Midway: Reality and Myth

[Berkut]

From the movies thread.


So, to start, here is what I think the Japanese hoped would play out with Midway.


Midway itself was never really that important. It is a tiny atoll with enough room for one airstrip. It was not large enough to support enough airpower to actually threaten Hawaii, even if it wasn't too far anyway.


What it was was far enough forward to maybe entice the Americans to come out and fight for it, or at least fight to get it back.


So here is how I would imagine a best case scenario plays out for Japan, from their perspective:


They attack Midway and achieve complete surprise. The island is lightly defended, and they take it without much opposition, given that the US fleet was not expecting that attack.


However, the US does respond after the island falls, and the US fleet sorties to attack the invasion force. The Kudo Butai ambushes the hapless Americans, and force a decisive engagement on IJN terms. Say they get a reversal of the historical result, and lose 1 CV and sink all 3 American CVs.


The US has experienced yet another decisive defeat, and is sick of the entire thing, and without any real Navy left, decides to negotiate a end to the Pacific War on terms acceptable to Japan. Yeah!


Now, the thing is, this is all a pipe dream, at least the actual outcome. But that isn't the point.


The point is that there is this myth of Midway that it was just the next logical step in a chain of Japanese conquests and victories, and a desperate US Navy went out and took on the IJN and had some kind of miracle, crushing the over-confident IJN that had no idea it could possibly lose.


The reality is that it was the Japanese that were desperate by that point, not the Americans. The Americans did not engage because they had no choice, they engaged because they successfully suckered the IJN high command into a blunder, and THEY sprung the ambush on the ambusher. They engaged with basically equal air forces (actually an advantage if you count the air on Midway itself, although this proved to be ineffective at attacking the KB, but did distract them rather nicely) and with a considerable tactical advantage of knowing when and where their opponent would be, while be reasonably confident that the IJN would NOT know they were there until it was too late.


Midway was something of a gamble for the US, but it was a very carefully constructed gamble where the potential payoff was incredible against a risk that was rather manageable. The Japanese walked into a trap laid out for them rather carefully. Note: We are talking about carrier combat of course - so it is very much a roll of the dice, high stakes game even when you do your best to stack the odds. So not entirely risk free.


The IJN took an incredible gamble on a shot that even they knew was very high risk. Why? Because other than giving up, what else could they do? They were turned back at Port Moresby, and turned back in the Solomons, both at significant cost in resources they could not easily replace. The USN was just getting stronger every day, while the IJN strength was static at best, waning in reality. The balance of power at that moment in the war was probably still in the IJN favor in the Pacific, bit only just, and that was dripping away fast, and would never, EVER get better. They had to do SOMETHING, and there were not any particularly good options, especially for a organization predicated on the supremacy of the offense.


It is fair to say that Midway was the turning point in the war, but it was a turning point that absent the US giving up, was going to come eventually regardless of the outcome of that battle. So I don't think it was particularly decisive, in that it change the outcome of the war, because it did not. The outcome of the Pacific War was determined the moment the first bomb dropped off a Japanese plane on December 7th, IMO. The only question was the details and the timing.

[Admiral Yi]

I have read that one of the Japanese motivations for the Midway campaign was preventing another Doolittle raid

[mongers]

A broadly similar argument could be made for a French victory at Waterloo.

[grumbler]

I have read that one of the Japanese motivations for the Midway campaign was preventing another Doolittle raid

The Doolittle raid demonstrated that the US carriers were a lot more dangerous than the Japanese had believed (they knew the planes launched off a carrier because they captured and tortured some of the aircrew before murdering them) and so the Midway attack was designed to draw out the US carriers and force them to fight at a disadvantage.  So, yeah, that particular mission was motivated at least in part by the desire to prevent another Doolittle raid.

The bigger problem was that the IJN High Command couldn't imagine following the prewar strategy and reverting to the defense once they had achieved their initial goals.  They themselves had demonstrated the power of the offensive:  concentrated air power overwhelms dispersed air power, and the side on the offensive gets to decide when and where the concentration is needed.  So, the Japanese changed strategies mid-stream, and decided to maintain the offensive beyond any prewar plans.  And, thus, we had Midway.

Had the US not taken the bait at Midway, the Japanese planned to take New Caledonia, the Fiji islands, and Samoa.  In other words, they were going to court a Midway-style disaster until they got one. 

They didn't have a lot of choice, though.  There were far more carriers on US building slips than the Japanese could manage even without suffering wartime losses.  They could only hope that the US gave up before the Japanese could bite off more than they could chew.  that was a long shot, but the Japanese accept gambling more than most.

[Caliga]

FUN FACT:

Last week I was on the USS Midway, and also was at Chicago Midway airport.

[grumbler]

A broadly similar argument could be made for a French victory at Waterloo.

There was no "Davout sitting in Paris' for the Japanese.

Interesting tidbit for those of us who think guys with glasses can still be cool:  from the time he was promoted to General de Brigade, Davout was never present at a French defeat. 

The butterfly effects from a decisive French victory at Waterloo are far more significant than those of a Japanese victory at Midway.  The negotiations at Vienna had already revealed a massive split between the nominal allies in the Sixth Coalition.  Austria, for instance, was far from convinced that Napoleon was the greatest of her enemies.

[mongers]

FUN FACT:

Last week I was on the USS Midway, and also was at Chicago Midway airport.

And also at some stage midway through a gas station 'meal'.   

[Monoriu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo

Not sure if this has been posted before, but I love this guy's videos.  This is the best presentation on the first half of the battle I have ever seen in any format.  Can't wait for the second half. 

[dps]

They didn't have a lot of choice, though.  There were far more carriers on US building slips than the Japanese could manage even without suffering wartime losses.  They could only hope that the US gave up before the Japanese could bite off more than they could chew.  that was a long shot, but the Japanese accept gambling more than most.

Yeah, that's why I said in the other thread that Japan wouldn't have won the war even if they'd managed to win at Midway.  Even if they had sunk all 3 American carriers with no ship losses themselves, in a few months the USN would still have had more fleet carriers than the IJN.

[Valmy]

Austria, for instance, was far from convinced that Napoleon was the greatest of her enemies.

Hell I think Austria was even cool with leaving Napoleon in power originally...but granted they had that dynastic tie going on.

[Valmy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo

Not sure if this has been posted before, but I love this guy's videos.  This is the best presentation on the first half of the battle I have ever seen in any format.  Can't wait for the second half. 

Yeah I posted this in the other thread. Great video.

[Grey Fox]

I have nothing to add. Just want to comment on the fact that this is a interesting topic.

[Malthus]

I'll ask here what I asked in the other thread: I heard there that current thinking is that the Aleutians Campaign was not a diversionary operation for Operation MI. What was the Japanese strategic motive for these landings?

[Valmy]

I'll ask here what I asked in the other thread: I heard there that current thinking is that the Aleutians Campaign was not a diversionary operation for Operation MI. What was the Japanese strategic motive for these landings?

Protect their northern flank? But the islands had such rough and difficult terrain it is hard to know how the Americans owning those islands put much stress on the Japanese northern areas. Trying to put an airbase on one of those islands would have been a military campaign all by itself.

[Malthus]

I'll ask here what I asked in the other thread: I heard there that current thinking is that the Aleutians Campaign was not a diversionary operation for Operation MI. What was the Japanese strategic motive for these landings?

Protect their northern flank? But the islands had such rough and difficult terrain it is hard to know how the Americans owning those islands put much stress on the Japanese northern areas. Trying to put an airbase on one of those islands would have been a military campaign all by itself.

Protect the northern flank ... from Innuit commandos?   

If that was the motive, I can only imagine it was the creation of some ignorant staff officer pushing pins into a map, without any knowledge of (say) just how difficult the actual conditions in the Aleutian islands actually were, how remote and isolated they were, etc.

But then, these same jokers though New Guinea was a good strategic springboard to Australia ...