What if? - Battle of Midway in July 1942 rather than June

parsifal said:

Thanks VBF much appreciated. Gotta respect Old Crows knowledge on this subject. he really is encyclopedic on this issue. Doesnt mean we have to agree with everything, and i dont, but I still have great respect for the man and the knowledge he has.

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Thanks Pars. I started studying the Midway battle after reading Lord's Incredible Victory before joining the USN. For some reason, it really grabbed my interest and I couldn't read enough to satisfy my curiosity. (like it hasn't fascinated anyone else?) Along the way, I started asking questions the written texts didn't answer or provided answers that just had to be wrong. As an aside, the more I read about Fletcher, the more interested I became in him. The official, historical and popular accounts seemed to be missing some fundamental elements of the story of Midway and of Fletcher as a leader. The more I read the more questions I had. Lundstrom's book was a revelation, answering some questions, confirming some suspicions, while raising some new questions. There's more to the story but let's just say, the Midway battle has been a long held interest bordering on obsession.

I wouldn't expect you to agree with everything which is why I do my best to provide at least some semblance of justification, as best I can and because I believe, like me, you want the straight scoop which ever way it goes. I hope you know the respect is certainly reciprocated. I've learned something from just about every interaction on this forum including from you Pars and you VB.

The Fletcher story is complex and my brief rant about ego is far too simplistic, there are certainly other black shoe admirals who weren't vilified to the same extent. His decline evidently began well before the Coral Sea Battle when King regarded him as far too cautious in his abortive attempt to relieve Wake island. Later, King became more convinced of this when he wasn't more proactive in taking the fight to the enemy in the Coral Sea area during the winter of 42. King's feeling was tempered somewhat as a result of the raid made by he and Wilson Brown on IJN fleet elements Lae and Salamua in New Guinea. King blamed him for the loss of the Lexington at Coral Sea and joined the chorus of those aviators who objected to operating their carriers as closely coordinated units for combined CAP defense (similar to IJN doctrine) USN aviation leadership wanted to separate the Flight decks by several 10's of miles to decrease their probability of being detected. (At Midway a combination of the two philosophies were employed. The Fletcher-Fitch tactic employed at Coral Sea didn't work all that well and Lexington was fatally wounded. At Midway the same tactical deployment might have saved Yorktown its own ultimately fatal torpedo wounds. (Yorktown only became submarine bait after the Kates did their deadly and efficient work.) During the Guadalcanal invasion, so many complaints were lodged by the USMC general (Vandergrift) and USN Admiral (Turner) running the invasion, that, despite his largely effective performance at Eastern Solomons, King had had enough. The dissection of these events is a laborious task but worth the read. I recommend Lundstrom's Black Shoe Carrier Admiral and Layton's "And I was there..." I think it was for Turner that Nimitz made the famous quote Morrison cites, "Every dog deserves two bites." You get a vivid picture of Turner in Lundstrom's, Layton's, Frank's and Hornfischer's books and I think even Morrison has some things to say about him.

Pars, anyone interested in carrier aviation has to at least tip his hat to Polmar. Every book on Midway I've read has added some dimension to the story and I appreciate all the contributions. Even Tuleja's.

The way I understand the Coral Sea, Crow, Fletcher was the first to engage the enemy, that would be 4 May, responding to intelligence reports of a Japanese landing at Florida Island and transports going ashore. He did well dispatching his planes to there and bombing the heck out of that landing force. On 7 May, when he joined forces with Fitch, Fitch assumed command of that combined task force. Again, they did well, sinking one carrier, and, the next day, in a second two-carrier task force, damaging another carrier. The ledger reads the same on our side, one carrier sunk, and one carrier damaged. However, how does Fletcher get blamed, there? When Yorktown and Lexington combined forces, Fitch was in charge.

IIRC, Fletcher was senior and in overall command. I believe he deferred to brownshoe Fitch for air ops. Its been a while ut that's what I recall.

You know, Crow, Wake Island wasn't really that strategically important to us at that time. That whole area was under attack. Concurrent with the struggle at Wake, the Japanese were landing troops in the Philippines. I think this Fletcher got a bum rap. Here's a guy who was virtually right in the middle of every major battle through Guadalcanal, and yet he's hardly but a footnote in history. And, when he is, it's usually to discredit him. One doesn't know any better, one wonders how we ever won the War with this guy on our side.

Whatever Fletcher did or didn't do at Wake, he avoided a serious butt kicking at the hands of the Kido Butai 2nd cardiv. Critics say it wouldn't have happened cause the Sara was carrying TWO fighter Squadrons embarked. Its own and the Wake marine VMF relief. How could Fletcher lose? Of course critics don't mention Sara's VF-3 with but 12 F4F-3s (some may have been F4F-3As) was at about 2/3rds strength while the VMF was also understrength (~75%) but, perhaps more seriously handicapped, consisted of the same VMF that fought at Midway ~6 months hence, then as later, equipped with F2A-3 Buffaloes. The Wake relief was horribly conceived in a fragmented style reminiscent of the IJN Midway Op but much much worse. It was styled as an operation enjoying the mutual support of three USN carriers (Sara, Lex Enterprise) . However neither of these other two were anywhere close enough to Sara to offer any assistance should it be attacked. Had Soryu or Hiryu scouts found the Sara I suspect they would have made short work of her. The USN sems to have suffered from an early, very serious under estimate of IJN skill and power.

I say the same thing, give the guy a break. In the weeks following Pearl, we had our hands full. The Japanese were taking everything in the South Pacific from Hong Kong to Manila, and that remote Island, strategically, was but a stopping-off point for us, a stepping-stone. As a matter of fact, what did the Japanese get out of it? Nothing. It's tragic to let any of our bases go without support, but let's get a perspective.

VBF-13 said:

I say the same thing, give the guy a break. In the weeks following Pearl, we had our hands full. The Japanese were taking everything in the South Pacific from Hong Kong to Manila, and that remote Island, strategically, was but a stopping-off point for us, a stepping-stone. As a matter of fact, what did the Japanese get out of it? Nothing. It's tragic to let any of our bases go without support, but let's get a perspective.

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I believe Wake was primarily a refueling stop for China Clipper flying boats and B-17s enroute to the PI before December 7, As I understand it, Wake became part of the IJ ribbon defensive line or buffer. It provided a base for recon out to ~600 mile radius. That's probably at least a day' to a day and a half warning for a task force approaching IJ controlled territory at ~20 knots. With interior lines, Japan might be able to respond to incursions from fleet units staging from its forward bases. During Midway, Wake provided the unbrella under which IJN units could retreat and expect some protection from its own air. IIRC, that radius provided a limit for the daylight pursuit by USN CV units.

Like some of the other cases of disatisfaction, it wasn't clear from the records that Fletcher made any mistakes but his progress was slower than anticipated (for reasons) and he was criticized for dawdling, spending too much time refueling his escorts. This became a common complaint among the "experts" criticizing his performance in a number of his major fleet actions, espcially Eastern Solomons where he released Wasp to refuel just before the battle. With Wasp, the USN might have bagged one of the big IJN flight decks.

oldcrowcv63 said:

I believe Wake was primarily a refueling stop for China Clipper flying boats and B-17s enroute to the PI before December 7, As I understand it, Wake became part of the IJ ribbon defensive line or buffer. It provided a base for recon out to ~600 mile radius. That's probably at least a day' to a day and a half warning for a task force approaching IJ controlled territory at ~20 knots. With interior lines, Japan might be able to respond to incursions from fleet units staging from its forward bases. During Midway, Wake provided the unbrella under which IJN units could retreat and expect some protection from its own air. IIRC, that radius provided a limit for the daylight pursuit by USN CV units.

Like some of the other cases of disatisfaction, it wasn't clear from the records that Fletcher made any mistakes but his progress was slower than anticipated (for reasons) and he was criticized for dawdling, spending too much time refueling his escorts. This became a common complaint among the "experts" criticizing his performance in a number of his major fleet actions, espcially Eastern Solomons where he released Wasp to refuel just before the battle. With Wasp, the USN might have bagged one of the big IJN flight decks.

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Crow, the Saratoga and the Wasp opened the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. That would be 24 August (Japanese spotted, 23 August). One of those squadrons even sank a carrier, the Ryuja. I believe all three of our carriers took on fuel just weeks prior to that, during the Savo Island catastrophe. That must be what you're referring to. That would be 9 August. We were landing at Guadalcanal. We withdrew our carriers and the force we left to protect the landing operations got smashed.

At Savo Island, we were conducting landing operations, and there was a lull in the action, and we weren't being bothered. We had a good force of cruisers and destroyers there to protect the landing operations and to screen our carriers, but we knew the Japanese were just North of there, and what if a sub got through? The last thing we wanted was for one of our carriers to get torpedoed when it wasn't even engaged in a fight. That was another reason that was seen as a good opportunity to withdraw our carriers from those waters and refuel them. When our forces there were hit, that was first by carrier planes. Almost concurrent with that, a force of cruisers and destroyers snuck in, and continued the onslaught. Throughout all that, they didn't even know we were landing. Had they known that, they'd have likely advanced with their fleet, and finished us off on the beaches. As it was, they let those beaches alone. Was that a blunder, withdrawing those carriers, under those circumstances? In hindsight, it was. The alternatives, though, were to either let them sit there, and nothing happens, except they use up fuel, or to deploy them Northward, while running out of fuel, in a desperate search of the Japanese fleet. And, I don't know that those alternatives would have been all that brilliant, either.

Here is Lundstrom's first analysis of Fletcher's performance at Guadalcanal. This article in Naval History was published 14 years prior to the publication of his book "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral" It is in two parts:

Frank Jack Fletcher Got a Bum Rap, Part One | U.S. Naval Institute

Note the reference to the obscure plan and troops for a Santa Cruz occupation force that became folded into the Guadacanal force due to the IJ resistence on Florida Island.

Wth respect to his 'timid' occupation of the Coral Sea during the winter of 42. What worthwhile targets did he have to attack that justified the risk to the Yorktown? He couldn't move up the Solomons or approach the Indonesian archipelego without exposing his command to danger from prowling IJN carriers until they left for the IO. By then pwereful IJN land based units were already showing themselves to be very dangerous. Lexington's solo raid on Rabaul in early February showed what kind of response such (prematurely) aggressive activities were likely to elicit. Yes, VF-3 did well in repelling the raid, but without the efforts of just one F4F flown by Butch O'Hare, it might have been a very bad day for the USN.

It took a while for the USN to adopt the view that solo operations were a limiting and very risky idea desite the fact that they were generally 'successful.'

When he was reinforced by Brown in March and later Fitch in May, he became more characteristically and appropriately aggressive.

VBF-13 said:

Crow, the Saratoga and the Wasp opened the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. That would be 24 August (Japanese spotted, 23 August). One of those squadrons even sank a carrier, the Ryuja. I believe all three of our carriers took on fuel just weeks prior to that, during the Savo Island catastrophe. That must be what you're referring to. That would be 9 August. We were landing at Guadalcanal. We withdrew our carriers and the force we left to protect the landing operations got smashed.

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VB, Check six. Wasp had been sent to refuel. Enterprise was Sara's consort during Eastern Solomons and she got hammered by Vals (3 hits) during the exchange. The Lundstrom article above cites both refuelings which were about 2 weeks apart (gives you an idea how fast those suckers burn the black gold). In between which the carriers did a lot of ops burning oil awaiting the arrival of the IJN counterattack which arrived as you say on the 24th. Here is CV-6 afire after the hits.

oldcrowcv63 said:

VB, Check six. Wasp had been sent to refuel. Enterprise was Sara's consort during Eastern Solomons and she got hammered by Vals (3 hits) during the exchange. The Lundstrom article above cites both refuelings which were about 2 weeks apart (gives you an idea how fast those suckers burn the black gold). In between which the carriers did a lot of ops burning oil awaiting the arrival of the IJN counterattack which arrived as you say on the 24th. Here is CV-6 afire after the hits.

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Crow, something is seriously ajar in our accounts of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Let's see if we can't use this opportunity to try and rectify that. My account has an August 24th deployment of aircraft from the Saratoga and the Wasp against the Japanese fleet and the Enterprise and her escorts simply defending against an assault while said deployments were in progress. I even have a photograph of the deck of the Wasp during said deployments, showing aircraft in the air, too, but that I can't show, right now, as I'm nowhere near my scanner. My understanding is that the Enterprise didn't get anything off its deck offensively in that Battle. Only the Saratoga and the Wasp did that. My source for that is Battle Stations (Wise Co., N.Y., 1946). That source has been by my side since I was a kid, and I've seen it credited, a lot (even by Lundstrom, I believe). Here's the caption under the photograph (it's reproduced, in part). Let's figure this out. See what your sources make of this account:

"On the morning of August 23, 1942, a reconnaissance plane sighted a Japanese transport group, loaded with reinforcements for the Solomon Islands area. During the night our combined force moved North and contact was made the next morning. In the afternoon of the 24th, planes from the Saratoga and Wasp bombed an aircraft carrier and in addition damaged a cruiser and a destroyer. While these attacks were in progress, a flight of about 75 Japanese planes attacked the Enterprise and her escort ships and inflicted some damage on the Enterprise."

VBF-13 said:

Crow, something is seriously ajar in our accounts of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Let's see if we can't use this opportunity to try and rectify that. My account has an August 24th deployment of aircraft from the Saratoga and the Wasp against the Japanese fleet and the Enterprise and her escorts simply defending against an assault while said deployments were in progress. I even have a photograph of the deck of the Wasp during said deployments, showing aircraft in the air, too, but that I can't show, right now, as I'm nowhere near my scanner. My understanding is that the Enterprise didn't get anything off its deck offensively in that Battle. Only the Saratoga and the Wasp did that. My source for that is Battle Stations (Wise Co., N.Y., 1946). That source has been by my side since I was a kid, and I've seen it credited, a lot (even by Lundstrom, I believe). Here's the caption under the photograph (it's reproduced, in part). Let's figure this out. See what your sources make of this account:

"On the morning of August 23, 1942, a reconnaissance plane sighted a Japanese transport group, loaded with reinforcements for the Solomon Islands area. During the night our combined force moved North and contact was made the next morning. In the afternoon of the 24th, planes from the Saratoga and Wasp bombed an aircraft carrier and in addition damaged a cruiser and a destroyer. While these attacks were in progress, a flight of about 75 Japanese planes attacked the Enterprise and her escort ships and inflicted some damage on the Enterprise."

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I think the discrepancy is readily resolvable but a bit surprising in its divergence from my own sources. Lundstrom cites TF61 (on August 23rd, all three carriers are acting in concert with Enterprise acting as duty carrier with Wasp as relief (in reserve?) and cites the Sara airwing as the only one providing strike assets to hit the transports which have turned north out of range. The Sara's strike is launched and finding nothing takes refuge on Guadalcanal for the night. At 1830 on the 23rd, at Ghormley's direction with PH Intel sources assuring him all IJN carriers are near Truk, Fletcher detaches Wasp for refueling. On the 24th, the Sara's strike group returns from Henderson by 1100 on the morning and the IJN carriers show up and the battle ensues with Wasp on the sidelines. Frank provides the same info as does Hornfischer. I don't have a copy of Morrison for Eastern Solomons but other texts I've seen seem to confirm this series of events, as does the Lundstrom article I posted earlier. Here is wikipedia:

Battle of the Eastern Solomons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia cites four sources (Lundstrom, Frank, Evans and Hammel)

"Fletcher detached Wasp—which was getting low on fuel—and the rest of TF 18 for the two-day trip south toward Efate Island to refuel. Thus, Wasp and her escorting warships missed the upcoming battle."

Info for the 23rd sounds correct, but the info on carrier vs carrier does not appear to be correct or is at least inconsistent with these other sources. I find the accuracy of earlier sources, (perhaps compiled by PAO offices?) to diverge from the later accounts in proportion to how close they were to the actual events. In other words, the further from the event one gets the more accurate the info seems to become. I suspect that sort of divergence in accounts may give Pars some concern about the veracity of any account.

Also, for Parsifal, I was looking at Lundstrom for this battle and he cites the CV Based A/C assets dedicated to search and ASW patrol (Inner air Patrol or IAP) as up to 24 A/C for a 180 search and up to 14 A/C for IAP. That's easily your original 60% depletion of the assets available for strike. I stand (actually I am sitting while typing ) corrected. Although, I suspect there may have been an amplification of the assets dedicated by the duty carrier as the practice became common in multi-carrier task groups.

oldcrowcv63 said:

Here is Lundstrom's first analysis of Fletcher's performance at Guadalcanal. This article in Naval History was published 14 years prior to the publication of his book "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral" It is in two parts:

Frank Jack Fletcher Got a Bum Rap, Part One | U.S. Naval Institute

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I smiled when I read the account of the post war historians calculating the fuel for Fletcher and determined he had enough fuel to do the mission. It reminded me of a mission I was on where we were flying into New Jersey from Europe. The weather was predicted to be clear and a million for our arrival time and we had legally planned Dover AFB as an alternate, only about 15 minutes from our destination, McGuire AFB, and loaded fuel accordingly. However, as we approached McGuire a very fast moving front had come down and hit both McGuire and Dover. We flew a missed approach into McGuire and called up Base Ops for directions (typically a problem). They came back and said that their flight planners said we could make it to Otis AFB, in Massachusetts and told us to divert their. My Nav, doing his own calculations said to tell them we could not make it! I immediately told the Nav and Copilot to find the nearest usable field. Luckily the front had not reached Atlantic City and that is were we landed. The point it is that it is amazing what little fuel a desk riding analyst will accept and a crew or Admiral, whose life, or the survival of his ships, are on the line, will not accept. This was the only time I was a bit antsy about fuel in the C-141.

If I remember correctly, the Bismarck failed to refuel at its last stopped which forced it to return to France after it sprung a fuel leak. Had it more fuel, maybe it could have avoided the Brits.

I think Fletcher suffered more than most from the post-mortems of armchair admirals. At least that's the impression I get. I assume you landed at NAFEC, near Atlantic City? Bader Field would be kind of small for a 141. Glad you and your crew made it ok. I assume if Dover and McGuire were socked in, then probably Warminster and Willow Grove were also but they also probably had no ILS. They'd have been a hell of a lot closer than Otis!

I flew into Bader in a 150 for my last cross-country solo for my license 40+ years ago. Just found out it closed 6 years ago.

Didn't know that about Bismarck!

I dont think it was the armchair generals that torpedoed Fletcher. I think hius service record and lack of success did that. The most charitable thing I can say about Fletcher is that at least he didnt lose the war. But he was overcautious and prone to flights of fancy in his tactical commands. The post war wash up of him is unfair, mostly because of Morisons animosity toward him, but Fletcher was effectively demoted by his own peers, which says volumes about his abilities, or lack thereof.

In summary Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was the US Navy's commander at the pivotal Battles of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and Midway in June 1942. He also commanded in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August 1942. These were three of the four great carrier battles of 1942, and there was not another until 1944. By that time Fletcher was commander in the North Pacific.

In 1909 he gained his first command on the'USS Dale' in America's Asiatic Squadron. In 1914, Fletcher won the Medal of Honour for rescuing refugees on the transport ship 'Esperanza' during the occupation of Vera Cruz. During America's participation in World War One, he commanded 'USS Benham' – a destroyer on submarine patrol.

During the inter-war years, America retrenched into a period of isolationism at an international level. Therefore, America's military tended to be relatively dormant. America was not a member of the League of Nations; therefore she did not participate in anything to do with the League.

In 1930, Fletcher graduated from the Naval War College. One year later he did the same from the Army War College. Between 1933 and 1936, Fletcher was an aide to the Secretary of the Navy and between 1936 and 1939, he was on the staff of the Bureau of Personnel. In 1939, Fletcher was promoted to Rear Admiral and given the command of Cruiser Division III, Atlantic Fleet.

In late 1941, Fletcher was given the command of the 'USS Yorktown', an aircraft carrier. The naval hierarchy in America must have held Fletcher in high regard to give him the command of the 'USS Yorktown'.

In February 1942, Fletcher took part in raids on the Marshall and Gilbert Islands – the first offensive American campaigns in World War Two. Shortly after these campaigns, Fletcher was promoted to Vice Admiral and was given the command of Task Force 17, spearheaded by the 'Yorktown' for what was to become the Battle of Coral Sea. Chester Nimitz also gave Fletcher overall tactical command of this battle, including over Task Force 11 commanded by Aubrey Fitch on board the doomed 'USS Lexington'. While America lost the 'Lexington', 'Sims' and'Neosho', a carrier, destroyer and oil tanker respectively, the Japanese only lost, of consequence, the light carrier 'Shoho'. The Japanese lost 43 planes in the battle to America's 33.

The material losses for America were high, however the battle is viewed as an American victory as the Japanese were stopped from doing what they wanted to do – invading and capturing Port Moresby in New Guinea and thus isolating Australia.

After Coral Sea, Fletcher was with the 'Yorktown' at the Battle of Midway fought between June 3rd and June 6th. Planes from the 'Yorktown' sank the 'Soryu'.
It was at Midway that the 'USS Yorktown' was sunk – hit by bombs and torpedoes from planes from the'Hiryu' and finished off by a torpedo attack by a Japanese submarine. The loss of two carriers in quick succession was balanced by the fact that the Japanese lost four carriers at Midway. America could replace her lost carriers– Japan had a much more difficult task in doing so.

In August 1942, Fletcher was given the command of a task force that was to attack Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal was a battle that saw heavy US casualties on the island. After this, Fletcher was given the command of a carrier force, which included the 'USS Enterprise', the 'USS Saratoga' and the 'USS Wasp'. This force was badly damaged at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August 1942. Fletcher's critics believed that he had been too cautious in his tactics.

Between December 1943and 1945, Fletcher was "banished", being placed in command of US Naval Forces in the North Pacific Area. On the surrender of Japan, after the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fletcher was put in charge of northern Japan (Hokkaido) and oversaw the occupation there. After World War Two, he served as Chairman on the General Board of the Navy until his retirement in May 1947.

Fletcher's papers were lost in combat, and he refused to reconstruct them from the naval archives. Fletcher also declined to be interviewed by the influential official Navy historian, Samuel Elliott Morrison. So Morrison got his nose out of joint and ignored Fletcher's contributions in his published works, and later historians have picked up on this and followed Morrison's lead.

As a commander Fletcher is generally perceived as a cautious commander of the "old guard". Uninspired but careful is how I would describe him. His "demotion" to the northern pacific reflects what his performance during the crucial battles that he commanded were viewed. There is little doubt, however that his poor relationship with Morison did not help his post war record.

"I think hius service record and lack of success did that"

With respect, I do not share your views on Fletcher's "lack of success". He fought the battle of Coral Sea and won (even he Lexington was lost). He fought the battle of Midway and won decisively. He fought the battle of Eastern Solomon and won. He was responsible for the loss of 6 Japanese carriers. I think nobody could have done better.

Best,

Francis Marliere

I'm feeling like a young boy who just tried on his first pair of long pants. Crow, I see what you're saying, and I wasn't aware of any of that. Pars, that's one good synopsis of the criticism. It's what I needed to hear. Needless to say, I'll thank you gentlemen both for the much better understanding I have.

Francis marliere said:

"I think hius service record and lack of success did that"

With respect, I do not share your views on Fletcher's "lack of success". He fought the battle of Coral Sea and won (even he Lexington was lost). He fought the battle of Midway and won decisively. He fought the battle of Eastern Solomon and won. He was responsible for the loss of 6 Japanese carriers. I think nobody could have done better.

Best,

Francis Marliere

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Francis, this is how I see it. Let's start at the beginning. Pearl. What was that about? It was about getting our carriers. Midway. What was that about? It was about getting our carriers. In view of that, is it any wonder that, from a strategic standpoint, i.e., a Nimitz standpoint, we're going to want to err on the side of caution? I think not. Now, look at Fletcher. Fletcher, compared to Nimitz, was tactical. He tactically implemented the strategy. That was his job. His tactics had to be within the parameters of the strategy. Thus, he gets the heat. Somebody show me where Nimitz told Fletcher throw caution to the wind in your tactical imperatives, and I'll eat those words.

Francis, your summary is what started me down the path of skeptical reconsideration of the case against Fletcher. VB excellent summary of the situation and appropriate caution exercised by Fletcher.
Pars,

is this the source of the above summary?

Vice Admiral Frank Fletcher

VB, My advice is to take Pars summary with more than a grain of salt. It is a poor rendering of history aside from the Biographic account of Fletcher which is, at best incomplete, and at worst inaccurate not to mentioned implicitly biased. The Coral Sea A/C loss numbers are grossly in error:

IJN started the battle with 127 A/C (139 including those that were inoperable) and ended the battle with 52 A/C with only 39 immediately operable. That's a loss of at least 75 A/C to all causes. ~75% of VT, ~50% of VB and VF from the operable numbers including those lost with the Shoho. Remaining IJN strike capability amounted to 13 VB and 8 VT.

In contrast The US lost 56 from all causes and recovered 50 operational A/C (with another 22 inop) at Battle's end. Strike capability rested with 29 VB 8 VT. Despite her wounded condition, Yorktown still packed a more powerful punch than her IJN counterparts.

Yes material losses were indeed high even if only counting the Lex and the 34 A/C she took to the bottom.

With respect to incompleteness of the posted Fletcher bio. consider:

It doesn't state:

Along with Big Mac, He won the medal of honor in 1915 during the US Vera Cruz op, (although at that time it was more of a distinguished service medal).

In 1928 he applied for flight training but was rejected for poor eyesight. (admittedly, a merely interesting side note.)

The above bio does state:

"In 1939, Fletcher was promoted to Rear Admiral (6th of his 1906 class to be frocked; my note) and given the command of Cruiser Division III, Atlantic Fleet."

Crudiv III was a pretty inconsequential command. 4 Omaha class Light cruisers. His performance in that role earned him in June 1940 the command of Crudiv 6 with 4 new CAs of the New Orleans Class. In December of 1941 he was to take command of all Scouting Force Cruisers in the Pacific. In other words, every cruiser in the pacific fleet was to be under his command.

"In late 1941, Fletcher was given the command of the 'USS Yorktown', an aircraft carrier. The naval hierarchy in America must have held Fletcher in high regard to give him the command of the 'USS Yorktown'."

He wasn't given command of Yorktown. He was in command of TF-17 with Yorktown as the most important component element.

"Shortly after these campaigns, Fletcher was promoted to Vice Admiral and was given the command of Task Force 17, spearheaded by the 'Yorktown' for what was to become the Battle of Coral Sea."

Clearly an error in the time sequence since TF-17 command came December 30, 1942. He was promoted to Vice Admiral on June 26, 1942 after Midway.

"After Coral Sea, Fletcher was with the 'Yorktown' at the Battle of Midway fought between June 3rd and June 6th. "

With? He was in command of Both TF-17 and TF-16."

"In August 1942, Fletcher was given the command of a task force that was to attack Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal was a battle that saw heavy US casualties on the island. After this, Fletcher was given the command of a carrier force, which included the 'USS Enterprise', the 'USS Saratoga' and the 'USS Wasp'. This force was badly damaged at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August 1942."

Let's see, at eastern Solomons, one IJN light CV was sunk in exchange for damage to the Enterprise which was back in action by the following October.

Badly damaged? with no mention of the Ryujo's sinking. Implying he was in command when the USMC suffered heavy casualties? I'd call that biased reporting of history. I would also say this summary is fairly typical of the "shoot-from-the-hip" criticism of Fletcher that has characterized his WW2 service. Who was Fletcher's strongest supporter? Nimitz. who was his biggest detractor? King.

"Between December 1943 and 1945, Fletcher was "banished", being placed in command of US Naval Forces in the North Pacific Area."

This is about as accurate as any of the rest of the bio. He was in combat command for roughly 9 months, was personally subjected to enemy bombs three times. Halsey had lasted half that time before exhaustion. He most certainly wasn't 'banished' anywhere but in the minds of a few critical, but very influential critics. His reassignment took place near the end of November, 1942 in defiance of Nimitz intention to give him back TF-11 with the Sara and send him back to the S. Pacific. From his Alaskan command (HQ on Adak) he waged a long distance bombing campaign against the Japanese Kurile islands, prototyping with long range USN patrol bombers the anticipated, but short-circuited, B-29 Aleutian campaign and northern island invasion of Japan (operation keelblocks). Near the end, Nimitz was planning on sending him 7 escort carriers and 3 CAs 26 DDs to take the allied fight into the Kuriles and northern Japan.