I have to be a little critical here, people think Spruance won that battle because experts like yourself went a hour and twelve minutes into a discussion without even mentioning Fletcher at all.

Smart people are just so cool!!! Enjoyed every second of this! Thanks guys.

Outstanding discussion. Your dealing with the ‘might have beens’ engendered reflection on how many lives might have been changed had the turn of the tide signaled by the U.S. victory at Midway been delayed by six months or a year, and the war extended well into 1946. My own father had been provisionally accepted (as he described it) as a Naval Aviation Cadet, with training expected to began after he graduated from High School in 1945. Suspension of that program after VE Day led to his enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) instead, shortly after his high school graduation in 1945. His first USAAF / USAF stint (1945-1948) was served mainly in Alaska, his second stint (1950-1952) was at CONUS Air Force bases.

Awesome discussion -- thanks! Couple comments: John's opening summation ends with a comment that the Guadalcanal campaign does "grave damage to the Japanese", but let's not forget that the US Navy got its nose severely bloodied as well. It's not like we came out of Midway having figured everything out. There were still many lessons left to learn. I was also surprised Trent's lesson learned did not include "Carrier air power rules!" Although perhaps that was a sort of "duh" for all concerned, even back then.

I agree with giving some degree of praise to the 2019 Midway film. Obviously there were some glaring inaccuracies, and many of those did fall under the general heading of "amping up the action and explosions just to make it look more exciting". *However,* when I was watching it, I could clearly recognize numerous events and lines of dialogue from books like Ian Toll's _Pacific Crucible,_ John Lundstrom's _First Team,_ and of course _Shattered Sword._ At least some people involved with the production of that film did make the effort to actually read through the most up-to-date scholarship on the Battle of Midway and the early part of the Pacific War generally, which is a substantial step up from what we often see with "historical" films. Obviously some people in the production did prioritize "more explosions", "edgier main characters", and "fewer computer models" over historical accuracy, but some of the actual research still does come through - Jon's mention of the Japanese hangar decks is a good example.

Fletcher has been criminally underrated by historians.

In this discussion it was never mentioned that the Japanese positioned a submarine picket line between Midway and the Hawaiian islands to watch for any movement by the US Navy towards Midway but the picket line set up one day late verse Yamamoto’s plan. That one day delay allowed the carriers to leave Pearl undetected. I would have loved to hear comments on this failure by the Japanese & it’s importance.

Thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Ate it all up. Nice job gentlemen !

Just had the opportunity to watch this terrific discussion! I found it to be very enjoyable & interesting! Thank you so much!

The one 'What if?' question I have always had about the Battle of Midway was the suicide (?) run on an American bomber at the Akagi's bridge on the morning of June 4th, as was depicted in 2019's MIDWAY. Had the bomber been successful at crashing into the Akagi and killing Nagumo, Admiral Yamaguchi, onboard the Hiryu, would have assumed command. Yamaguchi was widely considered a 'hawk' as opposed to Nagumo being a 'dove'. What if Yamaguchi had not hesitated when word first came from the Japanese scout planes about American ships, as Nagumo did, and took the narrow window of opportunity that presented itself to spot and launch the approximately 50 Val dive bombers on his four carriers, even though they were armed with high-explosive bombs instead of the more lethal armour-piercing bombs because of the second attack on Midway previously planned? These were the best pilots that the Japanese had, and seeing the damage that the Hiryu's 17 Vals inflicted later on the Yorktown, those 50(ish) Vals could have seriously damaged all three U.S. carriers. Plus, those planes and their Zero escorts would probably have spotted the dive bombers enroute to the Japanese fleet and alerted Yamaguchi in time for him to order more fighters up high to await them. Makes you glad that the bomber missed, eh?

Yorktown was crucial to our success at Midway as neither the 1) Midway Island air group nor 2) USS Hornet was effective on June 4.

Wow...absolute gold. Thank you guys.

What a treat, what a gift. I am new to being obsessed with the battle of Midway. This discussion is wonderful, thank you!

Nimitz picked and supported the most appropriate and capable people which few leaders in major public companies do.

Fabulous discussions!

I listened to this whole discussion. I am a voracious reader and student of WW2. I served 20 years on active duty as an intelligence analyst. I may not know as much as these historians about all the smaller stuff about the battle of Midway because I spend a lot of time reading about the Eastern Front. However, I have read quite few of the US Army Green books on WW2 and have Eliot Morrison's Naval history of WW2 collection. Most of these I have read along the way. My issue is simply in June, 1942 that Admiral Nimitz had to fight, inflict harm on the Japanese fleet regardless of the cost. The Coral Sea was a costly battle for both the Americans and the Japanese. Heavy Japanese aircrew/pilot losses at the Coral Sea with two damaged carriers meant only four carriers made the trip to Midway. I disagree with the assessment that Nimitz held the carriers there at Point Luck just in case to see how the battle was going. Admiral Nimitz had to hit the Japanese fleet as hard as could regardless of the cost to America. The Japanese fleet just had to be stopped even if Nimitz lost all three carriers it didn't matter. Admiral Nimitz could NOT afford to let the Japanese get away with another raid on American soil, even if it was just the atoll of Midway. Admiral Nimitz had to send all the carriers, including the patched up Yorktown, to Midway to fight the Japanese carriers regardless of the cost. Say for the sake of argument the US Navy had all three American carriers sunk in the battle but sank four Japanese carriers. It still would still have been worth it. America could NOT afford to look WEAK. The carriers were expendable assets just like the pilots and warplanes were expendable assets for the critical battle. The critical battle was at Midway. If NImitz lost his job, if the Navy had lost all its carriers with heavy losses of crew with all the warplanes lost, it just didn't matter. The fact that the Yorktown was patched up so quickly reinforces the logic of this point. Nimitz had to bet everything on this Midway hand to stand and fight, to stop the Japanese naval fleet while inflicting losses on the Japanese. The Japanese had been kicking the Americans around the whole Pacific for about six months. The Japanese fleet had to be stopped even if it meant the loss of all three US Navy carriers. There was no "saving the carriers" for a later day battle. Midway was the critical "later day battle" that Clauswitz talks about the reason soldiers are fed, housed and trained is for their expenditure at the critical battle. Nimitz had to fight, make a stand and really hurt the Japanese fleet because politically for moral purposes to keep the war effort going, there was no other choice. It would have been a disaster to have not fought with everything America had at Midway. It would have been a disaster politically, for America's prestige and for the war effort in general had Nimitz not fought at Midway. Nimitz knew that if he got the Japanese fleet by surprise under sustained air attacks from three carriers and from warplanes from Midway he had a good chance to inflict major damage and stop the Japanese advance. The fact most of the crew of the Lexington was saved when it sank was a major plus. We were building more carriers and planes while training thousands of pilots. We could have afforded losing all three carriers as long as equal damage was done to the Japanese I think Admiral King and FDR would have kept Nimitz on as commander of the Pacific fleet. The US Navy had to slug it out with the Japanese fleet somewhere in the Pacific Midway and later Guadalcanal were those two places. Warships, men and warplanes are all expendable assets in a major war. Sure you want to avoid squandering your Navy and trained men in useless battles. However, I argue strongly Midway was a battle America just had to fight, win, lose or draw. Admiral Nimitz had much less flexibility than was discussed here.

Really found this enjoyable and informative. Thank you all.

Great event!! Thank you all!!!

All three books, and all three authors, are full of insights. Buy them, support these guys, and learn a lot. No, I mean l LOT.

The worst part of Yamamoto's plan is that it included a script for the US fleet.

John Lundstrom brought something out (a pretty long time ago, one of his earlier books, so this isn't "late-breaking" analysis) that I've not seen discussed elsewhere, at least not so clearly as he did. He showed pretty convincingly that, long before the Japanese Midway plan had been picked up by the codebreakers, Nimitz had already been seeking a "Midway-like" battle, i.e., a large-scale confrontation between the IJN and USN carrier forces, for some time. It's well-known that LEX (TF 11) and YOR (TF 17) fought at Coral Sea while ENT/HOR (TF 16), steaming southward, were too far away to become a factor...that's standard fare found in probably any account of that battle. Lundstrom pointed out, however, that Nimitz well knew that TF 16 would not arrive in time for that initial contest vs the Japanese Port Moresby invasion attempt. Instead, he was sending them down for follow-on battles he thought likely to occur. We know now that Yamamoto was already firmly set on the Midway operation. CarDiv 5 (Shokaku/Zuikaku) was rather grudgingly allocated to Inoue's South Seas Fleet for MO, with no plan or intent to commit any more carrier forces in that theater for the time being. Nimitz, however, did not (yet) know this; from the US perspective, it was known that the Japanese were coming for Moresby, and very likely wanted to continue a major South Pacific effort toward Noumea, Samoa, and Fiji. Which was accurate enough; that was indeed what Inoue's intent was - in fact his orders from above. So Nimitz was fully aware that the initial carrier clash at Coral Sea was going to be 2-vs-2. He was sending TF 16 down, committing more carriers for that campaign, because he thought it highly likely that the IJN would also commit more carriers. It appeared that the South Pacific was developing into the IJN's main thrust of effort, as in fact both Japan's Naval HQ and South Seas Fleet (Inoue) very much wanted. The irony of all this is that Yamamoto's Midway operation was conceived in the first place to solve the strategic/operational problem of "how do we entice the US carriers into battle so that we can destroy them?". When all along, that solution was right there in front of him: continue already-existing plans to push further into the South Pacific and cut that communications line to Australia. US carrier operations for months (Feb Rabaul raid, Mar Lae-Salamua raid, and of course Coral Sea itself) had given ample indication that Nimitz and the USN would likely oblige Yamamoto with the carrier battle he sought. And Nimitz was doing exactly that. He wanted a big carrier scrap just as much as Yamamoto did (within his famous "calculated risk" mindset, looking for a favorable opportunity, of course). None of these basic facts are new, but I've never read anyone - before or since - connect them together in an analysis quite the way Lundstrom did...in 1978 (his "The First South Pacific Campaign").

Very impressive round table.

Read several of the books, sen the stuff on youtube. This is the one to rule them all. Outstanding! Thanks guys

Great presentation, thank you.

This is awesome! Thanks!

Great discussion!

Thank you, gentlemen. This was an awesome video. I thought that I knew a lot about the Midway battle. But, I was wrong!

Twice in the video Symonds says Spruance was told to "head west" if things are going bad at Midway. I assume he meant "head east", because is west is out in the Pacific toward Japan. That would make no sense. East is back toward the US.

"We can achieve a great victory, providing Nimitz and Halsey do exactly what you expect." Nagumo Chuichi (James Shigeta) in "Midway" (1976)

What an Excellent Discussion, my YT Favs. are all almost these kinds of programs and why YT decided to Now put this on my notifications is beyond me.

Also ------Let us give Thanks to God, his STRONG ARM was on OUR SIDE!

The TBD Devastator’s biggest fault was the terrible mk13 torpedo it carried. US Navy submarines at Midway were handicapped by their defective mk14 torpedoes. This failure isn’t mentioned.

I'm really curious to know something. After Corral Sea, Yorktown was so shot up she needed at least two weeks to repair. Nimitz then ordered her put to sea again in 48 hours. It's fine to issue an order, and in Hollywood it's fine to wave a magic wand and accomplish the impossible on a movie screen, but in the real world, getting two weeks worth of battle damage repair crammed into two days sounds completely unrealistic, yet, that's what the shipyard did. How did they get that done?

I really wish they would name a carrier after Halsey even though he made a huge gaffe during the invasion of the Phillipines.

Under where can I find NY Times President FDR editorial criticism how bad he managing World War 2? Thank you in advance

Only a few Japanese civilians knew about the Midway defeat. One company that did and made a fortune was Nomura Securities who shorted the Tokyo Stock Market. I know as Economic Officer at Embassy in Tokyo 1980s I was told this by my Japanese friends in the market.

Yamamoto deserves a huge pile of credit. 1) Symonds makes it clear that Yamamoto's plan was to draw out the USN carriers and sink them. This seems like a darn good plan for getting the USA to quit the Pacific until Hitler was defeated, and hope the USA would not be eager to kick Japan out of its conquests. Go ahead and name an obviously better plan for coming out ahead in this war. 2) They make it clear that Nimitz was not going to take battle unless the calculated risk was worth it, but then they criticize Yamamoto for not bringing Zuikaku and speculate that that would have made a big difference. They also said that Nimitz was concerned about that 5th carrier. In other words, it sounds like Yamamoto got it right. Maybe the better solution is to have Zuikaku come along, but stay away and hopefully not spotted until the USN carriers have been detected. 3) In Shattered Sword, they criticize Yamamoto's dispositions, but the USN did discover the invasion transports and not the Yamato led battle force. So the goal of making it clear to the USN that Japan was going to invade Midway and not just raid it was a success. 4) They make it clear that breaking the IJN codes was amazing and thus the Japanese were reasonable to assume that the USA did not know they were coming and thus it is totally logical to assume that the USN carriers won't be there that morning. 5) They hedged on whether a draw at Midway would have had no major impact on the outcome of the war. They agree that maybe the USA would have grown tired of fighting Japan. In other words, they agree that Yamamoto's hope of getting the USA to stop fighting had merit if the carriers were sunk. 6) They criticize the Japanese fixation on a decisive battle, but Japan must have a decisive battle. "decisive" does not mean lopsided victory, it means that it makes a decision on the war. The Japanese have to have that. They know they cannot win a war of attrition. They must get a lopsided victory and hope that it is decisive at getting the USA to stop fighting.

Wow... how great. Too bad kids don't see this.

Oh Yeah!

I always wanted to ask John and Craig, whether they would think that the "invasion force" going into the Alutians, could have been considered a safeguard, in case that something bad would happen to Nagumo's carriers. - Another question is whether could have been possible, even though the japanese doctrine tells him to use the biggest hammer that he's got., Could have moved with anticipation the planes that were in reserve, flying into another deck to allow the returning Midway operation to land more comfortably and rapidly. - the other items that were not mentioned was the McCluskey persecution of the Arashi, leading into to kiddo butai location. - I think that is the most decisive factor of the battle, - and equivalent to Dick Best's action over the Akagi. - In my humbe opinion. - Last and not least, when later in the war the Yammomoto inspection flight is intercepted, i would have heart the plane and capture Yammamoto instead of directly killing him. - That would probably would have been some sort of interesting interrogation.

To add importance to what Trent said, the 40 MM BOFORS, to put it simply, it literally shot down aircraft with it's new high tech Radar Fire Control Systems along with 5 inch 38's, which were already deadly to anything flying, but now with it's rudimentary radar controlled proximity fuse that lethality is multiplied by an order of 5 (or better).

The percentage of American torpedo bombers lost at Midway seems to have been about the same. Army B-26 bombers--two or three lost out of four. PBY--managed to avoid losses while operating as a torpedo bomber. TBF Avengers--five out of six lost. The problem was unsupported torpedo bomber attacks, not so much the type of torpedo plane.

Im quite convinced that the massive increase in interest in The Pacific War comes from a collective bubbling feeling that the next big one will be Pacific War 2.

sorry but I have to agree with Jon's assessment of Adm. Marc Mitscher.

Excellent. Thank you.

The Guadalcanal campaign started 2 months later, I wonder what effect that had on that campaign. Also if that campaign had kicked off before this battle would they have woke up and realized Midway is a sideshow and the south and their oil supply line the real show and canceled this sideshow. Other than this battle the Japanese created, Midway had little effect on the war and it basically another Johnson Atoll as a place to do scouting from, in fact Johnson was probably more valuable as a stop on the south Pacific route.

Thank you for the discussion.. You need to fix the audio, it's terrible. ❤🇺🇸

It is interesting in war and sports how comparatively small advantages can work towards a binary result. Your assessment of the shipboard data (assuming it is authentic) was amazing and certainly puts Fuchida in his place. However, having heavily armed planes beneath the decks when the US struck may well have been worse than having them on deck. It is my understanding that explosives are more effective in a confined space as the resulting pressure is greater. Could it be that a lot of the damage was due to that orientation? Furthermore, one can image the sheer hell that would have occurred below decks when the strikes occurred and perhaps this is a better explanation why the IJN lost so many mechanics etc when the Kaga was destroyed. The hardiness of a ship in combat is of course due to its construction, how it was hit, how it was fought and damage control. Perhaps, the USN had more practical approach to damage control, knowing they were new at this, that their ships were going to receive damage, but to try to minimize it. If such is supported above then you get smart ideas like the CO2 in the fuel lines. Remember, this was implemented after Coral Sea only a week or two before Midway. For me, this seems like this innovation was adopted at light speed, something feel good for the ratings who were listened to in this situation. I don't know anything about the physical structure of the US carriers compared the those of the IJN in the ability to sustain torpedo damage etc. Again, the location of any torpedo strike was just luck anyway, especially from any torpedo bomber (aka flying coffins). So, I get that the tone of this is pro USN and yes they were the good guys, but if we are having an intellectual discussion of the war then passions should be set aside. The IJN built solid boats as well and even with the damage they all suffered on 04 June they were all sunk later by IJN forces. However, IMHO, for the IJN, it was just too far and too exposed to try to tow a partial wreck back home. Adm. Spruance was placed in an impossible situation. I am quite sure that the crew of the Enterprise would not respect his leadership given that he had not commanded a carrier before. Halsey should have done something about that, perhaps he did dunno. Anyhow, I don't think that Spruance did anything amazing to the 'win' the battle nor did he behave badly. I think when you launch your planes from so far away and in an uncoordinated fashion it was just luck that they caught the IJN with their CAP down. The USN had broken the codes, but in war as well as other forms of combat often success comes first from being able to at least in part being able to read the other man's cards. Everybody was doing it, but the US made more of it and then used 'codetalkers' to stump them completely. Same in Europe. Without Bletchley park things would have last much longer and probably the nuclear bombs would have been used on Berlin. In any competition, the result is luck based on percentages of skill, construction, intelligence, leadership and all the rest. In a battle, I would expect that it is fought by the pilots and the gunners. The brass hats are to provide the training and the equipment and the grand strategy. I think with a generally competent force, the leaders are less able to 'win' a battle, but they sure as hell can lose one.

Why were the bombers based at Midway so ineffective against the Japanese fleet? Can you bomb Midway(if taken) from Oahu with B17s?

Interesting historical prospective

Very high stakes. If the Americans lost the battle, the Japanese fleet could have sailed right into San Francisco Bay and blown it to bits. Same with the west coast en toto and maybe even the Panama Canal.

You showed TBFs. I thought they were not yet in service then. TBDs were used, and SBDs. It seems to me that when an unfortunate thing happens, some poor lower-level officer is relieved as a way for his superiors to say, "Not my fault. He did it!" and thereby protect themselves. I was never a victim of that myself--perhaps I wasn't important enough to be a sufficient blame-taker. The one time I did relieve a subordinate it was because of repeated failure to keep me informed even when counseled as to exactly what I wanted to see each day.

The 2019 Midway movie totally ignored the Naval fighter squadrons. Kids just learning about this battle will wonder why the Americans didn’t use fighters.

@22:00 they talk about Japan's inability to have a coherent strategy. Right, they explained the problem in the sentence "The Japanese". They did not say Tojo's strategy, or Hitler's strategy or, Rosevelt's or Stalin's. They are pointing out the fundamental problem with the Japanese government at that time. It was run by the military that had two major factions, the navy and army that did not get along. These are committee decisions, but worse, that committee that is being influenced by factions of lower level officers that are willing to fabricate conflicts and kill leaders that get in their way. The very fact that Japan was in a war against the USA proves they have no strategy. They know they cannot win. They know they can only get out of this war ahead if they convince the USA to stop fighting before Japan is wiped off the map. Which leads me to why I think these historians need to give Yamamoto a big heaping of credit.

JP rides again

Finally someone has said Cpt Mitscher of the Hornet was responsible for the loss of the Yorktown. Once I learned about the "flight to no where" from the Hornet and the lack of after action reports by Mitscher and his air group commander as required by Navy regulations I was outraged. Mitscher should have not only been fired but never allowed to command again. He was not essential to the war effort and others could have commanded in his place in 1944. I am in good company if Adm Spruance thought the same.

Wow

IMHO, is the IJN had brought all 5 fleet CV and also the 2 others they didn't in another group with the fast BB somewhere close behind, with the 4 slow BB & Hosho where the Main BB force was, then Nimitz would have backed off. Point Luck was chosen to give Nimitz time to make new decisions. The same if Yorktown could not be ready, he would have ordered the other 2 CV to turn and sail away with the IJN never knowing they were ever out there. . . . Obviously, I disagree with Rexfrom MN below. Losing all 3 CV would have also ment many of the men on them. it would have made moral in the US plummet. The Essex class with not be available until '43, '44, and even '45. It would make the war last another year. at least and cot many more lives.

With the Russia/Ukraine war in play, I can get a feel for how the Allied public must have felt. We dont know how the R/U war will end and hope only for the best. WW2 was indeed a WORLD WAR. WW1, Really was not. Midway, as the one panelist said, would only have served as a Glimmer of hope. Other experts have pointed to the vast industrial capacity of the US as the lynch pin that achieved eventual success. I agree. The decisive battle was Dec 7. When the Japanese struck that morning, they opened up a Hornets nest. Americas terrible resolve WAS a sleeping giant. We entered the Pacific war in carrier parity with the Japanese of approximately 6 to 6 . By wars end, We had about 100 to Japans 25. Wiki the rest and you'll see.

----- The Japanese probably would have eaten all the gooney birds and they would be extinct now. They wouldn't have enough capability to keep the Japanese troops bellies even slightly full.

Äÿë

As heavily reinforced Midway atoll is with troops and guns I doubt that a Japanese amphibious landing could be successful

Jorktaun. Haman

4:25 Nagano was right 1- USA first operation is in Guadalcanal, confirming the Salomon Islands was the weakest spot of the Japanese perimeter 2- Hitting closer to Hawaii at Midway is contrary to the japanese strategy of forcing the USnavy to sail a *long distance* , whittle them on the way with torpedos and night attacks, and do the "kantai kessen" 3- The US fleet *did not sail out* to recover the whole of the Phillipines.. it certaintly would not sail out for a miserable atoll (13:00) 4- Threatening Australia was more important than taking Midway. Threatening Australia (huge coastline, many targets) would tie up (a lot of) allied resources for defense, resources that would the *not be available* for offense. Also could create friction between Royal Navy and USNavy goals 5- 19:00 If you are arguing for an easy "land grab" in the Alleutians because they *MAY* bomb north Japan (meh🤷) .. land grab the Solomons where you *KNOW* they can bomb Rabaul (which is vital) All the above without even throwing in the possibility of compromised codes. 🧑‍🦯 Disclaimer: Totally monday quarterback talking with 80 years of hindsight and perfect knowledge. Not saying I am good/better.