Midway’s Strategic Lessons

[MightyGiants]

: Battle of Midway, 4-7 June 1942

https://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/2013/06/07/midway-strategic-lessons/

The Battle of Midway - Myths, Legends and Greatness (with Jon Parshall)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN79g34wjQA

Battle 360: Battle of Midway Leads to WWII Victory (S1, E2) | Full Episode | History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtgggq1l8o4

[bldevil]

One of the recurring themes of WWII is that the German and Japanese leadership underestimated their enemies, repeatedly. 

The Japanese underestimated US intelligence.  At the battle of the Coral Sea, prior to Midway, US aircraft carriers show up, half of the remaining US Pacific fleet carriers are there.  How in the world did that happen?  The Japanese don't change their codes.  And then they get surprised shortly after at Midway, this time with all of the remaining US carriers.

Yamamoto conceives of the Midway invasion.  But Nagumo is tasked to carry it out.  Nagumo is doctrinaire and not an adaptible thinker.  The first Japanese planes fly over Midway island and there are no planes in sight.  Why is that?  He should've immediately sensed he'd walked into a trap.

The Japanese underestimated the will of the American people.  The War in the Pacific was over the day after Pearl Harbor, just nobody realized that until later.

[LennG]

I understand your reasoning about the war being over the day after Pearl harbor. I just don't think that way in reality. I think the Battle of the Corral Sea set the tone that we could stand up to anyone and then Midway set the tone for the rest of the war, we owned the Pacific as far as Naval situations are concerned.

As has been mentioned, if we are asking what the lessons of Midway were, you never have enough intelligence is the answer. As the article says and it is well known, Nimitz knew exactly what was going to happen and planned for it, while the Japanese didn't.

To say the Japanese should have realized it was a trap early on is very logical. I just attribute that to the fact that they were so overjoyed at swamping another American installation that that preceded logic.

Even with all that, we were lucky that day and like everything else in life, lucky wins out. Even with the knowledge, it could have very well been disastrous, but we found the Japanese before they found us and, as they say, the rest is history.

[jimmyz]

One of the recurring themes of WWII is that the German and Japanese leadership underestimated their enemies, repeatedly.

The Japanese underestimated US intelligence.  At the battle of the Coral Sea, prior to Midway, US aircraft carriers show up, half of the remaining US Pacific fleet carriers are there.  How in the world did that happen?  The Japanese don't change their codes.  And then they get surprised shortly after at Midway, this time with all of the remaining US carriers.

Yamamoto conceives of the Midway invasion.  But Nagumo is tasked to carry it out.  Nagumo is doctrinaire and not an adaptible thinker.  The first Japanese planes fly over Midway island and there are no planes in sight.  Why is that?  He should've immediately sensed he'd walked into a trap.

The Japanese underestimated the will of the American people.  The War in the Pacific was over the day after Pearl Harbor, just nobody realized that until later.

Both the Germans and the Japanese spent the first part of the war beating up on weaker countries and started to think a bit more highly of themselves than they should have.

The Germans became obsessed with new and more complex technology in the form of weapons while their logistics and supply arm was equipped with horse and cart.

The Japanese invented the Zero and they ended the war with the same effin' Zero.  There were variants equipped to handle different tasks but they were so enamored with the fighter plane that they never saw a need to  improve on it.  Meanwhile the Americans were busy replacing their fighters completely.  By the War's end, America and Japan were fighting with weapons from different eras.  I wonder just how ignorant the Japanese were to the vulnerability of their wooden cities.  If not for the Atomic Bombs, LeMay had planned to firebomb those wooden cities with Napalm

[jimv]

I don't think anyone Knew the war was over when Midway ended.  Because of that, it took three more years of bloody battles & loss of life for everyone finally to end it.

[MightyGiants]

To JimmyZ's point at the start of the war, the Japanese had some areas of superiority.  The Zero was superior to any fighter the US could field at that point.   Their long lance torpedo was the best in the world while our own torpedos didn't always shoot straight (sometimes even circling back) and when they did they often failed to detonate.    Interesting the US lost ships because some in Naval Intelligence didn't think the Japanese were capable of developing the superior long lance torpedo so ship captains often didn't take the threat from them as seriously as they should have.

Thankfully for our side, the war went from battleship-centric to aircraft carrier-centric as the Yamato class battleship with its 18" guns was superior to anything the US navy ever put to sea.   Although in hindsight all the resources spent on those two mega-battleships would have been better spent on 3 or 4 more aircraft carriers. 

Although the US wasn't without superiority in areas.  The US was superior in radar (although Japan's superior night optics helped offset this in some night actions), damage control (especially as it developed throughout the war), learning from its naval mistakes with the exception of torpedos, code-breaking, tanks, and small arms. 

Another area the US was helped was in their naval pilot programs.   In Japan, it took forever to train their pilots which produced superior rookie pilots but made it difficult to replace losses.   

In my opinion, Admiral Yamamoto's biggest mistake was the diversionary attack.  Those God-forsaken Aleutian Islands were never going to be the sort of prize that would temp the US into a heavy defense and he sure could have used the two non-fleet aircraft carriers, five cruisers, twelve destroyers, six submarines, and four troop transports, along with supporting auxiliary ships at the main battle

[LennG]

I know this was about Midway, but yesterday I watch a terrific documentary on NOVA about Dunkirk with many of the things that the movies sort of g\loss over, or change for dramatic effect. It was a repeat of the original show from 2019, but  I saw it for the first time. It really delved into the air battle over Dunkirk that most don't speak of. There were many survivors who bitterly complained that the Germans were staffing and bombing the soldiers on the beach, basically at will. Where was the RAF, they wondered. According to this show, the RAF was very active but not at the exact Dunkirk location. They were trying to head the Germans off before they got to Dunkirk and many British planes were lost. The soldiers on the Beach and surrounding area just couldn't see this, so they felt there was no RAF support.
They also went into differences of the planes that were flying and how the Germans basically had air supremacy until the Spitfire came into use, then the tide turned. But the British didn't want to commit too many Spitfires to Dunkirk for fear of the German invasion that they thought was coming and that goes onto the Battle of Britain.

It was summed up excellently by a survivor how Churchill and the British took a complete military disaster and turned it into a victory for the Allies. Very true.

[jimv]

I know this was about Midway, but yesterday I watch a terrific documentary on NOVA about Dunkirk with many of the things that the movies sort of g\loss over, or change for dramatic effect. It was a repeat of the original show from 2019, but  I saw it for the first time. It really delved into the air battle over Dunkirk that most don't speak of. There were many survivors who bitterly complained that the Germans were staffing and bombing the soldiers on the beach, basically at will. Where was the RAF, they wondered. According to this show, the RAF was very active but not at the exact Dunkirk location. They were trying to head the Germans off before they got to Dunkirk and many British planes were lost. The soldiers on the Beach and surrounding area just couldn't see this, so they felt there was no RAF support.
They also went into differences of the planes that were flying and how the Germans basically had air supremacy until the Spitfire came into use, then the tide turned. But the British didn't want to commit too many Spitfires to Dunkirk for fear of the German invasion that they thought was coming and that goes onto the Battle of Britain.

It was summed up excellently by a survivor how Churchill and the British took a complete military disaster and turned it into a victory for the Allies. Very true.

Just watch the movie "Darkest Hourt."

[MightyGiants]

I know this was about Midway, but yesterday I watch a terrific documentary on NOVA about Dunkirk with many of the things that the movies sort of g\loss over, or change for dramatic effect. It was a repeat of the original show from 2019, but  I saw it for the first time. It really delved into the air battle over Dunkirk that most don't speak of. There were many survivors who bitterly complained that the Germans were staffing and bombing the soldiers on the beach, basically at will. Where was the RAF, they wondered. According to this show, the RAF was very active but not at the exact Dunkirk location. They were trying to head the Germans off before they got to Dunkirk and many British planes were lost. The soldiers on the Beach and surrounding area just couldn't see this, so they felt there was no RAF support.
They also went into differences of the planes that were flying and how the Germans basically had air supremacy until the Spitfire came into use, then the tide turned. But the British didn't want to commit too many Spitfires to Dunkirk for fear of the German invasion that they thought was coming and that goes onto the Battle of Britain.

It was summed up excellently by a survivor how Churchill and the British took a complete military disaster and turned it into a victory for the Allies. Very true.

In military parlance it was a tactical defeat but a strategic victory as so many troops were saved from capture

[LennG]

Yes, the evacuation was heroic and helped Britain stay in the war, but the entire operation was a disaster and that part isn't really mentioned very much. The Germans basically laughed at their strategy and took them completely;y by surprise, surrounded them, and ONLY because Hitler believed Goring, that the Luftwaffe would destroy them, so Hitler held off on the ground attack, was Dunkirk even able to have happened.

[MightyGiants]

Yes, the evacuation was heroic and helped Britain stay in the war, but the entire operation was a disaster and that part isn't really mentioned very much. The Germans basically laughed at their strategy and took them completely;y by surprise, surrounded them, and ONLY because Hitler believed Goring, that the Luftwaffe would destroy them, so Hitler held off on the ground attack, was Dunkirk even able to have happened.

Len,


I have seen historians make the point that it was more than that.   The army's supply lines were overextended and the units exhausted by the rapid advance.   So a pause by the German army was desired by the army as well.

[LennG]

Len,


I have seen historians make the point that it was more than that.   The army's supply lines were overextended and the units exhausted by the rapid advance.   So a pause by the German army was desired by the army as well.

That is one good explanation. Thruout historians can only speculate why Hitler stopped the attack.

Several historians said that this was the turning point of the entire war. had Hit ler captured or wiped out these British forces who would defend England against the inevitable attack.
A lot of what-ifs on this and many others things.

A pretty good account of what set up Dunkirk and the aftermath

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/01/05/what-happened-at-dunkirk-hitlers-halt-order-and-ultimate-failure/

[MightyGiants]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmT7moJ_crI

[jimv]

But, the story remains.  Defeat or not, reason or not, 300,000 British troops DID escape.  The civilian fleet WAS a success.  Hitler likely lost the war right there just  like the Japanese really lost the war at Midway.