What other fighters could have been made available to the marines at Battle of Midway

[oldcrowcv63]

The IJN CV airborne force typically flew at altitudes above 10,000 feet with A6M escorts a few thousand feet higher. SCR-270 Radar typically detected at about 100 miles distant. In this case, Midway defenders had advanced warning based on a PBY report: (3V58 ) Lt. William Chase: "Many Planes, heading Midway, bearing 320 degrees, distance 150." This was followed shortly after (0553 LOCAL) by Sand Island RADAR detection at 93 miles, 310 degrees. altitude 11,000 feet: The distance difference was probably due to a PBY navigational error. 100 miles was enough time for immediately launched fighters to obtain altitude superiority for a force at 11,000 feet or a bit higher. When first sighted at Midway by Carey's defending MAG-22 Wildcat fighter element the famous call was: "Tally Ho! Hawks at Angels Twelve!" at 0612. Figuring a speed of advance of about 2.5 to 3 miles per minute, that constitutes a warning of about 30 minutes. With a visibility of about 20 miles, Carey's F4F-3 inteercept was thus about 40 miles out from Midway which roughly corresponds to the account in Prange.

 

[Shortround6]

Maybe it is just me, but isn't is obvious that the Marines could use only aircraft provided by the USN - and the Navy was never going to use an Army Plane in large numbers at this stage of the war.

But tomo pauk has a point - why were only Army Bombers at Midway? Probably tyrodtom is right - there just wasn't room for them and then there is that inter service rivalry.

Putting the two together kind of answers the question about the Army bombers being there. At this stage of the war Navy shore based bombers are few and far between. Part of the inter-service rivalry during the 30's (and even today) is a battle for funding. The Congress, in time of peace,is not going to fund both Army and Navy bombers of almost equal capabilities or even squadrons in both services using the same planes. Both services were expanding quite dramatically during 1941-42-43 but in the summer of 1942 Navy shore based patrol/bomber squadrons were anything but common.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Putting the two together kind of answers the question about the Army bombers being there. At this stage of the war Navy shore based bombers are few and far between. Part of the inter-service rivalry during the 30's (and even today) is a battle for funding. The Congress, in time of peace,is not going to fund both Army and Navy bombers of almost equal capabilities or even squadrons in both services using the same planes. Both services were expanding quite dramatically during 1941-42-43 but in the summer of 1942 Navy shore based patrol/bomber squadrons were anything but common.

Amen, although things got a bit better with the USN adopting B-18, B-17 (PB-1) and B-24 (PB4Y-1) for ASW and maritime patrol work, and even B-25's (PBJ). The PBJ was depicted in the Otto Preminger film In Harm's Way, where it's the plane that Kirk Douglas (playing a character supposedly based on Capt. Miles Browning) heroically sacrifices himself to avoid being prosecuted for Rape. The USN might have been better off if MB had actually sacrificed himself in that fashion but then we might have missed the SNL antics of Chevy Chase.

The USMC was forever getting the castoff aircraft of the USN until later in the war. At Midway, I suspect they would have preferred having the old, used F4F-3s over the newer F4F-4 flown by their USN cousins. They also flew SBD-2's while the USN was cavorting in SBD-3s.

I've always heard and read that the actual numbers based at Midway were due to space limitations and the types were comprised of what was believed to be most appropriate to the mission. MAG 22 was essentially a carrier airwing in composition but made up of recent USN cast-offs. One fighter squadron of about 28 fighters (21 F3A-3 and 7 F4F-3), and two divebombing squadrons of roughly 40 aircraft (19 SBD-2s and 21 SB2U-3's, although only about a dozen of the latter were operational.) and of course the VT-8 detachment of 6 TBF-1s in their debut.

 

[tyrodtom]

I don't so much think it was space that kept the Army from putting fighters on Midway. I think it was distance.
The bombers could fly from Hawai, plus they've got navigators. The fighters, I don't think had the range, and if they did, would they have enough Army pilots with experience in long overwater flights. I think it was more a time squeeze. How much time, after they found out the JN target was Midway, did they have to set up the defense?

 

[buffnut453]

Tyrodtom brings up a point that I was going to make - how to get Army fighters to places like Midway or Palmyra Atolls. You could ship aircraft in component form but then you'd have to assemble and flight test them (and there was a war on so time was of vital importance). The only practical way to get fighters to these outlying atolls was via aircraft carrier, including flying the aircraft off the carrier to land at the atoll airfields. Notwithstanding the amazing feat achieved by the Doolittle Raid in Apr 42, I suspect the concept of flying USAAF fighters from carriers was not considered at this stage of the war. This website (The Missing Carriers of Pearl Harbor) also makes an interesting point that USAAF fighters were not allowed to fly more than 15 miles from land, which forced Kimmel's hand to use Navy (or USMC) aircraft and pilots for atoll defence. Dunno if the website's assertions are correct but, if so, it would militate against non-Navy aircraft being used to defend Midway in time for the battle.

 

[tomo pauk]

Think it was practiced prior the war, and certainly was done before the Midway. The web site has some data, and one caption reads

May 10, 1942 -- Approximately 80 miles off coast of Accra, Africa. Commenced to launch P-40s at 0800. Last flight at 1715. Takeoffs were fairly good.

57th_FG

 

[davebender]

What's wrong with the Imperial Japanese Army method for transporting aircraft? Nothing prevents the U.S. Army from building similiar aircraft transports on merchant hulls.

Akitsu Maru was a passenger liner taken over before completion by the Imperial Japanese Army. The ship was fitted with a flight deck above the hull, but had no hangar so the aircraft were stored below the flight deck on the original main deck. Conventional aircraft were able to fly off from her deck but could not land aboard.

 

[buffnut453]

Tomo Pauk,

But VMF-221 deployed to defend Midway in Dec 41 so the USAAF fighters would, presumably, need to deploy on the same schedule? Also, the 57th FG pilots merely had to hit the coast and then turn left or right (depending on where they made landfall). For inexperienced USAAF pilots to navigate across the ocean and find Midway seems a little more challenging. It also doesn't resolve the (possible - still would like it confirmed) issue of USAAF fighters, at that stage of the war, operating at long distances from land which is why Kimmel sent in the USMC in the first place.

 

[Shortround6]

You have to have the flight decks available. The idea existed, it had been done, but while we did turn out "jeep" carriers by the dozen, ti wasn't until later in the war. Trying to use existing carriers in May/June of 1942 means landing their normal compliment of planes, transporting the army planes and then returning to the base where their normal carrier planes are waiting. This could take them out of action for several days to several weeks depending on the distances involved.

Building Army aircraft transport ships earlier than Dec of 1942 doesn't make sense because there were so few planes to transport.

 

[buffnut453]

What's wrong with the Imperial Japanese Army method for transporting aircraft? Nothing prevents the U.S. Army from building similiar aircraft transports on merchant hulls.

So why didn't they? Could it be done in time to reinforce Midway and Palmyra? Anything's possible but having some basis of what might realistically have been achieved.

 

[tomo pauk]

Tomo Pauk,

But VMF-221 deployed to defend Midway in Dec 41 so the USAAF fighters would, presumably, need to deploy on the same schedule? Also, the 57th FG pilots merely had to hit the coast and then turn left or right (depending on where they made landfall). For inexperienced USAAF pilots to navigate across the ocean and find Midway seems a little more challenging. It also doesn't resolve the (possible - still would like it confirmed) issue of USAAF fighters, at that stage of the war, operating at long distances from land which is why Kimmel sent in the USMC in the first place.

I'd dispatch a pair of Catalinas or B-17s from Midway, to rendezvous with a ship that would be launching the planes, make couple of turns till fighters are in the air and then lead them to Midway.

You have to have the flight decks available. The idea existed, it had been done, but while we did turn out "jeep" carriers by the dozen, ti wasn't until later in the war. Trying to use existing carriers in May/June of 1942 means landing their normal compliment of planes, transporting the army planes and then returning to the base where their normal carrier planes are waiting. This could take them out of action for several days to several weeks depending on the distances involved.

Building Army aircraft transport ships earlier than Dec of 1942 doesn't make sense because there were so few planes to transport.

Yep, there was a severe lack of almost anything, so any decision to where to go with what piece of military equipment was a tough one.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Considering Midway as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, the emphasis wouldn't be on the fighter composition but rather on enhancing strike capability. This is one of the reasons why Simard has been criticized for witholding the fighters as CAP. Essentially, a marine air group like MAG-22 is a trained carrier air wing even if they don't have quite the same carrier ops experience, they would presumably have similar coherence in how they fought. Simard apparently deviated somewhat from that model. At lease that's my understanding of the theory behind the decisions. In some sense it's a cultural distinction. If any island airfield (Wake, Midway or Guadacanal) is seen as essentially an airbase operating as an independent unit, then army aircraft are fine to add to the mix. If you want it to play the role of an unsinkable aircraft carrier, you may tend to want something else, if you can have it. In this case, I think it was just easier to obtain than it was to change the paradigm.

 

[JoeB]

As to the Army vs. the IJN in 1942 - at this stage there was just very little contact between the two, most of the US AAF action was against the IJA.

The AVG stricly engaged Japanese Army fighters through its combat career Dec 1941 until absorbed into the USAAF at the end of June 1942. But the original AVG was not the US Army in substance, besides formality. It just flew an Army-type fighter, the P-40. Many of the key pilots were from the naval services, and in general the pilots from all services were almost uniformly highly experienced (in military flying, though almost none of them had seen combat before the Dec '41), not resembling early Pacific War US Army fighter units in that respect.

FEAF fighter units had only limited contact with JAAF Type 97 Fighters in the Philippines after the FEAF fighter contingent had already been greatly attrited by the JNAF (mainly on the ground), and the US fighters were usually serving as lone recon a/c or as fast bombers and not seeking air combat. Then there was only a single combat that pitted USAAF P-40's v JAAF Type 97's in the Dutch East Indies campaign, rest were all v Zeroes. Then US Army fighter ops v the Japanese in Australia, New Guinea and the Solomons in 1942 was strictly against the JNAF until the last days of December when Japanese Army Type 1's appeared over New Guinea.

The successor to the AVG, USAAF 23rd FG, continued to meet only JAAF opposition in China/Burma, but the pace of action slowed down in that theater considerably in the second half of '42.

So, most US Army fighter unit experience of 1942 was against the JNAF, as was 100% of Navy and Marine fighter unit experience (F4F's first encountered JAAF fighters over Guadalcanal in January 1943)

Joe

 

[tyrodtom]

Don't forget it was just a month between the Battle of the Coral sea, and Midway. A lot of damage was being repaired at Pearl from that battle and still from the Dec. 7 attack.

Plus how much time elapsed between them knowiing Midway was the target, and the start of the battle?

Some of the solutions put forth so far would have had to been planned years before, not in the few months they had in the real event.

I don't think they had the time or availible resources to do much more than what they did.

 

[JoeB]

Hi Joe,

I think you raise some valid points but the situation at Guadalcanal was very different from that at Midway:

1. Attacks against Guadalcanal employed far smaller numbers of Japanese aircraft - defenders frequently outnumbered the Japanese fighters.
2. Guadalcanal benefitted from earlier warning via the Coastwatcher system and the defenders always knew from which direction the Japanese would be coming.
3. Guadalcanal had more fighters available both in raw numbers and in the numbers that could be tactically massed (at Midway VMF-221's 4 Divisions were committed piecemeal as they were considered discrete tactical elements).
4. Japanese fighters had less combat time over Guadalcanal - their operating bases were 200 miles more distant from Guadalcanal than were the Japanese aircraft carriers from Midway.

The net result of these differences was that the USMC and USN fighters were able to mass more defensive fighters at higher altitude than was achievable at Midway against a less numerous adversary who had less combat loiter time over the target. Given these differences, it's hardly surprising that the USMC and USN pilots at Guadalcanal did better. The drawn-out nature of the Solomons campaign also enabled tactical evolution - early results against the Zero, IIRC, weren't particularly good during the early phases of the battle for Guadalcanal but they improved as experience increased and tactics evolved.

Bland kill/loss figures don't represent the subtle (and sometimes major) differences in tactical conditions between locations that have a tremendous impact on the outcome of tactical battles.

As I said, the USMC interception at Midway was just one combat, and one combat is always going to be 'different' than a long series of combats just from statistical variation with evens out in a big set of statistics but doesn't in a single case.

But, as has been covered many, many times on this forum and by now I think people should have gone and read up on it and know it's true, if you take all the combats beween Zeroes and F4F's in 1942:
-a signficant % did not follow the set piece of high altitude interception of escorted twins; in fact one of the earliest significant successes by the USMC Cactus AF F4F's was against a carrier strike by Ryujo against G'canal. But there were many other combats that didn't fit the stereotypical mold, the USN carrier based F4F combats certainly didn't, and moreover the 'bland kill ratio' didn't seem to systematically vary based on the type of combat, nor suddenly get much worse when the Zeroes got bases closer to G'canal (from October).

-the kill ratio didn't actually change a lot over time at all; even into 1943. The worst outing ever by F4F's v Zeroes was at the opening of the G'canal campaign (USN a/c) but was bracketed by better performances both before and after that.

The fact that the VMF-221 interception was just one combat is in short a better 'defense' of the Buffalo in US service than supposed huge disadvantage in that battle that never affected F4F's in other battles (or in that one too). But again, the people actually flying both a/c thought the F4F was superior; and OTOH the F2A result in that one combat was rather of a piece with the Buffalo's fairly dismal record otherwise against Japanese fighters. So as I've said before, it exaggerates to call the Buffalo some special absolute terrible a/c, but the service that flew both it and the F4F didn't think the F2A's misfortunes were just a fluke, and I think a bit more weight should be given to that before implying the 'surely' the F4F's very unusual (for 1942 Allied fighters) parity with the Zero was all 'circumstances', or 'tactics', and had nothing at all to do with the plane. It was likely a mixture of factors including superiority of the F4F as a practical combat plane over some other apparently similar types on paper like the Buffalo, and even some arguably superior types, on paper.

 

[Shortround6]

Quite right. You can't build aircraft transport ships, or modify an existing ship uncouple of weeks. You don't want to take one of your few operational carriers out of service to play aircraft ferry right aft the Battle of the Coral sea. The only Way you can send more Army fighters to Midway in the couple of weeks before Midway is to to send the ones from Hawaii and hope you can get more from the Mainland by ship before Hawaii needs them, Japanese bypass Midway, Win at Midway or launch a simultaneous strike at Hawaii. Betting Pearl Harbors safety on a forward defense at Midway was probably more of a gamble than the US was willing to make at the time.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

from: Midway 1942 : Documents : Executive Officer Marine Aircraft Group TWENTY-TWO Action report. June 7, 1942.

Prior to May 21st, the commencement of the alert and recon phase of Midway, only the two marine squadrons VMF-221 (21 F2A-3) and VMSB-241 (21 SB2U-3) were resident on Midway with their support cadre. That provided a core organizational structure upon which to build reiniforcement.

cut and paste from the document's May 31 entry:

May 31

Routine patrols and tactics by MAG-22 squadrons. Sector search by VP-44, 11 planes. 9 B-17, LtCol. Sweeney, 30 officers and 60 men arrived from Oahu. Officers and enlisted quartered in tents. Officer's Mess now feeding approximately 175 officers and working day and night. 14 B-17 off on search and attack mission at 1350 returning 2100-0350. No results. 50% of MAG-22 personnel worked all night servicing and rearming these aircraft. Gasoline consumption 65,000 gallons approximately, and gasoline situation here and at Sand Island extremely acute. 4 more PBY5A's arrived from Pearl with relief crews for VP-44. Aircraft parked on and operating from this field: 17 B-17, 16 PBY5A, 19 SBD-2, 12 SB2U-3, 21 F2A-3, and 6 F4F-3, not including 5 SB2U-3 and 1 F4F-3 out of commission. Night taxiing and take-offs extremely hazardous due to crowded condition of runways.

Aircraft were parked adjacent to the runways?

May 26

Routine patrols by MAG-22 squadrons. 1 B-17 arrived from Oahu with Major General Tinker and Staff - departed same date. Major J.K. Warner USA and 2 enlisted remaining on temporary duty as Army Liaison Detachment. USS KITTY HAWK arrived with 22 officers and 35 men for MAG-22, also 19 SBD-2 and 7 F4F-3 aircraft. Of the 21 new pilots, 17 were fresh out of flight school. Unloading of KITTY HAWK commenced and continued throughout the night. Officer personnel now nearly 300% increased, enlisted 50%. Gasoline consumption 3,000 gallons approximately.

 

[buffnut453]

Joe,

Not saying that the Wildcat's success had nothing to do with the aircraft, rather that there were a wider set of factors that are frequently ignored. Questions such as the one posed for this topic presuppose that aircraft performance is the only parameter. I'm simply suggesting that reality is far more complex with small changes, such as a few minutes additional warning, potentially making the difference between a tactical advantage or disadavantage.

Cheers,
B-N

 

[davebender]

I think that's pretty typical for WWII era pilots of all nations. Most were rushed into combat before fully trained.

 

[buffnut453]

I disagree. I think it's true for Britain and America when they were trying to catch up with the rearmament of, in particular, Germany and Japan. However, later in the war pilots with combat experience were rotated back to training units resulting in better-quality "graduates" within the allotted time as they were trained on useful tactics that worked rather than on outdated, pre-war tactical concepts (like the vic or division). Also, as the growth in units slowed, there was less need to have such a large proportion of brand new pilots within individual units.

To an extent, the problem was reversed for Japan and Germany because they had developed an experienced cadre starting with operations over China and during the Spanish Civil War. However, the Axis powers tended to keep experienced pilots in the front-line until they were wounded or killed which meant that, as the war dragged on, the overall experience level was diluted.