The Battle for Midway: What REALLY happened.

[hardheadjarhead]

The traditional account, it seems, is somewhat inaccurate:

http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2001/Summer/sd1-su1.htm

Military buffs and WWII lay historians will find this interesting.



Regards,


Steve

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Very interesting read.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Interesting, too, because the accounts of Midway--and that gawdaful but fun movie--have always suggested that timing was everything, and even that the timing meant that God had intervened to protect America...

 

[DuneViking]

Very informative. I also read the response from Isom. His bottom line-"they would have found a way" does not even make sense, as if he did not comprehend the article he was responding to. It clearly shows and gives evidence that the Japanese could bnot have responded, it was not possible. They were plain and simple - SOL - until the American attack ceased, unless they put more CAP planes up and thwarted the last successful attack. While this is very interesting, I would like to see more on the simultaneous Aleutians and Dutch Harbor invasion, where my pop was at the time of Midway.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Actually, looks to me like part of the point is that YOU CANNOT THWART a serious attack--you can only make it expensive.

Which the Japanese Navy did.

 

[MA-Caver]

This article proves the adage<sic> : History is always written by the winners.
The amount of time the Japanese took to get even ONE plane to the flight deck is appalling. Makes one wonder how they managed the hundreds of planes that were used at Pearl. The two wave attack makes better sense now seeing the Japanese carrier operations more clearly via this article.
I suspect that the Americanized version of the battle with lots of planes on the Japanese carrier decks was from either ignorance or propaganda that the attacking American force were just in time to destroy most of the Japanese airforce prior to launch.
They did still manage to damage a good number of our ships; Yorktown and the heavily damaged Enterprise. Still... This re-working of "history" makes things come in to better focus concerning the outcome of this battle as it was clear the Japanese had a superior force but it's base operations were more of a hindrance than anything else.
A hellva lot can happen in 45 minutes, any good commander of a task force can tell you that.

Wow.

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[TonyM.]

What!!!!! You mean Hollywoodland didn't depict the true story. Say it isn't so.
Next someone will be telling me they took liberties with the stories of Pokohantis and the Alamo.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

What!!!!! You mean Hollywoodland didn't depict the true story. Say it isn't so.
Next someone will be telling me they took liberties with the stories of Pokohantis and the Alamo.

A digression, to be sure...there is a new book out called "Based On a True Story" which deals with the whole issue of historical accuracy in docu-dramas. There are perhaps four to six other books on that very subject elsewhere.

As for history being written by the winners, currently there are riots in China over the historical revisionism of Japanese textbooks...which fail to mention their bruatalities and aggression in the first half of the 20th century. We're not the only ones that fail to get it right, it seems.


Regards,


Steve

 

[Bob Hubbard]

If I read everything correctly, what they are saying in a nutshell is that the American Carriers enjoyed a more efficient design and operation policy, and the Japanese carriers efforts were hampered by a less efficient design, and operation policy. The Japanese problem areas were made worse due to the constant attacks by American planes.

So, the piecemeal scattered attacks by the American planes had the end result of bogging the Japanese down, preventing them from properly preparing and launching the attack they had intended.

Which means, the American force got lucky.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

If I read everything correctly, what they are saying in a nutshell is that the American Carriers enjoyed a more efficient design and operation policy, and the Japanese carriers efforts were hampered by a less efficient design, and operation policy. The Japanese problem areas were made worse due to the constant attacks by American planes.

So, the piecemeal scattered attacks by the American planes had the end result of bogging the Japanese down, preventing them from properly preparing and launching the attack they had intended.

Which means, the American force got lucky.

Or you could say, as was stated in the article, that inferior Japanese technology and operations policy led to their demise. I'd be more inclined to say it was a combination of both that and luck.


Regards,


Steve

 

[MA-Caver]

Or you could say, as was stated in the article, that inferior Japanese technology and operations policy led to their demise. I'd be more inclined to say it was a combination of both that and luck.
Regards,
Steve

Hey Steve, you want to cut me a slice of that irony... look at the Japanese now.
I mean how many things do we own in our home and use at work that are products from Japanese technology and operations policies?
How many cars are on the road that come from Japan? How many televisions, stereos, etc?
Even MORE ironic... how much property (in real estate and businesses) do they own on American soil (i.e. Hawaii and California)??
Since we've put such a stranglehold on their military (re-building) that they've directed their energies to becoming one of the world's fianicial powerhouses.

 

[PeachMonkey]

Since we've put such a stranglehold on their military (re-building) that they've directed their energies to becoming one of the world's fianicial powerhouses.

With a further bit of irony, a huge amount of Japan's industrial success came from their adoption of the TQM methods of Deming, a man whose emphasis on trust and positive treatment of workers was (and still is, other than in lip service) largely ignored by Western capitalists until Japanese car manufacturers and consumer electronics companies were eating us for lunch.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Hey Steve, you want to cut me a slice of that irony... look at the Japanese now.
I mean how many things do we own in our home and use at work that are products from Japanese technology and operations policies?
How many cars are on the road that come from Japan? How many televisions, stereos, etc?
Even MORE ironic... how much property (in real estate and businesses) do they own on American soil (i.e. Hawaii and California)??
Since we've put such a stranglehold on their military (re-building) that they've directed their energies to becoming one of the world's fianicial powerhouses.

Japanese technology was inferior until well after WWII. You're probably too young to remember that the stamp "made in Japan" was considered signs of an inferior and shoddy product. And it was. In the seventies their cars started making inroads into our culture...and they were in fact superior in many ways. Cameras, VCR's and the like soon followed.

This led to the American backlash of "buy American," which you may not be too young to remember. That was a little difficult to do back then...and is now nearly impossible to do. You hardly ever see the "Buy American!" bumper sticker.

As far as Japanese land speculation, the bottom fell out of their economy in the nineties and they dumped huge tracts of land in Hawaii and here in the U.S. At one point my wife and I considered buying land in Kona, where it was going for prices comparable to real estate here on the mainland.

That situation has probably reversed itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/business/26prop.html?ex=1113969600&en=8c0808579a3090cc&ei=5070

Australia and Germany lead Japan right now in buying U.S. properties. Note: If foreign investors are buying U.S. land, its because it is available and they have the cash.

Oh...and if you want to "buy American," don't shop at Wal-Mart...not without looking closely at the merchandise tags.


Regards,


Steve