The Battle of Midway

how's it going to kill? So

in today's history lesson,

we're gonna talk about probably the most decisive battle in the pacific theater.

The battle of Midway

and I wanted to do this over present because I didn't feel like writing that a

justice is really hard to understand the battle

strategy and the crazy turn of events.

So for context, you know, Pearl Harbor happened,

the Japanese destroyed much of the american fleet

and uh luckily our four carriers are out on maneuvers and

they don't get hit.

And the mastermind behind the attack was this guy here, Admiral shot crew Yamamoto.

I probably butchered his first name a little bit, but he was the

head of the imperial Japanese navy. He was the animal.

Uh, he was Harvard educated man, incredibly intelligent,

one of the best leaders in history.

Um, I think he deserves a lot of respect because he was very good at what he did.

Um

and he was the mastermind behind the attack

and he recognized the importance of these american carriers

and he made it his mission to destroy him because he knew

it would hinder the american fleet and by destroying the carriers,

he would basically be able to roam

the pacific unchecked without the americans there.

He could expand as much as you want to expand the Japanese empire.

Also following Pearl harbor,

the US appointed Admiral Chester Nimitz as their Admiral of the U.

S. Naval fleet in the pacific and Nimitz.

He he's very calm, collected leader, but he's fearless, he's willing to take risks.

He knows he's got an uphill battle because he knows he's outnumbered.

He's outgunned but he's confident

that he can somehow find solutions and push back at the Japanese.

Yeah.

And Washington as his first active as Admiral.

Want him to do these do little rates and these

two little raids led by James Doolittle this uh,

he's the short guy in the middle with the black hat

essentially is taking these bombers which weren't

meant for aircraft cares have sailing close

to mainland Japan launching the bombers from I think it was the U.

S. S. Enterprise or the U. S. S. Hornet.

I'm not sure which aircraft carrier was but launched these bombers

and their target was Tokyo and it was more of like a ceremonial thing,

you know more for press like retribution on the Japanese for Pearl harbor.

But so they weren't that successful. More ceremony

but and symbolic.

But what did happen was one of the bombs almost hit the imperial palace

in Tokyo and the imperial palace houses the emperor and in Japanese culture,

the emperor's like a god he is worshiped and what it did with this bomb falling so

close to imperial palaces that galvanized the Japanese

and it galvanized them behind Yamamoto and it gave

the Japanese high command confidence in what Yamamoto had

said about the importance of destroying these carriers.

So they give it gives him the permission.

Um and the respect he needs to to plan an attack to finish off the carrier groups.

So his ideas to attack this atoll island called Midway and

his hope is that if you can attack this island,

it will spark an american response.

The american fleet will come from Midway and he'll have his whole fleet,

they'll there,

excuse me and they'll demolish and suppress the rest of the american fleet.

And while this, the planning is going on the americans,

the Japanese engaged in this the first air to sea battle at the battle of Coral Sea.

And yes, the U. S. Were successful in delivering some blows to the Japanese navy.

But the Japanese, they were able to destroy the USs Lexington, one of the U. S.

Carriers and they believed to have

destroyed another one, the USs Yorktown.

So now in the Japanese eyes, the U. S. Are down to two carriers.

So they're planning Midway.

And this guy right here brilliant mind. Rockford, he's an american code breaker.

He is well versed in the Japanese language.

He's very good at breaking their code and the american code.

Breakers had broken a code from a Japanese

scout playing a couple months prior to Midway,

in which it was flying by the island of Midway in

the island of Midway is in the middle of the ocean.

There's nothing by it.

And he points out it and he gives it a name and I don't remember the name.

I think it was like a five is what they called her a something like that.

But that's what they tagged.

And Rockford knew that, that when he, when he the scalp,

I was flying and he said I'm passing a five, he knew that was Midway.

And so in the months leading up to it, they keep hearing more and more

talk in the japanese code about this island.

So Rockford is like the japanese are planning an attack on Midway.

So it goes through superiors and again, code breaking new technology,

a lot of americans, a lot of the american high command.

They didn't, they didn't,

they didn't understand it. So therefore they didn't really trust

Russia. But

Chester Nimitz,

he sees the importance in it. He trusts Rockford.

So he goes to Rockford and he says, I, I believe you,

I believe the japanese are planning something but I need something more.

And so what Roger does is he sets this brilliant trap

With the American code because the Japanese were also

breaking the American cracking the American code two.

So he has the, the guys at Midway

send out a radio message saying that there

diesel their water desalinization,

which was what turns the saltwater and the freshwater is broken.

And a couple hours later

they intercept Japanese code saying,

oh the americans are out of water on a five or a whatever they call it

and meeting Midway.

And so

now Rockford knows that the

code that they have been intercepting about a surprise uh,

surprise attack an attack on Midway is indeed Midway.

So he goes to Nimitz and Nimitz starts to devise a plan.

So

now the Japanese are steaming towards Midway

and they're getting close to the point of the attack.

And the Japanese have four carriers that they're sending the akagi Kaga Sirigu

s I think the last one is called sore You, I don't know, I'm not 100% certain

But you got four carriers

and

who's leading these carriers is this guy, Admiral Nagumo.

And the interesting thing is Nagumo and Admiral Yamamoto don't

like each other and just based off of hierarchy alone.

Yamamoto is the commander of Nagumo.

Nagumo is in charge of of Yamamoto's prized carrier fleet.

And Nagumo is very by the book, he

has a book in front of him and that's how he makes all of his decisions.

He's a great leader but he's by the book and you'll see that this is his weakness.

So

on the morning of the attack,

the Japanese use those aircraft carriers,

they launch all these air squadrons armed with bombs

and they bomb the ship out of Midway island.

To Nagumo surprised.

However,

none of the american planes at Midway there and this

was because the americans knew the Japanese were coming.

So all of those planes had taken off earlier in the morning and we're headed towards

the Japanese fleet and these were high altitude bombers that the americans had.

So they weren't very successful in landing uh any any hits on the Japanese fleet.

So Nagumo it pisces.

Nagumo off though that these bombers drop, try to drop bombs on his fleet.

So he's like,

we're finishing off Midway arm all the rearm all of the

air squadrons with land bombs and let's just annihilate Midway Island

at the same time. Just as all of his air squadrons are armed with land bombs.

His one of his scout planes,

I can't imagine what this would have looked like,

but through the clouds he spots the whole american carrier group and yes,

it's it's four carriers,

it's

the enterprise, the hornet

and our three carriers, I apologize and the Yorktown

and the Japanese were stunned because they thought that

they had sunk the Yorktown in the coral sea.

But

The Yorktown had hobbled back to Pearl Harbor and in

three days had been repaired to be battle ready.

So it was there, it was at Midway.

So the whole american fleet which isn't supposed to be

there for another couple of days is at Midway,

Nagumo has no clue what to do because they,

the americans american carrier group was not supposed to be there

any panics a little bit

and in the Japanese book of Rules, when it comes to air squadrons,

it says you should always attack with a full squadron.

So his whole squadrons were armed with their ar were armed with land

ordinance

and they had no capability of sinking any american ships because they

were the bombs they were armed with were meant for land.

So Nagumo was like, oh my God, what do I do?

I my mission here was to destroy the american fleet. And so this is what it looks like.

So Nagumo is here, you see the four Japanese carriers and he's thinking to himself,

alright, I we came here for the carriers.

I know you just armed all of our planes with land bombs but

you need to now arm them with torpedoes and that takes time.

It takes hours to do that to re arm them with a different type of bomb

and they're in such a rush to do this

that they don't have time to properly stow the land bumps.

So all of this ordinance is just laying in these hangers and these carriers,

it's basically a ticking time bomb.

And

so

while this is going on,

the americans

now have the element of surprise

and sorry, they use their torpedo planes

which were outdated.

Not very the torpedoes they were using weren't effective at all.

They had like a one in 10% chance of if they hit their target,

they would actually detonates unreliable.

They fly their torpedo squadrons in there with the element of surprise.

The japanese with cover from the fighters patrolling their fleet,

they decimate the american torpedo squadron.

So now the elements limits no longer has the element of surprise

and

coordination at this time in terms of error

warfare, especially on the american side didn't exist.

It was each carrier launched their own individual squadron and whatever.

So now the americans, all they have left is dive bombers.

And these dive bombers which you can see here these dauntless is

are incredibly effective and it happened to be

piloted by all the experienced american pilots.

And so each of these three american carriers,

the Yorktown Enterprise and Hornet launched

their own respective dive bomber squadrons.

No coordination at all. They don't fly together.

Each of these three individually go out

and

uh, and so they're traveling,

they're looking for the Japanese fleet they can't find.

And then by some sheer luck, one of the squadron,

the squadron from the Yorktown spots the Japanese fleet.

And so right,

it's so they climb altitude and they're about to initiate their attack.

And again by sheer luck at the same time, the air squadrons from the U. S.

S Enterprise also luckily find the Japanese fleet.

So to the japanese,

it looks like the americans have this well coordinated air attack.

But it was all luck,

the americans just happened upon each other and these dauntless is

uh those dive bombers you see in front of us so sweet

The they climb to a high altitude and then when once they're on top of their target,

they engage in a 90° dive bomb straight down

and their mission is to get as close to the

in altitude to these carriers because the closer they get,

the more precise their bombs will be.

They were incredibly incredibly accurate.

And also if you can see by the images of

these aircraft carries those red dots the Japanese rising sun

makes for a great target.

So you have all of these two squadrons of

american dive bombers raining down on the japanese.

And like I said earlier, Nagumo being by the book

he had was

I had the opportunity for example to maybe say I know I have half my plane.

All of my plans have land bombs,

arm half of them with torpedoes and arm the other half of bombs and split them up.

But

in the book it said you have to have a full squadron.

So all of this ordinance was under in the hangars.

And so when these dive bombers hit their targets they were

incredibly effective because there was all this ordinance in these hangers.

So the U. S.

I was able to in a couple hours decimate all four

of the Japanese carriers destroyed all of them beyond beyond use.

Yeah,

so Nagumo in the span of five hours went from thinking he had

the americans on their heels thinking that the the attack on Midway the

surprise attack plan was going to work and all of a sudden it

flipped on his head and he all of a sudden had no carriers.

He was on one of the carriers. I think he went down to one of the ship.

No he returned in shame,

I think,

I don't even know,

but he left up.

And so the americans

Destroy these four Japanese carriers and all.

Yamamoto can do with his whole,

with the whole Japanese fleet minus the carrier group he sent to midway

100 miles away, 150 miles. I don't know how far it was, but he's a day away.

All he can do is watch while his four of his six carriers are destroyed

and this puts him on his back feet.

He thought he would have a decisive victory

at Midway destroy the carriers and it would put

them on the right track to defeating the

american fleet and being unchecked in the pacific.

But instead the american surprise him

off. Of sheer luck basically

um and destroy their carriers and Nagumo's demise was he was to buy the book.

And that's what I find so fascinating

about this story is that through incredible intelligence

and a general being too, by the book, the US get a decisive victory at Midway.

And now Yamamoto doesn't know what to do.

Now he's, he's scared of the americans and Nimitz. This builds confidence.

And so over the course, the next few months,

the americans begin to push back the japanese in the pacific and

over time they eventually reached through Abbott's idea of island hopping,

which I may cover in a future lesson.

They eventually reached japanese mainland and we know how

we all know how it goes from there.

But this is a fascinating battle because

it just shows the sheer importance of intelligence.

It show's shere importance of taking risks.

Whereas Nimitz was able to take a risk

on this surprise counter attack on the japanese

and Nagumo wasn't willing to risk sending in

half a squadron armed with the wrong bombs.

That's the key distinction.

The Battle of Midway

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