It's crazy how random war is sometimes. When McCluskey's group found the carriers, McCluskey actually went for the wrong one, Kaga, instead of Akagi. The pilot Richard Best recognized the mistake and broke off for the Akagi, followed by only 2 of his wingmen while the rest went after McCluskey for Kaga. His wingmen missed, but Dick Best's bomb landed directly inside the hangar and Akagi went up like a Roman candle. Simultaneously Kaga blew up too from the other planes. One man diving onto an entire carrier like a madman scored the most perfect hit possible and doomed the ship. Arguably the most decisive 5 minutes in history of warfare.
One of the wingman's near miss was near the stern and jammed the rudder, so the Akagi could no longer steer. It also broke some other parts. I just finished Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tully. There is a good discussion about why the Admirals took the Hiroyuki with them on what they intended to be a night time gunfight instead of sending it off to safety.
Dick Best is one of the most bravest and amazing men to ever live. He took out a whole carrier with one bomb, hitting right where they left the bombs and ammunition. They should name carriers after Wade McClusky and Dick Best.
There is an excellent reason why they call this the '5 Minutes Of Fate'. The chance that a divine being influenced the odds is almost higher than the odds themselves.
My grandfather was in the final wave of SBD's as a rear gunner. He was hit in the leg, but survived the battle along with his pilot. He was awarded the purple heart.
orderofrecluse My father was an SBD rear gunner on the Hornet. He also survived and ended the war with two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart. For quite a few years there has been a BOM Commemoration on the USS Midway in San Diego. We would go to honor those who fought at Midway. However, with COVID-19 and the loss of most of our WWII veterans, I think there will not be another gathering.
The repair of Yorktown is to me one of the most heroic actions by civilians in the entire war, and it often gets glossed over in the retelling of the Battle of Midway. That ship pulled into port needing a minimum of two weeks repairs, but the engineers actually said she needed 4 months in Seattle to be fully repaired. But Nimitz needed her for the battle, and so civilians pulled together to pull of a miracle. As I've read it, many many civilians were involved. Those not actually working on board were either running supplies and parts back and forth or bringing food and water to the workers. And in 72 hours, that ship was ready to fight.
I am from China, from our textbook, it is hard to see how much sacrifice American made in Midway. Everybody thought it was an easy win, a great victory. But look at how many pilots bravely attacked but never come back...
I sincerely hope the leaders of your homeland remember that. And all the U.S. did for them in WWII. It would be a shame, and a huge tragedy, if we two ever got into a war. If you ever go home again please tell your people how they are manipulated by their government. When all a nation's news reporting and history lessons come from the government, it's called propaganda.
Imagine a DIY Documentary from a RUclips channel is better then those million dollar ones Edit: To those telling me The Operations room isn’t as good as other youtubers in the same genre, I prefer The Operations room. It’s my opinion, and your opinion is yours. Also don’t battle in the reply section, or keep it minimum. (Which has actually been done, just saying this ahead of time.)
3 days for an oil change? For a car? That's easy lol, did it in less than 20 minutes with my truck my first time because my dad was there to guide me on what to do.
You forgot 3 of the first times for noobs steps. Step one, remove drain plug and it falls out of your oily fingers into the drain pan. Decide to get it out after the oil has stopped draining. Step 2, forget about dropped oil pan plug. Pour oil into engine and discover after you have created a lake of dinosaurs that you did not dig drain plug out of pan. It is now after hours. Step 3, day 2 you put drain plug in after finding it. Also, you have to go get more oil and cat litter for the lake of dinosaurs under the car. Now pour oil into car with drain plug installed.
Imagine being a Zero pilot and finally thinking you can start the counter attack when, out of nowhere, a bunch of confused and angry American pilots in their dive bombers materialize out of nowhere and blow your carriers to shreds.
You can only feel how helpless those Zero pilots are. They shut down waves of Midway Air-forces, dive in and cut down how many USN Torpedoes-bombers all over the sea level, but later saw huge numbers of Dive-bombers out of nowhere drop down there carriers. I saw a clip off a Japanese film about this battle, where there was a Zero pilot just ran out of ammo while chasing the fleeing Dive-bombers. He was about to land & refill to return as fast as he can ... but he stay silnet, shocking, witness 3 out of 4 Carriers burst in flames, in the midle of the fleet. He must been flying for hours, shooting down plane after plane to protect his fellows sailor & officers ... but it seem like all of his efforts are meaningless now. His entier navy only has 4 Carriers, and 3 of them are burning right before his eyes. I belived in his mind, he probably know his country just lost the sea to the American hands now.
It feels like an annoying RTS level where you play as the IJN, managing to hold off your destruction at great cost, then the Yankee AI spams a ton of units to exploit your defensive gaps.
@@Yora21 not really a move Halsey was sick with shingles and isn't really a good thing to swap out commands like that before a battle. Sometimes it pans out. The victory had more to do with code breakers and a long standing naval tradition born out of the english empire.
@@mitchellhawkes22 that's the point of the joke lol It's true the japanese inflicted more damage on the first half of the battle But as it goes on the US decisively won
The work done on the Yorktown by those repairman was amazing. She had workers still onboard even as she was towed back out into the harbor, preparing to set sail for Midway. I hope those guys all got the credit they deserved, especially after they heard the results of the battle.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」
After the Yorktown was repaired. A sign was placed at one of the entrances to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. "Welcome to Naval Yard Pearl Harbor. Where the difficult is done right away and the impossible takes just a little longer."
Can you imagine what the Japanese thought if they knew a highly damaged Fleet Aircraft carrier that should take months to be repaired... could re-appear fully functional in 3 days. How do you fight that?
The United States Navy, had made great strides in damage control. The Carriers that survived, did so because the crews were able to prevent massive fire and control flooding.
@@YTMegiddo I think it has more to do with organization. From what I can understand about the Japanese Navy, their cultural hierarchy are rampant. The US Naval doctrine requires all hands to understand and execute damage control regardless of rank. Whereas the Japanese Navy have a dedicated crew whose only job is damage control. Such job are below the pilots and ranking officers. So, if a section of the ship gets knocked out along with the damage control team for that section then the ship is done for. Another is the ability to move pilots from one carrier to another. That is not possible for the Japanese Navy. The battle Corral Sea ended with one Japanese carrier air wing virtually wiped out but the carrier itself only took minor damage while the other carrier took a little more serious damage thus requires more repairs but its air wing were still somewhat intact. They could have moved air wing to the lightly damage carrier and still have 5 carriers at Midway but this is not how the Japanese Navy works.
The attempted suicide attack on the akagi, although ineffective, startled vice admiral Nagumo because “the Americans weren’t supposed to show such bravery”
@@C.S_Brown going through the comments Hal 9000 is just a hate-filled troll. Some people are just toxic by nature. Wonder what his home life was like to make him like that.
Leyte gulf was even more of a shock, the Yamato and several other Battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers ran off with heavy damage from a few destroyers, escort destroyers and escort carriers. Inflicting far greater losses than they suffered, actually convincing the superior Japanese fleet to retreat. Fighting Spirit indeed.
No it's called 1400 men hitting her with orders to get her combat effective not 100 percent repaired. Yorktown left Pearl with 3 boilers destroyed still massive amounts of structural damage still unrepaired a patched upped flight deck parts were steel plates instead of teakwood. For an air wing they literally took the remaining pilots and crews that were left from Coral Sea and transferred in the best from the Saratoga wing that was lying around waiting for her to get back into service. So here's what the difference was in her repaired state compared to normal. She could only do 26 knots compared to over 30 had less electrical power as there was a bad turbogen set that also didn't get changed out. She was down on freshwater condensation capacity also. But she could launch and land her planes and gave us that 3rd flight deck at Midway. Had the battle been a week later we might have even had Saratoga there for the fun. As she brought the replacement planes to Spruance.
@ihicccup9446 one more day maybe but if Buckmaster instead of staying around after getting steam back had just hauled her ass out of the area. Instead she got caught unable to maneuver worth a damn only capable of doing 18 knots when the second Hiryu attack came. Even if we hadn't sunk the Hiryu at Midway we had devastated their carrier strike forces. It wasn't just the planes and crews buy the experienced plane technicians and handling crew's.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本人缺乏瞭解：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,,,??
@@jordanfan5896 No, thats not how carrier operations work. Each carrier needs to carry its complement of fighters and fround/sea attack aircraft. The fighters would always be split in a CAP role and an escort role for the bombers. Even U.S. ships operated under this same policy. Lets say we took your style, and had 1 carrier loaded for each mission, imagine an enemy attack force manages to break through and sink your carrier designated purely for fighter aircraft, now you have no CAP to protect the rest of your fleet or escorts available for your mission. Or if they get through and sink your carrier dedicated for the ground attack on midway, now the entirety of the mission has failed as you can no longer neutralize the shore defense that would pummel your naval invasion forces. Or if they sunk your carrier designated for attacking any potential enemy fleet, now you have no way to reach out and strike your opposing forces. Both Japanese and American carriers would include a complement of dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighter aircraft. No the biggest mistakes are from a strategic level. The Japanese had assumed they would have total surprise and that the Americans would be forced to respond from Pearl Harbor. However, due to a massive intelligence effort on the part of the Americans, they were able to accurately determine where the Japanese would attack (for much of the time before, it was assumed the Japanese would continue their attacks through the south pacific, not midway) as well as almost the exact time and direction of the Japanese fleet. So even though preparations were made just in case (a complement of aircraft were loaded with torpedoes and left in reserve) it was assumed that there would be no need for any naval attack hence the original decision to rearm the aircraft to ground attack. The biggest doctrinal difference that had an effect on this battle was that Japanese doctrine had aircraft armed on standby in the hanger, whereas the Americans armed their aircraft on the flight deck. Had it not been for the fully armed aircraft filling the hangers, as well as the ordinance been properly stowed, its unlikely that all 4 ships would have sunk from the dive bombers.
10:40 My great grandfather was part of that raid. He was the piolet of one of the planes and didn't make it back. RIP grandpa thank you for your sacrifice.
Those first waves of US pilots flying obsolete planes, in what amounted to a suicide mission to delay the Japanese and disrupt the re-fueling/re-arming of the Zeroes, were true heroes. I'm sure they knew there was little chance of a safe return, but they did their duty. This type of sacrifice was a clear illustration how desperate the times were.
The truely obsolete planes were the Buffalo fighters, that tried to protect Midway that day . The Devastator torpedo bomber wasn't significantly obsoleted by the Avenger. Hornet's VT8 was half Avenger, but the Avengers were equally wiped out in their attack that day.
@@isilder The TBD wasn’t so much obsolete as flying an incredibly dangerous mission. Torpedo bombing basically required you to be a sitting duck. The Buffaloes performed very poorly, causing one squadron commander to say, ‘Anyone who sends a pilot out in an F2A should consider that aircraft lost.’ It was an obsolete type that was less effective than the aircraft it beat for the contract of fleet defender, the Grumman Wildcat.
This was the WW2 equivalent of “going over the top”. Sooner or later the Japanese fighter cover was going to run out of ammunition and fuel and if there was still another wave left it was going to get through. If the situation had been reversed I am sure the American carriers would have been sunk. When the next big carrier engagement took place in the Philippine Sea about two years late both sides had replaced their airwings. The Japanese with very similar aircraft as they had at Midway, the Americans with far superior fighters. The outcome was a “turkey shoot”.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」((;$&&
Fun fact: The Japanese had war gamed the battle out and one of those war games resulted in pretty much exactly what happened at Midway. It wasn't taken seriously because the American team didn't do what the Japanese team expected and so the result was considered "impossible".
Saying that an outcome of the battle is "impossible" because your enemy doesn't act in an orthodox manner sounds like a great way to set oneself up for getting humbled
@@vassalofthenight9945tbf in military you can never have the full picture, you ALWAYS have to make assumptions. The war game that resulted in a American victory was where the Americans set up their carriers in a ambush, which is what happened irl. The Japanese made the assumption the Americans didn’t know about the plan and because of that assumption it made non sense wasting valuable planning and war gaming time in a -to them- highly improbable match. For example they could wargame with the assumption all of the the American Atlantic fleet was secretly brought into the pacific. But that is highly improbable and as such a waste of time to wargame. If the Americans hadn’t known at the plan beforehand no one would have bat a eye to the Japanese rejecting the wargame
@@vassalofthenight9945it was more that the Japanese didnt know that the US broke their ciphars and since this entire attack on Midway was secretive, didnt think that the US would ever act like they knew the attack was coming. Not realizing the US purposefully leaked the "weakness" of midway to get the Japs where they wanted them.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」
@@jordanfan5896 that really wasn't their biggest mistake and is a bit of a misunderstanding of the history here. Japan knows that Americas carriers NEED to get sunk to gain complete superiority. So how do we do this? Drawing them into a combat that forces them to go all in on the defense and flush those carriers out. That's why they attack Midway. This also accomplishes at the same time protecting their own ships as taking out the carriers neutralizes Americas fighting force. What they did do was completely underestimate American counter intelligence and did not want to believe that we'd find out the plan ahead of time. On top of that; the actual biggest mistake was attacking Pearl ahead of schedule instead of waiting for the ultimatum to hit.
Yamamoto famously said "Give me 6 months. In the first 6 months of the war, i can run amok. If however we dont win after 6 months, we will not win at all." Ironic how the battle of Midway occured pretty much exactly 6 months later, the battle of Midway ends in total disaster for the japanese. Yamamoto called it to the day.
@@Divine_R Partly because he studied at Harvard University, was fluent in English, and had held a post as Naval Attaché in Washington, during which he traveled extensively and learned all about the US. I think, because of this he didn't really believe that either crippling the entire Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, or destroying the US carriers at Midway would cause the US to negotiate a peace.
@@blindleader42 exactly. He had traveled the country north to south, spoke the language perfectly, absorbed as much of the American culture as he could, he even carried a Colt 911 .45 ACP with him. So he knew about the might of the industrial power and determination of it's people once they set their minds on it. Yamamoto was a brilliant and intelligent officer. Not comprehended and resisted by belligerent and brown nose Japanese officers (arrogant too).
Listening to interviews before he passed away of the great Dusty Kleiss that is exactly what he did. It is no coincidence that his bomb hits on both Kaga and Hiryu came very close to his meatball target.
Believe it or not, finding a ship in the middle of the ocean is a lot more difficult than youd think. The red dot is an identifier sure, but as seen in the video some of the planes had trouble finding the japanese ships until they got quite close
One cool part left out often was the code breakers. They knew about a strike but didn’t know which island or area. In order to find out, a code breaker sent false info out that midway was short on water and another set re other targets. When the Japanese sent codes out that their target was short on water supplies, then the US knew it would be Midway. A massive achievement and brilliant.
Were the codes seriously MO=MOresby, AL=ALeution islands, and MI=MIdway?... I read that, but are those the *actual* Japanese codes for the different assaults... Or were those terms just made up by Americans to distinguish them easier?
@@aajas I do believe the whole operation was called operation MI, but I'm not entirely sure whether the US Navy knew the name of the operation too. All I know is that Midway itself was coded as AF, the codebreakers didn't quite know what that meant and devised a trick to flush the Japanese out.
@@the_tactician9858 IIRC the US already suspected the Japanese would eventually make a move on Midway, but they didn't know when, where or how. This is why when they decoded the Japanese plans, they immediately suspected AF meant Midway, hence they specifically had the Midway base to send that message out.
The SBD’s from Enterprise actually had a hard time finding the Carriers. A Japanese destroyer (Arashi) was hunting the USS Nataulis. When Arashi gave up the search and was going back to the fleet, she was discovered by Wade McCluskey’s air group. They followed Arashi all the way back to the fleet and sunk 3 carriers in 4 minutes
It's insane how random war is sometimes. McCluskey's feat of finding the carriers and Dick Best's decision to dive for Akagi instead of Kaga are arguably the most decisive 5 minutes of combat in history. All previous air attacks ended in disaster and suddenly the IJA loses 3 carriers in under 5 minutes.
Not quite. McClusky's Air Group, VS-6, and VB-6, sunk 2 carriers. The 3rd carrier was sunk at the same time by VB-3 (from Yorktown), commanded by Max Leslie, who arrived from the opposite direction.
Can you imagine being a marine/Navy pilot going out over open water against 100s of planes knowing your chances of survival have decreased significantly when you take off. I can't imagine the feeling
Bombers in the European theater at least had places to eject, open water battles must be terrifying, you eject and all there is to land in is endless Pacific Ocean
Someone mentioned yesterday that we live in the golden age of documentaries and we truly do. These are amazing and seem to be endless, such a great way to eat time and relax doing it. Thanks for all the work you do on these, I really appreciate it
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」....
Also simplicity is key And no unnecessary stuff shoved straight to your face Just simple narration and simple basic infographic animation to get the point across The movie was fun and entertaining i agree But most important information etc. Are well clarified on this Video
Because you don't know a single shit about entertainment. We don't watch those movies to learn the exact facts, we watch it for the intensity and excitement dumbass
The movie was great, wdym? No disrespect to this one guy making awesome videos but compared to the movie this isn’t that good, but for one guy this is definitely amazing and watchable content either way. Just don’t compare it to something it’s not comparable to
Very sad for all those initial pilots who tried and failed, and died. But good of the commentator to remark that they didn't die in vain as they kept the Japanese pinned down and depleted their ammo. This is how war goes. A truly bitter sweet moment, but ultimately it led to the final overall victory making their sacrifice even even greater. Their sacrifice led directly to the end of war!
My father fought in the Solomons. Although not often, when he did talk about these battles it was with a reverence I couldn't comprehend as a child. Now I do. Thank you for these extraordinary, detailed pieces of this history.
@ pirozig zigwam It shows their arrogance. They should have left the battle. It would have saved one fleet carrier for later battles in the Solomons. Big mistake on their part.
I've watched other vids about this battle and still find it incredible how one battle changed the entire war in the Pacific. Usually, there are no clear turning points in wars, but if ever there was one, this is it.
If Pearl Harbour was the introductory chapter to the carrier story, Coral Sea was the prelude to the climax. Midway was the plot twist and Battle of the Marianas were the climax of the story. I think the reason why Midway is often quoted to be the Pacific turning point as in 5 minutes, USN broke the keel of the IJN and they never recovered from it. In hindsight, Coral Sea can be seen as creating the micro fractures in the IJN keel
There is a clear turning point in the war. And another commenter was right for once. It was done in a day: December 7, 1941, the raid on Pearl Harbor. In a single stroke, Japan lost the war.
In my opinion one of the biggest mistakes of Japanese commanders was decision to separate forces into few groups which lead to loose of advantage. They could have in total 8 carriers. And there was still chance to get 5th large carrier Zuikaku after replenishing of her air group from Shokaku. I know their plans were already revealed to Americans thanks to broken codes, but there was still good chance to defeat US navy if the Japanese not underestimated the importance of aerial reconnaissance.
It's a result of Japanese overextension at that point. They tried to control such a large territory they could no longer pursue their earlier, effective strategy of concentrating their forces, because they had to be prepared to defend against attacks from other directions. Japan had the forces to conquer their empire, but not enough to hold it.
I've thought the same thing about why didn't they Zuikaku by replenishing her air group from Shokaku. IJN had this rigid doctrine about not combining air groups in that way. I had the logic explained to me on Quora but it didn't make sense. Fortunately, the USN was much more flexible. Yorktown lost a sizable number of her planes at the Coral Sea too. Just like Zuikaku did. So since Saratoga was in drydock undergoing repairs, they used her air groups to replenish Yorktown for Midway.
@@MW-eb1qh IJN had their air groups operate in specific carrires , unlike the US where they operate in squadrons. Meaning even if Japanese carrier is fully intact but had no air group, they had to train up new recruits for that carrier rather than import experienced pilots from other carriers.
often times it is doctrine that wins war between major countries. look at when Germany took over France in ww2, France had the far superior army in this case, but they had shitty doctrine and got encircled by a weaker army and lost. it isn't just about the size of your military its also about how you use it
The US code breakers cracked the Japanese codes and the way that they found out that midway island was the target was they sent out a false blurb. They sent out a message that said they were having problems with their water system that midway needed water, and so the Japanese reported that target is having water problems so that’s how the US new midway was the target
@J M But they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush. Which is why we won.
And the Japanese still hadn’t figured out in 1943 that US Naval Intelligence had largely cracked the former’s codes. Yamamoto paid for that with his life.
It's hilarious that both the Germans and the Japs, BOTH known as great planners, just didn't bring a new code out every year. Seems so obvious really. Let's just invent a code and LET IT RIDE OUT until we suspect it's been broken.......
@@MW-eb1qh Ugaki's diary includes a reference that somehow the plan was leaked, but does not mention possible breaking of the JAN-25. His diary is a treasure given the deaths of he, Yamanoto and Nagumo.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,.,?
Saw that they discovered the wrecks of the Kaga and the Akagi a few days apart just a few weeks ago. The U.S. carriers Lexington and Yorktown wrecks had already been found.
David Whitten Because that USS Yorktown is CV-10. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-10) The one that was sunk at Midway was CV-5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-5)
Missing is the detail of the US submarine Nautilus and the Japanese destroyer Arashi. Without this encounter the, the Enterprise's dive bombers likely wouldn't have found the Japanese carrier fleet.
Frank Ch. Eigler their efforts were not fruitless; while under attack the aircraft carriers took Avicii maneuvers during which they could neither launch nor land aircraft. The Japanese airplanes that were in the air were beginning to run low on ammunition and fuel.
Fighting with aircraft was a new thing back then. In WWI they were basically throwing bombs over the side and had bi-wings like the Red Barron. Japanese had several years experience on us using the modern aircraft in war and learning aerial tactics.
I felt like us just got lucky with this battle. Imagine how many wave they sent out before hitting all four carrier with dive bombers. Jap navy sent out one wave and sink 1 carrier.
@@Milo0610 Well, if you're determined to be a very negative asshole, sure, "lucky" is the way to put it. Exceedingly brave and tenacious would be another.
The fact the 2 largest squadrons arrived at the same time by SHEER CHANCE, is America in a nutshell. We have no idea wtf we’re doing but in the end we get it done somehow lol
There was similar chaos in the bombing raids over Ploesti in Europe. The Germans marvelled at the planning and coordination required for all those aircraft to show up at the same time from different directions, but it was the result of confusion and navigation errors that made it happen. Midway worked out the same way.
And its not just that they arrived by sheer chance at the same time. They arrived at the exact moment where the combat air patrol of the Japanese fleet was busy fighting at low level against the torpedo squadron that had arrived just before. That very short window of opportunity where there was no fighter umbrella over the carriers was the exact time the bomber squadrons arrived. Just amazing.
You actually did very good on that front, given that US intelligence knew the Japanese attack plans in details. So, on a big scale, Americans knew exactly what they were doing.
So gross seeing that many attack aircraft lost but through such determination and balls from the pilots and men in charge to keep sending them in over and over. Brilliant, sad and horrifying, I can't imagine being in any single cockpit or on any deck at the time. Mind boggling really! Thanks for these vids I watched this when it came out as well.
Imagine being a pilot in 1942 flying on a mission in the middle of the pacific ocean with no GPS, praying not to have a mechanical issue, being detected by enemy fighters and upon reaching target sight distance, avoid the enemy flak that wants you blown out of the sky. Now if you’ve been lucky enough to survive the attack, count the remaining galons of fuel to make it back to your tiny carrier task force with the only sight of hundreds of square miles of deep blue water under you. Talking about having balls of steel.
You forgot the sharks. Imagine sitting in an inflatable or collapsible raft being harassed by sharks hoping to god you get rescued before a hole was poked. Then if you managed to survive till this point, you'd hope that you weren't discovered by the Japanese, who were known to shoot survivors dead in the water.
In my own life I have experienced violence and fear yet fortunately can recount surviving intact (barely). Yet in all cases it came upon me by surprise. I never had to lie awake the night before thinking about tomorrows coming fight, the odds or my death. I never had to sit with my coffee in the morning and quietly prepare to die that day and then walk out to a flying machine and go through the motions, knowing each flick of each switch was likely going to remove me from seeing my family ever again. How they did that. How they faced that fear and still functioned I can't imagine me doing.
Yeahhh Japan was too Hasty... Like you literally just hit Pearl Harbor in a suprise attack. They didn't realize the U.S. would be more active and weary of another Surprise attack??
They wanted to use all of their battleships (including Yamato and Musashi) in a decisive battle, which would decide the fate of the empire. *_cough cough Leyte Gulf cough cough_*
Ketsu-go. Decisive Battle. Here we see Medival military thinking versus modern military strategy and tactics. Make no mistake, the Japanese had some excellent commanders. But their overall military philosophy was flawed.
Edyson Maldonado I’m saying if anyone tried it would’ve been full red dawn and little Tommy Johnson from Lake Oswego, or would’ve taken up arms and stopped the invasion
RIP to those ill fated airmen at the beginning of the counter attack. Their fate was sealed but they pushed through anyways to get the job done, at the cost of their lives.
Alan Sutton some show, for sure! If his condition was stable, the relief and pride he must have felt when the large force of 50 attacking dive bombers came must have been immense. I watched another video on midway, and it was stated that only one of the squadron members of an early dauntless attack survived.
Watching Torpedo Squadron 8 continue the mission and stay on target down to the last airplane had a profound effect on the Japanese commanders who watched the attack. They knew that Americans would not turn and run, even when the situation was hopeless. That was the moment they realized that forcing America into a negotiated surrender wasn't going to happen.
in my opinion, Hiryu was the most competent and successful IJN Carrier (tied with the Shokaku's). Hiryu's counterattack was one of the most remarkable of the entire war. 1 against 3 with US having air search radar and extreme carrier aircraft losses thus far in the battle yet almost succeeded. Like seriously 7 planes landing 3 hits and 2 near misses and managing to cripple a carrier is quite extraordinary
This channel is absolutely stunning. Sure I could read this stuff up but to have this in front of my eyes makes all the callouts of squadrons and numbers visible. Thank you for all the effort you put into this.
Nice version. Seen so many similar videos with some having confusing details at times but yours is just presented well with straightforward basic facts of the battle. Good job.
The Operations Room One detail, Adm Halsey was in the hospital at Pearl Harbor. Adm Ray Spruance was picked by Halsey to command Enterprise and Hornet. Adm Fletcher Commanded Yorktown, he being senior was overall command.
@@gusigb2677 tactical victory...[for Germany]....but a strategic victory....[for the Brits].....naval people are very protective of their ships....and reluctant to risk losing them.....lest they wind up in the army......
Thank you for sharing this. It was nice to have some visuals to go with the stories my great uncle Earl E. Anderson (USMC 4 Star General Retired) told me growing up. He was on the Yorktown as a young man and when it sank. He spent many hours in the water hanging onto floating debris waiting for rescue. He was one of just a few Navy/Marine Corp men that knew how to swim. He also rescued many of his comrades who could not swim by bringing them debris that was floating for them to hang onto as well. Stories I will never forget as my Great Uncle passed away in 2015.
much like the Lexington...most of the Yorktown's crew survived and were being plucked out of the water by an adjacent destroyer when both were torpedoed.....
I'm not sure what's more surprising, the fact that the American's strategy seemed to be "Just keep sending unescorted bombers at them, their fighters are bound to run out of ammunition at some point" or the fact that it actually worked.
A really informative documentary. I was getting really frustrated with all the US misses and lost men and aircraft. We must remember though that there were no satellites or laser guided munitions during this time period. A lot a brave men died for what they believed in that day (on both sides), and we should remember them.
Another critical factor was the Japanese decision to not armour the flight decks of their carriers. Bombs that hit penetrated the deck easily and exploded in more critical areas of the ship. The American carriers by contrast were armoured.
The Mk13 and Mk14 torpedoes didn’t work worth a damn and it took years for their problems to be properly acknowledged and corrected. So many lives were wasted at Midway delivering torpedoes that simply didn’t work.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」((;)$&
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,,??;
The amount of times the American raids on the carriers failed and the casualties taken just make me want to weep. That goes to show how ignorant I was.
@@50shekels Looking at his surname, he likely has deep Korean heritage and the Koreans never forgot how abused they were during Japanese colonization. Doesn't make it better when Japan still pretends that their past crimes never existed.
I have watched and read many things about the battle of Midway and this is the first video that put in perspective how deadly it was to be a pilot in this battle. I knew about the avenger torpedo planes getting wiped out, but this video really shows how many pilots on both sides were killed in these attacks. There were a lot of brave men that attacked these ships in an almost suicidal way. It seems like about half of all pilots died.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,;))?
The importance of this battle really cannot be overstated. This singular battle not only completely decided the fate of the Pacific war but also proved the superiority of carrier tactics over battleship tactics. While European navies still clung to battleship doctrine, the more modern American and Japanese navies proved the future would be ruled by carriers. Midway is and perhaps will be forever the last decisive naval battle in history.
Possibly. It has to be said that the British Navy had already proven that point, while sinking a chunk of the Italian fleet, using Swordfish torpedo bombers.
@@CarPitStop don't know about back in the 40s, but nowadays carriers are actually some of the fastest boats in the navy due to nuclear power, they only appear slow because they have to keep pace with the rest of the boats in the carrier group. There is also always at least one submarine in the carrier group following the carrier where ever it goes for the exact reason you mentioned.
Nah the devestators were just really shit planes for the time (slow. Really, really slow). And the aircraft torps they had were defective at best so its no suprise that they get shredded without doing much
They also must've known that even if they delivered their payload it likely wouldn't have done any good. American torpedoes were almost hilariously ineffective. They often veered off course and failed to detonate even if they did hit their target. The reason for this is because live torpedoes were never tested. The weapons manufacturers ran practice tests with dud torpedoes and even though barely half succeeded they said that was good enough and gutted the test shells and put in live components
@@PerciusLive By 1941 the Devastators were obsolete, but when they were first introduced in 1937 they were state of the art planes. Goes to show how quickly aircraft technology evolved in that space of time.
This is fantastic. So much more informative and to-the-point than the crappy reenacted TV shows on history channels. Revisiting for at least 3rd time now.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知： 日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,?!(
One of the few times ever that I've found the comment section of a youtube video to be actually useful. So many insightful people speaking their minds often met with counterpoints which brings an intriguing discussion. I've been reading comments for like an hour now lol.
This is so brilliant. Thank you for making these. Your presentation really makes me appreciate military strategy while increasing my fascination in it.
Most of them missed not because of skill issues but because either they were flying so high that the carriers could just move out of the way, the torpedos would hit and do nothing, or would sink too low and go under the carriers.
No one ever mentions USA pilot skill level, but most of these guys are barely above trainee level. How many carriers you think the average US pilot attacked by June 1942? Or a real battle at all? Amatuers is the word that comes to mind. US Army had 40,000 Colonels in ww2. So much inexperience there all around.
I would have to say the previous battle of the Coral sea compares evenly to Midway. Outnumbered, no experience, and critical moments of luck combined with incredible bravery turned a far superior Japanese force from its major mission of taking Port Moresby. They basically prevented the fall of Australia while doing much to allow the Midway victory to take place.
@John Dana Australia was already feeling the effects of Japanese air raids, especially at Darwin. An invasion of Australia was definitely a possibility. The invasion of Dutch Harbor took place just prior Midway, which was after Coral Sea. There were more than sufficient Japanese forces available for such an invasion of Australia.
You are aware they took most of the south Pacific, including Philippines and Singapore, defeating far larger forces than Australian home defense? All with the same troops in China. It's not a personal opinion as it is historical fact.
If the US was not challenging Japan in the Pacific they would have plenty of resources to focus on Australia. Yes they had many resources in China, but they were not meeting much resistance until the end of the war. Cut of the supply lines and connections to Australia and it was just a matter of time. They don't need to control the whole continent to control Australia.
They defeated nearly a half million U.S. and U.K. forces, sunk many battleships of both nations, and defeated all air forces for the entire Pacific, less the U.S. carriers, and you still say they could not beat an Australian military not even a fraction of that size? Australia is a coastal country. The interior is largely wilderness. It's not huge in anything but barren landmass. It's a historic fact Australia was in serious jeopardy on falling. Please stop trying to prove a ridiculous comment. It's embarrassing.
Here's a fun read for you guys. Not exactly Australia but here Parshall and Tully discusses the logistics and mathematics of attacking and invading Pearl Harbor, something much smaller than Australia. www.combinedfleet.com/pearlops.htm
What strikes me watching this video is that it was a truly *Napoleonic* victory: ruthless sacrifice, daring, covert manœuvre and surprise are employed to inflict a stunning defeat on the enemy.
Well....not quite so fantastic. In initial reports they made claims to have sunk the carriers. They hit nothing, in neither the troop transport attack of early 4th nor the later attack on the Nagumo main body.
The problem was much more in training and doctrine. American aircraft were designed in an almost entirely opposite fashion to the Japanese, being much heavier to offer more durability at the expense of maneuverability. Early war pilots werent trained to avoid low speed dogfights with Zero fighters, and paid a heavy price for attempting to do so. Japanese pilots also had 3 times the flight hours in training that American pilots had, and most at this point were experienced combat pilots in the Chinese theater. Midway wasnt just a turning point at a strategic level with the destruction of 4 Japanese carriers, but was also the first time a fighter tactic known as the Thatch Weave was tried in combat. It was immensely successful, and from Midway on, the "outclassed" Wildcat scored a kill:loss ratio of 6.9:1. The Hellcat that replaced it doubled down on the heavy fighter design and was even less maneuverable than the Wildcat and finished the war with a 19:1 kill:loss ratio. That outclassed Wildcat still remained in production and use through the end of the war, though, as the Hellcat was too heavy to land on escort carriers.
@@kosmokenny yep. Tactics, teamwork and unit cohesion are key to victory in battle, some folks dont realize that its much more complicated than spec numbers
Yes, even though they had dog fights in WWI, the new aircraft was no comparison. Then just 5 years later and the jet engine was invented and made everything before that obsolete.
@Mike Fisher And ONLY for the moment. It was rapidly outclassed by US aircraft specifically designed to defeat it. The US STARTED the war with inferior aircraft (and torpedos and so on) BUT had the opportunity and resources to improve. Both germany and Japan appeared to have ridden the wave of technology….but of course they ended up "peaking early" (moreso the Japanese...)
@@nillynush4899 For a start, the only concise clip was a History Channel production. It includes footage of what appears to be a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" being shot down during the second attack on the Yorktown. A twin-engined, land-based bomber. At Midway... Suuuuure.
I like watching these after having recently re-read Miracle at Midway. I read Shattered Sword a few years ago in preparation for seeing the 2019 movie.
Good graphical explanation to go with your audio summary. My dad was at NAS North Island on his way to Pearl during this battle as part of reinforcements. He was a naval fighter pilot eventually for the VF-11 Sundowners.
Its said Spruence launched his strike upon hearing of the attack on Midway because given the position and timing the hope was to catch Nagumo while he was recovering planes and thus unable to launch a fighter arm (CAP) to challenge the attack. Also no IJN radar helped too.
This was a fantastic breakdown on the battle of midway. Props to the Zero, an incredible piece of machinery. It lacked in pilot protection, but I don’t think the Japanese pilots minded at all. A skilled Japanese zero pilot was a death squad all by himself. American pilots knew what the zero was capable of, and how they were largely out machined, but did what they had to through sheer will and determination, knowing the odds of success were not on their side. While out machined, they figured out tactics and took advantage of whatever weaknesses they could. Bravery and valor on full display.
The irony...is the attack on the Aleutians' is how an intact crashed example was used is engineering input for the completion of the F6F Hellcat which would dominate from 1943 onward.
This was an amazing achievement from the United States of America NAVY and their construction support. The Japanese could not have anticipated this. Not many of us others could, either. So an awesome performance. I love the Americans :-)
Catalina's are hard to fly...but unmatched for range....and can even land and pick-up downed pilots...or even pressed into a combat mode when necessary...a very versatile aircraft that played an important role in this fight......
@vin 950 It wouldn't have worked because the US outproduced and Japan in ship production and would have made up for the lost carriers with the added light carrier-class usage seeing a more front line use instead of a support role that they did play for the most part of WW2. The outcome for Japan was sealed when the first bombs were dropped in Peral Harbor.
@momo chi Either incompetence or gambling bet by the higher-ups playing 4D chest, I go with Occam's razor. As for the submarine, no one knew the nationality of the sub when it got sunk and even then, it was not allowed to be there in the first place. That kind of thing has happened many times in history when it comes to spies and espionage. Officially Japan fired first, a submarine in a harbor where it wasn't supposed to be at doesn't count.
@momo chi The stakes of warfare between pre-WW2 and during the Cold War era are two different issues due to the factor of Nukes. Especially between two powers that are on similar military might before full open warfare breakout before nuclear bombs became a thing. That is why sinking of subs and ships that are entering areas they shouldn't be in are different matters for these time periods. It still doesn't change the fact that Japan was the aggressor for WW2 and before it with its invasion of Korea, China, and the Soviet Union. You can be upset that the US blew up a trespassing submarine all you want but Japan fired the first shots at the world when it began its aggressive expansion, then bit off more then it could chew by initiating open warfare with the US by bombing Hawaii. We would be having a different discussion about the events of WW2 if Japan had it not initiated open warfare with the US and instead shifted to strategies employed by the USSR and USA during the cold war to avoid direct confrontation of open warfare.
Love your videos. As a casual history buff they bring a much needed new perspective. One minor suggestion on this one - a wider view that shows the relative positions of the participating fleets would be very helpful.
It's crazy how random war is sometimes. When McCluskey's group found the carriers, McCluskey actually went for the wrong one, Kaga, instead of Akagi. The pilot Richard Best recognized the mistake and broke off for the Akagi, followed by only 2 of his wingmen while the rest went after McCluskey for Kaga.
His wingmen missed, but Dick Best's bomb landed directly inside the hangar and Akagi went up like a Roman candle. Simultaneously Kaga blew up too from the other planes. One man diving onto an entire carrier like a madman scored the most perfect hit possible and doomed the ship.
Arguably the most decisive 5 minutes in history of warfare.
One of the wingman's near miss was near the stern and jammed the rudder, so the Akagi could no longer steer. It also broke some other parts.
I just finished Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tully.
There is a good discussion about why the Admirals took the Hiroyuki with them on what they intended to be a night time gunfight instead of sending it off to safety.
Dick Best is one of the most bravest and amazing men to ever live. He took out a whole carrier with one bomb, hitting right where they left the bombs and ammunition. They should name carriers after Wade McClusky and Dick Best.
There is an excellent reason why they call this the '5 Minutes Of Fate'. The chance that a divine being influenced the odds is almost higher than the odds themselves.
@@politicsiswack8925 Dick best was also only 1 of 2 pilots who successfully scored multiple hits on carriers in a single day
well said!
If you did a 6+ hr documentary on all of WW2, I would still watch it all.
All of WWII in this level of detail would probably be more like 60+ hours.
Though I would watch it :)
ruclips.net/user/Eastoryvideos
Here You got very nice Eastern Front vids :)
I would pay a hundred dollars to watch that
watch time ghost World War II
Yesssss
Jeez... the loss of those Devastator crews by a nearly 100% mortality rate is just unimaginable.
Now you know why the Japanese did Kamikaze attacks, wanted to do better then what the Americans did.
Now they’re devastated crews
@@josephsharp9939 too soon
It was a devastating loss
Yeah, one of the things I tend to remember when I heard lectures about "male privilege".
"Yorktown is damaged! But you can speed up its repairs by spending gems"
Yamamoto: I told you this was a pay to win kusoge from the start...
thank god, Yorktown in AL, she just got rescued but sustained permanent injury to her legs, so she can't water stride anymore.
@FlickeRRing Lightswitch Some allied country: He aint hacking, he just good and u mad, madmadmadmad lmao MAD!
@@awhahoo us is in their gaming chair
@@yummychips_ Wait, I don't remember the leg injury part, which cutscene was that?????
My grandfather was in the final wave of SBD's as a rear gunner. He was hit in the leg, but survived the battle along with his pilot. He was awarded the purple heart.
God Bless him, and a Country eternally grateful, to he and his fellow airmen.
We lost family in Germany. Glad he came home. He’s a hero.
Really??
Hero 100%
orderofrecluse My father was an SBD rear gunner on the Hornet. He also survived and ended the war with two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart. For quite a few years there has been a BOM Commemoration on the USS Midway in San Diego. We would go to honor those who fought at Midway. However, with COVID-19 and the loss of most of our WWII veterans, I think there will not be another gathering.
The repair of Yorktown is to me one of the most heroic actions by civilians in the entire war, and it often gets glossed over in the retelling of the Battle of Midway. That ship pulled into port needing a minimum of two weeks repairs, but the engineers actually said she needed 4 months in Seattle to be fully repaired. But Nimitz needed her for the battle, and so civilians pulled together to pull of a miracle. As I've read it, many many civilians were involved. Those not actually working on board were either running supplies and parts back and forth or bringing food and water to the workers. And in 72 hours, that ship was ready to fight.
I was gonna give you a like, but it’s at 69
@@homiedclown2623 LOL, I would do the same.
@@homiedclown2623 5 days later it's at 72.
Once I stayed up about 72 hours straight. I found out what schizophrenia is probably like.
Hmm, not unlike working at SpaceX (and Tesla) I've read 😄
I am from China, from our textbook, it is hard to see how much sacrifice American made in Midway. Everybody thought it was an easy win, a great victory. But look at how many pilots bravely attacked but never come back...
If you did a 6+ hr documentary on all of WW2, I would still watch it all.
Shim's Martial Arts why are you here.
I sincerely hope the leaders of your homeland remember that. And all the U.S. did for them in WWII. It would be a shame, and a huge tragedy, if we two ever got into a war. If you ever go home again please tell your people how they are manipulated by their government. When all a nation's news reporting and history lessons come from the government, it's called propaganda.
@@billd.iniowa2263 Too late for the shame and tragedy, since the Korean War happened in the 50s.
@@georgeqiao3309 Yeah the commie bastards stabbed us in the back. I supposed we didn't do enough after the Doolittle Raid.
Imagine a DIY Documentary from a RUclips channel is better then those million dollar ones
Edit: To those telling me The Operations room isn’t as good as other youtubers in the same genre, I prefer The Operations room. It’s my opinion, and your opinion is yours. Also don’t battle in the reply section, or keep it minimum. (Which has actually been done, just saying this ahead of time.)
Very kind, thanks!
And narratives by a British accent that sounds like he's giving a narrative report to the admirals
Million dollars???
@@atlas_1802 (History channel)
Could not hav said it better
72 hours to flip an aircraft carrier from OOC to battle-ready.
That's about how long it took me to do my first oil change.
Yeah it’s insane that they did that in that time. They def didn’t stop working for a single second of those 72 hours
3 days for an oil change? For a car? That's easy lol, did it in less than 20 minutes with my truck my first time because my dad was there to guide me on what to do.
You forgot 3 of the first times for noobs steps. Step one, remove drain plug and it falls out of your oily fingers into the drain pan. Decide to get it out after the oil has stopped draining.
Step 2, forget about dropped oil pan plug. Pour oil into engine and discover after you have created a lake of dinosaurs that you did not dig drain plug out of pan. It is now after hours.
Step 3, day 2 you put drain plug in after finding it. Also, you have to go get more oil and cat litter for the lake of dinosaurs under the car. Now pour oil into car with drain plug installed.
they actually did it in 48, nimitz said that they had 72 to get it back up and running
@@matsurischlaagen1757brother it was a joke
Imagine being a Zero pilot and finally thinking you can start the counter attack when, out of nowhere, a bunch of confused and angry American pilots in their dive bombers materialize out of nowhere and blow your carriers to shreds.
Your comment gave me fucking chills, it's so fucking awesome
"Knock knock who's there? Dive bombers motherf+cker! *B O O M"*
You can only feel how helpless those Zero pilots are. They shut down waves of Midway Air-forces, dive in and cut down how many USN Torpedoes-bombers all over the sea level, but later saw huge numbers of Dive-bombers out of nowhere drop down there carriers.
I saw a clip off a Japanese film about this battle, where there was a Zero pilot just ran out of ammo while chasing the fleeing Dive-bombers. He was about to land & refill to return as fast as he can ... but he stay silnet, shocking, witness 3 out of 4 Carriers burst in flames, in the midle of the fleet. He must been flying for hours, shooting down plane after plane to protect his fellows sailor & officers ... but it seem like all of his efforts are meaningless now. His entier navy only has 4 Carriers, and 3 of them are burning right before his eyes. I belived in his mind, he probably know his country just lost the sea to the American hands now.
"how many goddamn planes do you HAVE?!?!?"
It feels like an annoying RTS level where you play as the IJN, managing to hold off your destruction at great cost, then the Yankee AI spams a ton of units to exploit your defensive gaps.
I aint gonna lie.. they had us in the first half
Substituting McClusky was a brilliant move by Nimitz.
@@Yora21 not really a move Halsey was sick with shingles and isn't really a good thing to swap out commands like that before a battle. Sometimes it pans out. The victory had more to do with code breakers and a long standing naval tradition born out of the english empire.
Heh? The first half of what? The battle? It went on for two days and the Japanese had the advantage for maybe the first 2 hours.
@@mitchellhawkes22 that's the point of the joke lol
It's true the japanese inflicted more damage on the first half of the battle
But as it goes on the US decisively won
2nd half comeback to win!
The work done on the Yorktown by those repairman was amazing. She had workers still onboard even as she was towed back out into the harbor, preparing to set sail for Midway. I hope those guys all got the credit they deserved, especially after they heard the results of the battle.
I think a lot died with her sinking and were not combat personnel
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」
Those dock workers are unsung heroes.
After the Yorktown was repaired. A sign was placed at one of the entrances to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. "Welcome to Naval Yard Pearl Harbor. Where the difficult is done right away and the impossible takes just a little longer."
And Enterprise eventually lets loose with everything and hunts down the Japanese fleet....
Can you imagine what the Japanese thought if they knew a highly damaged Fleet Aircraft carrier that should take months to be repaired... could re-appear fully functional in 3 days. How do you fight that?
The United States Navy, had made great strides in damage control. The Carriers that survived, did so because the crews were able to prevent massive fire and control flooding.
@@YTMegiddo I think it has more to do with organization. From what I can understand about the Japanese Navy, their cultural hierarchy are rampant. The US Naval doctrine requires all hands to understand and execute damage control regardless of rank. Whereas the Japanese Navy have a dedicated crew whose only job is damage control. Such job are below the pilots and ranking officers. So, if a section of the ship gets knocked out along with the damage control team for that section then the ship is done for. Another is the ability to move pilots from one carrier to another. That is not possible for the Japanese Navy. The battle Corral Sea ended with one Japanese carrier air wing virtually wiped out but the carrier itself only took minor damage while the other carrier took a little more serious damage thus requires more repairs but its air wing were still somewhat intact. They could have moved air wing to the lightly damage carrier and still have 5 carriers at Midway but this is not how the Japanese Navy works.
The attempted suicide attack on the akagi, although ineffective, startled vice admiral Nagumo because “the Americans weren’t supposed to show such bravery”
@Hal 9000 This is what is unsustainable, a division that poises to take our humanity.
@@C.S_Brown going through the comments Hal 9000 is just a hate-filled troll. Some people are just toxic by nature. Wonder what his home life was like to make him like that.
@goff0103 Yeah it was awesome!
@Hal 9000 Hal, you have some weak trolls. Step your game up.
Leyte gulf was even more of a shock, the Yamato and several other Battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers ran off with heavy damage from a few destroyers, escort destroyers and escort carriers. Inflicting far greater losses than they suffered, actually convincing the superior Japanese fleet to retreat. Fighting Spirit indeed.
The fact our boys got that carrier back up in 72 hours is just completely amazing especially for how messed up it really was
No it's called 1400 men hitting her with orders to get her combat effective not 100 percent repaired. Yorktown left Pearl with 3 boilers destroyed still massive amounts of structural damage still unrepaired a patched upped flight deck parts were steel plates instead of teakwood. For an air wing they literally took the remaining pilots and crews that were left from Coral Sea and transferred in the best from the Saratoga wing that was lying around waiting for her to get back into service. So here's what the difference was in her repaired state compared to normal. She could only do 26 knots compared to over 30 had less electrical power as there was a bad turbogen set that also didn't get changed out. She was down on freshwater condensation capacity also. But she could launch and land her planes and gave us that 3rd flight deck at Midway. Had the battle been a week later we might have even had Saratoga there for the fun. As she brought the replacement planes to Spruance.
@@haroldbenton979gotta wonder if Yorktown survives this battle if she just had a few more days to get ready
@ihicccup9446 one more day maybe but if Buckmaster instead of staying around after getting steam back had just hauled her ass out of the area. Instead she got caught unable to maneuver worth a damn only capable of doing 18 knots when the second Hiryu attack came. Even if we hadn't sunk the Hiryu at Midway we had devastated their carrier strike forces. It wasn't just the planes and crews buy the experienced plane technicians and handling crew's.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本人缺乏瞭解：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,,,??
@@jordanfan5896 No, thats not how carrier operations work. Each carrier needs to carry its complement of fighters and fround/sea attack aircraft. The fighters would always be split in a CAP role and an escort role for the bombers. Even U.S. ships operated under this same policy. Lets say we took your style, and had 1 carrier loaded for each mission, imagine an enemy attack force manages to break through and sink your carrier designated purely for fighter aircraft, now you have no CAP to protect the rest of your fleet or escorts available for your mission. Or if they get through and sink your carrier dedicated for the ground attack on midway, now the entirety of the mission has failed as you can no longer neutralize the shore defense that would pummel your naval invasion forces. Or if they sunk your carrier designated for attacking any potential enemy fleet, now you have no way to reach out and strike your opposing forces. Both Japanese and American carriers would include a complement of dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighter aircraft.
No the biggest mistakes are from a strategic level. The Japanese had assumed they would have total surprise and that the Americans would be forced to respond from Pearl Harbor. However, due to a massive intelligence effort on the part of the Americans, they were able to accurately determine where the Japanese would attack (for much of the time before, it was assumed the Japanese would continue their attacks through the south pacific, not midway) as well as almost the exact time and direction of the Japanese fleet. So even though preparations were made just in case (a complement of aircraft were loaded with torpedoes and left in reserve) it was assumed that there would be no need for any naval attack hence the original decision to rearm the aircraft to ground attack.
The biggest doctrinal difference that had an effect on this battle was that Japanese doctrine had aircraft armed on standby in the hanger, whereas the Americans armed their aircraft on the flight deck. Had it not been for the fully armed aircraft filling the hangers, as well as the ordinance been properly stowed, its unlikely that all 4 ships would have sunk from the dive bombers.
10:40 My great grandfather was part of that raid. He was the piolet of one of the planes and didn't make it back. RIP grandpa thank you for your sacrifice.
R.i.p he was a hero 🌹
Which plane?
@@Tomahawak6712 how tf would he know? his grandpa did comeback to tell him which plane he died lol
If your grandpa died how did you be born? Curios . . .
@@aboxofbeans His great Grandmother was pregnant before He died.
Those first waves of US pilots flying obsolete planes, in what amounted to a suicide mission to delay the Japanese and disrupt the re-fueling/re-arming of the Zeroes, were true heroes. I'm sure they knew there was little chance of a safe return, but they did their duty. This type of sacrifice was a clear illustration how desperate the times were.
The truely obsolete planes were the Buffalo fighters, that tried to protect Midway that day . The Devastator torpedo bomber wasn't significantly obsoleted by the Avenger. Hornet's VT8 was half Avenger, but the Avengers were equally wiped out in their attack that day.
@@isilder The TBD wasn’t so much obsolete as flying an incredibly dangerous mission. Torpedo bombing basically required you to be a sitting duck.
The Buffaloes performed very poorly, causing one squadron commander to say, ‘Anyone who sends a pilot out in an F2A should consider that aircraft lost.’ It was an obsolete type that was less effective than the aircraft it beat for the contract of fleet defender, the Grumman Wildcat.
This was the WW2 equivalent of “going over the top”. Sooner or later the Japanese fighter cover was going to run out of ammunition and fuel and if there was still another wave left it was going to get through. If the situation had been reversed I am sure the American carriers would have been sunk. When the next big carrier engagement took place in the Philippine Sea about two years late both sides had replaced their airwings. The Japanese with very similar aircraft as they had at Midway, the Americans with far superior fighters. The outcome was a “turkey shoot”.
3 squadrons worth plus most of Midways Squadrons all shot down like it was a Turkey shoot
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」((;$&&
Fun fact: The Japanese had war gamed the battle out and one of those war games resulted in pretty much exactly what happened at Midway. It wasn't taken seriously because the American team didn't do what the Japanese team expected and so the result was considered "impossible".
Saying that an outcome of the battle is "impossible" because your enemy doesn't act in an orthodox manner sounds like a great way to set oneself up for getting humbled
@@vassalofthenight9945tbf in military you can never have the full picture, you ALWAYS have to make assumptions. The war game that resulted in a American victory was where the Americans set up their carriers in a ambush, which is what happened irl. The Japanese made the assumption the Americans didn’t know about the plan and because of that assumption it made non sense wasting valuable planning and war gaming time in a -to them- highly improbable match.
For example they could wargame with the assumption all of the the American Atlantic fleet was secretly brought into the pacific. But that is highly improbable and as such a waste of time to wargame. If the Americans hadn’t known at the plan beforehand no one would have bat a eye to the Japanese rejecting the wargame
@@vassalofthenight9945it was more that the Japanese didnt know that the US broke their ciphars and since this entire attack on Midway was secretive, didnt think that the US would ever act like they knew the attack was coming. Not realizing the US purposefully leaked the "weakness" of midway to get the Japs where they wanted them.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」
@@jordanfan5896 that really wasn't their biggest mistake and is a bit of a misunderstanding of the history here. Japan knows that Americas carriers NEED to get sunk to gain complete superiority. So how do we do this? Drawing them into a combat that forces them to go all in on the defense and flush those carriers out. That's why they attack Midway. This also accomplishes at the same time protecting their own ships as taking out the carriers neutralizes Americas fighting force. What they did do was completely underestimate American counter intelligence and did not want to believe that we'd find out the plan ahead of time. On top of that; the actual biggest mistake was attacking Pearl ahead of schedule instead of waiting for the ultimatum to hit.
drinking game: take a shot every time no torpedoes hit
Try getting a hole in one in golf. That’s the comparison
Drunk in about 3 minutes.
Look at Mister Insanity Wolf right here! To invoke an old meme. Old as the Battle Of Midway, almost.
That would kill someone, unlike the torpedoes
RIP my Liver
Yamamoto famously said "Give me 6 months. In the first 6 months of the war, i can run amok. If however we dont win after 6 months, we will not win at all." Ironic how the battle of Midway occured pretty much exactly 6 months later, the battle of Midway ends in total disaster for the japanese. Yamamoto called it to the day.
HolyPastrami Great point. I’ve often thought about the timing of this battle in the same way.
It’s not surprising that Yamamoto was so opposed to going to war with the US. He knew it was a lost war. Yamamoto was a very smart admiral
He had knew the capabilities of the US once it had fully been geared for war once that happened it was only a matter of time
@@Divine_R Partly because he studied at Harvard University, was fluent in English, and had held a post as Naval Attaché in Washington, during which he traveled extensively and learned all about the US. I think, because of this he didn't really believe that either crippling the entire Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, or destroying the US carriers at Midway would cause the US to negotiate a peace.
@@blindleader42 exactly. He had traveled the country north to south, spoke the language perfectly, absorbed as much of the American culture as he could, he even carried a Colt 911 .45 ACP with him. So he knew about the might of the industrial power and determination of it's people once they set their minds on it.
Yamamoto was a brilliant and intelligent officer. Not comprehended and resisted by belligerent and brown nose Japanese officers (arrogant too).
I like how the Japanse CVs painted a massive bomb target on their flight decks, great engineering decision.
Iirc it’s supposed to be so Japanese pilots are able to tell where are their carriers, but yeah lmao pretty big oversight
A carrier pilot I knew when I was a kid said "We'd aim for that big meatball on the deck."
Listening to interviews before he passed away of the great Dusty Kleiss that is exactly what he did. It is no coincidence that his bomb hits on both Kaga and Hiryu came very close to his meatball target.
@@SmilingIbis This. One of the pilots was known to have said that he aimed for the giant target right on the deck.
Believe it or not, finding a ship in the middle of the ocean is a lot more difficult than youd think. The red dot is an identifier sure, but as seen in the video some of the planes had trouble finding the japanese ships until they got quite close
One cool part left out often was the code breakers. They knew about a strike but didn’t know which island or area. In order to find out, a code breaker sent false info out that midway was short on water and another set re other targets. When the Japanese sent codes out that their target was short on water supplies, then the US knew it would be Midway. A massive achievement and brilliant.
AF has problems with their water purification device (irrc)
Were the codes seriously MO=MOresby, AL=ALeution islands, and MI=MIdway?... I read that, but are those the *actual* Japanese codes for the different assaults... Or were those terms just made up by Americans to distinguish them easier?
@@aajas I do believe the whole operation was called operation MI, but I'm not entirely sure whether the US Navy knew the name of the operation too. All I know is that Midway itself was coded as AF, the codebreakers didn't quite know what that meant and devised a trick to flush the Japanese out.
@@the_tactician9858 1q
@@the_tactician9858 IIRC the US already suspected the Japanese would eventually make a move on Midway, but they didn't know when, where or how. This is why when they decoded the Japanese plans, they immediately suspected AF meant Midway, hence they specifically had the Midway base to send that message out.
The USS Yorktown - what an amazing ship. She died an unselfish hero.
She is my waifu in azur lane
@Fishy Business the japanese would say otherwise
@Fishy Business for me no
She didn't die. I slept on it in boy scouts.
@@senkuishigami8545 glad to see another intellectual
“Keep sending in planes and eventually your enemy will run out of bullets” - some wise Admiral
Same can be said for Marines.
Was supposed to be one big attack but america sucked at launching carrier planes
Didn't apply here.
@@mirandamalone8376 Well hard to argue with that. They did get better eventually.
The SBD’s from Enterprise actually had a hard time finding the Carriers. A Japanese destroyer (Arashi) was hunting the USS Nataulis. When Arashi gave up the search and was going back to the fleet, she was discovered by Wade McCluskey’s air group. They followed Arashi all the way back to the fleet and sunk 3 carriers in 4 minutes
It's insane how random war is sometimes. McCluskey's feat of finding the carriers and Dick Best's decision to dive for Akagi instead of Kaga are arguably the most decisive 5 minutes of combat in history. All previous air attacks ended in disaster and suddenly the IJA loses 3 carriers in under 5 minutes.
Not quite. McClusky's Air Group, VS-6, and VB-6, sunk 2 carriers. The 3rd carrier was sunk at the same time by VB-3 (from Yorktown), commanded by Max Leslie, who arrived from the opposite direction.
Can you imagine being a marine/Navy pilot going out over open water against 100s of planes knowing your chances of survival have decreased significantly when you take off. I can't imagine the feeling
We owe these pilots so much. We must not forget them.
That is the Brutal truth
All for america to fall to an undefended invasion from mexico and south america....
Sad.
I'd rather have been under Japan's rule than Mexico's.
michael srite nonsense, you steal your land in the first place wasps should all get deported back to where they are from : northern europe
Bombers in the European theater at least had places to eject, open water battles must be terrifying, you eject and all there is to land in is endless Pacific Ocean
Someone mentioned yesterday that we live in the golden age of documentaries and we truly do. These are amazing and seem to be endless, such a great way to eat time and relax doing it. Thanks for all the work you do on these, I really appreciate it
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」....
If we dont learn from history, we are bound to repeat it
I say that to my daughter all the time :)@@jacquelinerussell8530
Why is this low budget RUclips video so so so much better than the $100 Million movie?
@ unwishfulthink The absence of ideological taint is a factor.
Also simplicity is key
And no unnecessary stuff shoved straight to your face
Just simple narration and simple basic infographic animation to get the point across
The movie was fun and entertaining i agree
But most important information etc.
Are well clarified on this Video
Midway movie was awesome the Fuck you talking about
Because you don't know a single shit about entertainment. We don't watch those movies to learn the exact facts, we watch it for the intensity and excitement dumbass
The movie was great, wdym? No disrespect to this one guy making awesome videos but compared to the movie this isn’t that good, but for one guy this is definitely amazing and watchable content either way. Just don’t compare it to something it’s not comparable to
Very sad for all those initial pilots who tried and failed, and died. But good of the commentator to remark that they didn't die in vain as they kept the Japanese pinned down and depleted their ammo. This is how war goes. A truly bitter sweet moment, but ultimately it led to the final overall victory making their sacrifice even even greater. Their sacrifice led directly to the end of war!
My father fought in the Solomons. Although not often, when he did talk about these battles it was with a reverence I couldn't comprehend as a child. Now I do. Thank you for these extraordinary, detailed pieces of this history.
I must commend the Japanese for actually getting hits on the Yorktown with so few planes left. Shows their experience.
🤔Yeah, right. They also did a fantastic job at Pearl Harbor.🤔
Ok pam
@@pammullinsx6026 Pearl was nowhere near as bad as it could've been because of the vanity of the Japanese pilots, not their lack of skill.
@Loli4lyf I agree wholeheartedly.
@ pirozig zigwam It shows their arrogance. They should have left the battle. It would have saved one fleet carrier for later battles in the Solomons. Big mistake on their part.
I've watched other vids about this battle and still find it incredible how one battle changed the entire war in the Pacific.
Usually, there are no clear turning points in wars, but if ever there was one, this is it.
If Pearl Harbour was the introductory chapter to the carrier story, Coral Sea was the prelude to the climax.
Midway was the plot twist and Battle of the Marianas were the climax of the story.
I think the reason why Midway is often quoted to be the Pacific turning point as in 5 minutes, USN broke the keel of the IJN and they never recovered from it.
In hindsight, Coral Sea can be seen as creating the micro fractures in the IJN keel
The Japanese basically in 1 day lost the war.
To this very day and forever American will enjoy the fruits of the sacrifices made by those brave sailors and pilots.
There is a clear turning point in the war. And another commenter was right for once. It was done in a day: December 7, 1941, the raid on Pearl Harbor. In a single stroke, Japan lost the war.
@@Eanki_ ...it's the advance warning the USA had that enabled them to just scrape to victory against the superior Japanese military.
In my opinion one of the biggest mistakes of Japanese commanders was decision to separate forces into few groups which lead to loose of advantage. They could have in total 8 carriers. And there was still chance to get 5th large carrier Zuikaku after replenishing of her air group from Shokaku. I know their plans were already revealed to Americans thanks to broken codes, but there was still good chance to defeat US navy if the Japanese not underestimated the importance of aerial reconnaissance.
It's a result of Japanese overextension at that point. They tried to control such a large territory they could no longer pursue their earlier, effective strategy of concentrating their forces, because they had to be prepared to defend against attacks from other directions. Japan had the forces to conquer their empire, but not enough to hold it.
I've thought the same thing about why didn't they Zuikaku by replenishing her air group from Shokaku. IJN had this rigid doctrine about not combining air groups in that way. I had the logic explained to me on Quora but it didn't make sense. Fortunately, the USN was much more flexible. Yorktown lost a sizable number of her planes at the Coral Sea too. Just like Zuikaku did. So since Saratoga was in drydock undergoing repairs, they used her air groups to replenish Yorktown for Midway.
@@MW-eb1qh IJN had their air groups operate in specific carrires , unlike the US where they operate in squadrons. Meaning even if Japanese carrier is fully intact but had no air group, they had to train up new recruits for that carrier rather than import experienced pilots from other carriers.
@@olenickel6013 Japan: "Our military is stretched too thin everywhere! Our empire is too big!"
Rome, Mongolia, and Britain: "First time?"
often times it is doctrine that wins war between major countries. look at when Germany took over France in ww2, France had the far superior army in this case, but they had shitty doctrine and got encircled by a weaker army and lost. it isn't just about the size of your military its also about how you use it
The US code breakers cracked the Japanese codes and the way that they found out that midway island was the target was they sent out a false blurb. They sent out a message that said they were having problems with their water system that midway needed water, and so the Japanese reported that target is having water problems so that’s how the US new midway was the target
@J M But they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush, but they knew about that so they prepared an ambush, but we knew about that so we prepared an ambush.
Which is why we won.
@@Eatmydbzballs Well said.
An ambush within an ambush
*IT'S AMBUSHCEPTION!*
[Foghorn]
@@Eireann. an ambush in the sea
And the Japanese still hadn’t figured out in 1943 that US Naval Intelligence had largely cracked the former’s codes. Yamamoto paid for that with his life.
They didn't really know until years later
After two of our carriers just seemed to show up out of the blue at the Coral Sea, the IJN should have deduced we'd broken their codes.
Winston Churchill didn’t want the US to kill Yamamoto due to the fear if they did. the Japanese would suspect the codes are broken by the allies
It's hilarious that both the Germans and the Japs, BOTH known as great planners, just didn't bring a new code out every year. Seems so obvious really.
Let's just invent a code and LET IT RIDE OUT until we suspect it's been broken.......
@@MW-eb1qh Ugaki's diary includes a reference that somehow the plan was leaked, but does not mention possible breaking of the JAN-25. His diary is a treasure given the deaths of he, Yamanoto and Nagumo.
Those pilots who sacrificed their lives for the Allied cause were some of the finest human beings this world has ever known. We owe them so much.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,.,?
Saw that they discovered the wrecks of the Kaga and the Akagi a few days apart just a few weeks ago. The U.S. carriers Lexington and Yorktown wrecks had already been found.
just Soryu and Hiryu left and we will have found all the carriers.
Trivia question... If Yorktown was sunk... Why is it sitting dockside in Charleston, South Carolina. I was able to walk her decks with my family. 😉
David Whitten Because that USS Yorktown is CV-10. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-10)
The one that was sunk at Midway was CV-5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-5)
@@davidwhitten3596 Because you didn't do any research.
@@73Trident I'm pretty sure he was only joking
Missing is the detail of the US submarine Nautilus and the Japanese destroyer Arashi. Without this encounter the, the Enterprise's dive bombers likely wouldn't have found the Japanese carrier fleet.
no body is perfect
You are correct. I really should have first said "Great video, thanks for posting."
Watch montemayor video on midway battle. Its quite detailed. Its an underrated channel with a good content
Its been about 10 years since Montemayor did the part 1 of the battle of Midway. Im expecting part 2 to drop sometime in 2030.
@@beleagueredbeluga5228 yeah. arashi's big ass trail that can be seen from the moon. hahahaha
I’m so happy this channel blew up and I found it, there’s so much great educational/interesting content here
Had no idea that there were so many initial American attacks that were basically fruitless.
I wonder how much of a difference it would have made if the US had better aircraft to engage the Japanese Zeros?
Frank Ch. Eigler their efforts were not fruitless; while under attack the aircraft carriers took Avicii maneuvers during which they could neither launch nor land aircraft. The Japanese airplanes that were in the air were beginning to run low on ammunition and fuel.
Fighting with aircraft was a new thing back then. In WWI they were basically throwing bombs over the side and had bi-wings like the Red Barron. Japanese had several years experience on us using the modern aircraft in war and learning aerial tactics.
I felt like us just got lucky with this battle. Imagine how many wave they sent out before hitting all four carrier with dive bombers. Jap navy sent out one wave and sink 1 carrier.
@@Milo0610 Well, if you're determined to be a very negative asshole, sure, "lucky" is the way to put it.
Exceedingly brave and tenacious would be another.
The fact the 2 largest squadrons arrived at the same time by SHEER CHANCE, is America in a nutshell. We have no idea wtf we’re doing but in the end we get it done somehow lol
There was similar chaos in the bombing raids over Ploesti in Europe. The Germans marvelled at the planning and coordination required for all those aircraft to show up at the same time from different directions, but it was the result of confusion and navigation errors that made it happen. Midway worked out the same way.
Yeah😂
And its not just that they arrived by sheer chance at the same time. They arrived at the exact moment where the combat air patrol of the Japanese fleet was busy fighting at low level against the torpedo squadron that had arrived just before. That very short window of opportunity where there was no fighter umbrella over the carriers was the exact time the bomber squadrons arrived. Just amazing.
You actually did very good on that front, given that US intelligence knew the Japanese attack plans in details. So, on a big scale, Americans knew exactly what they were doing.
@@migmitAbsolutely correct. This is often the case, the victor made their luck.
So gross seeing that many attack aircraft lost but through such determination and balls from the pilots and men in charge to keep sending them in over and over. Brilliant, sad and horrifying, I can't imagine being in any single cockpit or on any deck at the time. Mind boggling really! Thanks for these vids I watched this when it came out as well.
makes sad to think about our worthless torpedos for that first year and what a difference that could have made
Imagine being a pilot in 1942 flying on a mission in the middle of the pacific ocean with no GPS, praying not to have a mechanical issue, being detected by enemy fighters and upon reaching target sight distance, avoid the enemy flak that wants you blown out of the sky.
Now if you’ve been lucky enough to survive the attack, count the remaining galons of fuel to make it back to your tiny carrier task force with the only sight of hundreds of square miles of deep blue water under you. Talking about having balls of steel.
incredible feats of navigation and personal bravery.
You forgot the sharks. Imagine sitting in an inflatable or collapsible raft being harassed by sharks hoping to god you get rescued before a hole was poked. Then if you managed to survive till this point, you'd hope that you weren't discovered by the Japanese, who were known to shoot survivors dead in the water.
In my own life I have experienced violence and fear yet fortunately can recount surviving intact (barely). Yet in all cases it came upon me by surprise. I never had to lie awake the night before thinking about tomorrows coming fight, the odds or my death. I never had to sit with my coffee in the morning and quietly prepare to die that day and then walk out to a flying machine and go through the motions, knowing each flick of each switch was likely going to remove me from seeing my family ever again. How they did that. How they faced that fear and still functioned I can't imagine me doing.
i know right .. wow .. the odds surely didnt favor a return
Sounds like fun
This is a classic example of what happens when you Ambush an Ambush !
Great point. The Japanese were trying to sneak attack the Americans but the Americans knew it was coming.
Agreed, the Japanese thought they were pulling a fast one on the Americans but the U.S. turned the tables on them.
Perfect, couldnt have said it better myself. The Japanese thought they had the upper hand, only to be fooled in the end.
Yeahhh Japan was too Hasty...
Like you literally just hit Pearl Harbor in a suprise attack.
They didn't realize the U.S. would be more active and weary of another Surprise attack??
True but we sure had a lot of luck on our side either way.
It’s amazing that Yorktown got repaired in 72 hours and was still able to take a couple bombs like a champ
Ironic that the Japanese Navy's entire strategic doctrine was geared toward forcing "The One Decisive Naval Battle".
Well, they got it.
They wanted to use all of their battleships (including Yamato and Musashi) in a decisive battle, which would decide the fate of the empire.
*_cough cough Leyte Gulf cough cough_*
Even if they defeated the US in a dozen decisive battles I doubt they could win the war
Ketsu-go. Decisive Battle. Here we see Medival military thinking versus modern military strategy and tactics. Make no mistake, the Japanese had some excellent commanders. But their overall military philosophy was flawed.
Edyson Maldonado to this day I don’t think the Japanese had the balls to invade the US mainland. They knew what was waiting for them.
Edyson Maldonado I’m saying if anyone tried it would’ve been full red dawn and little Tommy Johnson from Lake Oswego, or would’ve taken up arms and stopped the invasion
RIP to those ill fated airmen at the beginning of the counter attack. Their fate was sealed but they pushed through anyways to get the job done, at the cost of their lives.
Some were picked up and survived, one airmen shot down, bobbed around the sea and watched all 4 carriers get hit, what a sight that must of been.
Alan Sutton some show, for sure! If his condition was stable, the relief and pride he must have felt when the large force of 50 attacking dive bombers came must have been immense.
I watched another video on midway, and it was stated that only one of the squadron members of an early dauntless attack survived.
@@matthewgillespie2835 I found this, www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-06-04-9202190663-story.html
They are American, those were very easy to get anywhere
Watching Torpedo Squadron 8 continue the mission and stay on target down to the last airplane had a profound effect on the Japanese commanders who watched the attack. They knew that Americans would not turn and run, even when the situation was hopeless. That was the moment they realized that forcing America into a negotiated surrender wasn't going to happen.
in my opinion, Hiryu was the most competent and successful IJN Carrier (tied with the Shokaku's). Hiryu's counterattack was one of the most remarkable of the entire war. 1 against 3 with US having air search radar and extreme carrier aircraft losses thus far in the battle yet almost succeeded. Like seriously 7 planes landing 3 hits and 2 near misses and managing to cripple a carrier is quite extraordinary
That's the effort of the flight leader Tomonaga, who did not survive that assault. To your point Yamaguchi (captain of Hiryu) was not a fan of Nagumo.
Hiryu's commander was Tamon Yamaguchi, who was known as the most aggressive of the Japanese carrier admirals. He knew what he was doing.
This channel is absolutely stunning. Sure I could read this stuff up but to have this in front of my eyes makes all the callouts of squadrons and numbers visible.
Thank you for all the effort you put into this.
Nice version. Seen so many similar videos with some having confusing details at times but yours is just presented well with straightforward basic facts of the battle. Good job.
Thank you, i aim to produce a "bitesize" version of events
The Operations Room One detail, Adm Halsey was in the hospital at Pearl Harbor. Adm Ray Spruance was picked by Halsey to command Enterprise and Hornet. Adm Fletcher Commanded Yorktown, he being senior was overall command.
@@rjrestorationstation4402 correct
Thanks! Awesome job on every video. The sky views are such a good way to explain battles.
This channel, and content like it, is exactly why RUclips exists. This is wonderful. Keep it up :)
Would love to see your take on Battle of Jutland ;)
@@gusigb2677 tactical victory...[for Germany]....but a strategic victory....[for the Brits].....naval people are very protective of their ships....and reluctant to risk losing them.....lest they wind up in the army......
Thank you for sharing this. It was nice to have some visuals to go with the stories my great uncle Earl E. Anderson (USMC 4 Star General Retired) told me growing up. He was on the Yorktown as a young man and when it sank. He spent many hours in the water hanging onto floating debris waiting for rescue. He was one of just a few Navy/Marine Corp men that knew how to swim. He also rescued many of his comrades who could not swim by bringing them debris that was floating for them to hang onto as well. Stories I will never forget as my Great Uncle passed away in 2015.
Antler Assassins TV- Bowhunting Television May your great uncle Rest In Peace.
much like the Lexington...most of the Yorktown's crew survived and were being plucked out of the water by an adjacent destroyer when both were torpedoed.....
I'm not sure what's more surprising, the fact that the American's strategy seemed to be "Just keep sending unescorted bombers at them, their fighters are bound to run out of ammunition at some point" or the fact that it actually worked.
japenese zeros only had 7 seconds of ammunition
Bold to assume there was one.
You clearly do not understand the battle. It was most emphatically _not_ planned that way.
A really informative documentary. I was getting really frustrated with all the US misses and lost men and aircraft. We must remember though that there were no satellites or laser guided munitions during this time period. A lot a brave men died for what they believed in that day (on both sides), and we should remember them.
US Navy had intelligence but mostly sheer luck on ther side.
Plus unknown to us at the time, 75% of our torpedoes were duds.
Another critical factor was the Japanese decision to not armour the flight decks of their carriers. Bombs that hit penetrated the deck easily and exploded in more critical areas of the ship.
The American carriers by contrast were armoured.
its amazing how modern munitions fail. watch how we destroyed saddams navy and count how many misses there were...
The Mk13 and Mk14 torpedoes didn’t work worth a damn and it took years for their problems to be properly acknowledged and corrected. So many lives were wasted at Midway delivering torpedoes that simply didn’t work.
Greatest comeback ever? went in knowing the outcome and still questioned if the U.S. was gonna pull it off lol.
Nah soviets were pushed to moscow and then later took Berlin
My uncle was a member of the navy crew that defended midway. Survived and died peacefully at his home in Hawaii
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」((;)$&
Those pilots on the Devastators should all win Medal of Honors. They knew what they were getting into when they flew right into the Hornet's nest.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,,??;
The amount of times the American raids on the carriers failed and the casualties taken just make me want to weep.
That goes to show how ignorant I was.
I think almost all of us were like this at some point. It took me 7 years to let go of a national grudge.
As they say, war is bad but ships are rad.
Should look at the soviets lol
@@jhk8396 It took you 7 years to let go of a battle that happened before you were born?
@@50shekels Looking at his surname, he likely has deep Korean heritage and the Koreans never forgot how abused they were during Japanese colonization.
Doesn't make it better when Japan still pretends that their past crimes never existed.
@@imgvillasrc1608 What's a Japan?
I have watched and read many things about the battle of Midway and this is the first video that put in perspective how deadly it was to be a pilot in this battle. I knew about the avenger torpedo planes getting wiped out, but this video really shows how many pilots on both sides were killed in these attacks. There were a lot of brave men that attacked these ships in an almost suicidal way. It seems like about half of all pilots died.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,;))?
The importance of this battle really cannot be overstated. This singular battle not only completely decided the fate of the Pacific war but also proved the superiority of carrier tactics over battleship tactics. While European navies still clung to battleship doctrine, the more modern American and Japanese navies proved the future would be ruled by carriers. Midway is and perhaps will be forever the last decisive naval battle in history.
Possibly.
It has to be said that the British Navy had already proven that point, while sinking a chunk of the Italian fleet, using Swordfish torpedo bombers.
You can't rely on carriers for everything. They move slowly, and are highly vulnerable to things like submarines.
@@CarPitStop don't know about back in the 40s, but nowadays carriers are actually some of the fastest boats in the navy due to nuclear power, they only appear slow because they have to keep pace with the rest of the boats in the carrier group. There is also always at least one submarine in the carrier group following the carrier where ever it goes for the exact reason you mentioned.
airplanes and helicopters are the best thing against subs so they are still the best@@CarPitStop
It's America's Trafalgar and Tsushima
Those torpedo bomber pilots must have known they were flying into a death trap. But to continue with their duty just shows how brave they were.
Nah the devestators were just really shit planes for the time (slow. Really, really slow). And the aircraft torps they had were defective at best so its no suprise that they get shredded without doing much
They also must've known that even if they delivered their payload it likely wouldn't have done any good. American torpedoes were almost hilariously ineffective. They often veered off course and failed to detonate even if they did hit their target. The reason for this is because live torpedoes were never tested. The weapons manufacturers ran practice tests with dud torpedoes and even though barely half succeeded they said that was good enough and gutted the test shells and put in live components
@@PerciusLive By 1941 the Devastators were obsolete, but when they were first introduced in 1937 they were state of the art planes. Goes to show how quickly aircraft technology evolved in that space of time.
This is fantastic. So much more informative and to-the-point than the crappy reenacted TV shows on history channels. Revisiting for at least 3rd time now.
Jordan Fan，Prophet of Environment。范楚漳，環境先知：
日本乏略：「要分工合作」的重要性。The biggest mistakes made by the Japanese were simply because those Japanese admirals didn’t understand the strategy of division of labors. All the Japanese aircraft carriers and warships have three (3) and the same missions or objectives (1) Attack the Midway Islands. and (2) Attack American Carriers and Warships. (3) Protect their own warships. Just how can one warships Carryout all 3 tasks??? It was extremely stupid!!! If the Japanese commanders could simply divide those tasks among the ships or groups of ships so that each group of ships could concentrate on their own task then the Japanese could win and avoid such big loss. Make sense??? 「要分工合作」,?!(
boy, this is an elegant and eloquent production.
i am extremely impressed.
congrats and thanks.
One of the few times ever that I've found the comment section of a youtube video to be actually useful. So many insightful people speaking their minds often met with counterpoints which brings an intriguing discussion. I've been reading comments for like an hour now lol.
Serious props to the people repairing that ship. 2 weeks worth of repairs done in 72 hours is no small feat
This is so brilliant. Thank you for making these. Your presentation really makes me appreciate military strategy while increasing my fascination in it.
You earned yourself a sub with this excellent video!
Same here.. My grandfather was repairing US airplanes when he was serving in WWII..
Thankyou, glad to have you back for future videos
An SS-168?
Imagine flying all that way, only to have your single bomb miss. Shows how much skill was needed for them to hit the carriers.
Most of them missed not because of skill issues but because either they were flying so high that the carriers could just move out of the way, the torpedos would hit and do nothing, or would sink too low and go under the carriers.
No one ever mentions USA pilot skill level, but most of these guys are barely above trainee level.
How many carriers you think the average US pilot attacked by June 1942? Or a real battle at all?
Amatuers is the word that comes to mind.
US Army had 40,000 Colonels in ww2. So much inexperience there all around.
Japan: You are already dead.
US: **Teleports behind you** Nothing personal, kiddo.
The Operations Room is probably the only guy out there who is in the same league as Montemayor.
Don't forget Bazbattles, though he focuses more on medieval warfare
Despites these two greats, I vouch bazbattles
Just discovered this channel today, and have put the word out to many of my wargame buddies. This channel deserves far more eyes than it has.
Love the way this battle is visualised, keep up the good work!!!
Thankyou sir
I would have to say the previous battle of the Coral sea compares evenly to Midway. Outnumbered, no experience, and critical moments of luck combined with incredible bravery turned a far superior Japanese force from its major mission of taking Port Moresby. They basically prevented the fall of Australia while doing much to allow the Midway victory to take place.
@John Dana Australia was already feeling the effects of Japanese air raids, especially at Darwin. An invasion of Australia was definitely a possibility. The invasion of Dutch Harbor took place just prior Midway, which was after Coral Sea. There were more than sufficient Japanese forces available for such an invasion of Australia.
You are aware they took most of the south Pacific, including Philippines and Singapore, defeating far larger forces than Australian home defense? All with the same troops in China. It's not a personal opinion as it is historical fact.
If the US was not challenging Japan in the Pacific they would have plenty of resources to focus on Australia. Yes they had many resources in China, but they were not meeting much resistance until the end of the war. Cut of the supply lines and connections to Australia and it was just a matter of time. They don't need to control the whole continent to control Australia.
They defeated nearly a half million U.S. and U.K. forces, sunk many battleships of both nations, and defeated all air forces for the entire Pacific, less the U.S. carriers, and you still say they could not beat an Australian military not even a fraction of that size? Australia is a coastal country. The interior is largely wilderness. It's not huge in anything but barren landmass. It's a historic fact Australia was in serious jeopardy on falling. Please stop trying to prove a ridiculous comment. It's embarrassing.
Here's a fun read for you guys. Not exactly Australia but here Parshall and Tully discusses the logistics and mathematics of attacking and invading Pearl Harbor, something much smaller than Australia.
www.combinedfleet.com/pearlops.htm
You can tell the difference in quality from back then to today. I enjoyed watching this channel grow
What a brutal battle. First many failed American air assaults then the sinking of Japanese ships. It must have been terrifying for all involved.
What strikes me watching this video is that it was a truly *Napoleonic* victory: ruthless sacrifice, daring, covert manœuvre and surprise are employed to inflict a stunning defeat on the enemy.
This makes me miss playing Battlestations Pacific and Midway...I would always try to reenact this when I did.
Nice presentation of one of the most interesting battles of WWII. Amazing story. Never really get tired of learning about it.
I know I am late and I consider myself a history nut but I had no idea B17's were used in the battle. This is fantastic! Definitely a fan.
A complete waste of fuel and bombs, they hit nothing.
Well....not quite so fantastic. In initial reports they made claims to have sunk the carriers. They hit nothing, in neither the troop transport attack of early 4th nor the later attack on the Nagumo main body.
The detail and illustration he gives to the battle is next level. Immediately subscribed
Always amazes me how outclassed the US Navy planes were at the beginning.
The problem was much more in training and doctrine. American aircraft were designed in an almost entirely opposite fashion to the Japanese, being much heavier to offer more durability at the expense of maneuverability. Early war pilots werent trained to avoid low speed dogfights with Zero fighters, and paid a heavy price for attempting to do so. Japanese pilots also had 3 times the flight hours in training that American pilots had, and most at this point were experienced combat pilots in the Chinese theater. Midway wasnt just a turning point at a strategic level with the destruction of 4 Japanese carriers, but was also the first time a fighter tactic known as the Thatch Weave was tried in combat. It was immensely successful, and from Midway on, the "outclassed" Wildcat scored a kill:loss ratio of 6.9:1. The Hellcat that replaced it doubled down on the heavy fighter design and was even less maneuverable than the Wildcat and finished the war with a 19:1 kill:loss ratio. That outclassed Wildcat still remained in production and use through the end of the war, though, as the Hellcat was too heavy to land on escort carriers.
@@kosmokenny yep. Tactics, teamwork and unit cohesion are key to victory in battle, some folks dont realize that its much more complicated than spec numbers
Yes, even though they had dog fights in WWI, the new aircraft was no comparison. Then just 5 years later and the jet engine was invented and made everything before that obsolete.
Thats what happens when military spending is cut. No improvements and training usually loses you a war.
@Mike Fisher And ONLY for the moment. It was rapidly outclassed by US aircraft specifically designed to defeat it. The US STARTED the war with inferior aircraft (and torpedos and so on) BUT had the opportunity and resources to improve. Both germany and Japan appeared to have ridden the wave of technology….but of course they ended up "peaking early" (moreso the Japanese...)
This is the clearest and most concise description of the Battle of Midway that I've ever seen.
go watch montemayor's vid bro
@@nillynush4899 For a start, the only concise clip was a History Channel production. It includes footage of what appears to be a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" being shot down during the second attack on the Yorktown. A twin-engined, land-based bomber. At Midway... Suuuuure.
Twelve and a half minutes of wow the USA is screwed followed by 3 minutes of near disbelief. Great video on the greatest day in Navy history!
This battle was very interesting, thanks for the video. Keep up the good work.
I can't remember how many times I've watched this. Superbly arranged and delivered.
I like watching these after having recently re-read Miracle at Midway. I read Shattered Sword a few years ago in preparation for seeing the 2019 movie.
I frikkin LOVE this channel!!!
This iS THE BEST 15 minute synopsis if the battle. Kudo 'y'all.
Good graphical explanation to go with your audio summary. My dad was at NAS North Island on his way to Pearl during this battle as part of reinforcements. He was a naval fighter pilot eventually for the VF-11 Sundowners.
Many thanks
This is the first video that made me understand midway.
Please do more famous battles you are doing an amazing job!
Caught em as they were rearming and refueling their planes. Whole course of the war was flipped in 12 minutes
that is so effective, it should be a plan.
Its said Spruence launched his strike upon hearing of the attack on Midway because given the position and timing the hope was to catch Nagumo while he was recovering planes and thus unable to launch a fighter arm (CAP) to challenge the attack. Also no IJN radar helped too.
This was a fantastic breakdown on the battle of midway. Props to the Zero, an incredible piece of machinery. It lacked in pilot protection, but I don’t think the Japanese pilots minded at all. A skilled Japanese zero pilot was a death squad all by himself. American pilots knew what the zero was capable of, and how they were largely out machined, but did what they had to through sheer will and determination, knowing the odds of success were not on their side. While out machined, they figured out tactics and took advantage of whatever weaknesses they could. Bravery and valor on full display.
The irony...is the attack on the Aleutians' is how an intact crashed example was used is engineering input for the completion of the F6F Hellcat which would dominate from 1943 onward.
Thanks!
Thanks!
You do a nice job of bringing the real-life drama to the topic. I'm not a war/history buff, but I found this very exciting/interesting.
This was an amazing achievement from the United States of America NAVY and their construction support. The Japanese could not have anticipated this. Not many of us others could, either. So an awesome performance. I love the Americans :-)
Very strong presentation, clear and well put together. Good effort all round. You got yourself a sub.
How courageous were those Catalina pilots. Brewtser buffaloes, omg. This was amazing.🇦🇺
Catalina's are hard to fly...but unmatched for range....and can even land and pick-up downed pilots...or even pressed into a combat mode when necessary...a very versatile aircraft that played an important role in this fight......
First mistake was thinking Americans would negotiate a peace treaty after being attacked . Second mistake was doing it.
@vin 950 we might not have had a Germany First war policy...
It was more than just being attacked. It was being attacked on a Sunday while their ambassadors were still negotiating.
@vin 950 It wouldn't have worked because the US outproduced and Japan in ship production and would have made up for the lost carriers with the added light carrier-class usage seeing a more front line use instead of a support role that they did play for the most part of WW2. The outcome for Japan was sealed when the first bombs were dropped in Peral Harbor.
@momo chi Either incompetence or gambling bet by the higher-ups playing 4D chest, I go with Occam's razor. As for the submarine, no one knew the nationality of the sub when it got sunk and even then, it was not allowed to be there in the first place. That kind of thing has happened many times in history when it comes to spies and espionage. Officially Japan fired first, a submarine in a harbor where it wasn't supposed to be at doesn't count.
@momo chi The stakes of warfare between pre-WW2 and during the Cold War era are two different issues due to the factor of Nukes. Especially between two powers that are on similar military might before full open warfare breakout before nuclear bombs became a thing. That is why sinking of subs and ships that are entering areas they shouldn't be in are different matters for these time periods. It still doesn't change the fact that Japan was the aggressor for WW2 and before it with its invasion of Korea, China, and the Soviet Union. You can be upset that the US blew up a trespassing submarine all you want but Japan fired the first shots at the world when it began its aggressive expansion, then bit off more then it could chew by initiating open warfare with the US by bombing Hawaii. We would be having a different discussion about the events of WW2 if Japan had it not initiated open warfare with the US and instead shifted to strategies employed by the USSR and USA during the cold war to avoid direct confrontation of open warfare.
Of the many documentaries on the Battle of Midway, this is by far the clearest illustration I've found on RUclips 👍
Love your videos. As a casual history buff they bring a much needed new perspective. One minor suggestion on this one - a wider view that shows the relative positions of the participating fleets would be very helpful.
Very kind, thanks for the tip
watch montemayer's 2 videos on Midway with a Japanese perspective, very interesting