To day is June 5. 66 years ago today, the battle of Midway had its most crucial 10 minutes: Between 10:20 and 10:30, Dauntless Dive Bombers from the US Carriers Yorktown and Enterprise, Put out of action 3 of the 4 Japanese carriers the Imperial Japanese Navy brought to the battle of Midway.
Steeljaw Scribe (via OPFOR) has a lessons learned post. Which needs to be developed a little.
In racing there is a saying - ‘luck is where preparation meets opportunity’ Perhaps there is no truer an example than the Battle of Midway. Popular literature seems to emphasize the American forces stumbling into a heaven-sent scenario of laden carrier decks and little to no opposition to the dive bombers, while giving short shrift to the preparation that enabled them to make use of that opportunity. How so?
--First of all, the take away from many (if not most) wars is that those that make the fewest mistakes win. That needs to be remembered as both the Japanese and Americans made several mistakes. Obviously, the Japanese made worse ones.
COMINT: Communications Intelligence - the US code breakers labored mightily to figure out what the IJN was up to. Were it not for their efforts prior to Midway, and some particularly inspired thinking and risk taking, the US may well have fallen for the feint up to Alaska and end up caught in the trap laid by Yamamoto.
Its doubtful that the US would have diverted more than what was for the Aleutian operations. The Japanese, however, turned what was supposed to be a diversion into a full fledged operation, drawing off resources better used elsewhere, including 2 light carriers commited, and a further 3 others earmarked, but ultimately not sent. Think about that for a bit. 5 carriers that could have been used at Midway were not. But make no mistake, the breaking of the Japanese codes made the battle possible.
Damage Control: Had the crew of the Yorktown not been so proficient in DC, particularly something as seemingly mundane as draining the avgas lines and filling them with inert gas prior to the battle of Coral Sea, the Yorktown may very well have been lost, leaving CINCPAC with only two carriers facing four, forcing a different battle plan. Conversely, the almost lackadaisical approach the Japanese took in repairing Shokaku’s damage or replinishing Zuikaku’s air wing and repairing her light damage from Coral Sea’s action ensured their nonavailability for Midway, keeping the balance of forces on a razor’s edge.
The crew of the Yorktown did that at Coral sea, but the crew of the Lexington did not. (I don't know about the Langely). While it seems a 'mundane' thing, its clear that other ships in the US Navy, (never mind the Japanese) weren't either as talented, trained or lucky as the Yorktown's crew, and its hard to account for that.
Training: The contrast between USN and USMC effectiveness in employing dive bombers at Midway was signatory. Using the same platform (SBD-3’s) USN pilots scored major hits while minimizing losses to AAA and fighters, whereas the Marines suffered significant losses for little, if any gain. The difference? Tactics, training and procedures or TTP (yes, we know -ugh, one of those modern terms…) - the Navy employed steep, usually 70-degree, dives on the target whereas the Marines used much shallower, gliding approaches. The former minimizes your exposure time and profile to AAA and fighters while increasing the likelihood of a hit. However, it requires considerable practice at obtaining the proper dive angle, avoiding target fixation and knowing how/when to pullout of the dive and avoid over-stressing the airframe. Lots of practice, underscoring the maxim about training like you are going to fight…
Training requires time, which the unfortunate USMC aviators didn't have. Henderson's flight group was probably the rawest in the battle, and it showed. Some of them had not even flown an SBD until a few days previously, and more than half the unit had only joined a few days before. Henderson tried what he thought his men could do, and if there's a fault, its sending untrained men into combat. But you go to war with what you have. Other measures, such as the use of B-17's and the rigging of torpedoes on B-26 Maurader medium bombers were a clear sign of desperation.
Employment of forces: The Japanese were the first to employ massed striking power using carriers and the strike at Pearl (and subsequent actions through SE Asia and the IO) validated the philosophy. The problem was the Japanese failed to comprehend the inherent flexibility of carrier-based air and thus eschewed opportunities to utilize it in other scenarios, such as scouting, which in turn, led to less than robust search plans and reliance on out-dated search aircraft and methodologies. Curiously, the Japanese broke this rule in planning the Aleutian invasion, diverting forces on a mission of questionable value and success for territory that would prove to be exceptionally harsh on man and machine while yielding little, if any strategic value outside of propaganda for an overly wrought plan of entrapment. This leads to questions of planning…
Pursuant to the point above, some 50 odd Japanese ships were detailed to the first phase of the Aluetian campaign, that obviously could have been used elsewhere. But the other thing to remember with 20-20 hindsight is that so far, the entire war had been going Japan's way. Its hard to call something outmoded or ill thought out if it seems to be working. The destruction heaped on the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor forced the US Navy to instantly rethink how to fight--because it didn't have its battleships anymore. That still didn't stop hare-brained schemes like Doolittle raid, which risked two of the four carriers that the US had in the Pacific. It worked, so one sees no real criticism of it, but what were they thinking? The best Nimitz could think of for a while was sending the carriers out on raids, which again, worked out in the end, but had no guarantee that they would.
Planning/Command: In studied contrast to the run-up at Pearl, Japanese planning for Midway was poorly thought out, egregiously evaluated and gamed and haphazardly executed (cf: the entire submarine picket plan). Indeed, it was put together and executed in such a toxic atmosphere of arrogance and bluster that even when one of the final wargame sessions showed American forces gaining an upper-hand because of gaps in the air search pattern, referees for the wargame manipulated the environment and other factors to bring about a successful conclusion for Kido Butai. As for dealing with changing factors at sea, commanders were loath to step outside the boundaries of the plan and demonstrate initiative. In studied contrast were the actions of the Americans from Nimitz’s orders based on calculated risk to Dick Best’s last minute change in targets.
Best was supposed to attackt he Akagi in the first place. Best's change came from ill coordination/communication between the American flight groups, --bombing six and scounting six ended up simultaneously attacking the Kaga, leaving both the Akagi unmolested, and yes, Best attacked the Akagi with 3 planes out which one lucky bomb hit, which ultimately doomed the Akagi. He could have missed. Infact, he actually did not attack according Wade McClusky's instructions, (which weren't to doctrine) and instead of sending Bombing 6 at the Akagi as instructed, Best continued attacking the Kaga--only at the last second after seeing McClusky and Scouting 6 dive on Kaga, along with the rest of Bombing 6, did Best and two other planes actually pull out of their dives and attack the Akagi. It sort of puts the lie to the idea that it was inspired initiative. In reality, it was nearly blind adherence to doctrine.
The entire attack ought to have been a study in how *not* to do it, given the horrible coordination between the torpedo and bombing squadrons, and the losses suffered. The Hornet's bombing assets did not even manage to make it into battle. --If they had, perhaps the Hiryu might have been hit at the same time as the Kaga, Akagi and Soryu, and the Yorktown would not have been hit in the Japanese counterstrike from the Hiryu later that day.
The Americans attacked the Japanese piece-meal from 0700 that morning, with everything from B-17's to B-26's (jury rigged with torpedoes!), Henderson's ill-trained Marines and of course all the doomed carrier torpedo squadrons. While this kept the Japanese off balance, and contributed to the success of the divebombing attacks, It wasn't planned that way, it just worked out that way. We were lucky.
While the Japanese planning was sub-par for Midway, one could argue that the entire war was a really bad idea in the first place, and any tactical success was not, in the end, going to help the Japanese out of their predicament. The Japanese had indeed 'run wild' for six months, but ill will between the Japanese Army and Navy precluded any sort of efficiencies that would be required for the war. The entire Guadalcanal campaign only underscored this.
One could make the same analogy with Bin Laden and Al-Queda, which while achieving a spectacular tactical success on 9/11, committed a monumental strategic blunder, which has essentially doomed them.
Even the US was dogged with the machinations of MacArthur vs. Nimitz and the directions of the American campaigns in the Pacific. This also highlights the difficulty of such fighting such a big war.
Luck indeed smiled on the Americans that day, but she did not grab them by the hand (or scruff of the neck) and tell them what must be done in PowerPoint bulletized format. She merely opened the door, a crack, and offered a fleeting moment to change the course of the battle…the Americans grasped it and changed the direction of the war. Review the list above - these are timeless lessons learned, every bit as applicable today as they were 66 years ago. My observations lead me to believe we are ignoring them at our future peril. - SJS
I am not sure what's being ignored here, not having read the rest of SJS's blog, but I'm not certain things are being ignored the way he implies.
Still, as Rumsfeld so elequently put it:
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
And yes, we need to keep thinking about the last.
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