The Battle of Midway 76 years ago today

[/dev/null]

30 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

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.

You just want to start sniffing glue again

 

 

[Ned Flanders]

"Akagi, smashed and sinking..."

 

 

 

[DC Tom]

17 hours ago, RochesterRob said:

  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.

  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.

 

You've read Shattered Sword, I assume?  Busts most of the myths around Midway...though doesn't make it any less miraculous for the busting.  

 

It's probably the only book you'll ever find that relies on Japanese primary sources.  Unfortunately, a lot still isn't and won't be known about some of the finer details of Japanese carrier operations and the development of their doctrine, since the IJN and IGHQ destroyed so many records at the end of the war.

 

The Navy has some of the historical damage reports on line.  Lexington's is here.  (Helena's and Boise's make interesting reading, too.)  Lexington's loss was ultimately due to old, flawed design that had the aviation gas tanks incorporated into the ship's structure and not isolated from shock damage (same flaw that most Japanese carriers had.)  And interestingly, the recommendations in Lexington's report are the opposite of what you posted: that blowers should be run to reduce the concentration of fumes, if they could be safely run without risk of electrical sparks.

2 hours ago, Ned Flanders said:

"Akagi, smashed and sinking..."

 

 

 

 

I have that DVD set, and World at War.  

 

They don't make TV like that any more, sadly.

[sherpa]

I've read "Shattered Sword," and pretty much everything related to the battle.

As an "operator" and not an "academic," which most of these works are authored by, it amazes me how we won this battle at all.

 

Absolutely ridiculous to strike a carrier task force with high altitude B-17's.

Total failure.

Same for the torpedo bombers the US launched.

Totally decimated. Their major contribution was to draw the Zeros down to the surface, which ultimately allowed the dive bombers to reach their targets.

Only a few, but with very bad Japanese damage control and basic ship design, along with the Japanese principles of refueling and rearming their airplanes on the hangar decks, it was doom when a bomb got through.

 

[K-9]

20 hours 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.

Great stuff here. 

[DC Tom]

1 hour ago, sherpa said:

I've read "Shattered Sword," and pretty much everything related to the battle.

As an "operator" and not an "academic," which most of these works are authored by, it amazes me how we won this battle at all.

 

Absolutely ridiculous to strike a carrier task force with high altitude B-17's.

 

 

Not at the time.  It was doctrine, and doctrine everyone believed in (the Flying Fortress was named such not because it was durable and heavily armed - the original marks weren't.  It was because they were marketed as replacing coastal fortresses for seaward defense.)  And they kept following that doctrine for quite a while - there were about 80 or so B-17 sorties at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.  And they even hit a ship!

[Foxx]

22 hours 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 ...

ahh, but we couldn't let on that we had cracked the code so we had to let them attack Pearl Harbor....

doh!

[RochesterRob]

3 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

You've read Shattered Sword, I assume?  Busts most of the myths around Midway...though doesn't make it any less miraculous for the busting.  

 

It's probably the only book you'll ever find that relies on Japanese primary sources.  Unfortunately, a lot still isn't and won't be known about some of the finer details of Japanese carrier operations and the development of their doctrine, since the IJN and IGHQ destroyed so many records at the end of the war.

 

The Navy has some of the historical damage reports on line.  Lexington's is here.  (Helena's and Boise's make interesting reading, too.)  Lexington's loss was ultimately due to old, flawed design that had the aviation gas tanks incorporated into the ship's structure and not isolated from shock damage (same flaw that most Japanese carriers had.)  And interestingly, the recommendations in Lexington's report are the opposite of what you posted: that blowers should be run to reduce the concentration of fumes, if they could be safely run without risk of electrical sparks.

 

I have that DVD set, and World at War.  

 

They don't make TV like that any more, sadly.

  I've only read accounts incorporated into books versus a direct USN report.  I think what I stated squares with what you said as "in similar situations" would mean near heat sources or sparks which would be the same as "if they could be safely run without risk of electrical sparks."  I don't have the book any more and probably was one that I checked out while at Cornell decades ago.  I guess the next time I am in Ithaca I could try to hunt it up.  

 

  I enjoyed World at War when it was run in syndication during the 1980's on a Rochester station.  Usually on a Saturday evening around 7:00.  It would be nice to pick it up as a DVD set someday.

  

[DC Tom]

Just now, RochesterRob said:

  I enjoyed World at War when it was run in syndication during the 1980's on a Rochester station.  Usually on a Saturday evening around 7:00.  It would be nice to pick it up as a DVD set someday.

  

 

It was well worth picking up.  It's an 11-disk set with 4 disks of documentaries that never aired originally, and I don't think aired in syndication (a full DVD on the Holocaus, lots of extended interviews, two shows on the social/political aspects of Nazi Germany).  Wife got it for me for Christmas - wish I could remember where.  I know somewhere recently there was a cable channel airing it again.  

[RochesterRob]

55 minutes ago, Foxx said:

ahh, but we couldn't let on that we had cracked the code so we had to let them attack Pearl Harbor....

doh!

  Not sure if you are being serious or not.  Short and Kimmel were issued a "war warning" in late November 1941 from Washington.  The Americans and Brits totally discounted the Japanese ability to go toe to toe with them.  PH was organized in a manner to thwart sabotage but never really seriously considered the possibility of an air raid.  The Brits had seen what the Luftwaffe was capable of and then the advent of Taranto with Italian battleships sunk using air power.  The Prince of Wales and Repulse did not stand a chance against Japanese air power.

Edited June 5, 2018 by RochesterRob

[DC Tom]

9 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

 go toe to tow with them. 

 

Really, I have to ask...how in the hell do you do this?

[RochesterRob]

1 minute ago, DC Tom said:

 

Really, I have to ask...how in the hell do you do this?

  Should be toe to toe.  Fixed.  I was listening to wife talk about her tough day at work the first time I posted so a little distracted.

[Foxx]

19 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Not sure if you are being serious or not.  Short and Kimmel were issued a "war warning" in late November 1941 from Washington.  The Americans and Brits totally discounted the Japanese ability to go toe to toe with them.  PH was organized in a manner to thwart sabotage but never really seriously considered the possibility of an air raid.  The Brits had seen what the Luftwaffe was capable of and then the advent of Taranto with Italian battleships sunk using air power.  The Prince of Wales and Repulse did not stand a chance against Japanese air power.

well, i guess some might call me the resident conspiracy theorist.

 

i wasn't there so i don't really know what happened but, history is usually written by the victors and more often than not, there is more to the story than what is written. Robert Stinnett researched the National Archives via the Freedom of Information Act and according to some, did some very in depth research. he wrote a book called, "Day of Deceit".

 

actually, i managed to find an article that can spell it out better than i can, so i will just link that. from 2002:

Do Freedom of Information Act Files Prove FDR Had Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor?

Edited June 5, 2018 by Foxx

[Augie]

6 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  Should be toe to toe.  Fixed.  I was listening to wife talk about her tough day at work the first time I posted so a little distracted.

 

Well, you get points for SOMETHING! 

[DC Tom]

55 minutes ago, Foxx said:

ahh, but we couldn't let on that we had cracked the code so we had to let them attack Pearl Harbor....

doh!

 

The problem with that theory is that radio intercepts and code breaking were distributed between the Navy Yard in DC, Hawaii, and Cavite in the Philippines.  Thus, at a bare minimum, you had Admirals Hart, Kimmel, Leahy, Forrestall, and King, and Generals Short, Marshall, Arnold, and MacArthur, and Hull and Roosevelt.  

 

And if anyone believes that two inveterate, egomaniacal ***** like MacArthur and King would have conspired to sacrifice both the Pacific Fleet and the Philippines to the benefit of each other, they're either ignorant or insane.  

7 minutes ago, Foxx said:

Do Freedom of Information Act Files Prove FDR Had Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor?

 

Or both.  

[RochesterRob]

4 minutes ago, Foxx said:

well, i guess some might call me the resident conspiracy theorist.

 

i wasn't there so i don't really know what happened but, history is usually written by the victors and more often than not, there is more to the story than what is written. Robert Stinnett researched the National Archives via the Freedom of Information Act and according to some, did some very in depth research. he wrote a book called, "Day of Deceit".

 

actually, i managed to find an article that can spell it out better than i can, so i will just link that. from 2002:

Do Freedom of Information Act Files Prove FDR Had Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor?

  I'll have to find a copy of "Day of Deceit" and read it.  It was a popular notion back during the 1980's that FDR set everything up for an encounter and the possibility exists for indirect evidence.  Ambassador Grew was very aware of how the Japanese felt about the raw material embargo and in 1939 the movement of the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to PH which amounted to an act of war to them which no doubt the notion was conveyed to FDR.

[Foxx]

9 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

The problem with that theory is that radio intercepts and code breaking were distributed between the Navy Yard in DC, Hawaii, and Cavite in the Philippines.  Thus, at a bare minimum, you had Admirals Hart, Kimmel, Leahy, Forrestall, and King, and Generals Short, Marshall, Arnold, and MacArthur, and Hull and Roosevelt.  

 

And if anyone believes that two inveterate, egomaniacal ***** like MacArthur and King would have conspired to sacrifice both the Pacific Fleet and the Philippines to the benefit of each other, they're either ignorant or insane.  

 

Or both.  

right. because absolutely everything is as it seems. everything.

 

like i said, i wasn't there. you choose to believe in absolutes and that is fine. me, not so much. i love my country but i don't trust the GUS. it's not like they have never lied to us before is it.

 

5 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  I'll have to find a copy of "Day of Deceit" and read it.  It was a popular notion back during the 1980's that FDR set everything up for an encounter and the possibility exists for indirect evidence.  Ambassador Grew was very aware of how the Japanese felt about the raw material embargo and in 1939 the movement of the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to PH which amounted to an act of war to them which no doubt the notion was conveyed to FDR.

i would be curious on your take of the book.

 

cheers.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Foxx

[RochesterRob]

8 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

The problem with that theory is that radio intercepts and code breaking were distributed between the Navy Yard in DC, Hawaii, and Cavite in the Philippines.  Thus, at a bare minimum, you had Admirals Hart, Kimmel, Leahy, Forrestall, and King, and Generals Short, Marshall, Arnold, and MacArthur, and Hull and Roosevelt.  

 

And if anyone believes that two inveterate, egomaniacal ***** like MacArthur and King would have conspired to sacrifice both the Pacific Fleet and the Philippines to the benefit of each other, they're either ignorant or insane.  

 

Or both.  

  Its been put out in recent times that it was very doubtful that American intelligence was good enough to know that a fleet was put together to raid PH.  The benefit of the doubt in terms of the war warning was that our "detection grid" was so inadequate from the Aleutians south past Hawaii that some effort needed to be watched for even if it was a much smaller task force.  Now where duplicity may have been seriously thought to exist was with the British who were thought to have a much better intelligence network in Eastern Asia and deliberately withheld information to the US in regards of imminent attack to draw the US into the war overall.

[Augie]

If you guys can figure this out, can you tell us who shot JFK? 

[Fadingpain]

21 hours ago, Gray Beard said:

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.

Have a look at largescaleplanes.com.  It's one of the best online modeling forums out there for aircraft, in terms of the quality of work being done by the average contributor.  The focus is on larger 1/32 scale aircraft, but the knowledge base at the forum is fantastic.  Might help you get back into the hobby.

 

Good luck and have fun with your builds!