WI: Nagumo's recon planes get lucky at Midway

I could be very wrong in this assessment, so feel free to shoot me down (no pun intended!), but I always get the impression that Nagumo gets "blamed" for not being an outstanding military genius, or for not being psychic or whatever, you know, for things that were not necessarily within his control.

In general you're right. Nagumo was a decent, though certainly not exceptional, admiral, perhaps overly cautious.

The problem with how he is remembered is twofold; one: Yamamoto. Two: 20-20 hindsight.

Adm. Yamamoto was a contemporary of Nagumo, and was a genius. He predicted the age of the carrier before it opened, how long he could fight the US... a host of things. So in comparison to Yamamoto, Nagumo looks pretty bad.

Then 20-20 hindsight kicks in. Nagumo didn't want to risk his fleet. However, the only possible outcome of a long war was a US victory. To win, the war had to be short. The only way that could possibly be achieved was a series of cumulatively improbable victories. Those, in turn, could only be achieved by taking risks. Yes, if he'd launched the third strike at Pearl he'd have lost pilots landing in the dark and he MIGHT have been spotted by US carriers. He chose not to take the risk. If he'd rolled the dice and they'd come up 1's, he'd be blamed (unfairly) for Japan losing the war. The fact, however, is that Japan was going to lose the war unless they rolled the dice anytime they got a chance... and the dice always came up 6's. If they didn't roll the dice, they'd be ground down and lose. If they rolled and got 2's, they'd lose faster.

Yamamoto recognized this. Nagumo, and probably most of the Japanese leaders, didn't. They get blamed for not finding a way out of a nearly impossible situation.
 
Nagumo was in an ideal situation after the first two strikes at Pearl Harbor.

Only the oil tank farms and a few other targets remain to be destroyed, the battleships and Army Air Corps are already beaten and now he knows he has a chance to target at least one US carrier as well, a key target which had appeared out of reach, at a time when his losses have been drastically below what was anticipated. In the short run if Nagumo had taken out a USN carrier and the oil tank farms, even at the price of one or two IJN carriers, Japan would have been better off.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Nagumo was in an ideal situation after the first two strikes at Pearl Harbor.

Only the oil tank farms and a few other targets remain to be destroyed, the battleships and Army Air Corps are already beaten and now he knows he has a chance to target at least one US carrier as well, a key target which had appeared out of reach, at a time when his losses have been drastically below what was anticipated. In the short run if Nagumo had taken out a USN carrier and the oil tank farms, even at the price of one or two IJN carriers, Japan would have been better off.

Nagumo was actually in a hell of bad position after the second strike. He had not one, but TWO U.S. carrier groups that he KNEW were in the area, and he had to be concerned about the location of a third (USS Saratoga). He has statements from his pilots that the airbase was wrecked after the first strike, and other statements from his 2nd strike commanders that the enemy had at least some land based fighters up that had succeeded in knocking down a few of his second wave. He is also in close enough to Pearl that the U.S. could easily have a sub or two in the area (which the U.S. actually did, but not close enough), and that could ruin his whole day. He also had to be concerned about a routine U.S. patrol finding his replenishment group, he loses that nice juicy set of slow targets and most of his force does not see home again.

The nightmare scenario for Nagumo is that the U.S. carrier shuttle their aircraft to Pearl, let them refuel and strike from there, and then return to their carriers. That leave the U.S. decks out of range of his attacks but leaves him vulnerable to a potentially crushing attack. Coupled with enemy subs in the area, he could have lost half his force, if not more. (Midway illustrated very nicely how vulnerable most of Nagumo's carriers were to battle damage, Shokaku and Zuikaku were able to absorb more battle damage thanks to some design improvements as they showed at Coral Sea.)

Nagumo doesn't have the advantages we have. We know the U.S. fleet was scattered across Hell's half acre, that there were no U.S. subs in strike range, and if any were it is questionable if their torpedoes would have functioned properly. Nagumo didn't know that. What he knew was that he had the entire offensive striking power of the IJN with him and that, while he couldn't WIN the war in an afternoon, he could damned near LOSE it. A commander has to be bold, not reckless.

Risking an unplanned third strike, after having already lost 10% of his attack aircraft (roughly a month's construction) into a now very alerted enemy position that had some of the strongest AAA on Earth while having up to three enemy carriers waiting to pounce on him (with potentially almost as many aircraft as he had available with battle damage "mission kills" taken into account) and the likelihood that enemy subs were moving into position to cut off his line of retreat is close to the definition of reckless.
 
In general you're right. Nagumo was a decent, though certainly not exceptional, admiral, perhaps overly cautious.

The problem with how he is remembered is twofold; one: Yamamoto. Two: 20-20 hindsight.

Adm. Yamamoto was a contemporary of Nagumo, and was a genius. He predicted the age of the carrier before it opened, how long he could fight the US... a host of things. So in comparison to Yamamoto, Nagumo looks pretty bad.

Shattered Sword convincingly argues (amongst others, working from memory here);

1. it's a myth Nagumo was cautious in any way (during Midway). He continued moving to attack with his gunfleet after losing all his carriers apart from Hiryu. He considered the battle far from over after losing the best the IJN had, as there was still a very, very small chance of closing the distance and engaging in a surface battle. That can't be 'overly cautious' IMHO.

2. it's a myth Yamamoto was a genius. A genius wouldn't have hijacked the strategic planning of the IJN and then planned operation AF and MI which were too far apart to support one another. Worse even, the forces which were used in each seperate operation were themselves too widely spaced to be of any use.
If anything after Coral Sea Yamamoto should have made one conclusion; Japan needed to use all it's carriers combined to prevent losing them in pennypackets.
Queue Midway/Aleutians where he did exactly that.
Not delaying his invasion force when the entire Midway operation was delayed a day was the cherry on the cake of Yamamoto's failures.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Right, Calbear. The mythic 'Third strike' was as much a product of Fuchida's postwar writing as anything else. Those pilots were tired. They would have needed to refuel, rearm... no way they get the strike off and then get them back before dark. But they're not trained properly for night landings. So now you're talking about waiting overnight, with any number of unknown US subs and CVs looking for you, and launching a second dawn strike, against a prepared and thoroughly p-o'ed opposition.

Not nearly as simple as Fuchida made it sound.

As Shattered Sword pointed out, much of Fuchida's narratives could be considered misleading, self-serving and flat-out inaccurate.
 
Nonetheless Japan had considered the loss of one or two carriers acceptable if it meant the successful destruction of all the targets at Pearl Harbor and Nagumo, knowing this to be possible and having taken losses well below what was expected in the air and no losses in ships decided it was time to go home. Since Japan was playing for keeps it is certainly valid to ask whether it would have been better or worse for Japan if Nagumo destroyed the oil tank farms and perhaps a US carrier or two sunk, even at the price of two IJN carriers lost.

Miracle At Midway correctly points out that much criticism of Nagumo is the result of 90 seconds for the USN that left the dive bombers coming in on vulnerable carriers still dodging torpedos while the fighter cover was pulled down low.



As for Yamamoto's alleged brilliance I would offer a look at Yamamoto's planning for Operation MI by Gordon W Prange in Miracle At Midway.


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.
 

Bearcat

Banned
I have to agree with Prange's assessment of Yamamoto. The Midway operation was not exactly well planned.

OTOH, you have to understand, the Japanese situation in the war was sheer desperation. Not that many of them realized it yet, but I think Yamamoto may have. It was an impossible war against an almost unbeatable foe. Yamamoto needed, as an avid poker player, to do something dramatic - fill the ultimate inside straight - to shock the US into offering terms. In a war with no real hope, it must have seemed to him the only option. Poor bastard.

As for Nagumo and the 'third wave'... even if he burned much of the Pacific Fleet's oil, is it worth it, if he loses three quarters of his strike force, at sea in the dark of night? Because the odds of them finding those carriers after the strike would have been slim. Nagumo certainly could never have pulled a Spruance and turned his lights on (as at Philippine Sea). He believed the US subs constituted a real threat. He knew nothing of the American torpedoes and their problems.

My view is that, defeat was inevitable for the IJN. The faster they lost their core of trained Carrier aviators - the cream of Kido Butai - the faster 'Hell would be upon them'. No amount of damage they were able to inflict in Hawaii would change that - the US simply had the industrial might to put right any losses within two years, while anything the Japanese lost was pretty much gone forever. It was the ultimate no-win scenario.
 
By the way, the USN carrier at Midway only had some 60 to 70 aircraft each, due to lack of both pilots and planes in time. Especially the fightergroups were a bit starved of planes, while there also were too few SBD's to complete the airgroups. Only the TBD's were in force, although these were of very little value in combat. They could however act as a sort of suicide force to lure the enemy away. Part of Hornet's VT-8 group was stationed on Midway, where it was to go into batlte against the Kido Butai, loosing five TBF's out of six. VT-8 was to be the first to get the new more potential torpedobomber, which later became the main stay of the USN Carrier attackgroups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_order_of_battle

Yorktown Air Group (Including elements of Saratoga Air Group) (25 F4F-4, 37 SBD-3, 13 TBD-1) - Lt. Commander Oscar Pederson
Enterprise
Air Group (27 F4F-4, 38 SBD-2/3, 14 TBD-1) - Lt. Cmdr. C. Wade McClusky
Hornet
Air Group (27 F4F-4, 38 SBD-1/2/3, 15 TBD-1) - Commander Stanhope C. Ring

That's a total of 75 on Yorktown, 79 on Enterprise and 80 on Hornet for 234 aircraft on the three carriers. Compare that to the 226 on board the four IJN carriers. Those figures are subject to some dispute, but it is clear from all sources that the US carriers all had 75 or more planes on board (and that some of the IJN planes were in crates). And then there are somewhere around 70 strike aircraft (SBD, SB2U-3, TBF-1, B-24 and B-17) on Midway.

So, no - not 60 to 70 planes each on the USN carriers. Well over 70 planes each.
 
Bearcat, I don't disagree with your premise at all, I simply note that the loss of the oil tank farms would have left the US practically unable to wage any kind of offense at sea until the damage was repaired, buying Japan time to...well, it's not clear what good it would do them but surely Yamamoto's basic premise, delusional though it was, of the US getting tired and offering terms would not be harmed by gaining Japan more time, even at the risk of aircraft or ships.

Also Japan, even after Pearl Harbor(!), had not accepted that battleships were no longer the queen of battle but perhaps the need to replace one or two carriers might have changed that.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Bearcat, I don't disagree with your premise at all, I simply note that the loss of the oil tank farms would have left the US practically unable to wage any kind of offense at sea until the damage was repaired, buying Japan time to...well, it's not clear what good it would do them but surely Yamamoto's basic premise, delusional though it was, of the US getting tired and offering terms would not be harmed by gaining Japan more time, even at the risk of aircraft or ships.

Also Japan, even after Pearl Harbor(!), had not accepted that battleships were no longer the queen of battle but perhaps the need to replace one or two carriers might have changed that.

The real problem, of course, is that Japan really has no idea how to defeat the US, and realistically cannot do so. This led to all manner of self deception and strategically warped thought. And lots of hopeful mumbo jumbo about Bushido.

My point is, the US will be hurt by losing that oil, but will eventually be back. Whereas, once the pilots of Kido Butai are gone, Japan has no mechanism for training a new group of such pilots. The IJN cannot really make good any losses, while the US has unlimited resources.

It was one of the 'least fair' wars in history, and utter madness for the Japanese to start it. Once they do, they have nothing but bleak choices.
 
I think, at the risk of sounding like a fence-sitter, that I'd agree with just about all of the points made above:

1) Fuchida's advocacy of the third strike at Pearl sort of reminds me of the memoirs of German generals - Guderian bemoaning the "halt order" before Dunkirk, or the Halder's suggestion that Barbarossa started too late because of the invasion of Yugoslavia and Denmark, or Manstein's (I think?) claim that Kursk should have started sooner than it did... In all cases, the actual operational/strategic situation was more complex than we might think simply from reading the memoirs in question - the senior commanders did not rule out the alleged "war winning" counterfactual options simply out of perversity, but because there were damned good reasons for doing so, even if we with our 20/20 hindsight second-guess their decisions and unfairly suggest they could have done better.

In any case, I remember reading a shwi post many years ago (sorry, but it's a hazy memory, can't provide cites) which suggested that the oil tanks at Pearl were quite significantly hardened, surrounded with earth revetments, with buried pipelines running beneath the hills behind them... Basically, each tank represented a battleship-level target. That, taken in addition to the points made above about AAA and the defences being alerted, suggests to me that a third strike, even if mounted, even if the US subs and carriers did not locate the Japanese strike force, was not guaranteed success by any means.

2) As others have said above, Midway was quite apparently not a particularly good or prudent plan, with its complex, widely-separated detachments unable to provide mutual support and so forth. Having said that, it seems to me a fair point that, as reckless as the plan was, Yamamoto did not necessarily have much choice in the matter, being the only senior Japanese military officer who seemed to appreciate just how ASB-level unlikely a victory over the US was. They had the choice of losing quickly via recklessness or losing slowly via sheer attrition - because quite frankly there was no way in hell the US was going to make a compromise peace after the "day that will live in infamy". Not an enviable position to be in, by any means.

Of course, the actual means by which the Japanese lost at Midway seems to be in large part down to blind luck anyway - those divebombers coming out of the clouds at precisely the wrong moment - so again not something Nagumo can necessarily be blamed for. I can see how the IJN could secure a tactical win or draw at Midway had things gone slightly differently for them. It's much harder to see how it would have any bearing whatsoever on the eventual outcome of the war. I mean, the US had like 20 Essex-class carriers under construction at the time, plus light and escort carriers... :eek:
 
Nor should it be forgotten that even after all four IJN carriers were lost the battle of Midway was not over.

It was when Spruance's carriers turned east, due to his refusal to consider either a night action or a surface action, perfectly sensible given the IJN's advantage in either situation, that all hell broke loose among the IJN. Having been trained and drilled and indoctrinated past any vestige of rational thought to believe in the concept of the 'All Out Battle' the top IJN officers nearly went to pieces when they realized the Americans were not going to do what the IJN plan required them to do.
 
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