Our ability to maintain and repair damaged ships, vehicles, and other equipment was second to none in World War II. Our ability to swap air groups between carriers was also very beneficial.
There are fascinating accounts of US army mechanics rebuilding/repairing jeeps and other vehicles in the ETO after D-Day that made a big difference to equipment availability. The suggestion was that young American men had been building "Hot rods" at home in the 30's...and just used those skills....
It's simple. Japan had 6 heavy and 3 light carriers to start the war, US had only 4 Fleet Carriers, and 2 light (both Atlantic). Yes, Yorktown at Midway was amazing.. literally Dock+Workers welding inside when she left Pearl
The Yorktown repairs at Hawaii were so important and used so much electricity that large parts of Honolulu were blacked out and the electricity diverted to the Yorktown drydock.
In 1929 _USS Lexington_ supplied power to Tacoma, WA for a month; a drought had affected the hydroelectric dam generators that usually supplied Tacoma's power. Her turboelectric drive system was well-suited to the task.
US navy yard did the impossible, salute to repair supervisor to guide only most important repairs. Crews worked around the clock, can do attitude. Love your research & posting rare photos
Bear in mind, that when she left, the Yorktown was not factory fresh. she was merely stamped "ready for sea". This is because she was needed for Midway. Its possible her hasty repairs contributed to her loss.
I was in the Navy for 8+ years, the first two, learning how to run an engineroom, the last 6 was working in repair facilities. There were a few times we would be called to do "emergency" repairs, drydocking boats in the night time and back to everthing (from a satellites view) is normal by morning.... What those repair people did, was nothing less than heroic! The coordination to get it done, in Hawaii, with it's long supply lines, to get the steel, valves, pipes, all that! It's amazing, especially for the time! P.S. I used to sail Matson ships for awhile, they are the railroad to Hawaii.
Among the unsung heroes of the American war effort were our damage control specialists, both on the ships and on the repair ships and shore installations. From the very beginning, the US had a decisive edge in terms of limiting damage to our ships beyond that caused by initial weapon strikes (with exceptions of course- the Lexington being among them).
A book I read years ago had a line about the repairs on Yorktown by the dock workers when told of the importance of the job......the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer..... it always stuck with me and reminds me of the greatness of the greatest generation! Thanks. 🇺🇲
If i remember correctly from Miloš Hubáček's "Pacific on fire", the civilian workers remained voluntarily aboard, working around the clock, even during the Battle od Midway.
LOVE the fact that you are showing actual battle damage photos and blueprints. The story telling is somewhat chaotic, it seemed less linear than I would prefer. Maybe for this one a score card with amount of damage, location and disposition of the ships involved, "On this date" here is a nice graphic you can pause and study or listen to the bullet points and move on. I know this story quite well, I got about 20% of the way into another vid of MW from another YT'er just today that didn't even warrant a comment it was so childish and lame. Keep it up you are headed in the right direction.
More maps, keep the name of the battle on the screen I thought you were talking about Midway but then it's Coral Sea, put the name of the ship on the screen. The outro muzak could be worse... but not by much. You still got a 👍from me thought.
The American's determination to repair and re-equip the Yorktown for Midway compared to the IJN's passivity to get at least Zuikaku at there speaks volumes as to why the Americans won. It turned out getting the Yorktown to Midway was even more important than Nimitz could've anticipated, given the Hornet's disastrous performance at that battle. It's an absolute tragedy that ship was lost there.
Sorry for being insensitive. She went in a blaze of glory. Not fully repaired, did the absolute best she could and took the hits that could have damaged or sunk her sisters.
WRT Yorktown, the PH naval yard people did a heroic job. The other key to Yorktown participating at Midway was the USN's willingness/ability to piece together an air group from Coral Sea survivors and aviators from Saratoga (which was being repaired after a torpedo hit). On the Japanese side, it was possible, hypothetically, to do similarly, knitting together Coral Sea survivors from both Shokaku and Zuikaku, possibly with a few more replacement pilots, and thereby commit the intact Zuikaku to Midway. However, as is mentioned in Parshall's and Tully's "Shattered Sword", IJN doctrine at the time was that air groups were part of their carrier's complement, and the IJN would not form and send into battle an air group formed from aviators from multiple air groups.
The IJN’s policy was partially driven by the wild differences in the design between their carriers. The air flow over the decks made take offs and landings significantly different because of having funnels in different locations and having the island on opposite side of the ship in one case.
While true in comparing Akagi vs. Kaga vs. Hiryu vs. Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku were of the same class, with pretty much the same landing and take-off characteristics. By mid 1942 flexibility should have been applied to their air groups (and later was, I believe).
By way of contrast from the USN side, USS Yorktown brought to Miday and air group that was a composite of her own fliers, fliers from USS Lexington and from USS Saratoga, i.e. fliers from two very different carrier classes. Yorktown's composite air group did far better than USS Honet's inexperienced and poorly led air group. It can be argued, but Yorktown's patched together air group did at least as well as the air group flying from USS Enterprise.
Japanese believed in Carrier Divisions rather than individual carriers. Therefore, one carrier could launch divebombers and other torpedo bombers in easily less than half the time the US lone carrier could all its compliment. He who strike first, won in those days, so it was a good plan. It fell apart in the radar / CiC age in a year's time, where US could vector fighters to break up incoming attacks, in large piecemeal packets and not one huge formation. The Japanese had better tactics at an operational level than the Americans, so Yorktown presence in the battle should be a commendation for repair crews at Pearl. CarDiv 5 had not had any rest and recuperation since the commissioning of Shokaku in September 1941. The aviators and crew were at sea almost continuously for that next 9 months. Their fatigue in Coral Sea maybe not have help at Midway anyway. Zuikaku was would have been down to 35 planes and crew. Japanese production of naval planes had already fallen behind with Junyo and Ryujo understrength for Midway operation. The Japanese fighter air groups formations in DEI had already reported shortages of Zeroes / replacement in early April. So its doubtful whether Zuikaku would have sortied with a whole air group, thus it might even been another defenceless target like Hiryu in the afternoon of the 4th anyway.
Excellent comment! Not to mention the incredibly high standards that IJN had for carrier pilots (by necessity-if you can't land on a carrier, you're of no use to the carriers, but I'm sure they could have shaved off some training time...) meant that even low losses (like suffered by the IJN Carriers in the raid on Ceylon) caused delays for any ops the Navy had planned. I feel that the US got off lucky at Coral Sea because of a few snafus that lost a large number of attack aircraft and their crews for the Japanese BEFORE they finally came to grips with Lexington and Yorktown.
I can’t imagine trying to do temporary repairs on these steel giants after they’re all bent and twisted and charred .. such respect to the brave sailors 🙏🙏
Interesting video. As an Australian, the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway have always been of special interest to me. The book, 'Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan' was co-authored by Mitsuo Fuchida, one of Yamamoto's more valued commanders. In the book, he highlights the enormous difference in the approaches to repairing Shokaku and Yorktown. He also laments that Zuikaku was kept out of the battle, feeling (with 20-20 hindsight) that she should have been deployed with whatever aircraft could be scraped together. Better an extra carrier with a sub-par air group, than no carrier at all, basically. Given how close-run the battle was, it is hard to disagree. Apparently, a number of Japanese commanders were concerned about the state of their aviators even before Midway. Combat losses and fatigue had taken a toll and, even this early in the war, replacements were limited in both quantity and, most especially, training.
Even if Zuikaku had accompanied the attack fleet with no aircraft, it could have been used to refuel and rearm planes from the other carriers and (as would have been helpful) recover planes from carriers that had been put out of action.
@@pahtar7189 Fuchida also pointed out that the Main Force and the Aleutian Islands Diversionary Force each had a light carrier with them. Neither group contributed anything whatsoever to the battle, or even came under enemy attack.
And in Star Trek 2, Scotty gets the Enterprise ready to fight Khan’s Reliant in a short time and not by the book! “Hours instead of days” As Admiral Kirk uttered once he beamed back aboard Enterprise from Regula 1. So possibly, the Pearl Harbour dockyard miracle workers were behind Scotty’s own miracle work here!
Yorktown's air groups were also by far the best performers out of all the US ones at Midway. Most especially considering Hornet's air groups went off into the middle of nowhere. After Yorktown was crippled in battle, her aviators were flying off Enterprise. From there they'd get revenge for their ship and sink Hiryu.
Great little piece. I would like to hear a little bit more about the mindset of the Japanese naval yard workers trying to repair their ships. Were they as motivated as the American workers were?
There was no rush to repair Shokaku because they knew they did not have aircrews to put on the ship. From the time she arrived in Kure she was not put into dry dock for a month. Again there was no rush because there was no aircrews available. Even after being repaired she sat for three weeks before returning to the fleet.
Nice video. Very informative and of a subject, Repairs, that's not covered often even though it made the difference in the war, no matter what theater. Ive always had an interest in Shōkaku and Zuikaku.
CarDiv 5 had been either actively training hard pre and post Pearl Harbour, then sailed with the fleet at Rabaul, Dutch East Indies, Indian Ocean and Coral Sea. The aviators of CarDiv 5 had been flying non-stop since start of September 1941 or nearly 9 months straight. They needed some RnR after Coral Sea. After all, CarDiv 1 and 2 aviators had a month's rest after Indian Ocean raids. Then they were reassigned throughout the fleet. Shokaku and Zuikaku crew and aviators probably deserved a rest as fatigue was probably starting to show at Coral Sea with some basic errors of judgement in the battle itself.
In my life, I have been to all kinds of damage control & fire fighting training. I have seen pictures of nuclear submarines being depth charged (from inside!), but never have I seen battle damage like the pictures you've presented! Well, other than video's from Petral!😮
I have Classic Warship's, Warship Pictorial on the Yorktown class, very helpful for reference in building them, as well as showing the minute differences in them. Great as usual. Take care, and all the best.
The Japanese thinking they were sinking all kinds of American carriers reminds me of a dark-humored joke Luftwaffe bomber crews used to make during the Battle of Britain upon spotting incoming Fighter Command aircraft: "Here they come *again* - the last 50 Spitfires!" 🤣
It's interesting how Yorktown was the ship that refused to sink. The Japanese thought they sank her. And then Enterprise inherited all of Yorktowns remaining lives. But this time around the Japanese were a bit more aware that this ship just won't stay dead.
A friend of mine had been aboard Lexington and was picked up by New Orleans. A shipmate and friend of his was picked up by Yorktown and subsequently lost with her.
Yamamoto could have had his decisive showdown with the U.S. carrier force in the Coral Sea, or the South Pacific generally. He didn't have to go all the way to Midway in the Central Pacific. Committing the whole of Kido Butai, the Japanese Mobile First Air Fleet, to an encounter in the Solomons/New Guinea area would have had advantages for the Japanese in terms of logistics and available reconnaissance compared to the far flung Midway operation. And the U.S. certainly wasn't going to stand idle and let its ties to the South Pacific and Australia be severed. Instead he weakened his available mobile air power by losing the use of the Japanese 5th Carrier Division at Coral Sea and then not having enough air power left to support an invasion of Midway against the U.S. land-based and carrier-based defenses. While the U.S. lost considerable air assets at Coral Sea, they had more reserve assets to draw upon, particularly in the ready-to-go air groups of SARATOGA.
Well the reverse argument, there is not a lot of real estate out in the central Pacific. If the Japanese had been able to take Midway, it gives them a chance of cutting US supply coming from the west coast to Hawaii.
@@glenchapman3899 Indeed, as researched by John J. Stephan in his book "Hawaii Under the Rising Sun", Yamamoto had ambitions of actually conquering Hawaii itself and thought it was a possibility. And this figured into his insistence on executing the Midway Operation. But the logistical reality was that Japan had none of the mobile air power, shipping, or troops to accomplish such a feat. Nor to maintain the Hawaiian Islands as a base if Japan could have taken it. In fact it seems unlikely that Japan could have maintained Midway as a base had they succeeded in taking it. So little real estate on Midway atoll, and everything had to be brought in to support any military or civilian activity. Even the U.S., with its much closer location to Midway, was having trouble supplying the atoll with enough aviation fuel to support its air operations in the months leading up to the battle. A Japanese conquest of Midway would have likely been another logistics disaster for its military (this characterized its Pacific War operations generally). The U.S. would have had a much easier time interdicting Japanese resupply of Midway than the Japanese would have had interdicting U.S. resupply of Hawaii. The realities of Japan's logistical capabilities were understand by many officers in the Japanese Naval General Staff and in Combined Fleet in the months leading up to the Midway Operation. In the end all of the Japanese naysayers were overruled by Yamamoto. Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku - NOT a logistics genius.
@@takashitamagawa5881 Like so many things. It looked a lot better on paper. But Japanese planners seemed more interested in winning the battle, than what might come next. And the widening resource gap between the two navies would have made things gradually worse.
Yamamoto's mistake was dismissing his officers notion that the secret Japanese code has been broken by the Americans. Even if Japanese prevailed at Midway, the Japanese broken code will still bite them sooner if not later.
@@glenchapman3899 "But Japanese planners seemed more interested in winning the battle, than what might come next." Yes, that was a common failing of Japanese naval leadership. They almost ALWAYS saw things in terms of winning a battle rather than successfully prosecuting an extended campaign. A glaring example of which was Vice Admiral Mikawa's victory at Savo Island two months after Midway where his ships smashed four Allied cruisers on the night of August 8-9, 1942. Following which he withdrew without attempting to attack the transports that were landing supplies for the Marines on Guadalcanal. The Japanese would very shortly come to rue the missed opportunity to prevent or at least cripple the establishing of Henderson Field airbase. Addition: Fixed typo
The Japanese actually looked down on their best constructed carriers, the Shokaku and Zuikaku, as they rated each other on experience. The air groups of the four big Kido Butai carriers were hardened veterans. This is why Yammamoto sent them to Coral Sea, as it was not as important as objective AF, and thought they would make easy work of escorting the invasion force. Yamamoto violated many principles of Sun Tsu at Midway. His forces were scattered, could not support one another, and the overwhelming superiority of the Kido Butain came when ALL SIX carriers appeared in battle. At Midway, the carriers were not at full strength, the aircraft were well-maintained, but worn out, and they assumed the USN would do exactly as they predicted, not what was best for the USN. Midway was very winnable for the US. Nimitz was itching for a fight. And four carriers vs. three carries + Midway was not as bad of a bet or miracle as some of the early Fuchida-based histories made it out to be.
So in short: The Yorktown was "sunk" at the battle of the Coral Sea, twice at the battle of Midway, only to be sunk for real by I-19. Looks like ship Identififcation wasn't the IJN strength.
@@irasanders9207 Especially since the Japanese look backwards at a stopped, burning, listing carrier and think "She's done for" only to return to find a carrier without fires, on an even keel, and steaming along. They didn't get how good (even in the early war) US damage control crews were.
@@mikeynth7919 Yes the US were definitely at Boss level when it came to damage control. One thing that did help was that any innovation a crew might successfully implement during damage control got dissipated to other ships. So every crew learned when one crew learned something.
If the US navy wouldn't have been in such a hurry to abandon her she would have had a better chance too. They came back and started salvage operations after they realized she wasn't going to sink.
@@GermanShepherd1983 I agree with you but it is easy to see that in hindsight. Remember that after she took those two torpedoes, she took on an immediate list. Captain Buckmaster probably thought it would increase. Who knew it would stabilize? I am not going to fault Captain Buckmaster who was concerned about saving the lives of his men.
@@spudskie3907 Agreed. Buckmaster's decision to save the crew to fight another day verses the typical Japanese decision to go down with the ship is an example of a basic philosophical difference that had real consequences as the war dragged on. Dying a glorious death for the Emperor vs. Patton's approach: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
@@spudskie3907Ships can be built, it takes time. The lives and experience of those men was priceless. The captain made the right call. I don't know if he got into trouble after, but his decision was the right one, given the circumstances.
@@padurarulcriticsicinic4846 Buckmaster was promoted afterwards, but he was given a command anything similar to Hornet's captain Mitscher (who was not entirely truthful in his after action report).
And this reminds me of the 1979 Star Trek Movie when Kirk tells Scotty this - Mr. Scott, an alien object of unbelievable destructive power is less than three days away from this planet. The only starship in interception range is the Enterprise. Ready or not, she launches in twelve hours. That’s faster than Yorktown and yes we have an Enterprise at Midway. But Yorktown’s dive bombers took out Soryu and arrived at the same time as VB-6 from Enterprise. Dick Best takes out Akagi while the messy rest of VB-6 take out Kaga!
Same here. I spent 25 years walking the decks of USN ships. And I would do it all over again. Often the USN gets overlooked but they are always out there, over the horizon, hundreds of miles from land making it work and getting the job done.
The logistics is the key here Air wing 5 being beat up at coral sea being swapped for Air wing 3 from Saratoga for Midway. Where as yes the us had them vs no spare air wings in Japan but they could have stole one from a small carrier like Ryujo
Another HUGE result of the battle of the Coral sea was.... the decision after the loss of the Lexington to purge the av-gas lines of fuel when being attacked. That way if they were damaged, as was the case of the Yorktown, they would not leak gas and fuel the fires like they did on the Lexington. That was the main reason the Yorktown was able to be quickly repaired at Midway. There was no av-gas fueling the fires, so they were quickly brought under control. And, that was one of the reasons the four Japanese carriers were destroyed. The fires the damaged gas lines fueled. The US Navy continued that policy of purging the av-gas lines when being attacked throughout of war. The Japanese never did.
Do you have a source on Zuikaku and Shokaku only having 35 aircraft after Coral Sea and that they were distributed to the other carriers headed to Midway? Jon Parshall and Tony Tully say in Shattered Sword that up to 56 aircraft (compared to the usual complement of 67) were salvageable between the two carriers after Coral Sea but they were not combined because air groups were tightly tied to their carriers and it would have been difficult to move aircraft around.
The IJN damage control got better as the war progressed. USN damage control became almost like miracle working. The ordeal of ‘Franklin’ comes to mind.
Well, IDK about that; by 1944 they were desperate even in that field. The loss of the Shinano had a lot to do with an inadequate damage-control crew, both in numbers of men and in training.
@@LuckyE-CV6 Sorry, I just realized something: You might have thought my comment was directed at you...? It wasn't; it was directed at William. Sorry about that; stupid RUclips didn't direct it properly.
That was the core of the issue. Japanese doctrine was to keep units attached to their carriers, even when repairing. So as a consequence the Japanese rather than scrape squadrons together, let the Zuikaku sit in port, when she could have fought at Midway with Shokaku's aircraft
Coral sea was a disaster for the allies and a triumph for the Japanese. The USA lost the biggest fleet carrier in the world while the Japanese lost an insignificant escort carrier.
A triumph? The Japanese STRATEGIC plan to take Port Moresby was abandoned after the battle... It may well have been a "triumphant" TACTICAL victory for the IJN..but it was a definite Strategic DEFEAT for Japan. Ship losses pale in to insignificance against having strategy aborted!
Could it be stated that while the Japanese repair doctrine seemed institutionaly inclined to redo in a totally original and "finished" method (requiring more effort and time) the US approach was more flexible to "make do" and/or "gun deck" methodology in a rush if the situation so demanded?
What have I learned from this video? The the real Japanese shortage going into the Battle of Midway was not large fast fleet Aircraft Carriers. It was not in planes suitable for carrier operations. It was trained in Aircraft Carrier Air Crews. It didn't matter whether they had 4, 5 or 6 fleet carriers available because they only had enough aircrews available for 4 fleet carriers. So, even with the damaged aircraft carrier, they still had 5 aircraft carriers that were in good shape and ready to go, but they only sent 4 because they only had enough aircrews for 4. An emergency repair on the sixth aircraft carrier would have made no difference. Going into World War II on December 7, 1941, Japan had the best trained navy aircrews in the world. But they anticipated a short decisive war. They did not anticipated a long war nor the steady attrition they would have in aircrews. Even during the Pearl Harbor operation, as one sided an operation they would fight against a significant force, they lost 8 % of the aircrews. About the same casualty rate of a pretty bad bombing raid by the U. S. Air Force over Germany in 1943. Because the lose rate over the first six months were not anticipated, Japan had too few student pilots in the navy pipeline and could not man all the available aircraft carriers by May 1942. Had they lost no carriers at the Battle of Coral Seas, just the aircrews, they still would not have been able to bring more than four carriers to Midway. A big factor in their defeat. In contrast, the U. S. naval air crews had no as much training as their Japanese counterparts on December 7, 1941. But they did have a big naval aircrew training system set up and had a lot of student pilots in the pipeline. So, despite loses in the early months of the war, the United States had enough trained pilots (just trained enough in the case of some of the Hornet's aircrews) that the United States was able to man the aircrews of all available aircraft carriers. And after June 1942, America would never come close to running too low on Naval aircrews. Lack of foresight by the Japanese High Command during 1940 was a big reason for the lost of the Battle of Midway. I'm not certain it was worthwhile to risk the secret of codebreaking to shoot down Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943.
Another point that bears mention is that the US had plenty of even raw recruits who had grown up with cars, tractors, and all manner of mechanical equipment. Japan, by contrast, had far fewer men with similar civilian experience. The result was that the US never had problems providing well-trained aviation mechanics and deck crews while the Japanese had to train their equivalents from the ground up. Not only did Japan loose their best aircrews but also the best trained and practiced aviation support crews went down with those carriers, along with the experience they could have passed on.
I have always wondered why the Japanese didn't just transferred the Shokaku's aircraft and crews to the Zuikaku for the battle. If the roles had been reversed the Americans would certainly have done that.
That was down to doctrine. Japanese never transferred airwings, so rather than crew her with replacements, they waited for freshly trained pilots to arrive
Gotta hand it to the Yard Dogs at Pearl Harbor. When Adm Nimitz said about the Yorktown, "Patch it up and get it the Hell out of Pearl!", they busted ass to do exactly that. The Japanese were foolish to sink the ships, but leave the drydocks, and infrastructure untouched on Dec 7, 1941.
Yorktown and Hornet both fought and died hard. Whilst Enterprise fought hard to avenge them both.
a well designed class
Our ability to maintain and repair damaged ships, vehicles, and other equipment was second to none in World War II. Our ability to swap air groups between carriers was also very beneficial.
Our ship building and repair capabilities are a far cry from back then.
There are fascinating accounts of US army mechanics rebuilding/repairing jeeps and other vehicles in the ETO after D-Day that made a big difference to equipment availability. The suggestion was that young American men had been building "Hot rods" at home in the 30's...and just used those skills....
It's simple. Japan had 6 heavy and 3 light carriers to start the war, US had only 4 Fleet Carriers, and 2 light (both Atlantic). Yes, Yorktown at Midway was amazing.. literally Dock+Workers welding inside when she left Pearl
The Yorktown repairs at Hawaii were so important and used so much electricity that large parts of Honolulu were blacked out and the electricity diverted to the Yorktown drydock.
That's a great detail, thank you for sharing it! 👍
In 1929 _USS Lexington_ supplied power to Tacoma, WA for a month; a drought had affected the hydroelectric dam generators that usually supplied Tacoma's power. Her turboelectric drive system was well-suited to the task.
that is probably why yard workers had to work non-stop to get the Yorktown to the point where she was able to put to sea in 72 hours
Seriously ? Wow. Things were a lot different back then I guess.
So it turns out that pearl harbors dry docks that was left unscathed by Japanese attack is a blessing in disguise.
US navy yard did the impossible, salute to repair supervisor to guide only most important repairs. Crews worked around the clock, can do attitude. Love your research & posting rare photos
The Yorktown class were tough, tough ships. A great design.
A significant number of civilian yard crew were casualties during the battle of Midway as they sailed with the Yorktown to complete repairs.
I have heard that there still yard workers onboard the Yorktown after she departed Pearl Harbor for the Battle of Midway
Bear in mind, that when she left, the Yorktown was not factory fresh. she was merely stamped "ready for sea". This is because she was needed for Midway. Its possible her hasty repairs contributed to her loss.
I was in the Navy for 8+ years, the first two, learning how to run an engineroom, the last 6 was working in repair facilities.
There were a few times we would be called to do "emergency" repairs, drydocking boats in the night time and back to everthing (from a satellites view) is normal by morning....
What those repair people did, was nothing less than heroic! The coordination to get it done, in Hawaii, with it's long supply lines, to get the steel, valves, pipes, all that! It's amazing, especially for the time!
P.S. I used to sail Matson ships for awhile, they are the railroad to Hawaii.
Among the unsung heroes of the American war effort were our damage control specialists, both on the ships and on the repair ships and shore installations. From the very beginning, the US had a decisive edge in terms of limiting damage to our ships beyond that caused by initial weapon strikes (with exceptions of course- the Lexington being among them).
According to Parshall and Tully, the Japanese could have made a 56 plane composite air group for Zuikaku. There is no excuse for her missing Midway.
Yes. But it was not their doctrine to do so and no one made the mental leap to do so, so sure of victory were they.
Japanese doctrine is why
@@ronkolek613 They figured it out after Midway.
Definitely showcases the philosophies of how the US and Japan waged war in the Pacific.
"Don't cut the patch to fit the hole, cut the holes to fit the patch!"
A book I read years ago had a line about the repairs on Yorktown by the dock workers when told of the importance of the job......the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer..... it always stuck with me and reminds me of the greatness of the greatest generation! Thanks. 🇺🇲
If i remember correctly from Miloš Hubáček's "Pacific on fire", the civilian workers remained voluntarily aboard, working around the clock, even during the Battle od Midway.
Yeah I heard they were onboard when she got underway for the battle 👍 Go Navy.
LOVE the fact that you are showing actual battle damage photos and blueprints.
The story telling is somewhat chaotic, it seemed less linear than I would prefer.
Maybe for this one a score card with amount of damage, location and disposition of the ships involved,
"On this date" here is a nice graphic you can pause and study or listen to the bullet points and move on.
I know this story quite well, I got about 20% of the way into another vid of MW from another YT'er just today that didn't even warrant a comment it was so childish and lame.
Keep it up you are headed in the right direction.
More maps, keep the name of the battle on the screen I thought you were talking about Midway but then it's Coral Sea, put the name of the ship on the screen.
The outro muzak could be worse... but not by much.
You still got a 👍from me thought.
The American's determination to repair and re-equip the Yorktown for Midway compared to the IJN's passivity to get at least Zuikaku at there speaks volumes as to why the Americans won. It turned out getting the Yorktown to Midway was even more important than Nimitz could've anticipated, given the Hornet's disastrous performance at that battle. It's an absolute tragedy that ship was lost there.
Sorry for being insensitive. She went in a blaze of glory. Not fully repaired, did the absolute best she could and took the hits that could have damaged or sunk her sisters.
WRT Yorktown, the PH naval yard people did a heroic job. The other key to Yorktown participating at Midway was the USN's willingness/ability to piece together an air group from Coral Sea survivors and aviators from Saratoga (which was being repaired after a torpedo hit). On the Japanese side, it was possible, hypothetically, to do similarly, knitting together Coral Sea survivors from both Shokaku and Zuikaku, possibly with a few more replacement pilots, and thereby commit the intact Zuikaku to Midway. However, as is mentioned in Parshall's and Tully's "Shattered Sword", IJN doctrine at the time was that air groups were part of their carrier's complement, and the IJN would not form and send into battle an air group formed from aviators from multiple air groups.
The IJN’s policy was partially driven by the wild differences in the design between their carriers.
The air flow over the decks made take offs and landings significantly different because of having funnels in different locations and having the island on opposite side of the ship in one case.
While true in comparing Akagi vs. Kaga vs. Hiryu vs. Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku were of the same class, with pretty much the same landing and take-off characteristics. By mid 1942 flexibility should have been applied to their air groups (and later was, I believe).
By way of contrast from the USN side, USS Yorktown brought to Miday and air group that was a composite of her own fliers, fliers from USS Lexington and from USS Saratoga, i.e. fliers from two very different carrier classes. Yorktown's composite air group did far better than USS Honet's inexperienced and poorly led air group. It can be argued, but Yorktown's patched together air group did at least as well as the air group flying from USS Enterprise.
Japanese believed in Carrier Divisions rather than individual carriers.
Therefore, one carrier could launch divebombers and other torpedo bombers in easily less than half the time the US lone carrier could all its compliment.
He who strike first, won in those days, so it was a good plan. It fell apart in the radar / CiC age in a year's time, where US could vector fighters to break up incoming attacks, in large piecemeal packets and not one huge formation.
The Japanese had better tactics at an operational level than the Americans, so Yorktown presence in the battle should be a commendation for repair crews at Pearl.
CarDiv 5 had not had any rest and recuperation since the commissioning of Shokaku in September 1941. The aviators and crew were at sea almost continuously for that next 9 months. Their fatigue in Coral Sea maybe not have help at Midway anyway. Zuikaku was would have been down to 35 planes and crew.
Japanese production of naval planes had already fallen behind with Junyo and Ryujo understrength for Midway operation. The Japanese fighter air groups formations in DEI had already reported shortages of Zeroes / replacement in early April. So its doubtful whether Zuikaku would have sortied with a whole air group, thus it might even been another defenceless target like Hiryu in the afternoon of the 4th anyway.
Excellent comment! Not to mention the incredibly high standards that IJN had for carrier pilots (by necessity-if you can't land on a carrier, you're of no use to the carriers, but I'm sure they could have shaved off some training time...) meant that even low losses (like suffered by the IJN Carriers in the raid on Ceylon) caused delays for any ops the Navy had planned. I feel that the US got off lucky at Coral Sea because of a few snafus that lost a large number of attack aircraft and their crews for the Japanese BEFORE they finally came to grips with Lexington and Yorktown.
I can’t imagine trying to do temporary repairs on these steel giants after they’re all bent and twisted and charred .. such respect to the brave sailors 🙏🙏
Interesting video. As an Australian, the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway have always been of special interest to me.
The book, 'Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan' was co-authored by Mitsuo Fuchida, one of Yamamoto's more valued commanders. In the book, he highlights the enormous difference in the approaches to repairing Shokaku and Yorktown. He also laments that Zuikaku was kept out of the battle, feeling (with 20-20 hindsight) that she should have been deployed with whatever aircraft could be scraped together. Better an extra carrier with a sub-par air group, than no carrier at all, basically. Given how close-run the battle was, it is hard to disagree.
Apparently, a number of Japanese commanders were concerned about the state of their aviators even before Midway. Combat losses and fatigue had taken a toll and, even this early in the war, replacements were limited in both quantity and, most especially, training.
Even if Zuikaku had accompanied the attack fleet with no aircraft, it could have been used to refuel and rearm planes from the other carriers and (as would have been helpful) recover planes from carriers that had been put out of action.
@@pahtar7189 Fuchida also pointed out that the Main Force and the Aleutian Islands Diversionary Force each had a light carrier with them. Neither group contributed anything whatsoever to the battle, or even came under enemy attack.
And in Star Trek 2, Scotty gets the Enterprise ready to fight Khan’s Reliant in a short time and not by the book! “Hours instead of days”
As Admiral Kirk uttered once he beamed back aboard Enterprise from Regula 1. So possibly, the Pearl Harbour dockyard miracle workers were behind Scotty’s own miracle work here!
Yorktown's air groups were also by far the best performers out of all the US ones at Midway. Most especially considering Hornet's air groups went off into the middle of nowhere. After Yorktown was crippled in battle, her aviators were flying off Enterprise. From there they'd get revenge for their ship and sink Hiryu.
The Japanese thought they had enough carriers. The Americans knew two was not enough.
Great little piece. I would like to hear a little bit more about the mindset of the Japanese naval yard workers trying to repair their ships. Were they as motivated as the American workers were?
Great question.
There was no rush to repair Shokaku because they knew they did not have aircrews to put on the ship. From the time she arrived in Kure she was not put into dry dock for a month. Again there was no rush because there was no aircrews available. Even after being repaired she sat for three weeks before returning to the fleet.
Nice video. Very informative and of a subject, Repairs, that's not covered often even though it made the difference in the war, no matter what theater.
Ive always had an interest in Shōkaku and Zuikaku.
The best review I have seen on the damage repair from the Coral sea battle. Thanks so much
Excellent video. Thanks.
CarDiv 5 had been either actively training hard pre and post Pearl Harbour, then sailed with the fleet at Rabaul, Dutch East Indies, Indian Ocean and Coral Sea.
The aviators of CarDiv 5 had been flying non-stop since start of September 1941 or nearly 9 months straight. They needed some RnR after Coral Sea. After all, CarDiv 1 and 2 aviators had a month's rest after Indian Ocean raids. Then they were reassigned throughout the fleet.
Shokaku and Zuikaku crew and aviators probably deserved a rest as fatigue was probably starting to show at Coral Sea with some basic errors of judgement in the battle itself.
In my life, I have been to all kinds of damage control & fire fighting training. I have seen pictures of nuclear submarines being depth charged (from inside!), but never have I seen battle damage like the pictures you've presented!
Well, other than video's from Petral!😮
Very well presented and very factual!
A great video. I'm a fan of U.S.S. Yorktown. The pictures and visual aids you come up with are great. Add more please.
Nice work, I have known a ton about Coral Sea/Midway since I was young, but that was the first time I have seem this angle in its entirety.
I have Classic Warship's, Warship Pictorial on the Yorktown class, very helpful for reference in building them, as well as showing the minute differences in them.
Great as usual.
Take care, and all the best.
The Japanese thinking they were sinking all kinds of American carriers reminds me of a dark-humored joke Luftwaffe bomber crews used to make during the Battle of Britain upon spotting incoming Fighter Command aircraft:
"Here they come *again* - the last 50 Spitfires!"
🤣
It's interesting how Yorktown was the ship that refused to sink. The Japanese thought they sank her. And then Enterprise inherited all of Yorktowns remaining lives. But this time around the Japanese were a bit more aware that this ship just won't stay dead.
all the yorktown class refuse to sink
Thank you.
A friend of mine had been aboard Lexington and was picked up by New Orleans. A shipmate and friend of his was picked up by Yorktown and subsequently lost with her.
Yamamoto could have had his decisive showdown with the U.S. carrier force in the Coral Sea, or the South Pacific generally. He didn't have to go all the way to Midway in the Central Pacific. Committing the whole of Kido Butai, the Japanese Mobile First Air Fleet, to an encounter in the Solomons/New Guinea area would have had advantages for the Japanese in terms of logistics and available reconnaissance compared to the far flung Midway operation. And the U.S. certainly wasn't going to stand idle and let its ties to the South Pacific and Australia be severed. Instead he weakened his available mobile air power by losing the use of the Japanese 5th Carrier Division at Coral Sea and then not having enough air power left to support an invasion of Midway against the U.S. land-based and carrier-based defenses. While the U.S. lost considerable air assets at Coral Sea, they had more reserve assets to draw upon, particularly in the ready-to-go air groups of SARATOGA.
Well the reverse argument, there is not a lot of real estate out in the central Pacific. If the Japanese had been able to take Midway, it gives them a chance of cutting US supply coming from the west coast to Hawaii.
@@glenchapman3899 Indeed, as researched by John J. Stephan in his book "Hawaii Under the Rising Sun", Yamamoto had ambitions of actually conquering Hawaii itself and thought it was a possibility. And this figured into his insistence on executing the Midway Operation. But the logistical reality was that Japan had none of the mobile air power, shipping, or troops to accomplish such a feat. Nor to maintain the Hawaiian Islands as a base if Japan could have taken it. In fact it seems unlikely that Japan could have maintained Midway as a base had they succeeded in taking it. So little real estate on Midway atoll, and everything had to be brought in to support any military or civilian activity. Even the U.S., with its much closer location to Midway, was having trouble supplying the atoll with enough aviation fuel to support its air operations in the months leading up to the battle. A Japanese conquest of Midway would have likely been another logistics disaster for its military (this characterized its Pacific War operations generally). The U.S. would have had a much easier time interdicting Japanese resupply of Midway than the Japanese would have had interdicting U.S. resupply of Hawaii.
The realities of Japan's logistical capabilities were understand by many officers in the Japanese Naval General Staff and in Combined Fleet in the months leading up to the Midway Operation. In the end all of the Japanese naysayers were overruled by Yamamoto. Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku - NOT a logistics genius.
@@takashitamagawa5881 Like so many things. It looked a lot better on paper. But Japanese planners seemed more interested in winning the battle, than what might come next. And the widening resource gap between the two navies would have made things gradually worse.
Yamamoto's mistake was dismissing his officers notion that the secret Japanese code has been broken by the Americans. Even if Japanese prevailed at Midway, the Japanese broken code will still bite them sooner if not later.
@@glenchapman3899 "But Japanese planners seemed more interested in winning the battle, than what might come next." Yes, that was a common failing of Japanese naval leadership. They almost ALWAYS saw things in terms of winning a battle rather than successfully prosecuting an extended campaign. A glaring example of which was Vice Admiral Mikawa's victory at Savo Island two months after Midway where his ships smashed four Allied cruisers on the night of August 8-9, 1942. Following which he withdrew without attempting to attack the transports that were landing supplies for the Marines on Guadalcanal. The Japanese would very shortly come to rue the missed opportunity to prevent or at least cripple the establishing of Henderson Field airbase.
Addition: Fixed typo
WELL DONE SIR...
ironically I'm writing a book based on the yorktown
Why is that ironic?
The Japanese actually looked down on their best constructed carriers, the Shokaku and Zuikaku, as they rated each other on experience. The air groups of the four big Kido Butai carriers were hardened veterans. This is why Yammamoto sent them to Coral Sea, as it was not as important as objective AF, and thought they would make easy work of escorting the invasion force.
Yamamoto violated many principles of Sun Tsu at Midway. His forces were scattered, could not support one another, and the overwhelming superiority of the Kido Butain came when ALL SIX carriers appeared in battle. At Midway, the carriers were not at full strength, the aircraft were well-maintained, but worn out, and they assumed the USN would do exactly as they predicted, not what was best for the USN. Midway was very winnable for the US. Nimitz was itching for a fight. And four carriers vs. three carries + Midway was not as bad of a bet or miracle as some of the early Fuchida-based histories made it out to be.
So in short: The Yorktown was "sunk" at the battle of the Coral Sea, twice at the battle of Midway, only to be sunk for real by I-19. Looks like ship Identififcation wasn't the IJN strength.
Yorktown was sunk by I-168. Wasp was sunk by I-19.
@@ph89787 Thx, For some reason I had I-19 on the brain 🙃
CV5, CV6 and CV8 comprised Yorktown Class and would have appeared similar to Japanese pilots and easily mistaken for each other, I think.
@@irasanders9207 Especially since the Japanese look backwards at a stopped, burning, listing carrier and think "She's done for" only to return to find a carrier without fires, on an even keel, and steaming along. They didn't get how good (even in the early war) US damage control crews were.
@@mikeynth7919 Yes the US were definitely at Boss level when it came to damage control. One thing that did help was that any innovation a crew might successfully implement during damage control got dissipated to other ships. So every crew learned when one crew learned something.
Thanks!
If Yorktown was not damaged at Coral Sea, she would have had a better chance of surviving Midway.
If the US navy wouldn't have been in such a hurry to abandon her she would have had a better chance too. They came back and started salvage operations after they realized she wasn't going to sink.
@@GermanShepherd1983 I agree with you but it is easy to see that in hindsight. Remember that after she took those two torpedoes, she took on an immediate list. Captain Buckmaster probably thought it would increase. Who knew it would stabilize? I am not going to fault Captain Buckmaster who was concerned about saving the lives of his men.
@@spudskie3907 Agreed. Buckmaster's decision to save the crew to fight another day verses the typical Japanese decision to go down with the ship is an example of a basic philosophical difference that had real consequences as the war dragged on. Dying a glorious death for the Emperor vs. Patton's approach: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
@@spudskie3907Ships can be built, it takes time. The lives and experience of those men was priceless. The captain made the right call. I don't know if he got into trouble after, but his decision was the right one, given the circumstances.
@@padurarulcriticsicinic4846 Buckmaster was promoted afterwards, but he was given a command anything similar to Hornet's captain Mitscher (who was not entirely truthful in his after action report).
There were many photos that I had never seen before….
good one
And this reminds me of the 1979 Star Trek Movie when Kirk tells Scotty this -
Mr. Scott, an alien object of unbelievable destructive power is less than three days away from this planet. The only starship in interception range is the Enterprise. Ready or not, she launches in twelve hours.
That’s faster than Yorktown and yes we have an Enterprise at Midway. But Yorktown’s dive bombers took out Soryu and arrived at the same time as VB-6 from Enterprise. Dick Best takes out Akagi while the messy rest of VB-6 take out Kaga!
Thank you..
with the Shokaku being hunted by the 8 submarines was called the Hunt for the Wounded Bear
Even at this point in the war, Japanese carrier aviators were seeing what they wanted to see, not what was happening on the water.
US Navy Damage Controll was always the biggest part of these battles. Our DC divions were the best in the world.
The US Navy has always been do what you've got to do to get the job done. It's one of many reasons that I was so proud to serve.
Same here. I spent 25 years walking the decks of USN ships. And I would do it all over again. Often the USN gets overlooked but they are always out there, over the horizon, hundreds of miles from land making it work and getting the job done.
That was interesting.
.
The logistics is the key here Air wing 5 being beat up at coral sea being swapped for Air wing 3 from Saratoga for Midway. Where as yes the us had them vs no spare air wings in Japan but they could have stole one from a small carrier like Ryujo
Makes me wonder if American carrier design didn't lend itself to faster repair work.
👍🎯
Another HUGE result of the battle of the Coral sea was.... the decision after the loss of the Lexington to purge the av-gas lines of fuel when being attacked. That way if they were damaged, as was the case of the Yorktown, they would not leak gas and fuel the fires like they did on the Lexington. That was the main reason the Yorktown was able to be quickly repaired at Midway. There was no av-gas fueling the fires, so they were quickly brought under control. And, that was one of the reasons the four Japanese carriers were destroyed. The fires the damaged gas lines fueled. The US Navy continued that policy of purging the av-gas lines when being attacked throughout of war. The Japanese never did.
Do you have a source on Zuikaku and Shokaku only having 35 aircraft after Coral Sea and that they were distributed to the other carriers headed to Midway? Jon Parshall and Tony Tully say in Shattered Sword that up to 56 aircraft (compared to the usual complement of 67) were salvageable between the two carriers after Coral Sea but they were not combined because air groups were tightly tied to their carriers and it would have been difficult to move aircraft around.
If my memory is correct the ijn reported sinking cv-6 like 6 or 7 times hence the "Grey ghost" moniker
The USS Chicago enjoyed a similar moniker, for similar reasons. Though I think she was only sunk 4 times lol
The IJN damage control got better as the war progressed.
USN damage control became almost like miracle working.
The ordeal of ‘Franklin’ comes to mind.
How about Johnston???
Well, IDK about that; by 1944 they were desperate even in that field. The loss of the Shinano had a lot to do with an inadequate damage-control crew, both in numbers of men and in training.
@@aloysiusbelisarius9992 Taiho was better, though the rookie chief engineer made an error that resulted in its fireball of a death.
@@aloysiusbelisarius9992 What I meant by Johnston referred to a comparable effort made by the American crews to the Franklin.
@@LuckyE-CV6 Sorry, I just realized something: You might have thought my comment was directed at you...? It wasn't; it was directed at William. Sorry about that; stupid RUclips didn't direct it properly.
I have heard that the air wing from the US carrier USS Saratoga had be transferred to the Yorktown during the 72 hours in port at Pearl Harbor
That was the core of the issue. Japanese doctrine was to keep units attached to their carriers, even when repairing. So as a consequence the Japanese rather than scrape squadrons together, let the Zuikaku sit in port, when she could have fought at Midway with Shokaku's aircraft
It wasn’t the entire air group from Saratoga, but a large portion of it.
If Hornet and Yorktown had been in this battle the outcome may have been different. Lexington might not have been blown out of the water.
Shokaku was beat up pretty badly, whereas Yorktown took one bomb. Just for contrast.
Coral sea was a disaster for the allies and a triumph for the Japanese. The USA lost the biggest fleet carrier in the world while the Japanese lost an insignificant escort carrier.
A triumph? The Japanese STRATEGIC plan to take Port Moresby was abandoned after the battle... It may well have been a "triumphant" TACTICAL victory for the IJN..but it was a definite Strategic DEFEAT for Japan. Ship losses pale in to insignificance against having strategy aborted!
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Coral Sea kept Japan from invading Australia and Australia was vital to winning the Pacific.
Wil_CH1: Agreed
Could it be stated that while the Japanese repair doctrine seemed institutionaly inclined to redo in a totally original and "finished" method (requiring more effort and time) the US approach was more flexible to "make do" and/or "gun deck" methodology in a rush if the situation so demanded?
No, there was not rush to repair because they had no trained aircrews available. She sat in Kure for nearly a month before even going into dry dock
The U.S. carrier Yorktown was sunk by Japanese submarine I-168.
What have I learned from this video? The the real Japanese shortage going into the Battle of Midway was not large fast fleet Aircraft Carriers. It was not in planes suitable for carrier operations. It was trained in Aircraft Carrier Air Crews. It didn't matter whether they had 4, 5 or 6 fleet carriers available because they only had enough aircrews available for 4 fleet carriers. So, even with the damaged aircraft carrier, they still had 5 aircraft carriers that were in good shape and ready to go, but they only sent 4 because they only had enough aircrews for 4. An emergency repair on the sixth aircraft carrier would have made no difference.
Going into World War II on December 7, 1941, Japan had the best trained navy aircrews in the world. But they anticipated a short decisive war. They did not anticipated a long war nor the steady attrition they would have in aircrews. Even during the Pearl Harbor operation, as one sided an operation they would fight against a significant force, they lost 8 % of the aircrews. About the same casualty rate of a pretty bad bombing raid by the U. S. Air Force over Germany in 1943. Because the lose rate over the first six months were not anticipated, Japan had too few student pilots in the navy pipeline and could not man all the available aircraft carriers by May 1942. Had they lost no carriers at the Battle of Coral Seas, just the aircrews, they still would not have been able to bring more than four carriers to Midway. A big factor in their defeat.
In contrast, the U. S. naval air crews had no as much training as their Japanese counterparts on December 7, 1941. But they did have a big naval aircrew training system set up and had a lot of student pilots in the pipeline. So, despite loses in the early months of the war, the United States had enough trained pilots (just trained enough in the case of some of the Hornet's aircrews) that the United States was able to man the aircrews of all available aircraft carriers. And after June 1942, America would never come close to running too low on Naval aircrews.
Lack of foresight by the Japanese High Command during 1940 was a big reason for the lost of the Battle of Midway. I'm not certain it was worthwhile to risk the secret of codebreaking to shoot down Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943.
Another point that bears mention is that the US had plenty of even raw recruits who had grown up with cars, tractors, and all manner of mechanical equipment. Japan, by contrast, had far fewer men with similar civilian experience. The result was that the US never had problems providing well-trained aviation mechanics and deck crews while the Japanese had to train their equivalents from the ground up. Not only did Japan loose their best aircrews but also the best trained and practiced aviation support crews went down with those carriers, along with the experience they could have passed on.
I guess the lesson is to not believe your own bullshit.
I have always wondered why the Japanese didn't just transferred the Shokaku's aircraft and crews to the Zuikaku for the battle. If the roles had been reversed the Americans would certainly have done that.
Mistake to leave Zuikaku at home for Midway. Could have used it just for CAP.
That was down to doctrine. Japanese never transferred airwings, so rather than crew her with replacements, they waited for freshly trained pilots to arrive
@@glenchapman3899 understood. But it was a mistake.
Japan lost because of compromised intel and nagumo's hesitation
Why you didn't mention when the Japan realise they only suck 2 Aircraft Carrier
Gotta hand it to the Yard Dogs at Pearl Harbor. When Adm Nimitz said about the Yorktown, "Patch it up and get it the Hell out of Pearl!", they busted ass to do exactly that. The Japanese were foolish to sink the ships, but leave the drydocks, and infrastructure untouched on Dec 7, 1941.
People always forget that Edward G. Robinson commanded the US forces at the Battle of the Coral, see
Thanks!