Why the Submarine is the unsung hero at Midway -- true story.

[joea]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Agree 100%

However, in stripping away the myths the book does nothing to depreciate the actions of the men who actually fought the battle. Rather the opposite really.

Objective history is a rare thing and always better than myth or legend although with written with warts and all it loses some of the feel-good glitter that comes from a good story. Shattered Sword is a model of analysis and objectivity in my subjective opinion.

I really, really have to get that book.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by joea

I really, really have to get that book.

It's definitely worth it. To me the most interesting passage was near the end after summing up. The authors make a case that had the Japanese even won the naval battle, they almost certainly would have been decimated in the land battle. The Japanese landing forces were without proper maps, landing craft or even amphibious doctrine for a landing on Midway against a force that, unbeknowst to them actually larger and better armed than their own. The most successful Japanese amphibious landings of the war up to that point had taken place at deserted, undefended beaches far from their objectives, such as in the Philippines and Malaysia where the Japanese would then march overland to their objectives. The Japanese forces at Midway would be landing in front of a reef they didn't know was there, straight against the teeth of bristling US Marine defenses, which included tanks and would likely have suffered the same fate as the intial Japanese landing at Wake, if not worse.

[soopaman2]

History is always written by the victor, and will always do so to make themselves look as noble as possible. The man in my signature attempted that with purges and propaganda. As did the Brits and Americans (minus the purges).

Just an educated hypothesis...

Maybe the thinking at the time was because Germany favored "cheap" sub warfare, and they were the enemy, it automatically makes it evil. (even if we partook in the same behavior)

The carrier battles, and devastating warship salvos are always highlighted at Midway, because it is head to head, rather than hit and run, sneaky "dishonorable" fighting. Hence the nobility re-write I mentioned.

Maybe that is why they call it the silent service, not because you are isolated, but because you are behind the scenes and underacknowledged.

Originally Posted by soopaman2

History is always written by the victor, and will always do so to make themselves look as noble as possible. The man in my signature attempted that with purges and propaganda. As did the Brits and Americans (minus the purges).

Just an educated hypothesis...

Maybe the thinking at the time was because Germany favored "cheap" sub warfare, and they were the enemy, it automatically makes it evil. (even if we partook in the same behavior)

The carrier battles, and devastating warship salvos are always highlighted at Midway, because it is head to head, rather than hit and run, sneaky "dishonorable" fighting. Hence the nobility re-write I mentioned.

Maybe that is why they call it the silent service, not because you are isolated, but because you are behind the scenes and underacknowledged.

I do not think that is the case at with regards to Midway at all. It's been a while since I read Shattered Sword but as I recall the authors go into some detail on the historiography of the battle from wartime accounts until publication of their book. It's fascinating to read the staples, Walter Lord's Incredible Victory, Fuchida's Midway; The Battle that Doomed Japan, Prange's Miracle at Midway etc. and see how the narratives match so very well while several glaring logical contradictions are present but ignored. The knife edge timeline of the conventional account makes too good drama to discard.

Likewise all the English language accounts mention Narwhal's relentless but unsuccessful attack on the Kido Butai and how it ultimately paid off for the Enterprise air strike. So it's disingenuous in the extreme to state that she represented some "unsung" asset. The subsequent loss of Yorktown and Hammann to the boldly handled I-168 was a great embarrassment to the USN, particularly as she got away clean and so was played down in early versions of the story. It however, provided for the Japanese, one of the few bright spots in an operation where the Imperial Navy was batting well below average overall.

Nevertheless, the story did change considerably as the War retreated into the past. Morrison's official version in his Naval Operations omits much compared with the much later Prange, who benefited by being allowed to use classified material and Fuchida's book is nothing short of an apologia that has all the pitfalls of an eyewitness account and 20/20 hindsight while lacking much of the primary source data that could back up his version of events. Still all are important to build the overall picture and worth reading even today.

The USN always had problems with PR that were deeply institutionalized from the top down. So they tended to keep things close to the vest as it were and miss some opportunities to set the record straight or suffer from attempts to camouflage disasters even long after the event. An example of this effect can be found in 1964's Clear for Action: The Photographic Story of Modern Naval Combat 1898-1964 by Hailey and Lancelot. Even two decades after the battle the book repeats much of the wartime Air Force canard that land based air intervention was almost as important to the victory as the carrier strikes. This myth grew out of the reluctance of the Naval press office to initially release too much info in the wake of the Battle for security reasons, a mistake that the media savvy Army Air Force jumped on with both feet. Of course the Air Force knew that for all their efforts and losses they never even scratched the paint on a Japanese warship but why let facts get in the way of creating a legend. Particularly at the expense of an inter-service rival.

The evolution of the Midway narrative, from wartime propaganda to the release of Shattered Sword provides excellent lessons for anybody who might be interested in how information regarding a historically significant event can be manipulated, distorted and controlled. Even without any sinister or conspiratorial motives.

[WernherVonTrapp]

During the battle of Midway, as ineffective as they were in actually causing any physical damage to the IJN, the land based planes are nevertheless credited with disrupting/dispersing the IJN carrier TF and preventing the carriers from spotting their deck with torpedo planes and dive bombers. They kept the fighters on deck, landing, refueling and launching again and again. So they did contribute in an ironic but significant way.

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

During the battle of Midway, as ineffective as they were in actually causing any physical damage to the IJN, the land based planes are nevertheless credited with disrupting/dispersing the IJN carrier TF and preventing the carriers from spotting their deck with torpedo planes and dive bombers. They kept the fighters on deck, landing, refueling and launching again and again. So they did contribute in an ironic but significant way.

The key is everybody contributed.

I quote from Clear for Action page 205:

On word of the incoming attack every plane that could fly was sent into the air from Midway. These were twenty-seven dive bombers, six new Grumman Avenger torpedo planes, four B-26 medium bombers armed with torpedoes, sixteen B-17 Army bombers and twenty-seven Navy fighters, most of them outmoded Brewster Buffaloes. Because the fighter planes were needed for the defence of the island, the American attack groups had to carry out there mission without fighter protection. In that first attack, five of the torpedo planes and two of the B-26's failed to come back. They heavily damaged and set afire the carrier Kaga and an unidentified cruiser. It was during this attack that Major Lofton Henderson of the Marines dived his disabled plane into Kaga, proving that American's too, knew how to die.

This is not wartime propaganda, it's from a serious American naval history book published 22-years after the battle and conforms almost perfectly to the "official" Air Force version of events. That said, it's almost but not quite fictional.

[soopaman2]

You almost have to take multiple testimonies from differring sides and draw your own reality based on the events during and the overall outcomes.

I'm sure Nimitz and Yamamoto have differing opinions on why Midway turned out the way it did, but the overall outcome is all that mattered,

The losses were incurred on the warships and aircrews and not so much on the subs, so their (surface vessels) roles were magnified in relation to the subs.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

This is not wartime propaganda, it's from a serious American naval history book published 22-years after the battle and conforms almost perfectly to the "official" Air Force version of events. That said, it's almost but not quite fictional.

According to Shattered Sword, Major Lofton Henderson crashed into the sea, along with 5 others from his squadron. He was the first Marine aviator KIA during WWII, hence his namesake for Henderson Field.
In fact, Henderson and his men of VMSB-241 were attacking the Hiryu and the Soryu on the port side of the carrier formation, and there is was no damage to Kaga caused by B-26 bombers.

In this respect, it is very fictional and goes to show how many embellishments permeated the history of WWII, though this is nothing new. In the book, The Tenth Fleet, there were deliberate fabrications by the U.S. concerning U-Boat sinkings that never occurred. I suppose it was done sometimes for morale, sometimes for glory and sometimes for accolades but in all such cases, it was nothing but fiction.

Originally Posted by soopaman2

You almost have to take multiple testimonies from differring sides and draw your own reality based on the events during and the overall outcomes.

I'm sure Nimitz and Yamamoto have differing opinions on why Midway turned out the way it did, but the overall outcome is all that mattered,...

Undoubtedly, you must always take multiple testimonies if you have more than one witness, and even then, you have to weigh what the witness says against the known variables of physical evidence that exists. This is the only path to the truth. Surely, one can always rationalize their own reality to conform to what they want to believe, but drawing a reasonable conclusion based on the totality of the facts will be the concensus. Yamamoto and Nimitz had differing opinions even before the battle of Midway began.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Actually, Hitler declared "War" on the U.S. as a direct result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in support of his new Asian ally.
Not that I believe in any conspiracy theory, but you should read a book titled "Infamy" by John Toland. It presents (with evidence) some very compelling arguments supporting Roosevelt's knowledge of an impending attack on Pearl Harbor. Billy Mitchell was not the only one who predicted just such an attack, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner did too.

[Bilge_Rat]

I have studied this area extensively, since the WW2 Pacific Theatre has always been my favorite, and I never saw any compelling evidence that Roosevelt or anyone else in the U.S. high command "knew" Pearl harbour was coming.

Many people suspected in the fall of 1941 that Japan would not back down and would make a grab for the Dutch Indies but everyone thought the attack, if there was one, would be against the Philippines. No one thought the japanese had the capability to strike PH.

As to the interesting what ifs, there are a few:

1. what would the U.S. have done if Japanese forces had bypassed U.S. and British territory entirely and just invaded the Dutch East Indies? Could Roosevelt have convinced Congress to declare war to protect a european colony? after all, the US did not react when the Japanese took over french Indochina in sept. 1940.

2. what would the U.S. have done if on dec. 8, 1941, Hitler who had been kept in the dark about PH had disavowed his ally and declared war on Japan? Hitler was quite capable of turning on an ally if it suited him.

Roosevelt did not need PH to take the U.S. into WW2. Don't forget that in the fall of 1941, the U.S. was already fighting an undeclared war against Germany. U.S. Navy ships were escorting convoys in the North Atlantic and had depth charged U-Boats. The U.S. destroyer Reuben James was sunk by a U-Boat in october 1941. Many historians believe that Roosevelt was getting U.S. public opinion ready to declare war on Germany in the spring of 1942. PH just accelerated the process.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

Actually, Hitler declared "War" on the U.S. as a direct result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in support of his new Asian ally.
Not that I believe in any conspiracy theory, but you should read a book titled "Infamy" by John Toland. It presents (with evidence) some very compelling arguments supporting Roosevelt's knowledge of an impending attack on Pearl Harbor.

I did read it. Thirty years ago when it came out. That's part of the problem. 70 years on and no uncovered forgotten orders or deathbed confessions. No one cashing in on the story of the century in their old age. No smoking gun to produce a breakthough that gets the PH conspiracy out of the shadowy crackpot realm of JFK assassination plots or faked moon landings.

As for Toland, he has always been a somewhat controversial figure in historical circles. A writer of biographies and histories, Toland has no formal training in history--no advanced degrees, and not even an undergraduate course to his name.

Toland makes no pretense of being a professional historian. He relied heavily on personal interviews for his information, gladly granting anonymity to his sources--a practice that drove documentation-driven historians wild. His books were structured with drama in mind, and read more like exciting novels than dry history. Readers embrace him but historians tend not to.

[Horus3K]

I wrote my i some kind of prework-hurry, so i may have overshooted a bit

I think PH wasnt a real conspiracy, just very cleverly used by Roosevelt to reach his goals...i just wanted to say that in both cases, PH and 9/11, US government knew that something was about to happen, and after it did happen you can use those incidents to reach the political goals you couldnt reach by "normal" means, which in my eyes isnt a "real" conspiracy theory, just very hard to judge nowadays by either lack of evidence or/and clouded by propaganda from all sides...

Per definition, conspiracy theories even ignores hard evidence...for example that the moon landing was a fake

Quote fron Sailor Steve:
"We left Japan with a choice, even more than one."

Your are basically right here, but those choices were unacceptable for the Japanese for many reasons, may it come from traditions or their weird code of honour, but mostly because the Japanese were transformed from a "normal" nation to a rigid Imperialistic and very militaristic nation with ever growing military, and for that you need so many ressources that from a certain point you cant aquire those by peaceful means!

In germanys case, getting rid of national unemployment and ever growing military, germany was basically bankrupt and to go on with that, their first action in any invaded country was to plunder its gold reserves...

Also in their religious belief Japan was created by the gods, and if one nation should rule the world it should be them...and im sure if the Emperor didnt stopped the war they would have fight to the last men, even if all their cities got nuked.

I also love a good debate and im not paranoid hehehe...i just wasnt sure how people would react on my post

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Horus3K

I also love a good debate and im not paranoid hehehe...i just wasnt sure how people would react on my post

You don't have to worry about that around here...up to a point. 9/11 discussions are better left to the General Topics forums, but anything war-related is welcome. Just be ready to back up any claims for the wilder stuff. You won't be pilloried, but you will get demanding arguments.