US request for a British carrier for Midway.

Quite a few years ago, I THINK on this forum, a member made a quiet bitter and even vitriolic claim that the USN asked the RN for a spare carrier to assist the USN at Midway.

The claim was that the RN refused out of hand. Anyone ever hear this claim?

I have researched this and now know the answer.

John

 

The USN DID in early May 1942 ask that the British to send one of their three carriers then assigned to their Eastern and Indian Ocean Fleet to deploy to the Southwest Pacific area as the Americans were pulling their carriers back to Pearl in anticipation of the coming battle at Midway.

Message from Admiral King as follows:

COMINCH TO SPENAVO LONDON INFO COMSOWESPACFOR CINCPAC Refer to this as Cominch 181255 action Spenavo London info Comsowespacfor CinCPac xx· Request you say to first Sea Lord in person that indicated imminence of enemy attacks on Midway and Alaska perhaps Hawaii has required withdrawal of carrier-cruiser groups from South Pacific para Comsowespacfor has cruisers and destroyers but no carrier wherewith to work against enemy activities in Coral Sea para will Admiralty entertain request for carrier from Eastern Fleet to join up with Leary temporarily, if so move had best be made at once para as alternative suggest consideration of coordinated eastern fleet and British shore based air raids on Rangoon or Andaman Islands and line of communication between Rangoon and Singapore.

British response:

COMNAVEU TO COMINCH Part 1 of 2 partsxx Following is Admiralty's ·reply to your 181255 "(A) We have seen enough of Japanese tactics to realise that it is their policy to operate several carriers in company, and henc.e to send one ~' of the 3 carriers of the Eastern Fleet to the Southwest Pacific Area would only result in our forces being weak both in the Indian Ocean and the Southwest Pacific Areas.x We do not, therefore, consider that it would be justifiable to make such a detachment ( B ) We realize the necessity for the movements of the Brltish Forces in the Indian Ocean and the US Forces in the Pacific being coordinated, and we appreciate the action taken by the US Fleet in April in an endeavor to relieve the Japanese pressure on the Indian Ocean x (C) \Vhilst ehere is doubt that the Japanese would welcome an attempt by our surface forces to break through the IviALAY~ DARWIN l~ne so as to bring our forces within reach of their shore based air forces, we cannot believe that they would credit us with being so foolish as to do so (D) Hence, we do not consider that the knowledge that our surface forces were approaching the ~/JALAYA DARWIN line would have any effect on the movements of Japanese naval forces ~Neither would an air attack on the ANDAMANS or ports in JAVA or SUl~TRA xx Part 2 follows with para (E). COMNAVEU TO ·COMINCH Part 2 of 192246 x (E) Interference with the SINGAPORERANGOON line of communications as not considered prac- tical at the present stage as to be effective it would necessitate our surface forces being maintained within .striking distance of Japanese shore based aircraft for a considerable time .. x At the moment the Eastern Fleet is at KILINKINI with. 2 of the carrie :rs making good defects after the MADAGASCAR operations, and in a few days we are being forced to practically demobilise the Eastern Fleet by sending two thirds of its destroyers to the 1EDITERRANEAN to assist in g etting a. convoy on whi ch the sec·uri ty of MALTA depends through to that place x · (cmtinued on next page) 498 J 19 2246 20 0151 COMNAVEU TO COMINCH (Continued) (G) CinC East Fleet is b,eing asked whether he will have sufficient screening destroyers to proceed with part of his fleet to CO~OMBO where its arrival might become kno~n to the Japanese x If you consider such a movement would serve any useful purpo~e it will, if practicable, be made at the earliest possible moment.x (H) Our intelligence points to a concentration of the Japanese fleet in the- TRUK area in the latter part of June, but gives no intlication of an attack on either ALASKA, MIDWAY or HAWAII x Obviously however you would not have redisposed your forces without good reason, and it would be helpful if we could know on what you base your appreciation.


Aside from British operational concerns was the matter that London was not privy to the work of HYPO.

So a British carrier WAS requested, but NOT to fight at Midway. The American request at this time was denied and not without some reasonable grounds. This did NOT prevent Britain from sending HMS Victorious to operate with USS Saratoga in early 1943.


Edit: I see you researched this one out yourself, but maybe this will be of use to the next guy.

 

Aa can be seen by the reply, British carriers were far too weak to operate alone. in early 1942 they lacked fighters and strike aircraft of the quality numbers to take on the Japanese.

 

4372
http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/7866/what-if-USN-has-an-additional-British-carrier-at-Midway#.VnbTrFIrK4p

Thanks to the brilliant Mr Google, I have found this Forum tthread that sets out the situation as it was at that time. The Madagascar invasion was still in progress and steaming time to the SWPA and central Pacific, with support vessels, was a major problem.

My first thoughts when i read the original tirade was that of logistics and systems and it proved to be so. The problems were 'Formidable'!

...and as for Mr Sheldrake above, the British carriers did OK at Okinawa a few years later.

 

Very poor analogy ozjohn.

By the time of Okinawa there had been a massive relative change in the balance of both power and technology. Japan had no effective carrier aviation and a pilot pool that was mostly inexperienced and very poorly trained. The Royal Navy by comparison had a mix of modern British and American made aircraft that as a general rule was superior in quality to anything in the Japanese inventory. They also had created a well trained and battle tested pool of aviators. Nor can the the massive nature of American carrier and land based aviation (again superior planes and pilots) who made any attempt by Japan's pilots to close with the Allied fleets a near suicidal act. Indeed it should be remembered that suicide (Kamakase) strikes was about all they could do. In real terms they were not really fighting back or for control of the airspace, only to close with their intended targets to make a suicidal dive.

At the time in question Britain had excellent pilots, but little experience in carrier on carrier operations and a mix of elderly and obsolete aircraft. They would operate with limited US help, operating aircraft not a whole lot better. Japan was at the near pinnacle of their abilities and capabilities. Yes they had lost one light carrier and had two fleet carriers put out of action, they also had taken the first hit on their pilot pool, but this was not yet apparent to the allies. A few months latter the US would have trouble keeping her larger fleet carriers on station after Japan had taken a mortal blow on her carrier aviation at Midway.

Britain made the right decision. Do what you can, when you can.

 

In addition to Belasar's excellent points

In 1945 British carriers carried 50% more aircraft and much higher performance aircraft than in mid 1942.

In 1942 HMS Formidable carried a complement of C 36 aircraft, 12 x F4F and and 24 Albacore bombers. This might have been fine for hunting the Bismark and dealing with the odd recce aircraft and unescorted bombers but would not survive against even a single Japanese carrier. 12 Fighters are not enough for a CAP


In 1945 Formidable carried 36 F4U and 18 TBF as strike aircraft. It was part of a dtrong carrier group with four (?) CVs and four (?) CVLs

 

Any carrier was too weak to operate alone against other carrier(s). That's why they operated in pairs. Lex and Yorktown at Coral Sea vs. S&Z for example.

 

That is fine if you have a plentiful CV fleet. For much of the war the RN did not have enough CVs to operate in pairs!

 

Of course US carriers operated in singletons in the earliest months of the war. The pinprick raids helping to season the Americans and were conducted in areas where enemy opposition was considered light.

 

Correct but neither Germany nor Italy had carriers at all and by mid-1940 Britain had lost two of her four fast carriers.

 

AFAIK four fleet carriers were the most the British Pacific Fleet field in any one operation, though IIRC all six of them served at one time or another. A group of four light fleet carriers was enroute to the Pacific at war's end but did not see action.

The RN made extensive use of CVEs in the strike role supporting landings in the Mediterranean, but AFAIK none served in that manner in the Pacific.

 

US carriers could take a lot of hits, the Hornet could not be sunk even by their own destroyers. HMS Ark Royal sunk after she was hit by one (1) torpedo. It is true, they had armoured flight decks, which were great against Kamikazes, but in 1942 the B5N was the major threat.

And the Albacores and Stringbags were great against Navys without air defense. But against a japanese carrier group with Zeros?

 

COMINCH does not seem to have had a specific mission in mind, just a general feeling that it would be good to have a carrier in the SW Pacific in case something arose that a single carrier could deal with, so it's not surprising that the British did not consider it a matter of urgency. The USN did conduct a few single-carrier raids (which still meant about twice as many planes as British carriers carried at that time) but the point is still valid that two or more were desirable for major operations. The real choice would have been to dispatch all the available British carriers or none, and I think none was the right choice.

Also noteworthy that destroyers from the Indian Ocean were sent to the Mediterranean for Operation Vigorous, makes sense, I just had not heard of it before.

 

What might have been of real, concrete value to the US Navy is if the British could have spared a couple of cruisers to send to Australia so the US could withdraw the cruisers Salt Lake City and Chicago for carrier escort duty. Of course the British would not have been able to fill this request either, because they were chronically short of cruisers themselves, but if one were to make a request, it might as well be for something of use.

 

At that time a great many ships could not be sunk by American torpedoes.