Midway

as you can see, lucky is in quotations....

'''Had Waldron not attacked first, Gene Lindsey's TBDs might have passed harmlessly to the south. [[without finding the carriers]] instead, smoke laid by screening ships attracted Lindsey's attention,"" parentheses mine
they got ''lucky''....without seeing the smoke, no go........from link below

http://www.cv6.org/1942/midway/midway_3.htm


''Bombing Six and Scouting Six[4] had expected to intercept the enemy at about 0920. Having flown too far southward, and unaware that Nagumo had changed course at 0915 to nearly due north, at 0920 McClusky and his men found nothing but thousands of square miles of empty ocean."" italics mine


from Leonard ''Having earlier led his troops off to where he was told to expect to find the Japanese, all they found was an empty ocean.'' italics mine


I think these quotes show it is not ''easy'' even to find a large fleet.......as stated, problomatic, not impossible.....but a few minutes and just 1 degree off with navigating, intel on enemy position, or both, etc..and no contact....Amelia Earhart missed her target...large ocean......traveling hundreds of miles, off by just a few degrees, wind direction, wind speed not calculated correctly, etc and very easy to miss an island.....

 

When discussing luck with regards to combat it is IMO better not to postulate its absence but rather its degree. Luck is always present but sometimes a very small advantage on the die can result in a huge difference and sometimes a huge break can be squandered. So the question is how luck and how well was that luck used.

 

Incredible Victory by Walter Lord

Good first read.

 

and with Earhart, the island was not moving and changing directions

Gromit801, that's not super old, but an ''oldie'' but goodie...I did enjoy that one....the book does convey it as what it was --an incredible victory.
totally agree LWD

 

Another excellent choice of books on Midway is Shattered Sword. Very readable with some good background info and its authors made extensive use of Japanese sources as well as looking closer than many at primary American sources.

 

But as noted by R Leonard, when McClusky had flown to the last known position of the Japanese fleet, and found that they weren't there, he used a search pattern that would have lead him to the Japanese carriers even if he hadn't spot the Japanese destroyer Arashi, an important detail that is often left out in most histories about Midway, so in McClusky' case, Kido Butai being found wasn't "luck."

 

what about Lindsey's TBDs? sounds like they were missing the carriers, until they saw smoke....? a little earlier and no contact ..? anyway, still problematic...back to the Occupation Force, they could've gone 5 different directions, for a period of time, after the turnaround.....no telling where they were at...unless someone has other knowledge on intel about them

 

Good question. Presumably he was watching his gas gauge; one option would be to fly as far as he could, then turn around and fly straight back. A better choice would be the same as McCluskey did, turn a few minutes before the point of no return, do a short dogleg, and search a different strip of ocean on the way home. Key question - would he turn left or right? Left if he thought the enemy was steaming straight for Midway, and making more progress than the Americans had expected. Right if they might have been delayed or changed course for any number of reasons. My guess is he would have turned right, and right again, with a good chance of spotting Nagumo the same way the dive bombers did.

Question - I've seen a couple of track charts of American flight operations, including one in Shattered Sword labeled 0900, that show VT-6 about the same distance from TF16 as VB/VS-6. This seems curious since the dive bombers were sent on their way before the torpedo planes launched - not to mention the SBDs' faster cruising speed. Any thoughts? Has anyone seen a precise timeline of the American launches? You see comments like "they waited about 45 minutes" or "the whole operation took over an hour" but few specifics.

True about the Occupation Force, but whether the Japanese were advancing, retreating or whatever, their surface combatants - the remnants of Kido Butai, Kurita, Kondo - would probably be between the transports and the Americans. If Spruance had aggressively sought the enemy, he would probably have beaten up a few more cruisers or battleships. The lack of torpedo planes would make it difficult to seriously damage a capital ship.

 

I've been looking for good track charts...haven't found a good one yet..the other thing was just what you mentioned--gas..critical aspect to think about... a little more this way or that, and they would've had to head for home, no?
regarding location of VT-6...in the other thread I talked about the vagaries of not just combat, but movement to contact has its problems...they have to form up, communication could be a problem, etc..didn't they want to form together for a more effective attack??

 

Another reason for the small escort was the number of fighters per carrier.

At Coral Sea it was 21 and 17, at Midway it was 27 and by the time the US landed on GC 36.

 

I am going to strongly disagree with Carronade on this one. Barring any unfortunate problems, and even then the time factor might be over come. The "key factor" is not the number of aircraft launched, but how they are sent off to the target.

You are forgetting that 20 F4Fs(10 for CAP & 10 for the strike escort) were also in this first spot...Bringing the total first spot to 60-61. Then we add to this the 9 TBDs that had to be brought up for the second spot. This gives us a total of 69-70 aircraft, and all of them were launched in roughly 42 minutes(0700-0742), and the Hornet's strike left at roughly 0746. That is one plane launched every 36 seconds - with bringing up the 9 TBDs. Despite being "inexperienced", the Hornet performed well in getting her planes airborne.

Now, the Yorktown launched some 35 aircraft in between 20 to 30 minutes. So, the Yorktown may have been slightly better or slightly worse in her ability to launch planes faster than Hornet.

So...No, I do not think that bringing up the 9 remaining Hornet TBDs took "an inordinately long time."


Now, the "key", as I see it, is in the way the strikes headed off to attack the Japanese. The Hornet had opted for a "by the book" Deferred Departure. This is where the departure for the target is deferred until all of the strike aircraft have been launched and formed up, and then they depart for the target as a whole group. Thus, not only are the planes wasting fuel...But, they are wasting time.

The more experienced Yorktown had developed what became known as the Running Rendezvous. Here, the first squadron of SBDs are launched first and orbit the carrier - their orders are to depart for the target 12-15 minutes after the TBDs have launched. The TBDs are then launched and depart for the target immediately. Next, the second squadron of SBDs would be spotted and launched - Or, if there are is no second squadron of SBDs, the fighters would be spotted and launched. Finally, the fighters would be spotted and launched.

The effect of the Running Rendezvous is that the slowest & least ranged planes(TBDs) leave first, then the planes with a medium cruise & longest range leave second, and finally the fastest cruise & short range leave last. The fighters will over take the divebombers, which will over take the torpedo bombers. This Running Rendezvous worked well at Lae-Salamaua where the Yorktown did 3 spots of aircraft - (1)VT & VB, (2) VS, and (3) VF. And again on May 7 at Coral Sea, where the Yorktown used 2 spots - first the VB & VT, and then the VF. The same two spot plan was used at Midway - although it was to have been 3 spots when Fletcher decided to keep the VS in reserve.


Taking this a little further...
Had the Hornet been more experienced, they might have even done the Lexington's idea of the Running Rendezvous. Which was to, once the bombers had left for the target, have the fighters land, refuel, and launch again. Thereby the fully fueled fighters would chase down the bombers.

Yes, AFAIK, the Enterprise was also following the standard Delayed Departure routine. And, by putting the fighters in the 2nd spot, they did help the F4Fs in the matter of fuel. Still, they were not as on top of their game as was the Yorktown or the lost Lexington.

As I have explained, the Yorktown was not following the same general plan...Not even close.

Even if the Yorktown had gone with the 3 spot launch as intended, VB & VT, VS, and VF, the time spent respotting the deck twice, would have been almost immaterial(outside of making a total butch of the job), because the slowest bombers, the TBDs, are already setting the pace by heading to the target. The faster SBDs will catch up to them, and the fastest F4Fs will catch both.

Not necessarily...As we can see from this photo of TBDs spotted on the aft end of the Enterprise's flight deck at Midway.

It looks like the aircraft(third back center) is sitting by itself on the elevator.

So...You can fill TBDs forward of the elevator, then fill aft of the elevator, with the last remaining on the elevator. Or, conversely, fill aft, fill forward, with the last remaining on the elevator.

Further along those lines...
From this 1942 photo of the aft deck of the Enterprise

It would appear that the TBDs on the left and right are parked on the edges aside of the elevator.

 

Don't forget that it was not just Gene Lindsey's TBDs that were attracted by the smoke...But, Lt.Cdr. Lance Edward Massey's VT-3 TBDs as well. As per the after action report by by the VT-3 pilot Harry Corl
http://www.midway42.org/ShowPDF.aspx?Page=Midway_AAR/vt3-corl.pdf
At 1200 they spotted a large column of smoke 20o off their starboard at a distance of about 30 miles.

 

yes, form up is not that simple..........nor the navigating....one small mistake can throw the whole timing or accuracy off....both are critical to movement to contact, finding the target, the actual attack, etc
...I've stated before how amazed I am at the 'few' fatalities there are and have been on these carriers.....flight deck during operations very dangerous.....very small area with large machines with props, engine intakes, cables, etc.....

 

I will just say...Thank You...one more time.
I had no idea of the complexities (nor the routines) involved with carrier operations.

This was still quite early in "The War".
I imagine by June of 1944, Tactics/Technique/Radar had all improved.?

 

While Enterprise and Hornet each sent 10 fighters to escort their respective strike groups, LCDR Thach' escort detachment only consisted of 6 fighters, what was the reason for this?

 

Obvious guess, they were escorting fewer planes:

Enterprise 33 SBD, 14 TBD, total 47
Hornet 35 SBD (some sources say 34), 15 TBD, total 50 (49)
Yorktown 17 SBD, 12 TBD, total 29

The proportion of attack planes to fighters is about the same in each case - does anyone know if there was an established standard for this?

There was also the possibility that Yorktown's second SBD squadron, VS-5, might be assigned to attack the Japanese carriers and might need fighter escort.

As noted earlier, the smaller number of planes launched by Yorktown helps explain why her air operations were smoother than the other carriers'.

Thach had recently developed his "Beam Defense Maneuver" aka Thach Weave for use by 4-plane divisions, and I've read that he asked to have eight fighters (or some multiple of four) but someone had decided that six was appropriate.

 

Yeah, but why not give the bombers the maximum possible number of escorts, with what Thach' 6 fighters were able to achieve, holding up 1/3 of the Japanese CAP and downing 6 fighters for 1 of ours, an extra 4 fighters might have resulted in even more Japanese fighters being shot down and VT-3 taking fewer losses.

 

I just finished reading bits and pieces of those chapters.....a Very Interesting book indeed.
The Things That The World Thinks They Know, But Don't.......

 

But as the folks on Hornet and Enterprise planned, they DID assign their fighter escort to the VB & VS squadrons. The fact that Hornet’s VS-8 & VB-8 never found the Japanese carrier meant their VF-8 escort (10 planes) never made contact either and, unfortunately, and without point a whole lot of pointless fingers, they all ended up in the water. Gray, leading the VF-6 escort knew his primary mission was to protect the VS-6 and VB-6 strike . . . his presumption that he would eventually link up with them if he followed whatever VT squadron he was seeing was a little faulty.

Yorktown’s VF-3 escort was assigned to the VT-3 strike because they were deemed the most vulnerable. My source on the scene advised that folks over in TF-16 looked at the losses sustained by the VS & VB squadrons at Coral Sea, mostly vague word of mouth reporting and a bunch of losses due to a silly use of SBDs as in low-level anti-torpedo plane defense, and decided the SBDs were more vulnerable, missing the part that the VT-5 strikes against Shoho, Zuikaku and Shokaku suffered no losses (not to say there was no damage, there was, but no losses) because they were well covered by the VF-42 strike escort.

But, why did Thach only take six fighters? Because, the next number he would take, despite his knowing that eight would make his beam defense work, would have been twelve. The VF-3 tactical organization, with but 25 available aircraft, was of four divisions of six planes each (see below). Divisions were made up of sections. A section was two planes, leader and wingman. At the time of Midway the standard division had three sections. Thach, to make his beam defense work, recognized the need to go to four-plane divisions of two sections. The four-plane division did not really become standard until the fall of 1942. The situation in VF-3 was simply two-thirds of the flying pilots, 3 of 4 division leaders, 9 of 12 section leaders were from Yorktown’s already resident VF-42.

VF-3 Tactical Organization 4 June 1942:
Rank/Name | Parent Squadron | Bu# | Side#
1st Division
LCDR JS Thach | VF-3 | 5171 | 1
ENS RA M Dibb | VF-3 | 5170 | 2
LTJG BT Macomber | VF-42 | 5169 | 3
ENS ER Bassett | VF-42 | 5168 | 4
MACH TF Cheek | VF-3 | 5167 | 5
ENS DC Sheedy | VF-3 | 5165 | 6
2nd Division
LTJG RG Crommelin | VF-42 | 5152 | 7
ENS JB Bain | VF-42 | 5151 | 8
ENS RL Wright | VF-42 | 5150 | 9
ENS GF Markham | VF-3 | 5149 | 10
LTJG ES McCuskey | VF-42 | 5148 | 11
ENS MK Bright | VF-3 | 5147 | 12
3rd Division
LTJG WN Leonard | VF-42 | 5244 | 13*
ENS JP Adams | VF-42 | 5245 | 14**
LTJG WA Haas | VF-42 | 5144 | 15
ENS GA Hopper | VF-42 | 5143 | 16
MACH DC Barnes | VF-3 | 5142 | 17
ENS MC Tootle IV | VF-42 | 5080 | 18
* was # 26; renumbered on 30 May 42 by VF-42 maintenance personnel when Leonard became XO.
** was # 27; renumbered on 30 May 42 by VF-42 maintenance personnel when Adams became XO’s wingman.
4th Division
LTJG AJ Brassfield | VF-42 | 5066 | 19
ENS HB Gibbs | VF-42 | 5049 | 20
LTJG ED Mattson | VF-42 | 5153 | 21
ENS HA Bass | VF-3 | 5050 | 22
LTJG WS Woollen | VF-42 | 5093 | 23
LTJG WW Barnes Jr | VF-42 | 5239 | 24

Spare Plane: 3-F-25
Supernumerary Pilots:
ENS HJ Eppler
ENS VH Morris
ENS RC Evans
(Note all three supernumeraries were fresh from ACTG with little F4F time, much less combat training)

Thus, 33% of the VF-3 pilots flying in the battle were VF-3 and 67% VF-42. 75% of Division leaders and 75% of section leaders were VF-42. But, despite the preponderance of VF-42 pilots, generally, and specifically in leadership positions (not surprising as VF-42 was the most combat experienced VF squadron in the fleet) the squadron was VF-3 and commanded by Thach. [That, by the way, should not be construed in any way, shape or form as a criticism.] Of course, most all these assignments of specific pilots to specific aircraft went out the window when action loomed. One took what was in the line-up for one’s division. In the battle, only four pilots actually flew the planes to which they were nominally assigned. Everyone else flew “someone else’s” airplane.

So, it is quickly apparent that Thach took his division, in full, on the strike and the remaining three divisions stayed behind for CAP duty. This decision is usually attributed to CAPT Buckmaster, Air Officer CDR Arnold, CAG, LCDR Pedersen (who had commanded VF-42 before becoming CAG) and Asst Air Officer LCDR Armstrong; they evidently believed it important to maintain organizational integrity. While Thach would have liked eight planes in the event he needed to execute the beam defense, the reality was that he had not enough indoctrinated, trained, pilots to do so.

Just how far would one be willing to strip the TF CAP to provide more escorts? In retrospect, the 18 planes Yorktown had, rotating through CAP duty by divisions, turned out, obviously from the results, to be not enough . . . even Thach and his wingman, Dibb had to scramble off the deck in the final torpedo plane attack.

If the tactical structure called for six plane divisions and Thach took one or two sections in addition to his division, how would that impact the structural performance of the remaining divisions?

Would we leave the rump of whatever division from which Thach drew on the ship? One might note that VF-6 and VF-8 did disrupt their tactical organizations to beef up their escorts, but since neither made contact, we’ll never know who they might have fared and since TF-16 was never attacked, we likewise do not know how the changes would have effected the CAP performance, such as it was.

Organization is tied to doctrine, doctrine is how we operate and fight, do we toss out doctrine? Fight as you train, train as you fight, right?

And, just how many pilots in VF-3 had even been exposed to the Beam Defense? Well, maybe 6, and how many had seriously practiced the maneuver, maybe 4, outside, 5. Remember, the VF-42 contingent in VF-3 had about six days from the time they met Thach at NAS Kaneohe until going into combat. In Thach’s first division, he and his wingman Dibb were familiar with the tactic. I believe his third section, Cheek and Sheedy were familiar though to a lesser degree, Cheek was checked out for sure, but Sheedy had not long been in VF-3 so how much practice he may have had is problematical. I’d note in their action (Cheek and Sheedy, that is) they were operating as an unsupported section and did not themselves employ the beam defense when attacked. Thach’s second section, Macomber and Bassett, were both from VF-42 and had not been exposed to, much less practiced in, the beam defense concept. Macomber has written, and I’ve heard him say, that he had no idea what Thach was trying to do when Thach and Dibb started their defensive weave, he just stayed tucked in close to Thach.

Rich