Posted on 06/04/2012 5:35:05 AM PDT by Zakeet
Six months after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan sent four aircraft carriers to the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway to draw out and destroy what remained of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
But this time the U.S. knew about Japan's plans. U.S. cryptologists had cracked Japanese communications codes, giving Fleet Commander Adm. Chester Nimitz notice of where Japan would strike, the day and time of the attack, and what ships the enemy would bring to the fight.
The U.S. was badly outnumbered and its pilots less experienced than Japan's. Even so, it sank four Japanese aircraft carriers the first day of the three-day battle and put Japan on the defensive, greatly diminishing its ability to project air power as it had in the attack on Hawaii.
On Monday, current Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Cecil Haney and other officials will fly 1,300 miles northwest from Oahu to Midway to market the 70th anniversary of the pivotal battle that changed the course of the Pacific war.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
If my knowledge of written history is correct, Only one U.S. survivor lived to give a verbal report of how the Devestators got massacred.
http://www.aviation-history.com/douglas/tbd.html
Another myth. The Wildcat ALWAYS had a positive kill ratio against the Zero throughout the ENTIRE war. Joe Foss had 26 kills in a Wildcat while he was on Guadalcanal, most of which were A6Ms.
Given equal pilot skill, If it's a one-on-one fight, I would take the Zero. If it is 4 vs. 4 or 12 vs. 12, I will take the Wildcats EVERY time.
Greatly superior firepower and durability plus good tactics beats maneuverability. Of course, the Zero had a massive range advantage, but in any head to head fight with multiples of aircraft the Wildcats will win.
The Zero is actually one of the more overrated aircraft of the war; partially because of the shock that the Japanese weren't a bunch of nearsighted losers and could fly, and that they could build a credible airplane, but also its racking up lots of kills against poorly trained British, Dutch, and Army Air Corps pilots early in the war, against P-39s trying to engage at high altitude, etc.
At the beginning of the war USN pilots were among the best trained in the world, themselves; the gap with the Japanese wasn't as big as a lot of people think.
Churchill knew this from the moment the U.S. entered the war. The only thing bothering him was the fact that there were bound to be numerous setbacks while the U.S. mustered its full productive capacity.
I think the immediate result of a US loss at Midway would have been the collapse of the defensive perimeter in the South Seas. The USA would have redirected resources from the nascent Solomons campaign to Hawaii laving Australia to hold the islands and New Guinea alone. The pivotal 18-month bloodletting at Guadalcanal would have been avoided and Yamamoto would have had a free hand to strike either toward Hawaii, Australia or French Polynesia. In any case, a new front would be opened and Yamamoto would have bought the time he needed. By the time that US carrer strength rebuilt the situation in the Pacific would have been very, very difficult, perhaps bad enogh to force the USA into negotiations. Which was the whole reason for the Midway operation in the first place.
The United States only allocated only 15-20% of it’s resources to the war in the Pacific. If we had been defeated badly at Midway, we would allocate 35-40% of our resources to the Pacific. By the end of 1946 we were producing 3 atomic bombs a month. Japan could never win a long term war with the USA.
Yamamoto said it himself.
“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
Hitler could have defeated the Soviet Union very easily, if he focused on taking Moscow....Stalin would have been finished, he was hanging by a thread as it was, the Bolsheviks may very well have been finished as well, and most likely the defense of Russia would have been taken over by non-Communists, like Vlasov, who most likely would have switched over to fighting the Germans, and perhaps gotten most of the former Red Army soldiers to fight for him.
Those Devastators were another peice of the victory puzzle. They were slaughtered, yes. But they pulled the Jap CAP down below 10,000 feet and left the skies over the carriers clear for the dive bombers.
The tactic was first tested in combat by Thach during the Battle of Midway, when his flight of four Wildcats was attacked by a squadron of Zeroes. Thach's wingman, Ensign R. A. M. Dibb, was attacked by a Japanese pilot and turned towards Thach, who dived under his wingman and fired at the incoming enemy aircraft's belly until its engine ignited.
Soon enough, the maneuver had become standard among US Navy pilots, and USAAF pilots also adopted it.
Marines flying Wildcats from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal also adopted the Thach Weave. The Japanese Zero pilots flying out of Rabaul were initially confounded by the tactic.
Sabur Sakai, the famous Japanese ace, relates their reaction to the Thach Weave when they encountered Guadalcanal Wildcats using it:[1]
For the first time Lt. Commander Tadashi Nakajima encountered what was to become a famous double-team maneuver on the part of the enemy. Two Wildcats jumped on the commander’s plane. He had no trouble in getting on the tail of an enemy fighter, but never had a chance to fire before the Grumman’s team-mate roared at him from the side. Nakajima was raging when he got back to Rabaul; he had been forced to dive and run for safety.
The maneuver was so effective that it was used by American pilots during the Vietnam War, and is still an applicable tactic today.
You are technically correct. I would restate it thus: "Germany could have defeated the Soviet Union very easily, if they focused on taking Moscow." Hitler, being Hitler, was incapable of such a direct and uncomplicated strategy and resisted it for several months over the protests of his best generals. By starting the Barabrossa campaign late, and by repeatedly overruling his generals Hitler ensured that his "window" for success at Moscow was vanishingly small. So IMHO, he lost in June, 1941.
The Soviet Army had really been smashed by Barbarossa. 75% of the tanks and 50% of the aircraft had been destroyed. I think Operation Typhoon started too late. By October the mud of rasputitsa had the German Army bogged down.
On the other hand, the quality of fighting men is always pivotal.
Hitler probably also thought that as unpopular as Stalin had to be with his soldiers, it was easier to convince them to surrender...but if suddenly Stalin were replaced by a more popular figure, then the Russians would be more determined to fight against the Germans. So Hitler actually preferred to keep Stalin in power, which in hindsight, was a big mistake.
The two are much the same. Just as Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific, the German defeat in the second battle of El Alamein was, as Churchill put it, was “ .. perhaps, the end of the beginning” of victory over the Axis powers. More famously, Churchill later wrote: “Before Alamein we never had a victory, after Alamein we never had a defeat.”
The two are much the same. Just as Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific, the German defeat in the second battle of El Alamein was, as Churchill put it, was “ .. perhaps, the end of the beginning” of victory in Europe over Germany. More famously, Churchill later wrote: “Before Alamein we never had a victory, after Alamein we never had a defeat.”
The Germans had FM radios, trained crews and better tactics. That is why they destroyed so many Soviet tanks.
The Japanese had every inking that we had broken their code during the war, but were too racist to believe that Caucasians could do this.
IMHO the allies best general was none other than Adolf Hitler. This is not to diminish our sacrifices or our skill. But all of Hitler's defeats before 1943 were avoidable, and many of his victories were not exploited.
Hitler was right up to the point where he defeated France.
Hitler owned Stalin on the Non-Aggression Pact. Stalin thought there would be a long war in the West, but France fell in six weeks, meaning Hitler could turn his attention towards Russia that much sooner....it was all there for the taking. It would have been very easy to plunge Russia itself into another Civil War and divide and conquer, just as in the First World War. Certainly amongst the generals there was no love lost for Stalin after the Purges, and I think most would have willingly defected, like Vlasov did.
It is always the soldier who is the decisive factor, not the equipment. Bad equipment can encumber a good army, that is true. But good equipment does nothing to improve a bad army.
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