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| Famous photo of the USS Yorktown ablaze during the battle |
It was eighty four years ago that one of the most decisive days in military history occred. Technically the battle lasted for several days. But today is the day people remember. Not that the US had no significant advantages, but the Japanese definitely had many on their side. Not the least of which - so it appeared - being their superior grasp of the fledgling carrier combat doctrine.
But we all know how it turned out. My mom's older brother was on Midway island proper. It appeared to be, as the Duke of Wellington remarked about Waterloo, the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life, until it wasn't.
If you're interested, watch the below video. I'm usually skeptical about Internet video versions of history, though there are some good productions out there. I wouldn't say I'd take everything the fellow in the video says as gospel truth. But he does an excellent - and I mean, excellent - job of unpacking the battle from the Japanese point of view. He uses 'the fog of war' to keep the viewer from knowing any more than what the Japanese knew. And he unpacks how America's own bumbling approach to carrier warfare ended up saving the day. If you have time, I heartily recommend it.
(Tom New Poster)
ReplyDeleteI read and still have Coale's "Victory at Midway" (1944), written by a USNR officer who interviewed participants from both Midway and Pearl Harbor (including the famous verbatim account of the December 7th attack, delivered in broken English by a cab driver who was a firsthand witness). It was closer than most think and could have gone the other way. Rather like a volleyball game, the side that made the fewest mistakes won.
Midway cost the Empire not just its valuable carriers (which it was not geared up to replace in quantity), buts its trained aircrews. Unlike the US and Britain, Japan did not or didn't have time to rotate experienced pilots back home to train new ones. After June '42, they could no long project power in the Central Pacific and had to count on victories further south to supply resources and lengthen the war. Had they taken Midway, Hawaii would have remained under threat and its defense would have tied up resources and men we sent to the South Pacific and North Africa. Victory would have been more expensive.