quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Admiral Michner does not come out well in Mrazek's telling.

Marc Mitscher did not do well with Hornet at Midway. Mrazek suggests other officers' reports were suppressed to protect Mitscher's reputation.

However, I've always felt the loss of almost all of Hornet's bombers and torpedo planes at Midway continued to haunt Mitscher. This probably contributed to his decision at the end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea to turn on the fleets lights to guide returning planes to safety.

The Complete Intelligence Story was an excellent read. Thanks for the link.

quote:

Originally posted by Blackmore:

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Admiral Michner does not come out well in Mrazek's telling.

Marc Mitscher did not do well with Hornet at Midway. Mrazek suggests other officers' reports were suppressed to protect Mitscher's reputation.

However, I've always felt the loss of almost all of Hornet's bombers and torpedo planes at Midway continued to haunt Mitscher. This probably contributed to his decision at the end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea to turn on the fleets lights to guide returning planes to safety.

Besides Mitcher, Jack Fletcher didn't get as much credit as he possibly deserved for his tactical command at Midway. I believe it was more of a personality clash with over-the-top Adm Ernest King, who preferred aggressive commanders...see Halsey, McCain, Lee, Lockwood. Solomon Island campaign was a cluster and King laid a lot of the blame on Fletcher.

But Fletcher also at that point was the only Admiral to lose aircraft carriers to the Japanese. He lost the Lexington and almost the Yorktown at Coral Sea. He did lose the Yorktown at Midway, and almost lost the Saratoga and Enterprise at Guadalcanal. It seems to me that after Admiral Spruance saved the operation at Midway he got called in to save whoever screwed the pooch earlier.

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Originally posted by c1steve:

That was calculated, the plan was to catch the Japanese in the middle of refueling. The US admirals figured 40 minutes from bombing Midway, fly back and land, and start refueling. The Japs were in a hurry because someone spotted the US forces, so they changed bomb types. They had lots of ordnance rolling around the hanger deck when the US attacked. Also they were refueling their planes, and they had no CO2 system for clearing out the fuel hoses.

So as the AV gas and the US bombs were going off, the Jap bombs went off as well. Got what they deserved.

Fire was always the big danger to carriers (most ships didn't have the massive amounts of aviation gasoline to burn that carriers have). We lost most of our carriers to fire, IIRC. After we got smart and employed measures to mitigate the fire risk, we saved quite a few carriers that probably would have been lost earlier. For example, we suspended ALL fueling ops during an incoming attack. We filled our fuel lines with inert CO2 (fuel vapor was a significant danger). We also stowed all the mobile fuel sources. For whatever reason, the Japanese never really figured this out, and it cost them.

At Midway, I attribute our success to pure providence (I attribute it to God; many just call it 'luck'). The Japanese had fought off about 2 dozen different attacks (from land-based aircraft at Midway and the various uncoordinated attacks from our carriers). They were supremely confident. It just so happened that the American dive bombers (at least a bunch of them) were completely unable to find the IJN fleet until they spotted an IJN destroyer heading back to its carriers (it had stopped to chase off an American sub), and found the entire fleet with planes on deck, surrounded by scores of live bombs and fuel carts. The IJN fighters were off at low level chasing down the few surviving torpedo bombers, and therefore were not in position to intercept the high-altitude dive bombers. Nobody knew the Americans were there until they were already in their dives. A few good hits on each carrier turned them into infernos.

And, at this stage of the war, we pretty much sucked, due to lack of experience. After we sank all 4 IJN carriers, we chased after the support fleet, and couldn't hit much except for one IJN cruiser (Mikuma) that was already damaged (from a collision with another cruiser). Many Americans wanted to pursue the retreating fleet (that now had no air cover), but Adm Spruance held back and let them go, knowing that we had already pushed our luck as far as we should have. This was VERY fortunate, as the IJN was preparing for a night action, and Adm Yamamoto was hurrying forward with his battleship force to intercept our carriers (and the IJN strike fleet still had significant surface forces available). A more aggressive commander, such as Halsey, *may* have pursued. Had we done so, the IJN likely would have intercepted us at night with a far superior force (since our carriers would have been literally useless at night), and they would have wiped us out (well into late 1943 the IJN was the undisputed champion at night surface actions, even when the US had radar and they didn't).

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:
But Fletcher also at that point was the only Admiral to lose aircraft carriers to the Japanese. He lost the Lexington and almost the Yorktown at Coral Sea. He did lose the Yorktown at Midway, and almost lost the Saratoga and Enterprise at Guadalcanal. It seems to me that after Admiral Spruance saved the operation at Midway he got called in to save whoever screwed the pooch earlier.

Well, you can't really fairly imply that Fletcher was a bad commander because of the losses he suffered. The IJN air arm in 1942 was MUCH better than ours. The US was fighting at a distinct disadvantage, since the IJN had prepared and trained for war for YEARS, and most IJN airmen had significant combat experience. The US, on the other hand, still suffered from peacetime neglect (in training and material). We had a HUGE learning curve, and we didn't really get our act together until 1943 or so, when most of the experienced IJN aircrews had already been killed (many of them at Midway), and we were able to spin up our training programs.

I would credit him for SAVING the Yorktown at Coral Sea, and saving the Sara and Big E in the Solomons. Those early sea battles were some of the toughest fighting we faced in the entire war. Granted, the rest of the war wasn't 'easy,' but the IJN held the upper hand until at least 1943, and we were fighting at a huge disadvantage, especially at Coral Sea and Midway. The fact that the Japanese failed to sink any US fleet carriers after 1942 isn't an indication of our superior leadership, per se; it is an indication of the diminished state of the Japanese forces which were in a constant state of decline from late 1942 onward.

quote:

Originally posted by Blackmore:

Marc Mitscher did not do well with Hornet at Midway. Mrazek suggests other officers' reports were suppressed to protect Mitscher's reputation.

However, I've always felt the loss of almost all of Hornet's bombers and torpedo planes at Midway continued to haunt Mitscher. This probably contributed to his decision at the end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea to turn on the fleets lights to guide returning planes to safety.

But, whose fault was it that Hornet's aircrews didn't perform well? Torpedo 8 was wiped out (100% losses in aircraft; only one surviving airman) mainly (IMHO, of course) due to the inherent obsolescence of the TBD Devastator and the fact that all our aircraft arrived over the IJN fleet without coordination or fighter cover. The plan was for the dive bombers and torp bombers to arrive and attack all at the same time, dividing the defender's fire and fighter cover, hemming the enemy in with coordinated attacks from high and low altitude, giving them little chance to evade (if they dodged a bomb, they would steer into a torpedo, etc). However, we arrived piecemeal, allowing the IJN to decimate our torp bombers. ALL of the US torp squadrons were brutalized; not just Torpedo 8. According to Wiki, 15/15 from Hornet were lost, 10/14 from Enterprise, and 10/12 from Yorktown. So, out of 41 planes, we lost 35. That is an 85% loss rate from all 3 carriers, yet we only really talk about Torpedo 8 for some reason. After Midway, all TBDs were withdrawn from combat, even though we were desperately low on combat aircraft in every theater of war. Even after we got the superb Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber, they could only expect to survive their low, slow, straight-in torpedo attacks in the presence of friendly fighter cover.

As stated earlier, the US successes were mainly attributed to divine providence or luck. IMO, the fact that Hornet's aircrews didn't do so well isn't because they were led poorly; it is because they simply weren't as 'lucky' as those from the other carriers.

Adm Mitscher was one of the greatest US carrier admirals of all time. His men loved him. I don't think we can fairly fault him for what he failed to achieve at Midway in the face of poor training, poor equipment, overwhelming odds, and an unrivaled enemy.

While not focused on Midway, another great read regarding some of the men involved with this is

The Admirals by Borneman

https://www.amazon.com/Admiral...e-Star/dp/0316097837

A truly awesome read.

cc