Significance of the Battle of Midway

owever the airstrike at Pearl Harbor did not yield desirable results and was, from my point of view, a failure. It was a failure in the sense that the carriers were not taken out. It failed in the fact that the Pearl Harbor complex was not incapacitated and it concluded with a certain number of battleships/cruisers and other fleet support vessels damaged or sunk and as a whole, did not disable the U.S. Pacific fleet, but only gave it a setback.

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And perhaps even less of a setback than sinking the US fleet at Sea. American vessels at this stage of the war were not nearly as well equipped for AA as they would be later in the war, so while a carrier strike against the seaborne American fleet would have been a bit more costly than the Pearl Harbor strike, the results would be better too, i.e sunk at sea, not at port. And there would have been carriers to go after as well, though they could go after the Japanese carriers as well.

But I think what Japan needed was a close to total destruction of the US Pacific fleet - and if the US fleet sortied to support the US troops in the Phillipines, it opens the door for the combined fleet battle the Japanese wanted since day 1. And I think it would have went well for Japan. Kido Butai and perhaps some support carriers against a 3-4 carrier US fleet. Japan should be able to wipe out the US carriers, then it comes down to a US fleet with little air support against the Japanese surviving carriers, possibly Japanese Land based aircraft as well if this occurs close to the Phillipines. This could perhaps be a latter day Tsushima, and may done have brought America to a negotiated peace, but it would mean a much longer and more difficult war.

Particularly if Japan slows down on it's conquests at this point and pulls a good portion of pilots out and back to the training table

GrauGeist said:

However the airstrike at Pearl Harbor did not yield desirable results and was, from my point of view, a failure. It was a failure in the sense that the carriers were not taken out. It failed in the fact that the Pearl Harbor complex was not incapacitated and it concluded with a certain number of battleships/cruisers and other fleet support vessels damaged or sunk and as a whole, did not disable the U.S. Pacific fleet, but only gave it a setback. It also failed in the respect that it did not force the U.S. to negotiate anything except a firm resolve, a declaration of war and an eventual ass-kicking. This can been seen reflected in the battle of Midway only 6 months later, where the U.S. was able to engage, challenge and drive the Japanese Navy off, inflicting more damage than was received.

So this is where the thought process of the taking of the Hawaiian chain entered into consideration.

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yes it failed but it may have been doomed from the start.

What would it have taken, for the Japanese to severely limit the U.S. Pacific Fleet from challenging the Japanese Navy. The element of surprise was on the Japanese side, but only for a short time. Prior to 7 December, the U.S. forces in the Pacific and Far East were not enough to challenge the Japanese, both in experienced manpower and modern equipment.

If they had only one chance at a successful strike, that would take the U.S. out of the game, or force it to the table, what would it be then? From what I see, Oahu keeps coming to the front of the line.Yes, it would have been a difficult operation/logistics problem, but with proper planning, timing and support, it would certainly be worth the risk. Taking the Phillipines would not (and did not) have that much impact on the course of the war. Taking Wake Island didn't and even taking Midway would end up being more expensive than it was worth (if only to keep the U.S. from creating a forward staging area).

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Actually the Philippines and Malaysia may have had a considerable impact on the war. Trouble is it is hard to prove a negative. The Philippines sat astride or close to many major Japanese shipping routes. Leaving a large Submarine base there for several months after attacking Pearl Harbor was hardly prudent. We KNOW NOW that the US torpedoes were terrible and many pre-war US sub commanders had spent too long being indoctrinated with the wrong tactics. The US/British/Dutch defense force was thrown together in a matter of days, what happens if it has 6-8 weeks to get itself together? Can the British reinforce Hong Kong and Singapore if given more time? What happens if Phillips has a few more days to think about the Pearl Harbor attack and decides that land based air support might be better protection than radio silence ( The RAF had no idea were Force Z was).

The Japanese were dependent on the US for about 80% of their oil and when the US started the Oil embargo in Aug 1941 and the British and Dutch joined Japan was in big trouble. Without those three Japan could not come up with 10% of the oil it needed so every month that they waited to grab the Dutch east indies oil fields (which could produce as 90% as much as Russia and Columbia combined in late 1930s) meant that their reserves shrank. The Japanese were also about 88% reliant on imported iron, 50% on zinc, 80% on tin, 100% on cotton, 99% on wool and 100% on rubber. Securing their own supply lines in addition to securing the sources was the main objective. Taking the oil fields with almost 30 submarines between the oil fields and Japanese home islands wasn't a good solution.

syscom3 said:

The Japanese avgas bunkerage was 134,000 gallons for Hiryu and Soryu. 150,000 for Kaga and Akagi.

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The Shokaku class carried 496 tons of avgas (English translation of Kojinsha No.6 'Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy': Shokaku class, Soryu, Hiryu, Unryu class Taiho, Translators: - Sander Kingsepp, Hiroyuki Yamanouchi, Yutaka Iwasaki, Katsuhiro Uchida Quinn Bracken, www.combinedfleet.com/kojinshavolume6.pdf), which I calculate as 184,558 US gallons.

USAAF plane totals before and after the attack.

Actually the Philippines and Malaysia may have had a considerable impact on the war.

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The Japanese viewed the PI in particular as a major threat and gave it priority over all other fronts except China. There was a reason why nearly all the land based Zekes and Bettys were based in Formosa. from there they could strike at both the PI, to deal with the airpower based there, and also provide support to the China Expeditionary Force should the need arise....ie the Chinese try to retake teritory that had been conqured in the las three year.

Leaving a large Submarine base there for several months after attacking Pearl Harbor was hardly prudent. We KNOW NOW that the US torpedoes were terrible and many pre-war US sub commanders had spent too long being indoctrinated with the wrong tactics.

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Right on the money. The Japanese viewed neutralization of the threat posed by those submarines as a major priority in securing the access to the strategic resources they desperately required. The Japanese when they went to war had about a year of strategic reserves for their military, but less than 3 months supplies for their domestic economy. moreover at a time they should have been ramping up production, they were being forced to wind back essential industries to try and conserve resources until they could be replaced. As it turned out, they never reallly achieved a comfortable surplus for some of their resources, though industry did ramp up eventually by the adoption of crippling restrictions in other industries that eventually came home to haunt them. not the only reason, but one of the reasons they reduced training programs was because they could never get enough oil home to allow for a major boost to their training programs. Steel production languished because of shortages of coking coal, which they simply could not get where it was needed for production. The shortages of steel and the inability to produce enough turbines for high performance engines, coupled with the urgent need to divert as much as possible to ASW assets and then Merchant shipping replacements basically killed off any balanced replacement of naval tonnages. The Japanese knew all of this, and were gambling on a short war. But to even survive 1942 they absolutely needed access to thos resources, in a hurry. Any diversion to non-essential operations like an invasion of Oahu would place their national survival at risk. we know now that they did this anyway with the pearl Harbour attack, but in 1941, this was not so apparent.

The US/British/Dutch defense force was thrown together in a matter of days, what happens if it has 6-8 weeks to get itself together? Can the British reinforce Hong Kong and Singapore if given more time? What happens if Phillips has a few more days to think about the Pearl Harbor attack and decides that land based air support might be better protection than radio silence ( The RAF had no idea were Force Z was).

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The 18th Division was enroute arriving middle of January I believe, Australian 6th and 7th Divisions were enroute, almost being diverted to defend Burma, before the Australian Govt intervened. 50 Hurricanes were unloading in December/January, and several hundred others were enroute. The Japanese conceded just after the fall of Singapore that they were lucky to pull it off. Even small amount of reinforcement would have made a huge difference.

Conversely, there were some downsides. I believe even a few days more delay may have given the Thais a better chance to consider their position, and IMO would probably have more forcefully sided with the Japanese. Even a few days extra would have vastly improved the japanese logistics at the front. But every days delay was tipping the balance very much in favour of the allies.

T

he Japanese were dependent on the US for about 80% of their oil and when the US started the Oil embargo in Aug 1941 and the British and Dutch joined Japan was in big trouble. Without those three Japan could not come up with 10% of the oil it needed so every month that they waited to grab the Dutch east indies oil fields (which could produce as 90% as much as Russia and Columbia combined in late 1930s) meant that their reserves shrank. The Japanese were also about 88% reliant on imported iron, 50% on zinc, 80% on tin, 100% on cotton, 99% on wool and 100% on rubber. Securing their own supply lines in addition to securing the sources was the main objective. Taking the oil fields with almost 30 submarines between the oil fields and Japanese home islands wasn't a good solution.

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Absolutely. What strikes me in this whole debate is the near total ignorance here as to why Japan went to war. They never believed, or intended to dominate the US. Many had no illusions as to what going to war with the US would mean. Attacking the US was a spoiling attack, because the Japanese believed the US would not remain idle if the Japanese just attacked britain and the NEI. Japan was near expired when she went to war. it was an act of desperation, not an act of a nation bent on conquest. not saying the Japanese were not militaristic and unrealistic, but they went to war because they believed they had no other option, and time was running out fast. l

GrauGeist said:

The reason why I ventured into the "Oahu invasion" what-if, was looking at the early (pre) war value of Midway versus Oahu.

Midway, Wake and other seaplane outposts had a basic military value prior to the war, of course, once the war began, Midway's value increased exponentially as it was improved over the course of the war.

There was a school of thought that a decisive first-strike at the U.S. would knock them off balance and perhaps force a negotiation. As we all know, this didn't happen.

However the airstrike at Pearl Harbor did not yield desirable results and was, from my point of view, a failure. It was a failure in the sense that the carriers were not taken out. It failed in the fact that the Pearl Harbor complex was not incapacitated and it concluded with a certain number of battleships/cruisers and other fleet support vessels damaged or sunk and as a whole, did not disable the U.S. Pacific fleet, but only gave it a setback. It also failed in the respect that it did not force the U.S. to negotiate anything except a firm resolve, a declaration of war and an eventual ass-kicking. This can been seen reflected in the battle of Midway only 6 months later, where the U.S. was able to engage, challenge and drive the Japanese Navy off, inflicting more damage than was received.

So this is where the thought process of the taking of the Hawaiian chain entered into consideration.

What would it have taken, for the Japanese to severely limit the U.S. Pacific Fleet from challenging the Japanese Navy. The element of surprise was on the Japanese side, but only for a short time. Prior to 7 December, the U.S. forces in the Pacific and Far East were not enough to challenge the Japanese, both in experienced manpower and modern equipment.

If they had only one chance at a successful strike, that would take the U.S. out of the game, or force it to the table, what would it be then? From what I see, Oahu keeps coming to the front of the line.Yes, it would have been a difficult operation/logistics problem, but with proper planning, timing and support, it would certainly be worth the risk. Taking the Phillipines would not (and did not) have that much impact on the course of the war. Taking Wake Island didn't and even taking Midway would end up being more expensive than it was worth (if only to keep the U.S. from creating a forward staging area).

If they could successfully manage to take Oahu, then expand their hold to the other islands (Hawaii, Maui, Kaui, etc) then they would create sort of a barrier between the U.S. west coast and the eastern fringe of their Empire. Is they could also incapacitate the Panama canal, that would force the U.S.N. to reinforce their fleet from two directions: the "Horn" or from the Indian Ocean.

If the argument that it was "too much of a risk" is tossed out there, then consider this: invading Korea, China and surrounding territories was a risk, too. Starting the war in the first place was a risk. How far are you willing to roll the dice to ensure that your conquest is secured?

*NOTE* The observation of the Phillippines' impact on the war was minimal is in reference to the U.S. to maount decisive strikes from there at the onset. The Island's capture consumed a great deal of Japanese manpower and material to hold it, but if it had been bypassed at the onset, the U.S. would have little in the way of man and materials to mount a challenge to the Japanese at that time. Of course, it proved to be VERY valuable later in the war as the Allies advanced on Japan's home islands.

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Here's another thing, too. The Navy would be riding tall in the saddle had Midway gone off as planned. Internally, that's a powerful statement, a successful operation. Had they drawn our few carriers, and finished them off, they're being taken seriously, they're hot. The Army? Move over, buster, your islands can wait. First, for Hawaii. Then, the "Big Ditch."

I mean, that's what I'd be telling them.

EDIT: I think I want to add, let's just understand it like this, this was their opportunity. It doesn't mean they go off their plan. I don't think they ignore that opportunity, however, simply because they had a good plan. When they broke off that plan to commit these vast resources to go off on this wild goose chase that only underscored the importance to the plan of their getting our big carriers off their backs, once and for good. That only said, "We get it," i.e., how important that imperative was. They succeeded, they're riding high, surely, but, for how long? If Pearl was a hornet's nest, those carriers were the hornets. Just keep kicking it, where does that get them? We're going to be back. We're not going anywhere, while Pearl is left there. Throw in the Canal. Are they that shortsighted, they don't see that? I know that was the popular stereotype. But, neither did their pilots have to sit on a stack of telephone books, just to see over the windshield, that was just plumb stereotypical, as well. Maybe they're not going for Pearl, after all, but, they're thinking on it. They're just too close to not be thinking on it, i.e., on that all-out gamble, that going-for-broke. There, is that better?