The Battle of Midway 4-7 June 1942

[Chugalug2]

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Midway, which was the turning point of the Pacific War, just as Stalingrad and El Alamein were on the Eastern and North Africa Fronts respectively.

As in all wars, luck played its part. The sacrifice of the Torpedo Squadrons allowed their Dive Bomber colleagues to use their SBD-3 Dauntless aircraft to despatch all four Japanese Carriers and their crews. The IJN, having already failed to destroy the USN carriers at Pearl Harbour, was thereafter out built by its adversary.

We have our very own ex WWII RAF Dive Bomber Pilot, Danny 42C, whose story can be found on this forum in the "Gaining an RAF Pilots Brevet in WWII" thread.

[TBM-Legend]

Indeed a great achievement by the USN. The guys had not really seen combat before. Look at this however...
http://www.google.com.au/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D48IA0AzF_cI&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjbsoG_q6bUAhUMkpQKHT1ZB6YQtwIIHTAC&sig2=63BulR1ki7v-nM6Uf0JScg&usg=AFQjCNEMZjpuNejilXUGnpc7_Rq5aATw5w

[Danny42C]

They were lucky, too, as they caught the carriers "with their pants down". Their Zeros, which would've made mincemeat of them if they'd been in the air, were on the decks 'turning round' after crushing the USN torpedo attack.

And the Japanese Admiral had decided, at the last minute, to change the bomb load on his bombers for torpedoes (or was it the other way round ?): the removed ordnance was still stacked on deck as they had not had a chance to strike it down to the magazines.

So when the fires got going ........

Danny42C.

[MightyGem]

Look at this however...
No longer available, it says.

[racedo]

Believe the sequence of events of the dive bombers and torpedo bombers turning up at same time as Japansese change armaments has been programmed at war college and 99.9% of the time the sequence struggles to meet what occurred.

[Fareastdriver]

As in all Wars the winning General/Admirals/Air Force Marshals are lucky.

[MAINJAFAD]

The bulk of the USN Dive bomber force was lucky that they managed to sight a Jap destroyer heading back towards the main body of the carrier battle group after it had been prosecuting the USS Nautilus failed attack on one of the Jap Carriers. Had that not happened the battle's outcome would have been very different. The Jap CAP was still airborne, but at low level after engaging the torpedo bombers. However, skill did play a big part in the US victory, code breaking and damage control on the Yorktown for example.

And of course a lot of it was filmed by John Ford's Camera unit.

ajlKvA48IXU

[West Coast]

Intertwined with luck is good doctrine and good tactics. Use of both often times makes you lucky.

[megan]

The residents of Darwin, and all Australia, would have been cheering on the sidelines. The Japanese fleet, following their Pearl Harbor efforts, hit Darwin on 19 February 1942 with 188 carrier launched, and later in the day, 54 land based bombers. More ordinance was dropped than at Pearl - 681 bombs v 457 bombs & 40 torpedoes. Was the first of 64 raids on Darwin.

[The Sultan]

The book Shattered Sword by Parshall is the definitive work on the subject mostly covering the Japanese side using previously under utilized Japanese sources. He pretty well debunks the traditional story that the Japanese were seconds away from launching and that the US torpedo bomber attacks were over when the dive bombers attacked. Bottom line of the book was that Japanese mistakes by separating their task groups made the battle an even match and not the David v Goliath of legend. Still a very nice win for the US when needed.