Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

The Naval War College Review still makes a few recent issues available online, but unfortunately the one containing Professor Isom's original article appears not to be amongst them.

Here's the current link to the Review: NWC Review

Isom's rejoinder to the Parshall/Tully critique in NWCR is here: The Isom response (See THEY WOULD HAVE FOUND A WAY)

This thread on the j-aircraft.org board contains some further comments on Isom's book. Suggests to me that Isom's assertions as to the extent of Japanese aircrew losses must be suspect, in which case some of his other conclusions may be wrong. However, he appears to have interviewed a number of surviving technicians that were aboard the carriers, and these may well provide useful insights into Japanese practice.

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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I just finished a second reading of "Shattered Sword" and I highly recommend it for any student of the Pacific campaign. I know more about the IJN and it's carrier force as a result.

There really has been a whole lot of recent research that calls into question even such monumental works as Prange's "Miracle at Midway". Primarily provided by Japanese researchers and historians, the authors used this informaiton to go very deep into explaining the battle from the Japanese side. I could not put it down.

_____________________________

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Not only it is well researched, it is masterfully written. I could almost see the paint blsitering on the bulkheads and feel the heat of the fires. It made me realize the heros that manned those ships.

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ORIGINAL: spence
I think SS's authors tend to contend that DOCTRINE played a major role in the whys of the non-strike by KB.

<snip>

that window the strike WAS NOT READY. When the strike was ready or nearly so Akagi was cycling CAP which meant she could not spot a strike,

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Upon closer examination, it is difficult to support the notion that rearming CARDIV1 would have taken so long. It was now an hour and a half since the order had been issued to countermand the 30 to 45 minutes worth of rearming that had occured before 0800. Even despite the occasionally violent manuevers the ships had participated in, it is difficult to imagine that rearming had not been fully completed, and that all of CARDIV1's type 97 aircraft [Kates] were now armed with torpedoes, Thus, Nagumo ought to have had sufficient armed and fueled aircraft to attack the enemy with all four of his carriers, if he could find the time to spot them.

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BUT I am starting to wonder whether the perogatives of the flightdeck/CAP officer on Akagi effectively made irrelevant Nagumo's decision re the launch (and as I said I don't figure the other carriers would have spotted a strike before the flagship did). If the guy had no requirement to get an OK from higher authority to recover CAP planes then that might very well have been the case.

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ORIGINAL: spence

I tend to believe the strike was probably ready by 1000 actually.  But the Akagi RECOVERED Zeros at 0950 and again at 1010.  The Zeros' problem was not fuel but rather ammunition for their 20mms.  SS indicates that the Zeros' 7.7s just didn't hurt the American a/c much, not even the Devastators.  In part this explains the higher survival rate for Torpedo 6 which was attacked by many of the same Zeros as Torpedo 8 had been at first.  Those Zeros were out of or nearly out of 20mm and were not particularly effective.  Only when freshly rearmed Zeros joined the fight did Torpedo 6 start to suffer the same sort of disaster as Torpedo 8.  In what was otherwise a basic repeat of Torpedo 8's Attack Torpedo 6 managed to get 5 or 6 of 14 torpedos into the water vs maybe 2 for Torpedo 8's 15.

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There was a lot of ordance just shoved to the side during the rearming process and a good deal had not been re-stowed.

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Not to go too far off topic but, absent a radio, how did KB pilots inform their flight deck officer that they were low on fuel/ammo? Flyby? Open cockpit/harsh language? Was this done by section, individually?

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ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Not to go too far off topic but, absent a radio, how did KB pilots inform their flight deck officer that they were low on fuel/ammo? Flyby? Open cockpit/harsh language? Was this done by section, individually?

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

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There was a lot of ordance just shoved to the side during the rearming process and a good deal had not been re-stowed.

Yes, there was a lot of ordnance unstowed but it wasn't just "laying" around. It was probably sitting in bomb carts, not just sitting in a pile on deck. There would have been no way to secure a pile and with the maneuvering they were doing, those bombs would have caused untold havoc rolling into parked aircraft and armorers.

Chez

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If I understand correctly the Japanese arming procedures, the Type 99 bombers were armed after they were ranged on deck for launch.

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If I understand correctly the Japanese arming procedures, the Type 99 bombers were armed after they were ranged on deck for launch. This would imply that in CarDiv 2 ordnance need not have been brought up from the magazines by the time of the US dive bomber attack, unless the decision had been taken to do so before the Type 99's were lifted to the flight deck.