WWII historians...help!!

subfixer wrote:

(smart aleck!) You are referring to the B-17s, B-26s, TBFs, and SBDs based at Midway and were launched the initial attack, I take it. The main effect that these aircraft had, from what I understand, was to set the Japanese formation into disarray. The carrier aircraft from Yorktown, Hornet, and Enterprise delivered the killing blows, unless I am mistaken, which I may very well be.

From what I remember of the several books I read years ('70s) ago, the land forces basically missed everything.  Later, the TBFs from the carriers pulled the fighter cover down to battle them (I think one pilot survived) and before the fighters could get back on station, the carrier SBDs arrived and basically had a duck shoot with no opposition but the AA guns.  Unfortunately, while this was going on, the Japanese planes found the Yorktown.  But they had no place to go back to and land their planes, but we still had the Hornet and Enterprise virtually untouched.

This book is, in my opinion, the best account of the Battle of Midway by far:

Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tulley. It debunks a myriad of myths that have been conjured up over the years, many that have been taught as gospel.

For those who might like to see a quick review of this book:

http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Parshall-Tully/Shattered-Sword.html

tucchase wrote:

subfixer wrote: (smart aleck!) You are referring to the B-17s, B-26s, TBFs, and SBDs based at Midway and were launched the initial attack, I take it. The main effect that these aircraft had, from what I understand, was to set the Japanese formation into disarray. The carrier aircraft from Yorktown, Hornet, and Enterprise delivered the killing blows, unless I am mistaken, which I may very well be. From what I remember of the several books I read years ('70s) ago, the land forces basically missed everything.  Later, the TBFs from the carriers pulled the fighter cover down to battle them (I think one pilot survived) and before the fighters could get back on station, the carrier SBDs arrived and basically had a duck shoot with no opposition but the AA guns.  Unfortunately, while this was going on, the Japanese planes found the Yorktown.  But they had no place to go back to and land their planes, but we still had the Hornet and Enterprise virtually untouched.

A decent movie of this battle would be a real treasure.

Sorry, bondo, Mogami was sunk at Leyte in 1944. I think you are thinking of Mikuma, which collided with Mogami after avoiding an attack by USS Tambor, SS-198. Mikuma was finished off by SBDsfrom Hornet the following day.

The only Marine aircraft involved in the battle, to the best of my knowledge, were fighter aircraft defending Midway itself. The US Army Air Corps were flying the B-17s and B-36s. The TBFs were aircraft from Hornet that had not met up with the ship yet and were flying out of Midway. It was their first (and for 5/6 of the aircraft, the last) taste of combat. One B-36 did make a significant contribution to the battle as it flew right over the Akagi and almost killed Nagumo, the commander of the Carrier Strike Force. It is believed that this attack unnerved him a bit.

Yes, Mikuma you are right.

VMSB-241 had 27 SBDs engaged. And, if Nimitz had actually had any B-36s, that might have carried the day...

bondoman wrote:

They were marine squadrons, and they engaged first. The Mogami was mortally wounded, and the first two carriers were damaged enough to throw the battle into the usual dissarray. The TBD squadron not TBFs were carrier based and perished heroically, but that's beside the point. Any element of surprise was eliminated by land based patrols. A decent movie of this battle would be a real treasure.

Yes, a new movie would be fantastic with today's CGI, but it appears that the Army and Marines took claim for damage they didn't actually accomplish.  Below is an excerpt from the website for CV-6.

http://www.cv6.org/1942/midway/midway_5.htm

Even as I-168 delivered the fatal blow to Yorktown, Hornet again struck at the wrecked enemy cruisers, launching 24 SBDs armed with 1000-lb bombs which attacked at 1445. Shortly afterwards, Enterprise launched her last mission of the battle, two SBDs equipped with cameras, to photograph the enemy ships. Mogami managed to escape, eventually reaching Truk, and out of action for over a year. The SBDs found Mikuma settling quickly: the photos they took rank among the best known of the Pacific War.

The Consequences

Shortly after the final attacks on Mikuma, Spruance concluded it would be best to break off pursuit of the enemy, as he would soon be in range of enemy planes based on Wake Island. At 1900, Task Force 16, its ships full of exhausted but victorious aviators and sailors, turned east, first to rendezvous with oilers, and then to proceed southeast to Pearl Harbor, arriving late June 13.

For a number of reasons, the decisive role that Enterprise and the US Navy played at Midway remained under-appreciated for some time. Stories of the Army Air Force's exploits during the battle reached the news media first. Despite the fact that not a single hit was scored by the AAF's bombers, initially they received much of the credit for the destruction of Nagumo's carriers. Only time and the lifting of the veils of secrecy and censorship would reveal the facts.

The Army and Marine planes based at Midway deserve full credit for their attacks on the enemy carriers, and the disruption they caused. Yet at twenty minutes past ten, the morning of June 4, 1942, dive bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown found four undamaged enemy carriers, preparing to launch a powerful attack against the US fleet. Six minutes later, three of those carriers were infernos. Enterprise destroyed two enemy carriers in those six minutes, Yorktown one. Aviators from both carriers, flying from Enterprise, destroyed the fourth carrier later that same day.

bondoman wrote:

Yes, Mikuma you are right. VMSB-241 had 27 SBDs engaged. And, if Nimitz had actually had any B-36s, that might have carried the day...

How right you are!  I meant B-26s... B-36s would have scared the crappe out of everybody!

Mansteins revenge wrote:

All of the Japanese ships sunk at Midway were sunk by airplanes that were carrier-based...As far as I can tell from my refs, every land-based strike scored no hits...Now you can argue that these attacks "un-nerved" or "scared" the Japanese or other subjective things, but I tend to stick with the objective facts...

Bondo, I think my biggest thanks to the movie was in it launching my hunger to learn about this battle ( I was 11 when I fist saw it on opening nite and I'll bet you can remember your youth of that age).

 Anyways, I would recomend three books to read on Midway to give you a good idea of the chronology of events in that battle: Incredible Victory by Walter Lord, Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange, and Shattered Sword, listed above. Between all three books, one gets a pretty good idea of who did what during tha battle. I think Shattered Sword, while a good book, is more of a clarificaton and was not as much of a revamp of Midway as portrayed. It did however go in to far greater detail of the Japanese carrier air operations and altered (but not overly so) the state of the Japanese carriers when Bombing Six, Scouting Six, and Bombing Three delivered the decisive strike that changed the course of the war that morning.

Interestingly enough, referring to Manny's statement of the earlier attacks of the morning by US forces, my take is that those strikes did more to re inforce Japanese contempt for the Americans, rather than scare them. While they did help to use op(but not wear down) the defenses, and finally divert some, most accounts I have read that quote Japanese participants seem to commonly state they were unimpressed by the skills of the US aviators.

stikpusher wrote:

Interestingly enough, referring to Manny's statement of the earlier attacks of the morning by US forces, my take is that those strikes did more to re inforce Japanese contempt for the Americans, rather than scare them. While they did help to use op(but not wear down) the defenses, and finally divert some, most accounts I have read that quote Japanese participants seem to commonly state they were unimpressed by the skills of the US aviators.

stikpusher wrote:

Interestingly enough, referring to Manny's statement of the earlier attacks of the morning by US forces, my take is that those strikes did more to re inforce Japanese contempt for the Americans, rather than scare them. While they did help to use op(but not wear down) the defenses, and finally divert some, most accounts I have read that quote Japanese participants seem to commonly state they were unimpressed by the skills of the US aviators.

And rightly, they shouldn't have. These crews' specialties were not in anti-shipping (except the TBF crews, but this was their first combat sortie in these aircraft). The Japanese formation did have to manuver, however, and this put them in disarray. The fact that these aircraft were land based units did influence the Japanese to arm for another attack on the island. This was a major factor in the outcome of the battle.

Well the original premise of this post was identifying the footage of that carrier landing. So far I think the points are:

-Bondoman is gray on history

-The crash was on the CV-10 Yorktown. It was an F6F

-Louis Pruneau simplified the island on the dio

-The movie is  free if you look for it, but it's 3 gigs and I'm not set up to upload it.

I've read Miracle at Midway, but not the others. There's an interesting what if concerning a scheme by the Japanese to draw the American carriers into a similar kill box, that did not occur by accident.

 Probably the first time scale modeling meant something to me, after dozens of rainy day builds, was the Monogram Dauntless.

bondoman wrote:

Probably the first time scale modeling meant something to me, after dozens of rainy day builds, was the Monogram Dauntless.

You just gotta love the Dauntless.

Tracy White wrote:

Answering the original question, that was a VF-5 F6F-3 flown by Ensign Bob Black during a raid on Palau on March 30, 1944. His hydralics were damaged by flack and he had to land without the use of flaps. Coming in fast, his tail hook was ripped out and because he was heading off-center, he hit the aft 5" mount before one of the barricades that would have probably not stopped him either (but would likely have flipped him over). He walked away with a slight cut to the scalp, probably from the gun site, which was a common "point of contact" during crash landings of the era.

Towards the end of the clip another Hellcat comes in hot and you can see what appears to be either blood or oil on the front windscreen on an obviously damaged plane (some holes in windscreen)...as the pilot is helped out of the cockpit, you can see that his face is blackened or bloodied and his jaw seems to be hanging at an odd angle, like he was hit in the face...poor devil...

subfixer wrote:

IT's still there, MR, try reloading.

stikpusher wrote:

Bondo, I think my biggest thanks to the movie was in it launching my hunger to learn about this battle ( I was 11 when I fist saw it on opening nite and I'll bet you can remember your youth of that age).  Anyways, I would recomend three books to read on Midway to give you a good idea of the chronology of events in that battle: Incredible Victory by Walter Lord, Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange, and Shattered Sword, listed above. Between all three books, one gets a pretty good idea of who did what during tha battle. I think Shattered Sword, while a good book, is more of a clarificaton and was not as much of a revamp of Midway as portrayed. It did however go in to far greater detail of the Japanese carrier air operations and altered (but not overly so) the state of the Japanese carriers when Bombing Six, Scouting Six, and Bombing Three delivered the decisive strike that changed the course of the war that morning. Interestingly enough, referring to Manny's statement of the earlier attacks of the morning by US forces, my take is that those strikes did more to re inforce Japanese contempt for the Americans, rather than scare them. While they did help to use op(but not wear down) the defenses, and finally divert some, most accounts I have read that quote Japanese participants seem to commonly state they were unimpressed by the skills of the US aviators.

It would seem all the land based attacks, B-26/TBF, SBD, B-17, and SB2U, were more to emphasize Tomonaga's request for the second strike on Midway. The indeciveness came once the seaplane scouts spotted the US Task Force and it was a question of which target to hit first. Of course the US carriers had priority, but 1) the original contact sighting mentioned no carriers, 2) Midway was still throwing every attack plane it had, however ineffectively, at Nagumo's force. Once the carrier contact was sent, there was not question as to waht to attack, but rather how. Attack immediately and lose a portion of the returning Midway strike, or take the time to do the job properly?

just a thought about the land based aircraft, and maybe I right or maybe I'm wrong (won't be the first time).

    The B17's flying out of Midway were probably early models, and probably didn't have good enough equipment on board to do anything. Not sure about the B26's (I didn't realize they were even there). Wether or not they even came close to hitting anything is a mute point. What they really did was to buy time for the next wave of attack aircraft; just like the torpedo bombers did. And as much as we cuss and discuss this we all need to remember that Butch OHare flew a land based Wildcat!

     Also it's very important to realize that the outcome of the battle of Midway did two things towards the outcome of WWII in the PTO.

* it was a boost of adrenalin to the Allies in the PTO that they much dearly needed.

* after the war the Japanese Naval Officers interviewed have said more than once that they felt the war was lost after Midway

gary

squeakie wrote:

The B17's flying out of Midway were probably early models, and probably didn't have good enough equipment on board to do anything. Not sure about the B26's (I didn't realize they were even there). Wether or not they even came close to hitting anything is a mute point. What they really did was to buy time for the next wave of attack aircraft; just like the torpedo bombers did.

They had the Norden bombsights...Let's not all get into an exercise in trying to defend the performance of the land-based aircraft...they scored no hits and took fairly heavy losses, but as in all battles, everyone had their part to play...no point though trying to invent or imbelish accomplishments or defend their actions...What made Midway important was that the Japanese had the cream of their attack carrier fleet and best naval aircrews wiped out...simple.

In the case of the B-17s, the ships just had to wait until they saw the bombs being released, then they just put the helm over to avoid them. It was no problem avoiding them.

The B-26s were armed with torpedoes if I remember correctly.

As to Neu's question of Nagumo being shaken by the near miss of the B-26; from what I've read, the close-call of that aircraft which just barely missed the island structure of the Akagi and then cartwheeled into the sea, just got his blood up and made him more resolute in enacting Tomonaga's recommendation of a second strike on Midway Island.

...would be in order, but not limited to:

1). The Japanese aircrew were not wiped out in this action.  They lost precisely the same number as the USN (and Marines), 110 men.  I'd have to look but I believe that represented about 20% of the IJN aircrew, someone is free to correct that percentage, if they choose.  Maintenance crew would be another issue altogether but the severe losses sustained by the prewar, largely China-trained aircrew would occur during the Guadalcanal Campaign.

2). American landbased attacks against Nagumo represented the fiercest, intensely professional and most determined attacks the Kido Butai had sustained up to that point in the war; it could be claimed to be the first such attack--that's arguable--but what is not in question was the ferocity of the attacks which kept Nagumo backing up on his heels with his formation increasingly scattered and his CAP repeatedly low on ammunition.  American landbased squadrons may have been handicapped by obsolescent aircraft (of which the Buffalo was not quite the dog folks assume it was), by inexperienced pilots (some pilots reporting to their squadrons at Midway right out of the replacement pool, with no training at all in tactics or operations) and by being defeated in detail near Nagumo's ships but their efforts were extraordinary and not to be underestimated or lightly dismissed.

3). Nagumo may have been indecisive, that's an original view, but not particularly correct in view of how the Japanese actually conducted carrier operations.  Most assumptions regarding this 'indecisiveness' assume that the Japanese operated their carriers in a similar manner to the USN.  This is incorrect and leads to all number of poor conclusions.  The reason Yorktown could make Midway and Zuikaku could not lay in how the respective navies operated their airgroups.  The Japanese were hamstrung by the loss of division mate Shokaku while the Americans were able to incorporate Saratoga squadrons aboard Yorktown with stunning success when one considers that only Yorktown put her ad hoc group over the target without delay and en masse...to Soryu's detriment.

4.) As was mentioned earlier, Shattered Sword (Parshall and Tully) provides a detailed look at this action from the Japanese perspective and is a must to understanding precisely what happened and how at Midway.  For a concise view of the American side of battle I would recommend both Black Shoe Carrier Admiral (Lundstrom) and A Glorious Day in Our History (Horan, Cressman, et al.).  Forget Morison nor would I recommend Isom, but I would not discourage anyone from reading either, just keep your distance.

Randy Stone

The B-17s at Midway were B-17E models, early production (remote belly turret, not ball turrets). Although several were daged by flak and fighters, none were lost. As already pointed out, they bombed from high altitude and all their bombs were avoided. It is interesting to note, that less than a year later, after much trial and error in the Solomons campaign, they came down much lower during the Bismark Sea battle and scored many hits.

All of the above points are pretty much correct. Off the top of my head the Midway based air attacks were: 6 TBFs and 4 B-26As make a torpedo attack- 5 TBFs and 2 B-26s shot down; 16 SBDs make a glide bombing attack, 8 shot down, including the strike leader, Maj Henderson; B-17s make a high altitude level bombing attack, no losses, no hits on ships; 11 SB2Us attack the Haruna (group leader felt he could nto reach the carriers and chose largest close target), 3 lost. All this is before Nagumo's Midway strike returns and a US carrier is identified. After all these strikes, Midway has lost the major portion of its' offensive air strength (not to mention nearly all its' fighters), but the Japanese really have no way of knowing this.

Randy Stone wrote:

2). American landbased attacks against Nagumo represented the fiercest, intensely professional and most determined attacks the Kido Butai had sustained up to that point in the war; it could be claimed to be the first such attack--that's arguable--but what is not in question was the ferocity of the attacks which kept Nagumo backing up on his heels with his formation increasingly scattered and his CAP repeatedly low on ammunition.  American landbased squadrons may have been handicapped by obsolescent aircraft (of which the Buffalo was not quite the dog folks assume it was), by inexperienced pilots (some pilots reporting to their squadrons at Midway right out of the replacement pool, with no training at all in tactics or operations) and by being defeated in detail near Nagumo's ships but their efforts were extraordinary and not to be underestimated or lightly dismissed.     Randy Stone

Just so everyone is clear; Kido Butai was the term for the massed Japanese carrier force, correct? If that is the case, then what you say about the Kido Butai not having a serious challenge is true. But, Shokaku and Zuikaku were not present at the battle of Midway because of a previous action (the Coral Sea battle). That amounts to a third of the Kido  Butai being absent from the action at Midway. Shokaku and Zuikaku had been detached from Kido Butai and were operating off of Port Moresby, New Guinea, and had suffered there a bit. Shokaku had been hit with three bombs and Zuikaku had lost most of her airwing. The Japanese could have (but it wasn't in their doctrine) combined the airwing of Shokaku with the intact Zuikaku and then would have had a fifth carrier at the battle. (That would have changed things a bit). What I am geting at is that the Japanese had, indeed, seen some serious aerial attacks prior to this battle.

The Buffalo was a pretty bad fighter, only the Finns had any success with it.