Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,700
- Dec 6, 2006
And yet the Japanese put together scratch surface forces all the time and were very successful with them.
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And yet the Japanese put together scratch surface forces all the time and were very successful with them.Doctrine aside, you're correct -- but flag officers steeped in doctrine probably find it hard to override. The military culture can be doctrinaire to a fault.
And yet the Japanese put together scratch surface forces all the time and were very successful with them.
I know they did. It makes the reluctance to do so with Zuikaku more baffling, to me. Perhaps Nagumo was more doctrinaire than others? Or perhaps he didn't feel Shokaku's group could be honed for ops on Zuikaku? I mean, at Savo, what was essentially a IJN scratch force mauled the Allies.
I've always wondered about the decision to leave Zuikaku out -- who took it, and why.
I've always though that the IJN should have sent Yamato and the other battleships forward on the night of 3 June to arrive off Midway at dawn on 4 June to bombard the island's airfields. This would have forced the USN carriers to into a terrible decision: Attack the IJN battleships, and thereby revealing their presence to the IJN, or risk losing the island's airfields.
I think that Admiral Yamamoto should have just taken the combined forces initially and closed with everything he had. Forget the Aleutians. Instead of all those clever moves just do "Hulk Smash".I've always though that the IJN should have sent Yamato and the other battleships forward on the night of 3 June to arrive off Midway at dawn on 4 June to bombard the island's airfields. This would have forced the USN carriers to into a terrible decision: Attack the IJN battleships, and thereby revealing their presence to the IJN, or risk losing the island's airfields.
I think that Admiral Yamamoto should have just taken the combined forces initially and closed with everything he had. Forget the Aleutians. Instead of all those clever moves just do "Hulk Smash".
Not so easy as that. German radios wouldn't have solved the problem without huge improvements in the ignition shielding and static electrical bonding on IJN aircraft. They were electronic noisemakers to an astounding degree. One of my uncles was a radioman on a destroyer off Okinawa that survived three kamikaze near misses, and he said each plane made loud crackling static noises on his equipment as it missed the ship's mast by mere feet and splashed into the drink.Was radio shielding really such a mysterious tech in the 1930s? Give the Japanese some German radios and operational discipline and Midway is a different battle entirely.
It wasn't Nagumo's choice to make. I'm sure that, given his druthers, he would have preferred to have Zuikaku along, even with a reduced air group. Shokaku was in custody of ships repair and Zuikaku in outfitting and training, both separate fiefdoms with their own agendas and protocols, so neither was available. A Yorktown-at-Pearl style 72 hour miracle was just not going to happen unless Yamamoto started violating boundaries and rattling cages, and he was too confident in the outcome of Operation M to do anything so undecorous as that.I know they did. It makes the reluctance to do so with Zuikaku more baffling, to me. Perhaps Nagumo was more doctrinaire than others? Or perhaps he didn't feel Shokaku's group could be honed for ops on Zuikaku? I mean, at Savo, what was essentially a IJN scratch force mauled the Allies.
I've always wondered about the decision to leave Zuikaku out -- who took it, and why.
I think that Admiral Yamamoto should have just taken the combined forces initially and closed with everything he had. Forget the Aleutians. Instead of all those clever moves just do "Hulk Smash".
It wasn't Nagumo's choice to make. I'm sure that, given his druthers, he would have preferred to have Zuikaku along, even with a reduced air group. Shokaku was in custody of ships repair and Zuikaku in outfitting and training, both separate fiefdoms with their own agendas and protocols, so neither was available. A Yorktown-at-Pearl style 72 hour miracle was just not going to happen unless Yamamoto started violating boundaries and rattling cages, and he was too confident in the outcome of Operation M to do anything so undecorous as that.
In hindsight, perfectly true. However, Yamamoto, and IJN aviation in general, was suffering from "victory disease", you know, that heady feeling of invincibility you get when the chips keep falling your way in defiance of the laws of probability. They envisioned the USN CVs cowering in Pearl Harbor after the drubbing they had supposedly experienced in the Coral Sea, and that it would take extreme provocation to lure them reluctantly out to their destruction. Read Shattered Sword.Yamamoto wasn't averse to rattling cages -- he'd threatened resignation if the PH attack was denied -- and I think he made a mistake not ordering this apparent contravention of doctrine.
Maybe, Nimitz was after the IJN carriers just like Yammamoto wanted the American CV's. By 0530 on June 4, the PBY's had found KdB and by 0600 Fletcher had already decided to launch TF16's strike, holding TF17 (Yorktown) in reserve, but followed TF17's 0700 launch about 50 minutes later.I've always thought that the IJN should have sent Yamato and the other battleships forward on the night of 3 June to arrive off Midway at dawn on 4 June to bombard the island's airfields. This would have forced the USN carriers to into a terrible decision: Attack the IJN battleships, and thereby revealing their presence to the IJN, or risk losing the island's airfields.
It should be remembered that the seizure of the Aleutians and Midway were really sideshows to the main goal of the operation: the destruction of the USN carriers. The point of the Aleutians was to draw off and delay the American carriers while Midway was attacked, at which point that would bring the USN flattops to Midway where the IJN's carriers would engage and sink them.
Neither the Aleutians nor Midway offered much to Japan's defensive perimeter. Japan would arguably have been better off if it simply used its superior forces to sail right up to the key island(s) it thought it still needed and dared the USN to try and stop them in a straight-up battle.
In hindsight, perfectly true. However, Yamamoto, and IJN aviation in general, was suffering from "victory disease", you know, that heady feeling of invincibility you get when the chips keep falling your way in defiance of the laws of probability. They envisioned the USN CVs cowering in Pearl Harbor after the drubbing they had supposedly experienced in the Coral Sea, and that it would take extreme provocation to lure them reluctantly out to their destruction. Read Shattered Sword.
If Yamamoto had the foresight (as RCAFson suggested) to see beyond his VD and pull a "Nimitz move" and send all his heavy iron on an overnight sprint to bombard Midway's airfields at first light on the 4th, things would have gone a lot differently. The continued harrassment that left KB vulnerable to the SBDs at 10:20 wouldn't have occurred so effectively, KB would probably have gotten the jump on TFs 16&17, and the long sought "decisive battle" likely turned out "not necessarily in our (America's) favor". Ultimate gamble for ultimate victory, but Yamamoto wouldn't see it through his rose tinted spectacles.Mikuma was lost so using Yamato or the Kongos under the air umbrella of American air power would be a dodgy prospect unless you can do it under nightfall.