Miracle At Midway Analysis

A detailed look at Yamamoto's planning for Operation MI by Gordon W Prange.

From Miracle At Midway by Gordon W Prange.

As far as any one Japanese was responsible for the Midway fiasco, that man was Isoroku Yamamoto. Just as he had done with his Pearl Harbor plan, he had conceived the idea and forced it down the throats of the Naval General Staff. But the conditions which had made Pearl Harbor possible no longer applied. Moreover, Yamamoto seemed to have lost his touch. Had he deliberately set out to prove just how many of the principles of war one admiral could violate in one campaign, he would have come up with Operation MI.

These handy points of reference make a convenient framework to evaluate any military or naval battle. Let us see how the Japanese operation against Midway measured up to the formula OOSSSSMEC which U.S. Naval officers learn at the War College.

1: OBJECTIVE. Of all the principles of war, this is the first and most basic. The planner must ask, "What is the point in fighting this battle? What do I hope to achieve? How will it forward the national interest of my country? Will it be worth the estimated cost in lives and treasure?"

This seems so elementary that one hesitates to bring it to the attention of the intelligent reader. Nevertheless, in none of the principles of was did the Combined Fleet fall so flat on its collective face as this one. From the very beginning, Operation MI was a monster with two heads, each arguing with the other. First, Yamamoto planned to attack and seize Midway atoll; second, he wanted to lure out and destroy the remains of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The downiest of newly hatched ensigns could have seen that the twin objectives were fundamentally incompatable. To storm and occupy an island installation required a firm schedule tied to the immutables of nature. An engagement with a mobile enemy fleet called for the utmost flexibility.

To make matters worse, of the two objectives the Japanese stressed the wrong one. To the Combined Fleet, capture of Midway was the primary mission. They should have concentrated on ridding the central Pacific of Nimitz's remaining capital ships. Then the Japanese could have taken Midway, at least temporarily, more or less at their leisure.

No wonder that Chihaya found "something fundamentally out of focus in our plan for this Midway battle." Why, for example, try to take the Aleutians? "To preclude these islands being used as air bases from which to attack Japan? Such a guess evinces only their ignorance of the topography, since the land features of these islands are not fit as the base for the long range big bombers..." Was Midway intended as preparation for an attack on Hawaii? "But how could we hope to take Hawaii at this stage if we could take it on the first occasion when the circumstances were far more favorable?" Was the campaign a preparation for the Great All-Out Battle? "But neither does this offer a satisfactory explanation...If this had been meant as preparatory to the long cherished 'Great fleet battle', why did they not wait two more months when the repairs should have been finished and the six carriers made all available?" And "why add such encumbrances as Midway and the Aleutians...?" But in spite of all these incongruities, "the plan was forced and met the fate it deserved." He added with obvious disgust, "It called for superhuman abilities to extract a united concentrated action out of such a mass of chaos.


2: OFFENSIVE. At first glance, the idea of sailing with a gigantic fleet several thousand miles eastward and snatching Uncle Sam's mid-Pacific outpost from under the nose of his Navy, thus bringing the latter out to fight a decisive battle, seems aggressive enough. And indeed one cannot fault Yamamoto for lack of daring. Yet boldness should not be confused with the spirit of the offensive. The thinking behind the project was essentially defensive--to secure an outer chain of bases to keep the enemy away from the Japanese homeland and home waters.

To be considered a successful offensive plan, it must give due consideration to such annoying "what ifs" as these: What if the Americans somehow gained advance warning of the Japanese approach? What if the enemy spotted the Tanaka fleet ahead of schedule? What if Nimitz had spotted a mobile force beyond Midway? What if the First Air Fleet suffered severe damage? These were all possibilities, and alternative offensive plans should have been ready and rehearsed. They were not, which is one reason why, at Midway, Japan's spirit of the offensive came apart under the pressure of the unexpected.


3: SUPERIORITY AT THE POINT OF CONTACT. On no score did Yamamoto err more sorely than in the area of mass, where on paper he was so far ahead of the game. The Japanese had numerical superiority at Midway, but could have achieved trued superiority if they arranged their forces differently. Having assembled the greatest array of naval strength ever seen on any ocean to that date, Yamamoto vitiated it by dispersal. VIewed on the map as a series of neat arrows, all purposely pointing in the right direction, the Midway strategy looks excellent--an application of the classic double-flank pincers movement.

But this was not Cannae and Yamamoto was not Hannibal. Each of the fleets converging on Midway was specialized and not truly self-sufficient. Apparently Yamamoto assumed that these groups could join forces if necessary, but events proved this impossible. Meanwhile, these many avenues of approach practically invited American detection.

Worst, instead of massing all his ships against the primary objective, Yamamoto divided his strength by sending powerful fleet units against the Aleutians, far removed from the strategic scene of operation. And it was precisely there, were no decisive naval engagement could be fought at the time, that the Japanese enjoyed superiority. And the Aleutians, unlike the U.S. carrier task forces, would stay in position until later. Both Nimitz and Spruance, as well as Japanese experts, believe the failure to concentrate was Yamamoto's worst mistake.

Not content with two major operations, Yamamoto misused the ships in the main sector. Survivors of the battle, in earnest if unofficial conclave aboard the Kirishimaa, agreed emphatically that placing the battleships at the rear of the task force was unsound. "Had they been ahead of our force, the enemy would have been directed to them, thus saving our carriers that were the most important elements of a sea battle. Even if the Americans sank two or three battleships, this would have been far less of a loss to the Japanese Navy than a like number of carriers." Instead, Yamamot dilly-dallied 300 miles behind the Mobile Force. As matters went, he and his battlewagons might as well have remained in the Inland Sea.


4: SURPRISE. This was the cornerstone of Japan's war plans. Yamamoto counted heavily on sneaking into the Midway area unsuspected, as Nagumo had at Pearl Harbor, until the atoll was actually under attack. He forgot what he of all men should have remembered: he was now up against a United States a war, its peactime somnolence sunk at Pearl Harbor, and he faced a Pacific Fleet which, having been fooled once, was doubly alert.

Of course, it was not Yamamoto's fault that he no longer had the benefit of the local spy ring operating out of the Japanese consulate in Honolulu to keep him informed of American ship movements in and out of Pearl Harbor. Nor can one blame Yamamoto because the Japanese lost surprise the day Rochefort and his Hypo men penetrated the JN25 naval code. From that time onward, Nimitz received excellent information about the Japanese Navy.

To surprise a foe, it is not enough for the planner to try to put himself that opponent's mind and estimate his probable actions, although that helps if the planner guesses right. What he needs is a realistic idea of what the enemy can do. This was the point of elementary intelligence which Emmons annoyed Layton by stressing. And this is precisely what Yamamoto did not do. The essence of his scheme was the supposition that Nimitz and his forces would behave exactly as the Japanese planned they should. This failure to weigh the enemy's capabilities was the basis for the tardiness of the planned submarine cordon and for the breakdown of the projected K operation to scout Oahu by large seaplanes. Given a little less complacency, prompt and effective reconnaissance almost surely would have enabled the Japanese to pinpoint the American sorties, their strength, their course and destination, hence be prepared to attack.


5: SECURITY. This principle always marches in step with "Surprise". A monumental underestimation of American brains and will to fight led the Japanese down the garden path of carelessness. Too many unnecessary people were in the know; preparations were not camouflaged; the care and precision which had made the Pearl Harbor attack a security classic were entirely missing. Messages such as that of May 24 which enabled Nimitz to estimate the enemy strength so accurately should have gone in the top security flag officer's code--Safford's crack team in Washington was still striving unsuccessfully to break it--or have been confined to a courier's locked briefcase.

The Japanese took the precaution of changing their JN25 system toward the end of May, but once more the story was "too late". Hypo had already milked it of enough information to insure that the both Nimitz and the Fleet were prepared and waiting.


6: SIMPLICITY. This principle is closely allied with "Objective". Reduced to its lowest terms, it means that the fewer moving parts in any machine, the less chance there is of any one of them breaking down. But Operation MI was a "Rube Goldberg" monstrosity. As Miwa observed when by mid-June he had recovered his composure sufficiently to return to his diary, "Actually, there were many points in our operational plan that should be blamed and also that there were not indispensable in carrying out the operation.

The truly complicating factor was Yamamoto's inability to reconcile the battleship-carrier hassle, in spite of the spectacular record of Japan's naval airmen, both land- and carrier-based. As a result, he suffered from doctrinaire schizophrenia. Both schools went to extremes. The battleship coterie, of which Ugaki was a leading light, could not see the battlewagons in any capacity but as the central weapons in a surface slugging match. They could not visualize the "queens" as ladies-in-waiting.

The airminded were almost equally inflexible. To them the carrier was the heart of the new sea power, the battleship of little if any use at all, a parasite sucking men and material away from the real striking force. Yamamoto tried to reconcile both concepts in toto instead of extracting the best of each. Later in the war, Nimitz would demonstrate exactly how to do this as the Americans moved nearer and nearer to Japan. Then he used battleships to soften up Pacific islands and as screens for his carriers.

Perhaps because of the Combined Fleet's battleship orientation, no Japanese carrier entered the battle equipped with radar. Two experimental sets became available two days before the Mobile Force sortied. However, they were installed aboard the battleships Ise and Hyuga which were Takasu's Aleutian Screening Force. Had Nagumo possessed this vital equipment aboard his two flagship carriers, at least he could have had early warning of the U.S. attack planes, with what result who can say? Okumiya, for one, believed the battle might have gone the other way.


7: MOVEMENT-MOBILITY. In battle, according to Naval War College dogma, the attacker should keep moving toward his objective. He must come to grips with the enemy. "As far as Midway was concerned", said Nimitz, "there was at least a partial violation of this principle when the Japanese turned back westward after their carriers were hit so hard". Nimitz pointed out that this followed a pattern they had established at the onset of the war:

They sailed in every direction at once. They took on too much and after their initial successes at Pearl Harbor, off Malaya in the Java Sea, they spread out to bomb Darwin and launched a large operation in the Indian Ocean when all the time the main enemy of Yamamoto's Combined Fleet was the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor which the Japanese left alone after quick hit-and-run raid. The fact that the Japanese did not return to Pearl Harbor and complete the job was the greatest help for us, for they left their principle enemy with the time to catch his breath, restore his morale and rebuild his forces.

Furthermore, tying the objective of polishing off the U.S. Pacific Fleet with that of occupying Midway cancelled out the mobility and flexibility essential for a successful sea engagement. Yet one seeks in vain for any provision in their planning and preparations for maintaining this tactical offensive in the face of determined opposition. Instead, one finds war games rigged to make the enemy look incompetent, just as in planning for Pearl Harbor. And this time, their conceit was so overwhelming that they did not even take the elementary precaution of insisting that the aircraft carrier crews wear proper combat clothing. War experience had proved that any covering, even long-sleeved shirts and trousers, helped protect against fire. But serene in their conviction that the enemy could not touch them, the carrier crews worked in tropical shorts and short-sleeved shirts. In consequence, many suffered horribly and unnecessarily.

Thus, when the unexpected American preparedness knocked the props from under the Japanese time schedule, the attackers lost their heads and their nerve. Yamamoto's forces still far outnumbered and outweighed Fletcher's in surface units. Even in carriers, from his own, Kondo's and the Aleutian Force he could have summoned one carrier and three light carriers, with a total air strength of about fifty Zeros and sixty bombers. THis was air power not to be shrugged off, especially as the Japanese believed that they had sunk two out of three U.S. flattops. Instead, following the loss of Nagumo's carriers, Yamamoto made a few tentative movements toward fighting on, then turned tail and scurried homeward with his massive force like a lumbering Saint Bernard dog pursued by a scrappy terrier.


8: ECONOMY OF FORCE. Correlating the principle of superiority at point of contact is that of economy--having enough to do the job but not too much. After committing himself to a double mission, Yamamoto brought along virtually everything but the fishing boats from the Inland Sea, wasting precious fuel, the lifeblood of an empire, tying up men and ships which could have been better occupied in preparing for the next scheduled thrust. The air strike on Midway was much too large for the objective. A lean, handpicked group such as Kakuta used at Dutch Harbor could have done the job as well, leaving forces aboard and surrounding the carriers in preparation for any American counteraction. Nimitz demonstrated the meaning of "Economy of Force" by deciding not to commit his battleships at Midway.


9: COOPERATION(Unity of Command). Ironically, Yamamoto cancelled out this vital principle by tagging along personally in his flagship. Necessity for radio silence muzzled him and kept him from exercising the overall command, which he could have done easily and efficiently from the Inland Sea or from the center of communications at Tokyo. As a result of his taking his headquarters to sea, it was every man for himself with the individual fleets. The time lag between receipt of information on Yamato and actual events kept Yamamoto two jumps behind the action. In contrast, Nimitz at Pearl Harbor was right on top of events.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Yep.

Yamamoto forgot that he was Commander in Chief & acted like he was still a tactical commander. He didn't LOSE the battle, but he did throw away any chance he had to alter it as soon as he went to sea.

He also was surprising out of touch with operational realities during the action. AFTER being told that the Kido Butai had been annihilated & that an American Task Force, with at least one undamaged carrier was on the loose, he initially ordered that the Midway landing take place AS SCHEDULED. He later countermanded the order, but even giving it initially showed the folly of being at sea in the first place.

Yamamoto was an excellent planner, unfortunately, like most IJN officers, he tended to stay with the Plan for too long, was wedded to the doctrine of the Decisive Battle, and was unwilling to accept that what had worked in 1905 might not be the only way to achieve victory in 1942
 

bard32

Banned
A detailed look at Yamamoto's planning for Operation MI by Gordon W Prange.

From Miracle At Midway by Gordon W Prange.

As far as any one Japanese was responsible for the Midway fiasco, that man was Isoroku Yamamoto. Just as he had done with his Pearl Harbor plan, he had conceived the idea and forced it down the throats of the Naval General Staff. But the conditions which had made Pearl Harbor possible no longer applied. Moreover, Yamamoto seemed to have lost his touch. Had he deliberately set out to prove just how many of the principles of war one admiral could violate in one campaign, he would have come up with Operation MI.

These handy points of reference make a convenient framework to evaluate any military or naval battle. Let us see how the Japanese operation against Midway measured up to the formula OOSSSSMEC which U.S. Naval officers learn at the War College.

1: OBJECTIVE. Of all the principles of war, this is the first and most basic. The planner must ask, "What is the point in fighting this battle? What do I hope to achieve? How will it forward the national interest of my country? Will it be worth the estimated cost in lives and treasure?"

This seems so elementary that one hesitates to bring it to the attention of the intelligent reader. Nevertheless, in none of the principles of was did the Combined Fleet fall so flat on its collective face as this one. From the very beginning, Operation MI was a monster with two heads, each arguing with the other. First, Yamamoto planned to attack and seize Midway atoll; second, he wanted to lure out and destroy the remains of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The downiest of newly hatched ensigns could have seen that the twin objectives were fundamentally incompatable. To storm and occupy an island installation required a firm schedule tied to the immutables of nature. An engagement with a mobile enemy fleet called for the utmost flexibility.

To make matters worse, of the two objectives the Japanese stressed the wrong one. To the Combined Fleet, capture of Midway was the primary mission. They should have concentrated on ridding the central Pacific of Nimitz's remaining capital ships. Then the Japanese could have taken Midway, at least temporarily, more or less at their leisure.

No wonder that Chihaya found "something fundamentally out of focus in our plan for this Midway battle." Why, for example, try to take the Aleutians? "To preclude these islands being used as air bases from which to attack Japan? Such a guess evinces only their ignorance of the topography, since the land features of these islands are not fit as the base for the long range big bombers..." Was Midway intended as preparation for an attack on Hawaii? "But how could we hope to take Hawaii at this stage if we could take it on the first occasion when the circumstances were far more favorable?" Was the campaign a preparation for the Great All-Out Battle? "But neither does this offer a satisfactory explanation...If this had been meant as preparatory to the long cherished 'Great fleet battle', why did they not wait two more months when the repairs should have been finished and the six carriers made all available?" And "why add such encumbrances as Midway and the Aleutians...?" But in spite of all these incongruities, "the plan was forced and met the fate it deserved." He added with obvious disgust, "It called for superhuman abilities to extract a united concentrated action out of such a mass of chaos.


2: OFFENSIVE. At first glance, the idea of sailing with a gigantic fleet several thousand miles eastward and snatching Uncle Sam's mid-Pacific outpost from under the nose of his Navy, thus bringing the latter out to fight a decisive battle, seems aggressive enough. And indeed one cannot fault Yamamoto for lack of daring. Yet boldness should not be confused with the spirit of the offensive. The thinking behind the project was essentially defensive--to secure an outer chain of bases to keep the enemy away from the Japanese homeland and home waters.

To be considered a successful offensive plan, it must give due consideration to such annoying "what ifs" as these: What if the Americans somehow gained advance warning of the Japanese approach? What if the enemy spotted the Tanaka fleet ahead of schedule? What if Nimitz had spotted a mobile force beyond Midway? What if the First Air Fleet suffered severe damage? These were all possibilities, and alternative offensive plans should have been ready and rehearsed. They were not, which is one reason why, at Midway, Japan's spirit of the offensive came apart under the pressure of the unexpected.


3: SUPERIORITY AT THE POINT OF CONTACT. On no score did Yamamoto err more sorely than in the area of mass, where on paper he was so far ahead of the game. The Japanese had numerical superiority at Midway, but could have achieved trued superiority if they arranged their forces differently. Having assembled the greatest array of naval strength ever seen on any ocean to that date, Yamamoto vitiated it by dispersal. VIewed on the map as a series of neat arrows, all purposely pointing in the right direction, the Midway strategy looks excellent--an application of the classic double-flank pincers movement.

But this was not Cannae and Yamamoto was not Hannibal. Each of the fleets converging on Midway was specialized and not truly self-sufficient. Apparently Yamamoto assumed that these groups could join forces if necessary, but events proved this impossible. Meanwhile, these many avenues of approach practically invited American detection.

Worst, instead of massing all his ships against the primary objective, Yamamoto divided his strength by sending powerful fleet units against the Aleutians, far removed from the strategic scene of operation. And it was precisely there, were no decisive naval engagement could be fought at the time, that the Japanese enjoyed superiority. And the Aleutians, unlike the U.S. carrier task forces, would stay in position until later. Both Nimitz and Spruance, as well as Japanese experts, believe the failure to concentrate was Yamamoto's worst mistake.

Not content with two major operations, Yamamoto misused the ships in the main sector. Survivors of the battle, in earnest if unofficial conclave aboard the Kirishimaa, agreed emphatically that placing the battleships at the rear of the task force was unsound. "Had they been ahead of our force, the enemy would have been directed to them, thus saving our carriers that were the most important elements of a sea battle. Even if the Americans sank two or three battleships, this would have been far less of a loss to the Japanese Navy than a like number of carriers." Instead, Yamamot dilly-dallied 300 miles behind the Mobile Force. As matters went, he and his battlewagons might as well have remained in the Inland Sea.


4: SURPRISE. This was the cornerstone of Japan's war plans. Yamamoto counted heavily on sneaking into the Midway area unsuspected, as Nagumo had at Pearl Harbor, until the atoll was actually under attack. He forgot what he of all men should have remembered: he was now up against a United States a war, its peactime somnolence sunk at Pearl Harbor, and he faced a Pacific Fleet which, having been fooled once, was doubly alert.

Of course, it was not Yamamoto's fault that he no longer had the benefit of the local spy ring operating out of the Japanese consulate in Honolulu to keep him informed of American ship movements in and out of Pearl Harbor. Nor can one blame Yamamoto because the Japanese lost surprise the day Rochefort and his Hypo men penetrated the JN25 naval code. From that time onward, Nimitz received excellent information about the Japanese Navy.

To surprise a foe, it is not enough for the planner to try to put himself that opponent's mind and estimate his probable actions, although that helps if the planner guesses right. What he needs is a realistic idea of what the enemy can do. This was the point of elementary intelligence which Emmons annoyed Layton by stressing. And this is precisely what Yamamoto did not do. The essence of his scheme was the supposition that Nimitz and his forces would behave exactly as the Japanese planned they should. This failure to weigh the enemy's capabilities was the basis for the tardiness of the planned submarine cordon and for the breakdown of the projected K operation to scout Oahu by large seaplanes. Given a little less complacency, prompt and effective reconnaissance almost surely would have enabled the Japanese to pinpoint the American sorties, their strength, their course and destination, hence be prepared to attack.


5: SECURITY. This principle always marches in step with "Surprise". A monumental underestimation of American brains and will to fight led the Japanese down the garden path of carelessness. Too many unnecessary people were in the know; preparations were not camouflaged; the care and precision which had made the Pearl Harbor attack a security classic were entirely missing. Messages such as that of May 24 which enabled Nimitz to estimate the enemy strength so accurately should have gone in the top security flag officer's code--Safford's crack team in Washington was still striving unsuccessfully to break it--or have been confined to a courier's locked briefcase.

The Japanese took the precaution of changing their JN25 system toward the end of May, but once more the story was "too late". Hypo had already milked it of enough information to insure that the both Nimitz and the Fleet were prepared and waiting.


6: SIMPLICITY. This principle is closely allied with "Objective". Reduced to its lowest terms, it means that the fewer moving parts in any machine, the less chance there is of any one of them breaking down. But Operation MI was a "Rube Goldberg" monstrosity. As Miwa observed when by mid-June he had recovered his composure sufficiently to return to his diary, "Actually, there were many points in our operational plan that should be blamed and also that there were not indispensable in carrying out the operation.

The truly complicating factor was Yamamoto's inability to reconcile the battleship-carrier hassle, in spite of the spectacular record of Japan's naval airmen, both land- and carrier-based. As a result, he suffered from doctrinaire schizophrenia. Both schools went to extremes. The battleship coterie, of which Ugaki was a leading light, could not see the battlewagons in any capacity but as the central weapons in a surface slugging match. They could not visualize the "queens" as ladies-in-waiting.

The airminded were almost equally inflexible. To them the carrier was the heart of the new sea power, the battleship of little if any use at all, a parasite sucking men and material away from the real striking force. Yamamoto tried to reconcile both concepts in toto instead of extracting the best of each. Later in the war, Nimitz would demonstrate exactly how to do this as the Americans moved nearer and nearer to Japan. Then he used battleships to soften up Pacific islands and as screens for his carriers.

Perhaps because of the Combined Fleet's battleship orientation, no Japanese carrier entered the battle equipped with radar. Two experimental sets became available two days before the Mobile Force sortied. However, they were installed aboard the battleships Ise and Hyuga which were Takasu's Aleutian Screening Force. Had Nagumo possessed this vital equipment aboard his two flagship carriers, at least he could have had early warning of the U.S. attack planes, with what result who can say? Okumiya, for one, believed the battle might have gone the other way.


7: MOVEMENT-MOBILITY. In battle, according to Naval War College dogma, the attacker should keep moving toward his objective. He must come to grips with the enemy. "As far as Midway was concerned", said Nimitz, "there was at least a partial violation of this principle when the Japanese turned back westward after their carriers were hit so hard". Nimitz pointed out that this followed a pattern they had established at the onset of the war:

They sailed in every direction at once. They took on too much and after their initial successes at Pearl Harbor, off Malaya in the Java Sea, they spread out to bomb Darwin and launched a large operation in the Indian Ocean when all the time the main enemy of Yamamoto's Combined Fleet was the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor which the Japanese left alone after quick hit-and-run raid. The fact that the Japanese did not return to Pearl Harbor and complete the job was the greatest help for us, for they left their principle enemy with the time to catch his breath, restore his morale and rebuild his forces.

Furthermore, tying the objective of polishing off the U.S. Pacific Fleet with that of occupying Midway cancelled out the mobility and flexibility essential for a successful sea engagement. Yet one seeks in vain for any provision in their planning and preparations for maintaining this tactical offensive in the face of determined opposition. Instead, one finds war games rigged to make the enemy look incompetent, just as in planning for Pearl Harbor. And this time, their conceit was so overwhelming that they did not even take the elementary precaution of insisting that the aircraft carrier crews wear proper combat clothing. War experience had proved that any covering, even long-sleeved shirts and trousers, helped protect against fire. But serene in their conviction that the enemy could not touch them, the carrier crews worked in tropical shorts and short-sleeved shirts. In consequence, many suffered horribly and unnecessarily.

Thus, when the unexpected American preparedness knocked the props from under the Japanese time schedule, the attackers lost their heads and their nerve. Yamamoto's forces still far outnumbered and outweighed Fletcher's in surface units. Even in carriers, from his own, Kondo's and the Aleutian Force he could have summoned one carrier and three light carriers, with a total air strength of about fifty Zeros and sixty bombers. THis was air power not to be shrugged off, especially as the Japanese believed that they had sunk two out of three U.S. flattops. Instead, following the loss of Nagumo's carriers, Yamamoto made a few tentative movements toward fighting on, then turned tail and scurried homeward with his massive force like a lumbering Saint Bernard dog pursued by a scrappy terrier.


8: ECONOMY OF FORCE. Correlating the principle of superiority at point of contact is that of economy--having enough to do the job but not too much. After committing himself to a double mission, Yamamoto brought along virtually everything but the fishing boats from the Inland Sea, wasting precious fuel, the lifeblood of an empire, tying up men and ships which could have been better occupied in preparing for the next scheduled thrust. The air strike on Midway was much too large for the objective. A lean, handpicked group such as Kakuta used at Dutch Harbor could have done the job as well, leaving forces aboard and surrounding the carriers in preparation for any American counteraction. Nimitz demonstrated the meaning of "Economy of Force" by deciding not to commit his battleships at Midway.


9: COOPERATION(Unity of Command). Ironically, Yamamoto cancelled out this vital principle by tagging along personally in his flagship. Necessity for radio silence muzzled him and kept him from exercising the overall command, which he could have done easily and efficiently from the Inland Sea or from the center of communications at Tokyo. As a result of his taking his headquarters to sea, it was every man for himself with the individual fleets. The time lag between receipt of information on Yamato and actual events kept Yamamoto two jumps behind the action. In contrast, Nimitz at Pearl Harbor was right on top of events.

Agreed. If you remember the 1976 movie Midway, and disregard the
irrelavent love story subplot, you'd know that Yamamoto was, as I said in my much-debated post on Pearl Harbor, was more of a bureaucrat than a
commander because at the time of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was safe in Tokyo. According to the previously mentioned Scholastic book I have on the
Battle of Midway, called appropriately enough, The Battle of Midway,
Nimitz paid a visit to Midway and asked them what they needed. Midway
said that they needed more planes so he sent a squadron of obsolete Brewster F2F Buffaloes. Carlson's Raiders was also sent to Midway. However, the Buffaloes were blown out of the sky by the Japanese Zeroes.
The American and Japanese fleets weren't that far apart on paper. On paper,
the Pacific Fleet, what was left of it, had three carriers. The Combined Fleet,
had four carriers. Shokaku and Zuikaku were nonfactors in the Battle of Midway. Why? They were so heavily damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, that they didn't reappear until the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese, according to Midway, and it's probably borne out by eyewitness testimony, were expecting to meet Halsey at Midway. Instead, on Halsey's recommendation, (Halsey was in the naval hospital with jungle rot,) suggested that Nimitz appoint Spruance as his replacement. How, you
ask, did we know about it? Well, Captain Wiliam Rochefort, Nimitz' codebraker, previously Kimmel's codebreaker, was suspicious of two letters in Japanese transmissions---"AF." Acting on a hunch, he determined that AF
was Midway.
BTW, when the Japanese gamed it out, the results weren't pretty. The war games concluded that the Japanese would lose two or more carriers. Yamamoto didn't like the results, so he ordered Admiral Ugaki, to change them. Operation MI, the Japanese codename for the invasion of Midway, was
dependent on drawing our carriers north to Alaska. We didn't send forces to
Alaska until the following year. Things could have been different. The Japanese occupied the Aleutians for eight months. Of course, Yamamoto told
Hirohito as much. What if Japan had won Midway? The world will never know.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Agreed. If you remember the 1976 movie Midway, and disregard the
irrelavent love story subplot, you'd know that Yamamoto was, as I said in my much-debated post on Pearl Harbor, was more of a bureaucrat than a
commander because at the time of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was safe in Tokyo. According to the previously mentioned Scholastic book I have on the
Battle of Midway, called appropriately enough, The Battle of Midway,
Nimitz paid a visit to Midway and asked them what they needed. Midway
said that they needed more planes so he sent a squadron of obsolete Brewster F2F Buffaloes. Carlson's Raiders was also sent to Midway. However, the Buffaloes were blown out of the sky by the Japanese Zeroes.
The American and Japanese fleets weren't that far apart on paper. On paper,
the Pacific Fleet, what was left of it, had three carriers. The Combined Fleet,
had four carriers. Shokaku and Zuikaku were nonfactors in the Battle of Midway. Why? They were so heavily damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, that they didn't reappear until the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese, according to Midway, and it's probably borne out by eyewitness testimony, were expecting to meet Halsey at Midway. Instead, on Halsey's recommendation, (Halsey was in the naval hospital with jungle rot,) suggested that Nimitz appoint Spruance as his replacement. How, you
ask, did we know about it? Well, Captain Wiliam Rochefort, Nimitz' codebraker, previously Kimmel's codebreaker, was suspicious of two letters in Japanese transmissions---"AF." Acting on a hunch, he determined that AF
was Midway.
BTW, when the Japanese gamed it out, the results weren't pretty. The war games concluded that the Japanese would lose two or more carriers. Yamamoto didn't like the results, so he ordered Admiral Ugaki, to change them. Operation MI, the Japanese codename for the invasion of Midway, was
dependent on drawing our carriers north to Alaska. We didn't send forces to
Alaska until the following year. Things could have been different. The Japanese occupied the Aleutians for eight months. Of course, Yamamoto told
Hirohito as much. What if Japan had won Midway? The world will never know.

Zuikaku was NOT damaged at Coral Sea. Her airwing was torn to pieces. Had she been an American carrier, she would have sailed with the Kido Butai to Midway with a replacement, albeit scratch, airwing. Since YAMAMOTO chose not to do this, she was in the Home Islands when most needed.

There was NO HUNCH about Midway. Read Combined Fleet Decoded by John Prados for Honest to God facts on the subject.
 
Agreed. If you remember the 1976 movie Midway, and disregard the
irrelavent love story subplot, you'd know that Yamamoto was, as I said in my much-debated post on Pearl Harbor, was more of a bureaucrat than a
commander because at the time of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was safe in Tokyo. According to the previously mentioned Scholastic book I have on the
Battle of Midway, called appropriately enough, The Battle of Midway,
Nimitz paid a visit to Midway and asked them what they needed. Midway
said that they needed more planes so he sent a squadron of obsolete Brewster F2F Buffaloes. Carlson's Raiders was also sent to Midway. However, the Buffaloes were blown out of the sky by the Japanese Zeroes.
The American and Japanese fleets weren't that far apart on paper. On paper,
the Pacific Fleet, what was left of it, had three carriers. The Combined Fleet,
had four carriers. Shokaku and Zuikaku were nonfactors in the Battle of Midway. Why? They were so heavily damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, that they didn't reappear until the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese, according to Midway, and it's probably borne out by eyewitness testimony, were expecting to meet Halsey at Midway. Instead, on Halsey's recommendation, (Halsey was in the naval hospital with jungle rot,) suggested that Nimitz appoint Spruance as his replacement. How, you
ask, did we know about it? Well, Captain Wiliam Rochefort, Nimitz' codebraker, previously Kimmel's codebreaker, was suspicious of two letters in Japanese transmissions---"AF." Acting on a hunch, he determined that AF
was Midway.
BTW, when the Japanese gamed it out, the results weren't pretty. The war games concluded that the Japanese would lose two or more carriers. Yamamoto didn't like the results, so he ordered Admiral Ugaki, to change them. Operation MI, the Japanese codename for the invasion of Midway, was
dependent on drawing our carriers north to Alaska. We didn't send forces to
Alaska until the following year. Things could have been different. The Japanese occupied the Aleutians for eight months. Of course, Yamamoto told
Hirohito as much. What if Japan had won Midway? The world will never know.

Technically, it's the Brewster F2A. The F2F is a Grumman carrier biplane fighter.
 
The US deliberately baited the IJN by ordering Midway to report trouble with the water purification equipment in the clear.

The moment US codebreakers spotted IJN radio referring to exactly that sort of trouble at MI the US Pacific Fleet was virtually guaranteed surprise.

Shokaku and Zuikaku certainly took the field again well before Leyte Gulf but once Japan had lost the initiative AND half her carrier power...as each of the six fleet carriers represented one-eighth of Japan's total carrier aircraft and four were lost at Midway.

I almost added in the original post a comment of how Japanese war games were tainted prior to Midway. Not only were the results altered from Kaga and Akagi sunk to only the Kaga sunk but they actually resurrected the Kaga for future operations planned around Fiji and New Caledonia!

As a minor note, a fourth carrier, Saratoga, missed the battle by less than 24 hours.



A personal interest of mine has always been the fact that Nimitz didn't know Yamamoto had thrown in the Yamato and six other battleships into Operation MI until too late. Naturally, had he known he would have assumed the IJN would do the only intelligent thing and push the battleships in front of the carriers, instead of keeping them 300 miles behind the carriers.

If Nimitz had known this I've wondered if he might have taken advantage of the IJN's habit of using a smaller force to distract attention from the main event.

Specifically, what if Nimitz abandoned Midway and went where the US could be assured of superiority in every category, against the Aleutian Fleet and Northern Guard Fleet?

The US had four fleet carriers, one light carrier, 7 battleships(including two of the newest), 13 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers and 40 destroyers. The IJN had two medium carriers, 3 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 12 destroyers and one auxiliary(?) cruiser at the Aleutians and another 4 older battleships with 2 light cruisers and 12 destroyers in the force between Midway and the Aleutians. If the US had beaten up either or both of those fleets for Midway one wonders how the IJN would have considered the results.
 

CalBear

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The US deliberately baited the IJN by ordering Midway to report trouble with the water purification equipment in the clear.

The moment US codebreakers spotted IJN radio referring to exactly that sort of trouble at MI the US Pacific Fleet was virtually guaranteed surprise.

Shokaku and Zuikaku certainly took the field again well before Leyte Gulf but once Japan had lost the initiative AND half her carrier power...as each of the six fleet carriers represented one-eighth of Japan's total carrier aircraft and four were lost at Midway.

I almost added in the original post a comment of how Japanese war games were tainted prior to Midway. Not only were the results altered from Kaga and Akagi sunk to only the Kaga sunk but they actually resurrected the Kaga for future operations planned around Fiji and New Caledonia!

As a minor note, a fourth carrier, Saratoga, missed the battle by less than 24 hours.



A personal interest of mine has always been the fact that Nimitz didn't know Yamamoto had thrown in the Yamato and six other battleships into Operation MI until too late. Naturally, had he known he would have assumed the IJN would do the only intelligent thing and push the battleships in front of the carriers, instead of keeping them 300 miles behind the carriers.

If Nimitz had known this I've wondered if he might have taken advantage of the IJN's habit of using a smaller force to distract attention from the main event.

Specifically, what if Nimitz abandoned Midway and went where the US could be assured of superiority in every category, against the Aleutian Fleet and Northern Guard Fleet?

The US had four fleet carriers, one light carrier, 7 battleships(including two of the newest), 13 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers and 40 destroyers. The IJN had two medium carriers, 3 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 12 destroyers and one auxiliary(?) cruiser at the Aleutians and another 4 older battleships with 2 light cruisers and 12 destroyers in the force between Midway and the Aleutians. If the US had beaten up either or both of those fleets for Midway one wonders how the IJN would have considered the results.

An interesting question, especially given the fact that taking Midway, as planned by the Japanese, was not even close to a sure thing and that holding Midway would have been nearly impossible for the Japanese, even if they, despite the long odds, managed to take the Islands.

BTW: The two IJN light carriers, Junyo & Ryujo were both fairly odd ducks. One was so slow that the B5N Kate couldn't be flown off her, while the other's elevators were too small to handle the D3A Val. combined they really didn't even equal a single full sized deck.
 
How, you ask, did we know about it? Well, Captain Wiliam Rochefort, Nimitz' codebraker, previously Kimmel's codebreaker,
His name was Joseph John Rochefort, he was a Commander, & he still was a codebreaker; technically, he worked for Layton, not Nimitz (but that's a bit nitpicky:p).

There's another really good analysis of Yamamoto's failure in Willmott's Barrier & the Javelin.
 
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