BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway

Subject: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 02:08 PM

4th June to 7th June 1942

(Alaska was attacked and some islands occupied by the Empire of Japan as a diversion to the attack on Midway Island.)

Beginning of the end for the Empire of the Rising Sun in the Pacific.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 02:25 PM

Yes. The Japanese not only lost aircraft carriers but also most of their experienced naval pilots. The US lost an aircraft carrier and learned that their dive bombers and especially the torpedo planes could be a bit better (to put it in understatement).

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 05:00 PM

It was definitely one of the biggest and most catastrophic tactical screwups in military history, mainly because the Americans had broken the Japanese military codes and knew the attack was coming...knew when...and knew where. This enabled the much weaker (at that time) US Navy to ambush the Japanese aircraft carriers when they arrived on schedule, as expected.

The Japanese plan was to arrive unexpectedly attack and invade Midway Island, a pretty small base, and thereby lure the USA carriers into a counterattack and destroy them when they came north toward Midway.

That plan depended on surprise. You cannot achieve a surprise when the enemy has broken your code and knows you're coming!

So the US Navy instead surprised the Japanese...and also experienced some good luck at the moment when their dive bombers arrived over the Japanese carrier group who had their decks filled with freshly armed bombers and torpedo planes about to take off.

The Japanese further weakened themselves that day by having detached 3 smaller carriers to support the useless Aleutians operation, which was intended mainly as a diversionary attack to confuse the Americans. Those 3 carriers were not there to help the 4 larger carriers which got destroyed. One of those large carriers, the Hiryu, managed 2 counterstrikes which doomed the one American carrier that was lost, the Yorktown.

The main lesson in the above is...DON'T let your codes get broken! And that means changing them pretty often. It's also pretty damn hard to know if the other side has broken your codes...after all, they're not going to call you up and let you know, are they? ;-)

The other thing that worked against the Japanese was overconfidence. They'd done so well up to that point in the war that it's not surprising they had begun to feel virtually invincible. Such hubris often leads to disaster.

****

The Allies also broke the German codes quite early in the war, and it was enormously helpful in defeating the Third Reich.

Hitler became so suspicious about the codereading situation (rightly so) that he forbade any preparatory radio transmissions to be made prior to launching the Ardennes Offensive in December '44 (Battle of the Bulge). All orders had to be delivered on paper by dispatch personnel. This actually worked...the German attack in the Ardennes came as a complete surprise to the Allies, but failed anyway, because there was no way they were going to succeed in some ambitious objectives by that point in the war.

Allied codebreaking and Allied production capabilities had made Allied victory certain by that time...and most German military commanders were well aware of it. They mostly fought on, however, for the reasons people usually do...there appeared to be no other choice, given the political circumstances. The Allies weren't willing to negotiate with Hitler, and he definitely wasn't willing to negotiate with them either. So it had to play out to the bitter end, and a lot of people had to die.

When it finally did end, most were glad of it, but one exception was George Patton. He was just champing at the bit to fight the Russians without delay, and to re-enlist as many of the decommissioned German soldiers in the effort alongside the Allies as possible (and they would undoubtedly have rallied to that cause). Fortunately, Patton didn't get his way. It would have been one hell of a war, probably would have killed another 30 million or more people before it ended in stalemate and mutual exhaustion somewhere in the ruins of Eastern Europe.

Instead we got the Cold War. Patton's basic instinct was not too far off the reality of the East-West political situation once the Nazis were swept off the map. One thing empires and alliances have great trouble accepting is the self-interest of other empires and alliances.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 06:12 PM

The Japanese attacks on and occupation of Attu and Kiska were feints. They really, really didn't want to get involved in the Aleutians. Attu was retaken in May, 1943 by the US 7th Infantry Division; the Japanese forces finished with a banzai attack, and only 29 Japanese were taken prisoner.

The Japanese captured a Navy lieutenant, 10 sailors, and a dog at Kiska -- a weather detachment. After the capture of Attu there were more than 34,000 US and Canadian troops, three battleships and I don't know what all else sent to capture Kiska, which was found abandoned. Kiska is now a US National Historic Landmark and a Maritime Wildlife Reserve.

Attu was the only land battle fought on US territory during the Second World War; casualties at Kiska were by "friendly fire."

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:06 PM

Friendly fire. A more common way of dying in war than is generally recognized.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:11 PM

Well, I don't consider ANYONE shooting at me to be "friendly." In fact, I think it's downright impolite and rude, especially if we haven't been introduced.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:18 PM

Well, the thing with friendly fire usually is, they don't realize they're shooting at you. They think they're shooting at someone or something else. But, yeah, it's kind of rude. My father mentioned one time when the RAF was supposed to bomb an entrenched German position before the Allied infantry attack went in. They got the coordinates wrong and bombed hell out of a Polish Brigade on the Allied side of the line instead. The infantry attack got cancelled for that day. The Poles tended to have awfully bad luck in that war...and they took the heaviest casualties per capita of any combatant nation involved.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 12:21 PM

Speaking of friendly fire or the fear thereof. My father knew one of the Navaho 'code talkers' in the PTO. This was the American response to easily broken codes- To utilize Native Americans to pass radio messages using a combination of their native tongue and additional monikers to avoid enemy interpretation. This worked well for the Americans, who, as indicated above, were able to break some of the Japanese codes. On the other hand, my father's friend had an abiding concern that some excited GI would accidentally shoot him as a Japanese. (In that period of the war, the Americans were very young, unexposed to combat, and unexposed to Navahos).

In the weeks before the Battle of Midway, the Americans knew that the Japanese had several potential targets, and suspected that the real target would be Midway Island, but the Japanese were using cover terms and which term stood for 'Midway' the Americans did not know. So a stratagem was devised, Midway would announce in clear that their desalinization equipment was broken down. Sure enough the decoded Japanese message was that 'AF' had problems with their water recovery.


Good short link here

Meanwhile, the Americans continued to have access to Japanese information thought to be encoded, such as having precise information on a field visit by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto over Bougainville, his air transport being successfully intercepted by Americans during the Solomon Islands campaing in 1943.

Ironically, Yamamoto had spent time in the United States and was an admirer of Americans and very aware of American capabilities in industry. He did not suffer from "Japanese overconfidence". Not unlike Robert E Lee in an earlier time and war, he responded along lines of loyalty and command rather than personal preference.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 01:24 PM

True, Yamamoto's estimation of the situation was quite accurate. He was realistically pessimistic about Japan's chances of winning a war with the USA. Unfortunately, his views did not prevail, and the Army generals took Japan into a war it couldn't win. Heck, they couldn't even ultimately win the war they were already in (the one in China), although they could, at least in that case, avoid totally losing...they'd just never have been able to bring it to a victorious conclusion, that's all. China was simply too big.

If the Japanese had not gone to war with the USA in the 40's, Roosevelt's embargo of their oil and steel supply would have soon pretty much nullified the effectiveness of their armed forces and domestic economy. This would have forced them presently to abandon their war in China and surrender their grand imperial ambitions without a fight...basically go home, submit to being a failed empire, and become a 2nd rate power on the world scene.

That they were not willing to do. So they went off to fight a new and larger war they had almost no chance of winning...in order to continue a war they shouldn't have been in in the first place, the one in China.

Suppose they had been willing to give up all their imperial plans and bow out peaceably and let the USA dominate the Pacific instead?

If so, Roosevelt's larger gambit, which I think was to get the isolationist-minded USA public forcibly into the 2nd World War so he could fight Germany, would have been frustrated.

And he would have had to find some other way to do it. Being a determined man, I expect he would have found some way to convince the country to enter the war against Germany, but it would not have been easy. The general mood in Congress was not to do that. Some severe provocation pretty much had to be arranged to get Americans ready to go to war...there had to be a "Pearl Harbor" or "911" type incident of some kind to get people angry enough to demand retaliation. It was very unlikely the Germans could have been persuaded to provide such a provocation. It absolutely wasn't in their interests to do so. So then what?

So Roosevelt would have had to find a way. In any case, he did find a way, simply by pushing the proud Japanese empire into a tight trade embargo spot where they were bound to fight. And they did. That unleashed the dogs of war for America, and the rest followed in its inevitable fashion.

This does not in any way exonerate Japan for their own great imperial crimes. They should never have attacked China in the first place...nor tried to take over other non-Japanese areas in East Asia. The Army Generals had put their country on a path to disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 01:43 PM

That's a bit over-simplified, LH. It's almost certain that the US would have eventually come into the war on the side of Britain; that would have caused Japan to declare war on the US because of the Japanese-German treaty.

There had been enough provocations by both the Germans and the Japanese prior to 1941 that the US was pretty much on a war footing at the time of Pearl Harbor (reserves called up, draft, etc.).

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Bettynh
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 02:07 PM

The navy seems to think that taking Old Ironsides for a spin is a fitting memorial.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 02:09 PM

Sure the USA was on a war footing. Preparations were well under way for the inevitable conflict. But the main problem for Roosevelt was the isolationist mood of his own public and Congress, and that mood was mostly opposed to the idea of getting into a war. I can't see that the Germans had in any way directly provoked the USA. Yes, people certainly disapproved of the German regime and its attitude, but Germany had made no moves that really damaged the USA in any way nor did they have any motivation for doing so.

There had, I think, to be an overt attack of some kind ON America to get the public onside for a war in 1941 or '42. The most feasible way of arranging that was to push the Japanese into a spot where they would do it. There was no way I can see of pushing the Germans into such a spot at that time, but in the case of the Japanese, the way was direct and obvious: deprive them of their overseas sources of oil and steel.

I think it was good strategic planning on Roosevelt's part. Many others, in his place, might have done the very same thing. Hell, I might have done the same thing if I were in his place.

I'm not suggesting that he deliberately exposed Pearl Harbor to Japanese attack. I doubt he had any idea how effective the Japanese Navy and their air force were in '41...no one in the West would have thought them capable of mounting the kind of simultaneous long range air, land, and sea operations they did when the Pacific War started. The Western nations were grossly overconfident when it came to their pre-war assessement of Japanese military capabilities.

One westerner who knew differently, though, was Claire Chennault, who'd been leading the volunteer fighter squadrons of the Flying Tigers (AVG) against the Japanese Air Force in China. He'd been telling the US government for about a year that the Japanese had what was probably the deadliest fighter planes in the world at that time (Mitsubishi Zeros)....no one back in Washington believed him or bothered to listen. The standard view was that Japanese fighter planes were 3rd rate copies of outdated western designs.

They found out differently in December '41. The Japanese had far and away the finest naval air arm in the world when that war started. It gave them 6 months of extraordinary victory and dominance in the Pacific, and then met its Waterloo at Midway.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 02:19 PM

Really good posts, and historically accurate. My Dad was stationed on Kiska, Army Air Corps.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Paul Burke
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 05:15 PM

The Japanese were probably bound to lose in the end anyway; their natural resources, industrial capability and manpower reserves were totally inadequate for what they took on. A bit like the US Civil War in a way; though thankfully the US made a better job of it, ending up desperate to use the atom bomb before the war ended on them- otherwise they couldn't frighten the Russians. And the only way the Japanese could have won would have been a swift German victory in Russia, followed by a negotiated "peace". Wouldn't it be nice if things were simple?

By the way, Waterloo is on the Northern line, but Midway is on the Sheffield tram system. East is East, and West is West, and never the train shall meet.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 05:33 PM

There were German provocations prior to our entry into World War 2, the torpedoing of the US destroyer Reuben James by a German U-boat being the best known one.

I did read a fascinating book about a schooner that was sent out from Manila "in harm's way" to do reconnaissance near Japanese held Formosa. The commander of the schooner was fully expecting that their ship would be captured or sunk, that the whole mission was conceived as a provocation. The mission was abruptly aborted after Pearl Harbor, and fortunately the schooner and its crew were able to make it safely to Australia.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 09:46 PM

It's true that there were some actions in the Atlantic that could have been deemed provocations by either the Germans or the Americans before they were at war. One was the sinking of the Reuben James. Another was the "strictly off the record" assistance that some American recon forces gave to the British in the spring of 1941 to help them find the escaped battleship Bismark while it was briefly on the loose. Quite significant help, that was. Some other incidents might just as well have happened by accident as by design. It's not always that easy to figure out whether it's an enemy ship or a neutral ship that you're spotting through a periscope, specially when you don't have much time to figure it out.

Yeah, I think the Japanese were bound to lose in the end, barring a complete German victory in Russia. And maybe even then.

The Japanese had never lost a war in modern times, and had won an absolutely lopsided victory over imperial Russia in 1905. This may well have contributed to their delusions of being invincible. They seemed to believe that sufficient patriotism and self-sacrifice could overcome anything...but so did Hitler. What such people forget is that the other side is also patriotic, brave, and willing to sacrifice. Nobody has a monopoly on such virtues. Given 2 sets of patriotic, brave, and self-sacrificing people, those with more money, men, and weapons will win in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 09:16 AM

Given 2 sets of patriotic, brave, and self-sacrificing people, those with more money, men, and weapons will win in the long run.

So France and the US won in Vietnam? Murbarek in Egypt?

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 11:05 AM

The point I was really making is that it's fatuous for one side in any war to imagine that THEY have an innate superiority over the other on such things as patriotism or courage, and that that will guarantee victory.

Yet people seem to do that again and again, don't they? They get caught up in grandiose political rhetoric. It's the old "we're better than they are" delusion...and politicians repeatedly use that primitive tactic to motivate their followers to go out and do battle...either at the polls or on the battlefield.

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 04:46 PM

Wars by their very nature are not reasonable undertakings. But they do not occur identically and the participants are not identical and not equally challenged hubristically.

The march into World War I was done from all sides from a common starting point (The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand). The insanity was visible to only a few in comparison to the large number of people at all levels of society.

I am currently reading "In the Garden of Beasts" by Hanson and it focuses on the truly disturbing changes wrought in what had once been a rational society (Germany) by the imposition of a forceful dictatorship with its own ideas which didn't start out as majority thinking, but by steady use of force and fear became so.

I would say the same about the Bolshevik takeover, evident by the very name. Bolshevik implies majority, whereas in reality the Communists were a minority party and imposed their will forcefully over a nascent democratic movement in Russia (Sort of like is happening now).

Subject: RE: BS: 70th Anniversary - Battle of Midway
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jun 12 - 05:07 PM

Well said, robomatic. I quite agree that wars "do not occur identically and the participants are not identical and not equally challenged hubristically". They are, though, usually somewhat challenged hubristically...depending on how much propaganda and chest-beating they've been exposed to over the years. It would be difficult to see who had more hubris in WWII...the Germans or the Japanese...but I'd say they both took it about as far as it could possibly go. The other combatants probably suffered from it too, but I'd say to a noticeably lesser extent.

I still recall my European grandmother speaking about the ecstatic crowds that filled the streets in Vienna in 1914 as their "boys" marched off to war. Everyone thought it would last only a few weeks and that their side would win a glorious victory. How wrong they were.

Darned right war is not a reasonable undertaking! It's about the craziest thing people can decide to do. Peaceful trade with the rest of the world is a far better way of making money. Both the Japanese and the Germans found that out after having a fondness for aggressive militarism well and truly knocked out of them by the end of the Second World War.

Nonetheless, those who are well enough armed and hungry enough for quick gain still seem to resort to war whenever they think they can win.

(or in the case of the Japanese in 1941...out of fatalism and sheer pride)