Midway with expanded Kido Butai?

mack8 said:

As to Hornet, that may well be true, but imo that's another ATL in itself, besides Ring was sent on 265 because he was told so due to the US admirals expectation of how the japanese would be organized (carriers in two separate groups, one 50-100 miles behind the other), which of course was flawed, but Nimitz took the gamble on that particular part and lost.

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That wasn't "the admirals", that was Mitscher on the Hornet who made the decision to sent the ship's strike away from where Japanese carriers had definitely been sighted. Waldron's torpedo bombers broke away and went to where they were supposed to go, and found the Japanese. And after the battle it appears documents may have been fudged in an attempt to cover this up.

See the following U.S. Naval Institute article for more: Mitscher and the Mystery of Midway.

Like i said, i find John Lundstrom far more balanced when it comes to things like Midway. In his great BSCA book, he shows how the whole plan for the defence of Midway was crafted by Nimitz and his staff. Their biggest error was assuming the japanese carriers would operate in two groups, one behind the other separated by 50-100 miles (a classic case of projecting one's ideas upon the enemy, because THAT is how american CVs would have operated in the same situation, at least that's how Nimitz saw it anyway.) So that is why Mitscher sent Ring on 265, he was merely following Nimitz's plan. Which is probably why he covered Mitscher's fiasco up and didn't demoted Mitscher or even court-martial him and Ring for such a disastruous showing, after all Mitscher just followed HIS orders.

But the disintegration of the HAG rests squarely with Ring's leadership, as i understand he wasn't exactly held in high esteem by his men. I always found quite astonishing that his men pretty much mutinied during the flight, VT-8 went to it's doom, VF-8 disintegrated and ditched, and VB/VS-8 went two different directions. Johnson's idea to go SW was good, perhaps if Ring did the same with the other SBDs they could have scouted a larger area and maybe make contact, but it didn't happened.

PS: I've written the above before reading your link, yeah Symonds article is a very good one. Can't say i disagree with anything he says.

The Hornet's air group went where they assumed the second group of IJN carriers might be.

At the time, many thought the Japanese would be operating two groups of two carriers as would have been done in tje USN.
They didn't realize that the japanese task force would have all their carriers in one group.

GrauGeist said:

The Hornet's air group went where they assumed the second group of IJN carriers might be.

At the time, many thought the Japanese would be operating two groups of two carriers as would have been done in tje USN.
They didn't realize that the japanese task force would have all their carriers in one group.

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They were apparently sent that way by Mitscher. There was no order from Spruance supporting such an action, at least, none on record. Waldon's group broke away and went in the direction of the known sighting and found the Japanese carriers.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Shokaku took a beating not once, but twice in 1942. Mogami survived a collision and multiple bomb hits that same year. Japanese DC could be very good. The losses at Midway reflect the fact that the carriers were hit while fuel lines were filled and ammo was strewn everywhere. I can't see an American carrier in 1942 surviving under the same circumstances. Indeed, we lost Lexington due to avgas vapors turning it into a giant FAE.

Both Franklin and Bunker Hill survived similar conditions, but only because we had 2+ years of learning DC on the fly.

Moral of the story: some fires cain't be fought, and avgas is not your friend, especially with ammo laying around.

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The Japanese had a very strict hierarchy regarding positions, the carriers were lost because many of the senior officers were killed or incapacitated resulting in the lower ranks not knowing what to do, one of the carriers, Kaga? was lost because the DC was controlled by a junior officer who didn't have a clear understanding of the ships systems resulting in the fire turning from being containable to causing the loss of the ship.

No carrier I can think off took a beating as bad as HMS Illustrious and survived Armoured Aircraft Carriers

Reading back through this thread I'm struck by the comments that seem to ignore, or are unaware of, just how early a stage both sides found themselves in multi carrier warfare in 1942. It seems some are at least looking to the late war US carrier tactics and believing that that was how it was done in 1942. That wasn't necessarily the case. 1942 was a learning experience for both sides, with tactics being developed along the way.

In April 1943 Nimitz ordered a complete revision of the existing "Standard Cruising Instructions for Carrier Task Forces" (anyone got a copy of that document as I'd like to compare it with USF 10A of 1944?) to take account of the experience from the 1942 carrier battles. Out of that review came "Pacific Fleet Tactical Orders and Doctrine" (PAC-10), first issued on 10 June 1943. And out of that came "Current Tactical Orders and Doctrine, US Fleet" (USF 10A) issued in Feb 1944 (which shared little with earlier such documents of the same name). These documents governed USN carrier warfare to the end of the war and beyond and included details of formations to be used in certain circumstances.

Now turn the clock back:-

Rear Admiral Henry Butler USN in 1930: - "Carriers are like two blindfolded men armed with daggers in a ring - there is apt to be a sudden destruction of one or both in battle". That was probably never truer than at Midway.

So pre-war the USN believed that if a carrier was found, it was almost as good as sunk. The object was to find the enemy carriers first and "do it to them before they did it to us". They also believed that a single US carrier could take out two enemy carriers. So that led to 3 things, at least some of which the Japanese agreed with:-
1. Dispersion of the carrier forces especially when numbers were limited (i.e. single carrier task groups). The Japanese changed in 1941 with the formation of the Kido Butai in April. It was early 1942 (Doolittle Raid?) before the USN began operating more than one carrier in a single Task Force. Even at Coral Sea the two USN carrier task forces only linked up two days before the Battle.
2. Both sides placed a great emphasis on finding the enemy first, but they did it differently. The USN favoured the use of Scout Bomber (VS) squadrons on the carriers. The Japanese placed reconnaissance in the hands of floatplanes from supporting ships, leading ultimately to the Tone & Chikuma that sailed with the Kido Butai through most of 1941 & 1942, with all their main armament forward (to prevent blast damage to the 4-8 floatplanes intended to be carried aft).
3. For the USN, carriers had no place in the battleline so had to operate independently. So each had to have 2 or 3 heavy cruisers as an escort, not primarily to provide AA defence, but to protect the carrier in the event of a surprise night attack by the enemy warships.


The Japanese too had their own carrier group formations for use in different circumstances, for example travelling to a combat zone or for use in battle. They too learnt from the 1942 experience and produced new formations for the 1944 battles. At Midway the carriers were at the corners of a square with sides 8km (4.3 nautical miles) long. That gave them room to operate their air groups. The problem became one that once the action started and each carrier had to manoeuvre independently to avoid attacks, that formation began to break up.

Anyone know how far apart the Enterprise & Hornet were to each other at Midway? Yorktown and her group was over the horizon (i.e. c10+ miles?)

Both nations tightened up their formations by 1944 and increased the numbers of escorts around the carriers. Note that more information is available about the USN than the Japanese practices throughout WW2.

Re my last post, I've now found this about US practice in 1942:-

Coral Sea:- "Task Force 17 .....Yorktown and Lexington steamed relatively close together with a screen surrounding both of them."

Midway:- "TF16 and TF17 operated separately, about 20-40 miles apart. Within TF16, the two carriers operated together but with separate screens and a few miles apart."

From "How Carriers Fought" by Lars Celander.

mack8 said:

There will be no rearmament fiasco, they just need to find a window to launch, which imo is either between 7.30 and 8.00 or between 8.30 and 9.00 AM.

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Pretty hard to launch a deckload when you're dodging attacks and cycling CAP.

PAT303 said:

The Japanese had a very strict hierarchy regarding positions, the carriers were lost because many of the senior officers were killed or incapacitated resulting in the lower ranks not knowing what to do, one of the carriers, Kaga? was lost because the DC was controlled by a junior officer who didn't have a clear understanding of the ships systems resulting in the fire turning from being containable to causing the loss of the ship.

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Yeah, I wasn't saying it was great, just that it was uneven.

I don't think any of the carriers at Midway had containable fires once avgas caught fire -- which on Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu was immediate, seeing as how they all had fueled and armed aircraft in enclosed hangars. That's going to superheat right away, and also contain the force of the exploding ordnance, increasing its deadliness.

The first bomb to hit Kaga destroyed her forward damage-control station while simultaneously setting fueled Zeros alight. Seven minutes later, the fires reached and ignited the forward magazine. The front of the ship was essentially eviscerated, but the ship still had steerage for another couple of hours before the engines quit.

Lt Best's 1000-lb bomb-hit upon Akagi likewise landed amidst fueled and loaded torpedo bombers which again promptly exploded and rendered the hangar spaces untenable. Akagi's fueling points on deck still had fuel in their supply lines as well, which intensified the hangar fires. Akagi's fate was sealed by the fact that the near-miss at the rear which jammed the rudder also cracked one of two water-mains used to supply water to DC stations.

Soryu was hit by three 1000-lb bombs, all of which exploded in the hangar space amid fueled and armed aircraft. Her fires were so immediate and intense that the ship was ordered abandoned within fifteen minutes of being hit.

Hiryu took 4 1000-lbers aboard, and while the fires were less intense, that's an awful lot of explosive for a carrier to contend with. I remember reading that one her two escorting destroyers passed her pumps and other DC equipment, but don't know where or how much of it got used.

I don't think any American carrier would have survived those hits under those circumstances either. With the possible exception of Hiryu, those carriers had no chance because we've got a devil's cocktail of high-explosive and burning fuel which was set off in enclosed spaces which were quickly rendered untenable. The open American hangars might help by keeping a cooler firefighting environment, or they might make it worse by ventilating and intensifying the flames (as happened with Wasp).

EwenS said:

What is also often overlooked is how the experiences of the USN in 1942 with the losses of Lexington and Wasp particularly, led to changes in carrier design to increase protection for vulnerable avgas tanks.

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The loss of Lexington also led to the immediate procedural change of draining fuel lines once fueling was done. Pioneered by Yorktown at Midway, this certainly helped the ship's resilience even if it didn't save her.

There was also the fact that the Japanese armorers, in their haste to switch ordnance, did not stow the ordnance being removed from the bombers, but left them strewn about the hangar.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Hiryu took 4 1000-lbers aboard, and while the fires were less intense, that's an awful lot of explosive for a carrier to contend with. I remember reading that one her two escorting destroyers passed her pumps and other DC equipment, but don't know where or how much of it got used.

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It may depend on the size of the fires and time a other things.
Portable pumps that can be handed off by a destroyer are going to be limited. We had one "portable" in my old dept that was rated at 500gpm. It was taken off a trailer and mounted cross wise on and Deuce and half. The pump was small, the 6 cylinder Plymouth car engine (1950s) and radiator meant you needed a crane or small wrecker to off load it.

Sometimes fire fighting was putting water on a fire until it burns down to equal the amount of water you putting on it, at which point the fire goes out. May take hours until the fuel source gets smaller. A lot of times you are trying to keep it from spreading until the fire burns down.
Sometimes escorting destroyers/small ships got close/tied up and passed hoses over using their own built in pumps.

Problem with using portable pumps is that they can only lift water around 15-20ft from the surface to the eye of the pump and you need hard suction hoses to do that. So you are restricted as to where you can put pumps even trying to suck sea water.

Thumpalumpacus said:

The loss of Lexington also led to the immediate procedural change of draining fuel lines once fueling was done. Pioneered by Yorktown at Midway, this certainly helped the ship's resilience even if it didn't save her.

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And flushing them through with CO2.

The other problem with the US carriers pre-war was that the avgas tanks were surrounded by air filled compartments intended to isolate them from the rest of the ship. As water displaced the avgas as it was used (as designed), any vapour present found its way into those surrounding compartments. In Lexington this had been identified as a potential hazard in June 1939. The temporary fix was to fill those surrounding compartments with water. But in 1942 that only helped transmit the shock of the torpedo explosion, damaging the tanks and allowing avgas vapour to escape.

The intended fix was fitting an engine to generate CO2 from its exhaust to fill those compartments instead of using water. This was done to Saratoga at her first wartime refit and to Yorktown while she was at PH between Coral Sea and Midway. But even that was not deemed adequate as there were problems keeping the CO2 levels topped up all the time. So that led to the redesign of all the tanks and the saddleback design I mentioned earlier.

Shortround6 said:

Sometimes escorting destroyers/small ships got close/tied up and passed hoses over using their own built in pumps.

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Recent discussion here involving Anthony Tully of "Shattered Sword" fame about japanese damage control and the use of other ships with particular reference to Midway. Note carrier design (hangar type) plays its part in determining if this is even possible.

Shortround6 said:

It may depend on the size of the fires and time a other things.
Portable pumps that can be handed off by a destroyer are going to be limited. We had one "portable" in my old dept that was rated at 500gpm. It was taken off a trailer and mounted cross wise on and Deuce and half. The pump was small, the 6 cylinder Plymouth car engine (1950s) and radiator meant you needed a crane or small wrecker to off load it.

Sometimes fire fighting was putting water on a fire until it burns down to equal the amount of water you putting on it, at which point the fire goes out. May take hours until the fuel source gets smaller. A lot of times you are trying to keep it from spreading until the fire burns down.
Sometimes escorting destroyers/small ships got close/tied up and passed hoses over using their own built in pumps.

Problem with using portable pumps is that they can only lift water around 15-20ft from the surface to the eye of the pump and you need hard suction hoses to do that. So you are restricted as to where you can put pumps even trying to suck sea water.

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Yeah, I don't think any Japanese destroyers passed lines to the stricken carriers, but I could well be wrong. I know that Soryu's destroyers were immediately engaged with rescue duties and soon had decks too clogged with men to be of much assistance fighting fires. The fact that the hangars were enclosed also made the job of assisting the CVs tougher.

You'd think they'd design such valuable and fragile ships with a Kingston valve dedicated to a fire-fighting reservoir.

EwenS said:

Recent discussion here involving Anthony Tully of "Shattered Sword" fame about japanese damage control and the use of other ships with particular reference to Midway. Note carrier design (hangar type) plays its part in determining if this is even possible.

IJN Damage Control - Tully's Port

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Right, that was an interesting discussion.

Trouble with trying to fight fires from a neighboring ship is that it actually doesn't do much good (take this as you will, I was never trained in ship fires but some structural fire fighting should apply) .
If you come along side and direct hose streams or water cannon at the burning ship what happens?
The water runs off the deck and hull sides. What were the decks and hull sides designed to do? Keep water out of the inside of the ship

BTW we called putting water on the outside of building "looking good for the cameras". If you couldn't it through the windows then you had to wait for the fire to burn down part of the walls/roof. Maybe, just maybe, you could put it out then and save the floor/basement.

There are ways of fighting a shipboard fire but they usually involve getting a lot of water inside the ship structure (enclosed) turning the water to steam and the getting the steam to slightly pressurize the enclosed area/volume and 'snuff' out the fire. With battle damage or sizable openings (even crew doors) this is not going to work. Any down wind openings are going to carry the steam away and upwind openings (facing the wind) are going to bring in fresh air to feed the fire and create the pressure to move the steam out the opposite side.

Interior fire fighting in a hot metal box with limited ingress and egress and in compartments with floors, walls and ceilings (land terms) covered with multiple layers of oil based paint takes a courage all of it's own. Without SCBA interior teams will last just a few minutes or even seconds in heavy smoke.

Shortround6 said:

If you come along side and direct hose streams or water cannon at the burning ship what happens?
The water runs off the deck and hull sides. What were the decks and hull sides designed to do? Keep water out of the inside of the ship

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Pretty sure the assisting ships aimed at the holes left by the ordnance which caused the fires.

The guys had to do something, anything, it just may not have been effective.
Just like spraying water on the outside of a house or factory, the roof and walls are designed to keep water out.
The next question is where is the smoke coming out. If you put the water in the hole where the smoke is coming out you block the smoke and the smoke (and heat) have to get out somewhere else, even if it is several hundred feet away.
If you have a hole in the deck and a hole in the hanger/ship side then have at it. Smoke/heat go up through the deck hole, water, fresh air go in through the side hole, fire slows down it's spread. you may be able to get a bit better visibility in through the side hole and be able to direct the stream/s better. You may even be able to put a party at the entrance to the hole and advance a bit. Just don't have some knumskull point a fire stream into the deck hole at that point.

Shortround6 said:

Trouble with trying to fight fires from a neighboring ship is that it actually doesn't do much good (take this as you will, I was never trained in ship fires but some structural fire fighting should apply) .
If you come along side and direct hose streams or water cannon at the burning ship what happens?
The water runs off the deck and hull sides. What were the decks and hull sides designed to do? Keep water out of the inside of the ship

BTW we called putting water on the outside of building "looking good for the cameras". If you couldn't it through the windows then you had to wait for the fire to burn down part of the walls/roof. Maybe, just maybe, you could put it out then and save the floor/basement.

There are ways of fighting a shipboard fire but they usually involve getting a lot of water inside the ship structure (enclosed) turning the water to steam and the getting the steam to slightly pressurize the enclosed area/volume and 'snuff' out the fire. With battle damage or sizable openings (even crew doors) this is not going to work. Any down wind openings are going to carry the steam away and upwind openings (facing the wind) are going to bring in fresh air to feed the fire and create the pressure to move the steam out the opposite side.

Interior fire fighting in a hot metal box with limited ingress and egress and in compartments with floors, walls and ceilings (land terms) covered with multiple layers of oil based paint takes a courage all of it's own. Without SCBA interior teams will last just a few minutes or even seconds in heavy smoke.

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Sadly not true. Water does gather within the ship, whether from the ships's own firefighting systems of from hoses played on it from other ships, and begins to affect its stability.

USS Princeton Damage Report Oct 1944
"....Valves to hangar curtain No. 1 and 2 and hangar bay No. 1 located in B-303L were opened manually at about 0945. It appears that these sprinklers actually operated as boiling water
was later reported running down watertight hatch 01-66 and at 0955 the forward fireroom was reported to be slowly flooding with water coming down the port trunk."

USS Franklin Damage Report on 30 Oct 1944 kamikaze attack
"3-21 During the course of damage control activity the ship took a list to starboard. When this had reached three degrees counterflooding of certain port voids was ordered. It was thought possible at this time that the list was due to underwater damage caused by the near miss on the starboard side. Due to smoke and fire conditions on the second and third decks it was impossible to check for such damage by inspection. Counter-flooding was continued until the ship reached a port list of 2 degrees at which time the damage control officer decided that the initial list had been caused by the accumulated firefighting water on the various decks. Counterflooding was then promptly secured.

3-22 The air intake ducts for boilers Nos. 7 and 8 were damaged by blast and fragments at the hangar deck level. Water from the hangar drained down these ducts and also through the damaged bomb elevator trunk into B-431-E where it overflowed the coaming around the individual air intake openings and then drained into No. 4 fireroom (Photo 8). The fireroom flooded to a little above the lower floor plates before flooding was controlled and the water extinguished boiler fires, necessitating securing boilers Nos. 7 and 8."

And in relation to the 19 March attack
"3-53 During the early afternoon the starboard list of the ship had stabilized at about 13 degrees. The ship was about three feet down by the stern. Counterflooding of various port voids was started with the intention of bringing the ship back to about 5 degrees starboard list and holding it there. Some of the flooding control stations for the port voids were accessible only with rescue breathers. The ship responded gradually to the list control measures, but due to either an overestimate of the amount of counterflooding necessary or lack of coordination in the counterflooding effort, together with the appreciable reduction in GM due to the free surface of the accumulated firefighting water on the various decks, the ship came upright about 0000 and slowly listed to port, finally coming to rest with a 9 degree port list at about 0400 on 20 March
3-55 Beginning with the dawn of 20 March, personnel remaining on the ship started extricating and burying bodies, clearing wreckage and dewatering flooded spaces......
3-56 Pumping of the after port damage control voids which had been flooded to offset the initial starboard list was commenced on 20 March. On the morning of 22 March the list had been reduced to 6 degrees to port and, although it had been planned to retain about 5 degrees port list in order to pocket damage water, as off-center and free surface water was removed the ship gradually came to an even keel. Water was removed by submersible pumps and bucket brigades and also by draining it to lower compartments where it was pumped out through the main drainage system. This was a slow and tedious task."


And from the Illustrious Damage report of 1941
"A great deal of water collected in the hangar from the sprayers and hoses, the scuppers being blocked by wreckage. This water and that in the flat below (much of which ran down from the hangar) gave the ship a considerable list to starboard and could not be got rid of except by making a hole in the starboard after exhaust fan trunking in the side of the hangar to allow the water to run out."

Even in more recent times accumulated water from firefighting efforts has proved hazardous to the ship. See Bonhomme Richard in 2020. There were concerns that she might capsize at her berth because they were pumping water in faster than it could be removed.