That has been 'way over-emphasized. The Zero-Sen had a phenomenal climb rate! (Less than 2 minutes from on the deck to any altitude where US planes flew)...
TXnMA
Posted on 11/10/2019 5:56:14 AM PST by US Navy Vet
Very will done and presented. Was kind of disappointed the they didn't cover the Sinking of the USS Yorktown very much. Didn't really demonize any side (US OR Japanese) just showed Military Men doing their jobs. All in all at great movie. Really showed what war is really like.
Good Point.
The way I heard it, a big flaw on their end of it was NOT following a plan, but engaging in a little too much impromptu, on the fly reaction. Break out the planes...no wait, hold the planes...
I forget exactly. I read about it, and saw the earlier ('76) film.
In any case, cracking the code was the essential ingredient. That plus Japanese sense of invincibility. That's fine on the lower levels but not up where the strategy is conceived.
I played football with Dorie Miller’s nephew Junior Miller (real name Selvia Miller), one of the best Tight Ends of my era. All-American at Nebraska, 1st rounder and Pro-Bowl TE with Atlanta Falcons early 80’s. Junior was always very proud of his uncle.
There's a bit more to it than that.
From the IJN SOP, the CAP planes got priority on the decks, and also IJN doctrine, you don't start staging a strike during an attack, and all the ad hoc US attacks kept the Japanese from being able to stage and launch a coordinated attack.
I read the Wall Street Journal article that talked about the Chinese financing this movie. I guess I didn’t see the propaganda angle in the movie as was suggested on another thread about the movie.
From what I gathered from the article..... The Chinese hated (hate) the Japanese so the Doolittle raid was added? The article also states that edits were made to the movie for release in China to remove parts where subordinates questioned superiors.
According to the article, Hollywood wouldn’t back this film.
I think that at the end of the day, the intent of the Japanese was to keep the scope of the attack limited to a “hard” target (a military installation). (That would be installations if one counts the attack on the B-17s on the airfield in the Philippines.)
I could understand this.
It’s not talked about much in American history books, but the Chinese suffered terribly as a result of the Doolittle Raid; some 200,000 Chinese paid with their lives for that attack. (The Japanese knew that the planes had to fly on to China, and they went on a murderous tear in revenge for the assistance the locals provided the US airmen. Sadly, even Doolittle himself foresaw this response from the Japanese.)
Glad to read everyone’s thoughts. I think my uncle was on the Yorktown, so wondering if my dad and older brother would like this one.
I read somewhere the invasion plan included nuking the beaches and inland before the landing.
Then, as they worked their way up from the South nuking areas before advancing.
I wish I had kept that book. I can not recall the name.
With the Russians coming from the North and the carnage from us in the South, Japan would have taken far longer to recover than it did.
I also convinced the Japanese would have used biological / gas on invading troops.
The Japanese discovered that when the enemy is not behaving according to your plans, nasty surprises happen.
The fuel tanks at Pearl Harbor had been buried uphill from the harbor.
There was some recent excavation near Pearl Harbor where they dug into the fuel lines and were surprised.
I am named after my Uncle who was killed in the invasion of Luzon.
My Dad used to make me promise to buy anything from Japan if I could get it anywhere else. Kept that promise through a bunch of cars. But, I was a professional photographer—so that ship sailed.
Never bought a jap car, or even a jap car made in the US.
“That was one thing the ‘76 movie has...: spotlighting the role of the...flying boats in finding the Japanese carriers first.” [BradyLS, post 36]
“And... [IJN] concentration on sinking the battleships instead of...carriers was either bad luck, bad intelligence or outdated thinking by not realizing this would be a carrier war...just as huge.” [vigilence, post 48]
_At Dawn we Slept_ by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon, is the definitive tome on the attack, including all facets from planning, through execution, to (and through) the aftermath.
The authors draw the broad conclusion that US defenses were surprised because of lack of air-mindedness on the part of senior commanders. Applies not only to ADM Kimmel and GEN Short on a personal level, but to their assistants, deputies, and staffs as well. Hawaii’s Army Dept had planned for a ground attack; USPACFLT had planned for a naval attack. Neither department conferred with the other.
Air power was still an unproven concept in 1941, especially its offensive aspects. Attack by shipborne air power was still less proven, despite some earlier successes; no one imagined tiny little carrier-launched airplanes could be remotely so effective. All of it seems obvious in hindsight, but foreseeing capabilities and their potential requires genuine (some say mysterious) insight.
Both senior armed services were of a more traditional mindset in 1941. And backward-looking attitudes persisted for a long stretch, even after 7 December 1941. During hot action in the Pacific later, the captain of the battleship USS South Dakota stood fearlessly upright while other bridge occupants dove for cover from an incoming Japanese bomber. A 225-kg bomb burst on one of the forward turrets; miraculously, the captain received not a scratch. Later he was heard to say that he “thought it beneath the dignity of the captain of an American battleship to flop for a d**ned Jap bomb.”
Deficiencies in luck, intelligence, and forward thinking all played a role.
Some latter-day critics make a big deal out of the radar detection of the first wave of incoming Japanese aircraft, pointing out how the Air Corps duty officer mistook it for a flight of B-17s arriving from CONUS. In reality, had he reached the right conclusion, it would not have mattered much: no interceptors were on cockpit alert, there was no way to warn them if there had been, and there was no command and control system to direct their efforts had any significant number had managed to get airborne.
Some other Monday morning quarterbacks assert that the American fleet could have fared better had ships received sufficient warning, gotten up steam, and sailed forth to engage in high seas combat. The notion isn’t supportable for a couple reasons: (1) no American had reliable information on where the enemy vessels were; (2) had the American fleet managed to get to sea and engage, it’s likely it would have gone down with all hands. The Japanese were alerted, ready, and more proficient. And the US fleet would have been devoid of air cover - the carriers were not yet back from ferrying fighter reinforcements to outlying islands.
Critics who point to American decryption of enemy message traffic overestimate the potential it had in 1941; even six months later, much was still guesswork - as the 1976 film about Midway makes plain. The mere fact of decryption means less than dilettantes assume. Without a host of linguists to translate, a host of analysts to fit the bits together, a distribution system to get the right details to the right people, a small army of clerk/typists and mid-level functionaries to coordinate everyone’s efforts, and a hierarchy of operational commanders and senior leaders accustomed to reading enemy traffic and deducing their next move, a decoded message doesn’t have much value all by itself.
One stroke of luck favored the Americans: USN’s carriers were not present that morning. The Japanese had hoped to catch them at anchor, but did not want to risk lingering in the area to search them out. Thus the new generation of capital ships escaped all harm. Additionally, their absence caused ADM Nagumo - a cautious, conventional commander - to forego any third wave and to retire Japan’s fleet from the vicinity.
My father was in the US Navy prior to WWII. He graduated from Pearl Harbor Submarine Base School in Dec of 1940 and was then assigned to the Yorktown. He never talked about it, but how much he loved the Navy.
I went to visit him one night just after he had finished reading Robert Ballard's book on discovering the Yorktown which describes the battle very well in detail. He was choked up and emotional as I had never seen him. He handed the book to me and said to take it and read it. I browsed through it briefly and then ask him about what he did. He said his job was to arm and mount the torpedo to the plane. He knew he was out of a job when most didn't return. He said they lined his group up and ask for volunteers. He said he stepped forward and didn't have any fear while some men prayed and some cried as they knew they were going to be attacked. He said he ended up in the crows nest where they mounted a gun and helped with the ammo, He said one of the Jap planes flew right by them and the men were shaking their fist, yelling and swearing, and as the pilot few by he waved to them.
After Midway he was sent back to the states and assigned to a new destroyer and which was sent to Guadalcanal and was in the pacific for the duration on the war which has a great story in of itself as a highly decorated ship, USS Saufley DD 465.
“Isn’t that worth a hot diggety damn?”
Smarty pants.
The Japanese fighters protecting their fleet were forced into a tough decision.
How many planes should they send down after the American torpedo bombers?
Very little Yorktown and associated vessel coverage — after Yorktown was hit and retired from the battle...
That has been 'way over-emphasized. The Zero-Sen had a phenomenal climb rate! (Less than 2 minutes from on the deck to any altitude where US planes flew)...
TXnMA
I wish they had shown that as well. On the flip side, it was cool seeing an Aichi Jake seaplane scouting the US fleet.
From Wiki (thought this was a cool ploy, and glad the guy was named):
"Admiral Nimitz had one critical advantage: US cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code.
Since early 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF". It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down.
Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water". No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese threat ring was having a water shortage, which could have tipped off Japanese intelligence officers that it was a deliberate attempt at deception.
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