were in widely disparate locations, with completely differing objectives. The only connection would be the timeframes, which are relatively close together. The crucial factor of Coral Sea was that Shokaku and Zuikaku were both roughly handled; while Lexington was lost, and Yorktown damaged, Shokaku suffered severe damage to her flight deck and Zuikaku's air group was essentially immolated. This removed both of them from the upcoming operation at Midway. Unlike the USN , IJN air groups were organic things, not as easily swapped from carrier to carrier -- which was indeed done before Midway.

As far as damage control goes, there is a fair bit in the book that discusses that; while in 1942 , the concept was still developing, the USN had a far greater emphasis on DC as a whole , which eventually came to encompass the entire ship's company having rudimentary knowledge of it. The IJN on the other hand, had specialists leaning heavily on the officer corps for DC, which was a major vulnerability when those specialists were killed or cut off. Also, the entire doctrine of the IJN remained focused on attack instead of defence and/or damage repair. This is not to say that they were ignorant of the concept (all the CVs of Kido Butai were as state of the art as could be, including CO2 suppression systems in their hangars) but that the magnitude of damages sustained precluded their abilities to counter it at that time. They also had not absorbed some of the "lessons learned" as the USN had, or would as quickly.

[PM2K]

Ah! Thanks for the insight.

[kham]

They were both brand new in 1941, and probably equivalent to contemporary allied carriers. The bow damage is after Coral Sea, and they almost capsized the ship steaming back by maintaining too high a speed to avoid allied submarines

[PM2K]

Yike! Is that just US aircraft that caused this damage? Doucet would have rubbed his hands with glee over this... if he was around, that is.

[kham]

Yep

That is why I , and the authors said, that the Aviators of the United States Navy, were nothing like the opponents Kido Butai had faced before. It's one thing to have your quaint little fucking surprise attack against unprepared opponents; it's a whole different bowl of cherries when you going up against opponents who are at the same skill level - or better - than you are and are fucking raging pissed off

Shattered Sword underlines this point during the day of the battle; from around 0800 to 1020, the attacks came in uncoordinated, mostly from Midway, with the exception of attacks from Torpedo 8 and Torpedo 6. With the exception of some Marine obsolete dive bombers, they were the only naval aircraft to attack. The rest were army B-17s (trying to level bomb from 20k, never worked, ever) a division of TBF's (the first use ever in theatre, bugs and all) and some army B-26s (again brand new) trying to drop torpedoes. A note should be made about the 26s; they were using brand-new aircraft, dropping weapons they had never trained to use, against targets they had never trained -or even considered - attacks against. And one of them shot up, almost took out Akagi by nearly ramming it's bridge. This somewhat shook up Nagumo, since everyone knows Americans don't fight like this! The Marines tried glide-bombing from shallow angles since their pilots were very green. Nearly all were lost (including their CO, a major named Henderson, who's name went on to glory on Guadalcanal) The torpedo attacks were a sad, bad, joke. Loaded a TBD makes about 100 knots. With a good wind. Not exactly a match in combat for A6Ms. And if they managed to survive by some miracle, the torpedoes were worthless pieces of shit, likely to sink, run on the surface, or just dud. Capable of only 30 knots, some of the carriers could just outrun them (and did; Hiryu and Soryu both on occasions put there sterns to them and cranked up to flank speed, 35knots)

So up until 1020 , despite all the attacks and fluster, things generally were going not bad. Not great but not bad. The CAP was cycling, the first strike was down and struck below, so now you can begin spotting the deck for the strike on those helpless enemy carriers....

And then the world ended. Most IJN aviators witnessing the attack commented that THESE attackers were no amateurs, coming in at near-insane angles, just like the pros did (SBD attack angle ideally was 70-90 degrees, release at roughly 1000', although the more aggressive pilots pushed the angle and release height; maybe a 7-10g pullout) It was only pure luck Hiryu was concealed by cloud (and was busy dodging VT-3's attack as well) and not struck as well.

[nachtjaeger]

So many good men lost on both sides, so many great ships blown to scrap.

Sorry, just hits me sometimes.