The Battle of Midway 76 years ago today

[RochesterRob]

Interesting in a lot of respects and in particular some that a football fan can appreciate.  Football can be a game that a matter of inches and seconds can make the difference for either offense or defense.  The Americans of one flight group pushed to the edge of maximum in terms of fuel reserves to find the Japanese carrier task force.  A less aggressive flight commander might have played it more conservative heading back to their carriers before making the discovery.  Bombing was roughshod in some respects but one lone hit in the right area (more by luck than design) doomed the Japanese carrier Akagi.  Some believe in superstition concerning football and the same held true as Admiral Nagumo commanding the Japanese carrier task force considered the appendicitis that his key subordinate Genda underwent just prior to battle as a bad omen of things to come.  

[RochesterRob]

35 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

Interesting in a lot of respects and in particular some that a football fan can appreciate.  Football can be a game that a matter of inches and seconds can make the difference for either offense or defense.  The Americans of one flight group pushed to the edge of maximum in terms of fuel reserves to find the Japanese carrier task force.  A less aggressive flight commander might have played it more conservative heading back to their carriers before making the discovery.  Bombing was roughshod in some respects but one lone hit in the right area (more by luck than design) doomed the Japanese carrier Akagi.  Some believe in superstition concerning football and the same held true as Admiral Nagumo commanding the Japanese carrier task force considered the appendicitis that his key subordinate Genda underwent just prior to battle as a bad omen of things to come.  

  I should note that the commander of the American air group responsible for locating the Japanese carrier task force was the Buffalo, NY born C Wade McClusky.  

[US Egg]

Another unexpected W.W. II battle the U.S. won that surely caused Obama to feel shame.

[Buffalo716]

God Bless our soldiers!

 

My grandfather fought at Okinawa and Iwo Jima aboard the USS Missouri 

 

He witnessed the signing of the peace treaty that ended the pacific war

[Boca BIlls]

This is awesome stuff guys, history of our country's finest brave soldiers and the close relations our fellow Bills fans have with some. 

[Marv's Neighbor]

My Dad was in the Solomon Islands.  They were all very special people.

[Fadingpain]

7 hours ago, RochesterRob said:

  I should note that the commander of the American air group responsible for locating the Japanese carrier task force was the Buffalo, NY born C Wade McClusky.  

You beat me to it.

 

He was the CAG on USS Enterprise.  They were out scouting around in Douglas Dauntless dive bombers looking for the Jap carriers and couldn't find them.  Their fuel was running low and McClusky made the critical decision to follow a lone destroyer that they found, wisely thinking that the destroyer would lead them to a carrier task force.

Sure enough, it worked, and it led to the sinking of the Akagi and Kaga.

 

Japan would lose FOUR carriers that day, sent to the bottom of the ocean, and that was a blow they could never recover from with such a limited industrial base relative to the USA.

 

McClusky was played by Christopher George in the film "Midway."

 

[RochesterRob]

6 minutes ago, Fadingpain said:

You beat me to it.

 

He was the CAG on USS Enterprise.  They were out scouting around in Douglas Dauntless dive bombers looking for the Jap carriers and couldn't find them.  Their fuel was running low and McClusky made the critical decision to follow a lone destroyer that they found, wisely thinking that the destroyer would lead them to a carrier task force.

Sure enough, it worked, and it led to the sinking of the Akagi and Kaga.

 

Japan would lose FOUR carriers that day, sent to the bottom of the ocean, and that was a blow they could never recover from with such a limited industrial base relative to the USA.

 

McClusky was played by Christopher George in the film "Midway."

 

  Despite its shortcomings I always enjoyed "Midway" for the blockbuster aspect and the star (or soon to be) power of the appearing actors (look for Gary Busey playing a radio operator in a PBY).  I would not mind seeing a remake as the splicing of footage from "Tora Tora Tora" and "Battle of Britain" is hard to overlook nowadays.  Even TTT had a clean look for the special effects.  Anyways, one of the shortcomings was shoehorning Charlton Heston in with a lame romance angle concerning his "son."  

 

  Yamamoto from his perspective had the right idea as he figured the Americans would tire of the war after extensive losses and had Midway gone against the US the 1944 elections might have produced politicians that might have sued for peace versus fighting a lengthy conflict.  Midway and Hitler's blunder in terms of failing to supply and reposition his troops while deep in Russia gave the Allies the emotional lift they were looking for.

[Augie]

4 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

God Bless our soldiers!

 

My grandfather fought at Okinawa and Iwo Jima aboard the USS Missouri 

 

He witnessed the signing of the peace treaty that ended the pacific war

 

I’m sure he was best friends with my father-in-law who was a dentist on the Missouri. Or maybe had a root canal...or something....

[Gray Beard]

9 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Despite its shortcomings I always enjoyed "Midway" for the blockbuster aspect and the star (or soon to be) power of the appearing actors (look for Gary Busey playing a radio operator in a PBY).  I would not mind seeing a remake as the splicing of footage from "Tora Tora Tora" and "Battle of Britain" is hard to overlook nowadays.  Even TTT had a clean look for the special effects.  Anyways, one of the shortcomings was shoehorning Charlton Heston in with a lame romance angle concerning his "son."  

 

  Yamamoto from his perspective had the right idea as he figured the Americans would tire of the war after extensive losses and had Midway gone against the US the 1944 elections might have produced politicians that might have sued for peace versus fighting a lengthy conflict.  Midway and Hitler's blunder in terms of failing to supply and reposition his troops while deep in Russia gave the Allies the emotional lift they were looking for.

I love that movie.  I watch it whenever one of the classic movie channels plays it. The love story with the Japanese girl and the focus on Charlton Heston was a little distracting. But otherwise an excellent movie, and fairly accurate from a historical perspective.  The scenes where they are all listening to the radio as the battle is going on really highlights the tension. 

[RochesterRob]

3 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

I love that movie.  I watch it whenever one of the classic movie channels plays it. The love story with the Japanese girl and the focus on Charlton Heston was a little distracting. But otherwise an excellent movie, and fairly accurate from a historical perspective.  The scenes where they are all listening to the radio as the battle is going on really highlights the tension. 

  Yeah, one might think that the actor playing Adm Fletcher was overdoing it but Fletcher was known to be that way in real life.  Midway was Fletcher's last big role as a commander as Nimitz never really trusted Fletcher after Coral Sea (losing the Lexington) and I suspect was put in charge at Midway only because Nimitz had nobody else readily available (Halsey was laid up with dermatitis). 

[/dev/null]

9 hours ago, RochesterRob said:

Interesting in a lot of respects and in particular some that a football fan can appreciate.  Football can be a game that a matter of inches and seconds can make the difference for either offense or defense.  .  

It also helps that we cracked the Japanese encryption and knew about the attack in advance.  So in football terms, we Belichek'd them

 

38 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Despite its shortcomings I always enjoyed "Midway" for the blockbuster aspect and the star (or soon to be) power of the appearing actors (look for Gary Busey playing a radio operator in a PBY). 

As well as Tom Selleck and Erik Estrada

[RochesterRob]

4 minutes ago, /dev/null said:

It also helps that we cracked the Japanese encryption and knew about the attack in advance.  So in football terms, we Belichek'd them

 

As well as Tom Selleck and Erik Estrada

  Selleck before his trademark 'stache no less.

[DC Tom]

37 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Yeah, one might think that the actor playing Adm Fletcher was overdoing it but Fletcher was known to be that way in real life.  Midway was Fletcher's last big role as a commander as Nimitz never really trusted Fletcher after Coral Sea (losing the Lexington) and I suspect was put in charge at Midway only because Nimitz had nobody else readily available (Halsey was laid up with dermatitis). 

 

Fletcher was put in charge at Midway because 1) he was senior to everyone else, and 2) he had earned it.  Fletcher also fought at the Eastern Solomons, and won.  Fletcher, for all the criticism that gets thrown his way, fought and won three carrier battles - out of a total of five or six ever fought (I prefer six, including Cape Engano.  Most historians say five).

 

Contrast that to Spruance winning one (Marianas Turkey Shoot) and Halsey lost one (Santa Cruz).  Fletcher wasn't a great admiral, by any means - his biggest failing was an absolute fetish for refueling, which led to his pulling the air cover for the Guadalcanal landings, and for his lack of pursuit after Eastern Solomons (which, combined with his injury, led to his reassignment).  But he's significantly underrated.

[Fadingpain]

1 hour ago, RochesterRob said:

  Despite its shortcomings I always enjoyed "Midway" for the blockbuster aspect and the star (or soon to be) power of the appearing actors (look for Gary Busey playing a radio operator in a PBY).  I would not mind seeing a remake as the splicing of footage from "Tora Tora Tora" and "Battle of Britain" is hard to overlook nowadays.  Even TTT had a clean look for the special effects.  Anyways, one of the shortcomings was shoehorning Charlton Heston in with a lame romance angle concerning his "son."  

 

  Yamamoto from his perspective had the right idea as he figured the Americans would tire of the war after extensive losses and had Midway gone against the US the 1944 elections might have produced politicians that might have sued for peace versus fighting a lengthy conflict.  Midway and Hitler's blunder in terms of failing to supply and reposition his troops while deep in Russia gave the Allies the emotional lift they were looking for.

In fairness, Midway is a pretty lousy movie, but I still love it.  It's one of the old classic WWII films and at least it features footage of real aircraft and no cheesy CGI crap.

 

It also had every big, small, and medium-sized actor in it!  The cast is unbelievable.

 

Anyone here ever build, for example, the old Monogram 1/48 scale Dauntless dive bomber kit as a kid?

 

When I was a kid in the late '70s every boy on my street was into building model kits.  One kid across the street did a gorgeous rendition of a Dauntless.

 

[Fadingpain]

54 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

I love that movie.  I watch it whenever one of the classic movie channels plays it. The love story with the Japanese girl and the focus on Charlton Heston was a little distracting. But otherwise an excellent movie, and fairly accurate from a historical perspective.  The scenes where they are all listening to the radio as the battle is going on really highlights the tension. 

Yes, but that did result in Heston delivering the line to his son: "You better watch it, tiger, or some hotshot Jap pilot is gonna flame your ass!"

 

Classic Heston.

 

[DC Tom]

10 hours ago, RochesterRob said:

Bombing was roughshod in some respects but one lone hit in the right area (more by luck than design) doomed the Japanese carrier Akagi. 

 

And how lucky was that hit?  

 

Two groups were headed in on Kaga and Akagi - McKlusky's and Best's.  By doctrine, McKlusky's group have gone for the far carrier - Akagi, leaving Kaga to Best.  When Best started his dive on Kaga, he saw McClusky's group also diving and pulled out his flight...the rest of Best's group followed McClusky down.  That left three planes - Best and his wingmen - to attack Akagi.  They dropped - one just missed the aft deck, detonated aside and probably caused some leaks.  The other - Best's - hit the midships elevator.

 

An interlude on Japanese damage control here: fire was obviously a great concern on carriers, as everything about aircraft operations tends to be highly combustible.  Akagi two hangar decks, with fire mains on both decks.  It was standard practice in any navy to design the fire mains so damaged sections could be isolated and water pressure maintained in undamaged sections, but as Akagi was somewhat older, the subdivision was limited to port and starboard.  Japanese carriers also had steel fire curtains that could be drawn across the hangar decks to isolate fires and limit their spread - typically, the fire curtains would be on either side of each of the elevators.  Finally, as a last ditch firefighting effort, Japanese carriers had CO2 tanks that could be used to smother a fire.

 

Best's bomb hit the corner of the midship elevator, dropping the elevator platform to the bottom of the well and starting fires on each hangar deck.  Japanese damage control hooked up hoses to the mains...but the mains were cast iron, and cracked easily from the shock, both port and starboard sides, both decks.  No isolation, no pressure.  Japanese try to draw the steel curtains...which, on each side of the midships elevator, were destroyed, meaning about 80% of both hangar decks were open to the fires.  Last resort, the CO2 tanks...

 

Kept at the bottom of the midships elevator.  Now under the wreckage of the elevator platform, unreachable.

 

Best destroyed all the firefighting capacity of the Akagi with one bomb.

 

That's how lucky Midway was.

[RochesterRob]

48 minutes ago, Fadingpain said:

In fairness, Midway is a pretty lousy movie, but I still love it.  It's one of the old classic WWII films and at least it features footage of real aircraft and no cheesy CGI crap.

 

It also had every big, small, and medium-sized actor in it!  The cast is unbelievable.

 

Anyone here ever build, for example, the old Monogram 1/48 scale Dauntless dive bomber kit as a kid?

 

When I was a kid in the late '70s every boy on my street was into building model kits.  One kid across the street did a gorgeous rendition of a Dauntless.

 

  I must have had 50 model projects I wanted to do as a kid around the same time but for lack of money they did not get done.  The school had a rocketry club that met after the school day had ended so I built a few Estes rockets.  I learned the hard way the virtues of being patient with glue.

36 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

And how lucky was that hit?  

 

Two groups were headed in on Kaga and Akagi - McKlusky's and Best's.  By doctrine, McKlusky's group have gone for the far carrier - Akagi, leaving Kaga to Best.  When Best started his dive on Kaga, he saw McClusky's group also diving and pulled out his flight...the rest of Best's group followed McClusky down.  That left three planes - Best and his wingmen - to attack Akagi.  They dropped - one just missed the aft deck, detonated aside and probably caused some leaks.  The other - Best's - hit the midships elevator.

 

An interlude on Japanese damage control here: fire was obviously a great concern on carriers, as everything about aircraft operations tends to be highly combustible.  Akagi two hangar decks, with fire mains on both decks.  It was standard practice in any navy to design the fire mains so damaged sections could be isolated and water pressure maintained in undamaged sections, but as Akagi was somewhat older, the subdivision was limited to port and starboard.  Japanese carriers also had steel fire curtains that could be drawn across the hangar decks to isolate fires and limit their spread - typically, the fire curtains would be on either side of each of the elevators.  Finally, as a last ditch firefighting effort, Japanese carriers had CO2 tanks that could be used to smother a fire.

 

Best's bomb hit the corner of the midship elevator, dropping the elevator platform to the bottom of the well and starting fires on each hangar deck.  Japanese damage control hooked up hoses to the mains...but the mains were cast iron, and cracked easily from the shock, both port and starboard sides, both decks.  No isolation, no pressure.  Japanese try to draw the steel curtains...which, on each side of the midships elevator, were destroyed, meaning about 80% of both hangar decks were open to the fires.  Last resort, the CO2 tanks...

 

Kept at the bottom of the midships elevator.  Now under the wreckage of the elevator platform, unreachable.

 

Best destroyed all the firefighting capacity of the Akagi with one bomb.

 

That's how lucky Midway was.

  Interesting and I had never read up on the finer details of damage control for the Japanese carriers.  Damage control procedures doomed the Lexington at Coral Sea.  She was fully operational including recovering aircraft when aviation gas fumes reached an area where welders were working blowing out the insides of Lexington.  These fumes reached the heat because ventilation fans were active.  The book was re-written on that procedure to shutoff the fans in future similar situations.  The ramifications of Lexington surviving Coral Sea would have been interesting for both the Americans and Japanese.

[Buffalo716]

1 hour ago, Augie said:

 

I’m sure he was best friends with my father-in-law who was a dentist on the Missouri. Or maybe had a root canal...or something....

 

My grandfather (God rest his soul) brought back a couple Japanese officer swords as war prizes 

 

He left Germany as a child in 1930 and enlisted at 16 under the Alias John Smith as 1st generation Germans couldn’t fight . 

 

He was eventually caught but forgiven and allowed to stay enlisted because he was a good soldier and loved America 

[Gray Beard]

59 minutes ago, Fadingpain said:

In fairness, Midway is a pretty lousy movie, but I still love it.  It's one of the old classic WWII films and at least it features footage of real aircraft and no cheesy CGI crap.

 

It also had every big, small, and medium-sized actor in it!  The cast is unbelievable.

 

Anyone here ever build, for example, the old Monogram 1/48 scale Dauntless dive bomber kit as a kid?

 

When I was a kid in the late '70s every boy on my street was into building model kits.  One kid across the street did a gorgeous rendition of a Dauntless.

 

I built one of those near the end of my model building period, probably in junior high. I cant wait to get back into the model building mode, perhaps in a year or two when I retire.