Most of those ships have been located on the seafloor in the past few decades; _Yorktown_ herself rests about 5,100 meters below the surface. It is a very solemn experience to watch the video images of those great ships and to recall the thousands of brave men who served and died on them during the battle...
the bomb that hit the Yorktown went down the stack and blew back up from within the ship and my Dad's station was just on the other side of the stack and what saved him was the hatch had just been closed. Seeing that picture of the smoke on the stacks reminds me how close he was to being gone.
My Father (happy Father's Day) was on the Yorktown and ended in the water after it was hit. Surprisingly, he met the man who pulled him out of the water 60 years later in a Senior home facility in California (what are the chances). The Yorktown took a lot of hits in the Coral Sea and Midway battles but was still serviceable until the hit at the end of June 6. He was supposed to be a gunner on a SBD and mostly likely would have been killed but he was moved to the clerical position prior to the attacks because he could type. That one change is the reason I am alive today. History turns on very small things.
Same thing happened to my grandfather. He was Army in the Philippines. He was 28 years old and could have been one of the thousands of dead. But he could type. He was a record keeper in a coal mine. So he was assigned as a clerk in a medical unit. 40th, Infantry "Sunburst" Division.
I cant imagine the frustration on the Yorktown crew. Lets not forget the ship was already damaged in a previous battle and was full of temporary patches. Only to get attacked. Then quickly patched at sea again. Then to be attacked again. Respects to the Yorktown Crew!
Hiryu = Hear-you. The Yorktown still had civilian contractors doing repairs during the battle of Midway. Strictly against rules of the navy to have civilians going into battle. This was a battle with desperate measures. They were trying to tow the Yorktown but a Japanese submarine managed to catch up a few days later & put two more torpedoes in her. She capsized about 4 days after first being attacked. I think the wreck was just found in really deep water in fact. Just a few months ago.
That was one of the flaws of the Japanese Navy training. They had only dedicated damage control teams, and if those sailors were injured or couldn't get to the damaged areas of the ship, the rest of the crew didn't know what to do. Also, such damage control crewmen required an NCO or officer to direct them, they were not trained for individual initiative.
My Uncle was on Midway as a Aviation Mechanic for the PBY Catalina's during the attack. He survived the war after being in the battle. He passed in 2001 from an traffic accident.
This plus the fact that more or less the best the Japanese had to offer where lost at Midway basically ended the war. Most historian think if Midway didn't happen as it had the war would have likely went on for about 5-10 years longer then it did, based on the speed at which the US rebuilt its fleet, the US's Europe First agreement with Brittan, and the tenacity of the Japanese. The US battle plan for the Pacific was to fight a Holding action until the war in Europe was decided. Basically, don't let Japan gain any more ground, but don't attempt to take ground either. Japanese losses where so bad that they could no longer go on the offensive and could barely defend. To put it another way Midway did to the Japanese what the Japanese where trying to do to the US when they attacked Pearl Harbor.
I read a trilogy of books by a guy named Ian Toll about the Pacific Theater. I was aware that we had a lot of industrial might at the time, but nonetheless I was amazed at the sheer volume of material showing up in the Pacific later on. And it was the secondary theater. Those there were similarly impressed.
A big reason for America's success here was that we had cracked the Japanese naval code and were listening into their communications. They knew when an attack was coming and that the force sent up to Alaska was a decoy but not 100% where the main force was going to attack because Japan simply called it AF. They thought it might be Midway so they sent out false intelligence over an unencoded line saying that Midway had a faulty water line(the weirdness of this Japan didn't seem to catch) and Japan responded by saying that AF had a water line problem, confirming the location. This information was relayed to Admiral Chester Nimitz, overall commander of the Navy(fun fact: he had never been near the water before the navy. It's why the Pacific War Museum is here in Texas, Fredericksburg, specifically. It uses the old hotel that Admiral Nimitz's family owned) and Nimitz began setting his trap.
It wasn't a Water line at Midway the open air(not encrypted) message that was sent was that the the desalinization plant was inoperable and needed urgent* repair. The Japanese sent a coded message to the fleet that the Desalinization plant was down at AF and extra fresh water was needed. That was how we confirmed the target was Midway. It was also how we had ships in the right place for the Battle of the Coral Sea** as well. *it was this urgency that allowed it to not seem suspicious that it was broadcast in the open **It was this battle that did two things. 1) Make the Japanese in the planning stages think they would be facing at most 2 carriers and 2) Battle Hardened the Yorktown and allowed them to recover from the first attack. I would highly recommend looking into the history the battle of the Coral Sea making it to Midway, and the Doolittle Raid, these where key events that led to what happened at Midway.
The war in the Pacific is a giant game of cat and mouse through the majority of the war… it was an obsession of mine when I was a teenager in the early 1980s living in Okinawa, Japan
I was in the American Navy. Whereas in the Marine Corps every person is a rifleman first in the Navy every sailor is a trained firefighter. It is up to the crew to fight the fires and control the amount of damage. It's the same for any Navy in the world. Even the RN.
The effort to ready the Yorktown for the battle of Midway was herculean - They went so far as to reduce electrical power to the city of Honolulu, in order to provide more power to the shipyard at Pearl Harbor. The Yorktown sailed into battle with civilian workmen still aboard, working on repairs.
The US Aircraft Carriers had excellent fire Control Systems. Which is why the York Town lasted as long as it did. The Japanese not so much. The British were Defeated in the Revolutionary War at York Town.
Actually after the Yorktown arrived heavily damaged from the battle of the Coral Sea, Admiral Nimitz gave the yard 72 hours to repair the ship to combat condition, more than 1,600 shipyard workers swarmed the ship and worked 24 hours a day, and REMAINED on board when Yorktown left Pearl Harbor to Join up with Enterprise and Hornet 2 days ahead of them, and continued repairing the ship while underway to Midway, it is because of these men, that not only drastically contributed to the battle of Midway, but in ALMOST saving the ship. These men, were able to very QUICKLY get the fires out, get the boilers lit, and repair the flight deck BEFORE the second attack from Hiryu arrived for the second attack on her, the Japanese at that point believed that the Hiryu's pilots ALONE took out 2 of the American Carriers, because they perceived that the Yorktown was a completely different aircraft carrier from earlier, not the same one. this is why the Enterprise and Hornet were able to flay a combined strike and send the Hiryu to the bottom, after the Hiryu's 2nd attack on the Yorktown, she would need to be towed back to Pearl for extensive repairs, and AFTER the battle, while being towed back to Pearl, a single Japanese submarine torpedoed both the Yorktown and the destroyer alongside it that was helping in flood control pumping out water from Yorktown, both ship then went to the bottom, but the Hiryu would NOT get another shot at the Enterprise and Hornet, after the second strike from the Yorktown returned, Enterprise and Hornet would send the last strike of the day, sinking the Hiryu in a late afternoon action.
There are movies about MiDway , the older one stars Charleston Hesston and Henry Fonda , and newer one done a few years ago. There is great series about the Enterprise Battle 360. The most decorated ship in WW II
the actual intelligence on midway was a ploy. Two different opinions on where the Japanese would attack were at play. the Japanese marked a target as AF but we didn't know what it was until admiral Nimitz did a fake shortage of water on Midway. the Japanese immediately responded water Emergency on target AF and that was the answer. we also knew about the Japanese express (ship flotilla) coming as we intercepted transmissions from the japanese carriers trying to come down the sea while we got into position long ahead of them. we didn't have radar but we did have a powerful code cracking team on board different ships and radio interceptors that could pick up any signal of any ship.
Pearl Harbor repair crew “This ship needs 3 months to be repaired” Nimitz “You’ve got 3 days and then she sails” Watch Battle 360 for Enterprise’s part in the battle. Don’t watch that tire fire that came out in 1976. Invented characters and a sub plot that wasn’t needed. The 2019 movie is a B+ because of some dialogue and visual issues, otherwise it’s an A
Me too, because my Dad was on the Yorktown and I later met many of the men still alive back in the 1960's during a 25 year celebration on board a new carrier.
There were so many “what if” situations with good and bad luck on both sides. With all of the American good fortunes (some earned, some luck), the entire battle would have almost certainly been changed had it not been for the American damage control and repair ability. From the Yorktown being severely damaged at Coral Sea, it was great seamanship to get the carrier back to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese believed the Yorktown was likely sunk. Then what should have taken months to repair to get the Yorktown battle worthy, was completed within a couple of days. She was not completely repaired but enough so to get into the battle which made a huge difference. In fact it was a game changer. The Yorktown, after being severely damaged and seemingly put out of action and perhaps sunk, the damage control teams within a couple of hours managed again to get the Yorktown back in the fight. She appeared to be a different undamaged carrier. Simply put, out of all the complexities of the battle, so much should be credited to the Yorktown’s damage control in getting her back to Pearl Harbor. Then the almost stunning repair job within hours to send her back to sea combat ready and yet again from her damage control after being hit with a devastating attack (similar to what sunk the Japanese carriers). It was incredible bravery on both sides but remove the American ability to repair in a very efficient manner and the outcome would have certainly changed.
9:24 So as to those who wonder how the ships get towed, the problem is the fleet don't recognize small non-combatant support vesicles such as Tugs which were in fact part of most formation sets (they did run slow causing formations to be slow, but they matched the speed of a lot of destroyer escorts), however they were hard to use and were needed mostly at ports, so far between, the battle of midway didn't have any (Carriers needed the speed, tugs couldn't offer it), but they could be called quickly within 3 to 4 days time (considering there speed), Another realization is to use a heavy cruiser or a battleship to anchor a tether and pull her along, as such as done trying to save USS Ranger, sadly that plan makes two very slow targets and once carriers are in play this idea is suicide for two ships due to the Japanese Long Lance Torpedo which is capable of blowing a hole up to 11 feet in diameter bellow waterline (strike forces tended to have 5 to 7 planes with torpedoes in a run). This is methods which stop gaped and often were used to try to bring damage stricken ships to safety often. Hell a battleship during one of the massive battles had her engines die and a tug pulled her to her designated target zones and let her fire her salvos while she was undergoing engineering repairs. Tug boats never really get credit as a lot of people never really saw them as "important", just the little worker ant. Keep in mind there are plenty of "Civilians" in these positions, such as a crane operator who was using the boom to fend off Japanese dive bombers and cannon runs on dry-dock ships during the attack on Pearl Harbor. There was also the battle for Wake Island which Japan attacked, the Marines were numbering somewhere between 300 and 600 and the civilian construction workers numbered over 1,000 personnel. A small group of brave civilians took the lead knowing the trouble ahead and asked the Marines for training, in less then 8 hours they learned to man, operate, and function under basic commands a 30 caliber machine-gun net and assisted in the defense of the island for the whole conflict they managed to lay down fire with such impressive action that the Japanese landing force purposely avoided there arc of fire thinking it was a 3 machine-gun nest as opposed to a group of 4 construction workers xD This allowed the Marines to push the Japanese Marines into a standing battle where Marines got to hammer enemy positions from defensible zones and even launch counter offensives, another great story to learn as it rallied the country and steeled the resolve of the marines yet to "Test there mettle" , even though the civilians and the marines lost and were prisoners of war from 1941 to 1945. There are a lot of stuff all navy's have not stated as well, technically the Battle of Jutland had the first successful launch of a sea-plane from a flat top system, including specialty optics, flare attachments (To illuminate target positions), and a radio capable of handling being turned upside down and shaken vigorously (If it wanted to work) which could in fact have sent spotting splashes to the ship to adjust gun plotting. Sadly the radios of the time were crap when made for vehicles, thus this one failed, and due to poor weather conditions flares were useless as if the plane hit the wrong target it would cause friendly fire. This got the ball rolling though, and that gave a lot of ideas for national gains, but they don't get mentioned cause they didn't get a "Active primary roll" in the battle plan, just a little worker ant trying his best. 13:12 The crazy ass engineers in ship combat can do wild stuff, captain can order wild stuff, and experienced crews and captains can do miracles that most people never thought possible. Yorktown is the testament to this, suffering insane battle damage (5 direct bomb hits, 4 shrapnel near misses that damaged small components, 5 torpedo hits. Japanese strikes cratered Yorktown but even to the captains surprise he had actually had defiant damage control and crew that refused to leave when abandon ship was called, he let everyone else off the ship as they were going to a destroyer (picture was shown), however the damage control was fixed with quick reactionary choices of the well seasoned damage control crews. They managed to stop the ship from sinking, restart the boilers, and even gave her a stress test run confirming she was operational 20 minutes after receiving the blow from the last torpedo bombers. The only problem was the fact that communication wire was cut due to a rush of water to the fore section and while able to communicate to the lower area easily they sent a runner to the top. Ultimately this saved the lives of the Yorktowns crew as a hidden Japanese Submarine saw the ship moving and not sinking after that state and they decided to finish the job with 2 more torpedoes, sending Yorktown to the bottom, the crew was battered and beat, but they got pressed into action on another ship later on, the new Essex class, designated in honor of Yorktown as "Yorktown". The crew and a lot of her pilots got added to the same ship ironically. However while Yorktown was a nutty ship. Another goodie to note was after the loss of Yorktown and a further issue of damage from other operations, the only operational large scale carrier for a while will be Enterprise, which the crew was tired but fought like monsters so bad that Japan several times thought they were fighting whole new carrier forces
Yep, the Americans knew about it because they cracked the Japanese code. The Americans, just as a double check, said that their distillation equipment on Midway was broken and needed to be replaced even though it was operating correctly. They let the Japanese pick up this communication on purpose to find out what they designated Midway Island as, it turned out the Japanese called it objective AF and thus the Americans knew their guess was correct that the Japanese were going to attack Midway. The admiral in charge of it had a keen intuition about just how far to go, being aggressive but not so much so that he fell into a Japanese trap. Again, I'd recommend the trilogy of books on the Pacific War by Ian W. Toll.
Well the Yorktown barely survived the attack at the Coural Sea. The Yorktown was ordered to return to to Pearl Harbor as fast as she could. Due to them knowing about the attack about to happen on Midway. It took a few days for the Yorktown to reach Pearl Harbor due to her being damaged and couldn't go at full speed. During the time the Yorktown was headed to Pearl Harbor they made a full damage report of the ship and flew it to Hawaii ahead of the ship. They estimated it would take about 90 days to get the ship up and running at full. When the Yorktown pulled in they immediately put her in a dry dock and before the water was completely drained out crews in waiters was already expecting it incliding Admiral Nimitz. Nimitz said "i need it to be done in 3 days". Repairs started almost immediately and they did a around the clock working on the ship with about 1,400 repairmen. Also due to the amount of working that was needed they contacted the person in charge of the power on Honolulu and power was diverted to the dry docks in w system of doing small blackouts all over the island. Only the most urgent and necessary repairs was done to the ship. Like instead of reparing busted seams and damaged of the hull. They welded big steel plates over the damaged areas. Within 48 hours the ship was repaired enough to leave the dry dock and be back in action. When the ship left the dry dock they still had civilians workers on the ship still doing repairs. Which is technically a no no. So the Japanese thought the Yorktown was out of commission. So when they they thought it was just another US carrier. After the Yorktown was hit at fhe Battle of Midway the will train superior danage and fire control system/crew was able to put out fires. Along with the civilian repairman still on board with supplies they was a able to get the ship back up and running. So when the Japanese attacked her again they thought it was another carrier.
Battle of antitum 500,000 dead americans in the civil war in the bloodiest battle and loss of men in our nation. The Pacific theater is a close second. Like in the revolutionary war vs the brits both sides were way better trained and prepared in the beginning. Those powder wigs defeated the greatest military power one generation to become to best country the worlds seen the next generation. Our history is crazy. We adapt to the enemys tactics and use it against them.
14:50 As someone who likes naval strategy games (in this case the strategy game "Rule the waves" 2 and 3), I have to agree. Its extremely frustrating when you get your capital ship hit, the damage control works as intended, enemy starts running out ships and planes, and when you start thinking that you may get off with just some damage and zero ships permanently lost, the last remains of enemy forces starts bullying the one damaged ship yet again, until its absolutely done. One then thinks "ok, maybe you may attack another ships? Maybe some that can take more hits?". But the enemy is like "Nah, I always finish what I´ve started", and they send my ship to the bottom, causing an unrecoverable loss. Although, in this real life case it happened unknowingly, with the Japanese thinking that its another ship. They would have gladly attacked an unharmed carrier if they actually saw one.
Another good reaction video!!!! The Pacific naval battles of 1942 were one of the primary reasons that America placed anti-aircraft guns of every caliber known at the time at just about every empty space aboard their ships because of the tenacity of the Japanese pilots - they just would not die and crash into the ocean when their aircraft were hit. People from other countries always criticize/laugh at the Americans "obsession" with placing guns everywhere on their ships but it definitely served a purpose, especially when the Japanese changed tactics in October 1944 and introduced the Kamikaze. Even with ALL those guns of various calibers shooting at them, the Japanese still managed to get through the anti-aircraft & fighter protection to make some devastating blows against American warships. Look up what happened to the USS FRANKLIN (CV-13) & USS BUNKER HILL (CV-17) when they were brutalized by a single kamikaze hit each.
Luckily for us, the Japanese had a tendency to make overcomplicated plans. At Midway they scattered four task forces over a huge area of the ocean. If they had concentrated everything they would have had enough air power to hit Midway and the carriers at the same time and wouldn't have been so vulnerable when the American dive bombers showed up.
The Americans had broken the Japanese codes, and had gotten advance warning of the Midway battle. The Japanese, however, weren't able to do the same to American codes, since the Navaho language was used, and is only found in the southwest of the U.S.
They did the same thing in Europe and didn't just use the Navaho, though they are the most well known. There is a documentary called "Code Talkers" that goes into detail about this. It also wasn't just that they used their language, they also made sure to adjust words in their language to replace those English words that don't exist in their language, such as Tank or Aircraft Carrier, with that word replacement it makes it seem like they are just doing word replacement of English words when they where actual speaking another language. BTW, they also still sent the messages out in code just like the Germans and Japanese. So it was like if the British decrypted enigma and instead of seeing German they saw that it was written in Gothic, but had no Idea what the Gothic language was.
Love your videos. Some of the questions you pose regarding apparent tactics on both sides can be put into some perspective by keeping in mind the dates of the battle. In June of 1942 the Japanese had been conducting carrier air operations for several years and had perfected many of their tactics. They knew how to coordinate, launch, and carry out carrier air attacks better than any other nation in the world. In contrast, the Americans had been fighting for only 7 months and were still learning their tactics, usually the hard way. They were also trying to replace obsolete aircraft and munitions with newer versions, and training their personnel on these new weapons platforms, all the while fighting the Japanese. Breaking the Japanese naval code helped even the odds for the Americans, but in the end it became a war of attrition. After Midway the Japanese could not easily replace their lost carriers, or the hundreds of combat veteran pilots. The Americans could replace both their pilots and their carriers faster and in significantly greater quantities. Another perspective is that American naval damage control tactics were superior to the Japanese damage control efforts, which is one reason why the American ships were so difficult to sink. Finally, the Japanese carriers possessed an obsolete and inadequate fuel safety protocol. Their ships had inferior fume ventilation, and their aviation fuel systems remained full of aviation fuel from the fuel tanks below the water line all the way up through the vast array of hoses to the flight hanger. They were floating fuel bombs, which is why they exploded so easily and catastrophically in this phase of the war. American fuel handling, on the other hand, made safety a priority. When aircraft were not actively being fueled the lines were purged and seawater was pumped through the system to cover the fuel reserve in the storage tanks. Since water and fuel did not mix, the Americans could then pump out the seawater when they needed to fuel aircraft. I recommend checking out Drachinifel's (another Brit I believe) channel for the true naval fanatics. He breaks all of this down in detail and is fun to listen to. www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel
There was one other thing I forgot to mention in my comment on pt2 - we had cracked the Japanese naval code and used it to trick them into giving up that Midway was a target
18:58 it is so sad, none of these young men, in either side, were fighting and killing because they wanted to. It’s heartbreaking. These kids, yes KIDS, were super young.
As someone who studied Japanese, I think the best way to explain how to pronounce "Hiryu" would be to pronounce the syllables "Hee ree you" as one word, or the English words "here you" as a single word.
Much of that improvement came from the reports filed after the loss of the Yorktown by it's Captain. If you read his full report he addresses the placement of guns and blind spots in great accuracy.
The ninth US warship named "Enterprise" is under construction and it will be the third aircraft carrier of that name, scheduled to be in service after 2028.
Yorktown, The Fighting Lady, didn’t go down easy. Not without a fight. While Hiryu did strike a fatal blow to her, she didn’t sink. It was the sub, I-168 that killed her. But, just like her nickname, she went out fighting till the end. However, Hamman and Northampton would tragically meet the same fate: sinking with the carriers they’d tried to save. After this, Enterprise would have to fight the Japanese empire alone.
In 1995 National Geographic Took both U.S and Japanese veteran's to both the areas where Yorktown Kaga Akagi Soryu Hiryu Sank They found four ships but They couldn't find the Akagi it still missing
Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of Axis forces, in general, was a reluctance to do a tactical retreat when it was called for. On both theaters they needed quick victories, so their aggression and rapid tactics made sense. But both bit off way more than they could possibly chew, Germany having been crazy to attack the USSR, and Japan having been crazy to take on the US. Churchill *knew* victory was certain after hearing of Pearl Harbor.
6:20 The reason for the US fleet pulling back was because they feared a surface action would be tried and as was shown with HMS Glorious carriers don't do well in a gun fight (Well unless you are HMS Victorious at the Battle of Matapan, but thats a one off), also the US didn't have anything bigger then a cruiers in their fleet outside the carriers and the Japanese did have two big gun ships in the form of two Kongo class battlecruisers in the force with the Kido Buti and battlecrusiers were made specifically to fight cruiers and their was also a chance this was to be a nightfight and the US Navy was terrible at night fighting even with radar and the Japanese were brilliant at it as was shown months later at Guadalcanal (In fact the only other navy that was good at night fighting was the British Navy and it was kind of a coin toss of who was better the British or Japanese, if you take radar out the question which the British had and the Japanese didn't). Also shown at Guadalcanal was what happens when a battlecruiser fights cruiers as one of the Kongo class "Hiei" dealt a lot of damage to the cruisers she fought and that was in the worst case situation for the Hiei i.e. point blank so her armour wasn't effective against cruiser caliber guns (And i do mean point blank Hiei actually passed some of the cruisers and destroyers so close you could have jumped from one ship to the other), on more optimal situations where her armour would have stopped cruiser shells, it would be like a bear fighting a rabbit. Also their is a debate on what to call the Kongo's, they were originally battlecrusiers but they were refitted and the Japanese later on called them fast battleships, however the Kongo's didn't have the armour of other fast battleships like USS Massachusetts and HMS Vanguard so some people go with Fast Battleship because thats what the Japanese called them at the time and others say they are battlecruisers because thats more in line with what they were in terms of specs.
japan did not have good anti air guns, the 25mm they used had many problems even before combat shows it to be more severe and they did not have a equivalent to the 40mm bofors, so no heavy aa guns
The US navy had much better fire and damage control personnel, equipment and procedures than their Japanese counterparts. In the end this didn't matter for the Yorktown as it was sunk while being towed by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine.
It did matter for the Yorktown, because if was Japanese it would have been Sunk 3 times prior to actually being sunk. Once at Coral Sea, once after the First attack on it during the battle, and once after the second attack that crippled it to the point that it was vulnerable to that torpedo strike.
This is a good documentary, but for you kids just trying to learn some things about World War II. I think this was not the best one for you to watch. It’s multiple parts and on top of that it’s all about the Japanese perspective so you don’t even understand why the Americans knew what was happening or all that transpired. When you guys learned about new wars or battles, you should really just watch something that is a documentary on everything that’s going on and not so focused like this. I see other people recommending the American perspective but then of course you spent five or six videos just on this one battle and there are thousands of them in World War II.
Most of those ships have been located on the seafloor in the past few decades; _Yorktown_ herself rests about 5,100 meters below the surface. It is a very solemn experience to watch the video images of those great ships and to recall the thousands of brave men who served and died on them during the battle...
the bomb that hit the Yorktown went down the stack and blew back up from within the ship and my Dad's station was just on the other side of the stack and what saved him was the hatch had just been closed. Seeing that picture of the smoke on the stacks reminds me how close he was to being gone.
This battle tore the guts out of the Imperial Navy. Those pilots, ground crews, and sailors could not be replaced.
My Father (happy Father's Day) was on the Yorktown and ended in the water after it was hit. Surprisingly, he met the man who pulled him out of the water 60 years later in a Senior home facility in California (what are the chances). The Yorktown took a lot of hits in the Coral Sea and Midway battles but was still serviceable until the hit at the end of June 6. He was supposed to be a gunner on a SBD and mostly likely would have been killed but he was moved to the clerical position prior to the attacks because he could type. That one change is the reason I am alive today. History turns on very small things.
Amazing! Thanks for sharing!!!
Same thing happened to my grandfather. He was Army in the Philippines. He was 28 years old and could have been one of the thousands of dead. But he could type. He was a record keeper in a coal mine. So he was assigned as a clerk in a medical unit. 40th, Infantry "Sunburst" Division.
@@brucechmiel7964 Apparently it paid off having that skill early in the War.
Those dudes on the Yorktown were the masters of fixing things way ahead of time.
I cant imagine the frustration on the Yorktown crew. Lets not forget the ship was already damaged in a previous battle and was full of temporary patches. Only to get attacked. Then quickly patched at sea again. Then to be attacked again. Respects to the Yorktown Crew!
Glad to see you're not dropping this series. Make sure to do their part 3 (would be part 5 for you) showing the American perspective.
Hiryu = Hear-you. The Yorktown still had civilian contractors doing repairs during the battle of Midway. Strictly against rules of the navy to have civilians going into battle. This was a battle with desperate measures. They were trying to tow the Yorktown but a Japanese submarine managed to catch up a few days later & put two more torpedoes in her. She capsized about 4 days after first being attacked. I think the wreck was just found in really deep water in fact. Just a few months ago.
Sorry. Just checked. They found the wreckage a few years ago.
My father was on the Yorktown during these fights and it is only by luck that he survived and I was born years later.
That's really cool
Howdy! Now you need to do the American perspective; it explains WHY the Americans seemed to know everything.
They still have to finish up part 2 they’ll get there hopefully
Every sailor on a Navy ship is trained in firefighting and damage control, there's nowhere to run when your ships on fire
How many of us saw the video of sailors battling the fire on the Forestall in or after boot camp. I still remember it.
That was one of the flaws of the Japanese Navy training. They had only dedicated damage control teams, and if those sailors were injured or couldn't get to the damaged areas of the ship, the rest of the crew didn't know what to do. Also, such damage control crewmen required an NCO or officer to direct them, they were not trained for individual initiative.
My Uncle was on Midway as a Aviation Mechanic for the PBY Catalina's during the attack. He survived the war after being in the battle. He passed in 2001 from an traffic accident.
By 1943 the US was turning out Aircraft Carriers an a phenomenal pace along with all other types of Ships.
This plus the fact that more or less the best the Japanese had to offer where lost at Midway basically ended the war. Most historian think if Midway didn't happen as it had the war would have likely went on for about 5-10 years longer then it did, based on the speed at which the US rebuilt its fleet, the US's Europe First agreement with Brittan, and the tenacity of the Japanese.
The US battle plan for the Pacific was to fight a Holding action until the war in Europe was decided. Basically, don't let Japan gain any more ground, but don't attempt to take ground either.
Japanese losses where so bad that they could no longer go on the offensive and could barely defend. To put it another way Midway did to the Japanese what the Japanese where trying to do to the US when they attacked Pearl Harbor.
I read a trilogy of books by a guy named Ian Toll about the Pacific Theater. I was aware that we had a lot of industrial might at the time, but nonetheless I was amazed at the sheer volume of material showing up in the Pacific later on. And it was the secondary theater.
Those there were similarly impressed.
A big reason for America's success here was that we had cracked the Japanese naval code and were listening into their communications. They knew when an attack was coming and that the force sent up to Alaska was a decoy but not 100% where the main force was going to attack because Japan simply called it AF. They thought it might be Midway so they sent out false intelligence over an unencoded line saying that Midway had a faulty water line(the weirdness of this Japan didn't seem to catch) and Japan responded by saying that AF had a water line problem, confirming the location. This information was relayed to Admiral Chester Nimitz, overall commander of the Navy(fun fact: he had never been near the water before the navy. It's why the Pacific War Museum is here in Texas, Fredericksburg, specifically. It uses the old hotel that Admiral Nimitz's family owned) and Nimitz began setting his trap.
It wasn't a Water line at Midway the open air(not encrypted) message that was sent was that the the desalinization plant was inoperable and needed urgent* repair. The Japanese sent a coded message to the fleet that the Desalinization plant was down at AF and extra fresh water was needed.
That was how we confirmed the target was Midway. It was also how we had ships in the right place for the Battle of the Coral Sea** as well.
*it was this urgency that allowed it to not seem suspicious that it was broadcast in the open
**It was this battle that did two things. 1) Make the Japanese in the planning stages think they would be facing at most 2 carriers and 2) Battle Hardened the Yorktown and allowed them to recover from the first attack.
I would highly recommend looking into the history the battle of the Coral Sea making it to Midway, and the Doolittle Raid, these where key events that led to what happened at Midway.
Crazy to think that all of these events in this battle happened in only a day.
The war in the Pacific is a giant game of cat and mouse through the majority of the war… it was an obsession of mine when I was a teenager in the early 1980s living in Okinawa, Japan
I was in the American Navy. Whereas in the Marine Corps every person is a rifleman first in the Navy every sailor is a trained firefighter. It is up to the crew to fight the fires and control the amount of damage. It's the same for any Navy in the world. Even the RN.
The effort to ready the Yorktown for the battle of Midway was herculean -
They went so far as to reduce electrical power to the city of Honolulu, in order to provide more power to the shipyard at Pearl Harbor.
The Yorktown sailed into battle with civilian workmen still aboard, working on repairs.
The US Aircraft Carriers had excellent fire Control Systems. Which is why the York Town lasted as long as it did. The Japanese not so much. The British were Defeated in the Revolutionary War at York Town.
Actually after the Yorktown arrived heavily damaged from the battle of the Coral Sea, Admiral Nimitz gave the yard 72 hours to repair the ship to combat condition, more than 1,600 shipyard workers swarmed the ship and worked 24 hours a day, and REMAINED on board when Yorktown left Pearl Harbor to Join up with Enterprise and Hornet 2 days ahead of them, and continued repairing the ship while underway to Midway, it is because of these men, that not only drastically contributed to the battle of Midway, but in ALMOST saving the ship. These men, were able to very QUICKLY get the fires out, get the boilers lit, and repair the flight deck BEFORE the second attack from Hiryu arrived for the second attack on her, the Japanese at that point believed that the Hiryu's pilots ALONE took out 2 of the American Carriers, because they perceived that the Yorktown was a completely different aircraft carrier from earlier, not the same one. this is why the Enterprise and Hornet were able to flay a combined strike and send the Hiryu to the bottom, after the Hiryu's 2nd attack on the Yorktown, she would need to be towed back to Pearl for extensive repairs, and AFTER the battle, while being towed back to Pearl, a single Japanese submarine torpedoed both the Yorktown and the destroyer alongside it that was helping in flood control pumping out water from Yorktown, both ship then went to the bottom, but the Hiryu would NOT get another shot at the Enterprise and Hornet, after the second strike from the Yorktown returned, Enterprise and Hornet would send the last strike of the day, sinking the Hiryu in a late afternoon action.
There are movies about MiDway , the older one stars Charleston Hesston and Henry Fonda , and newer one done a few years ago. There is great series about the Enterprise Battle 360. The most decorated ship in WW II
the actual intelligence on midway was a ploy. Two different opinions on where the Japanese would attack were at play. the Japanese marked a target as AF but we didn't know what it was until admiral Nimitz did a fake shortage of water on Midway. the Japanese immediately responded water Emergency on target AF and that was the answer. we also knew about the Japanese express (ship flotilla) coming as we intercepted transmissions from the japanese carriers trying to come down the sea while we got into position long ahead of them. we didn't have radar but we did have a powerful code cracking team on board different ships and radio interceptors that could pick up any signal of any ship.
Pearl Harbor repair crew “This ship needs 3 months to be repaired”
Nimitz “You’ve got 3 days and then she sails”
Watch Battle 360 for Enterprise’s part in the battle. Don’t watch that tire fire that came out in 1976. Invented characters and a sub plot that wasn’t needed. The 2019 movie is a B+ because of some dialogue and visual issues, otherwise it’s an A
my granddad serveed on the yorktown at midway , he made it and stayed in the war
When I was in school I did a presentation on the battle of midway
Nice! Hope you nailed it :D
Me too, because my Dad was on the Yorktown and I later met many of the men still alive back in the 1960's during a 25 year celebration on board a new carrier.
the YORKTOWN was a beast
I did a research paper my sophomore year of high school on the battle of Midway as the turning point of the war, so this was great to see.
There were so many “what if” situations with good and bad luck on both sides.
With all of the American good fortunes (some earned, some luck), the entire battle would have almost certainly been changed had it not been for the American damage control and repair ability.
From the Yorktown being severely damaged at Coral Sea, it was great seamanship to get the carrier back to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese believed the Yorktown was likely sunk.
Then what should have taken months to repair to get the Yorktown battle worthy, was completed within a couple of days. She was not completely repaired but enough so to get into the battle which made a huge difference. In fact it was a game changer.
The Yorktown, after being severely damaged and seemingly put out of action and perhaps sunk, the damage control teams within a couple of hours managed again to get the Yorktown back in the fight. She appeared to be a different undamaged carrier.
Simply put, out of all the complexities of the battle, so much should be credited to the Yorktown’s damage control in getting her back to Pearl Harbor. Then the almost stunning repair job within hours to send her back to sea combat ready and yet again from her damage control after being hit with a devastating attack (similar to what sunk the Japanese carriers).
It was incredible bravery on both sides but remove the American ability to repair in a very efficient manner and the outcome would have certainly changed.
Yorktown sailed from Pearl Harbor with civilian workmen still on board.
Y'all should watch the Midway movie with Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glen Ford and others.
I've been waiting for this since the last one.
9:24 So as to those who wonder how the ships get towed, the problem is the fleet don't recognize small non-combatant support vesicles such as Tugs which were in fact part of most formation sets (they did run slow causing formations to be slow, but they matched the speed of a lot of destroyer escorts), however they were hard to use and were needed mostly at ports, so far between, the battle of midway didn't have any (Carriers needed the speed, tugs couldn't offer it), but they could be called quickly within 3 to 4 days time (considering there speed), Another realization is to use a heavy cruiser or a battleship to anchor a tether and pull her along, as such as done trying to save USS Ranger, sadly that plan makes two very slow targets and once carriers are in play this idea is suicide for two ships due to the Japanese Long Lance Torpedo which is capable of blowing a hole up to 11 feet in diameter bellow waterline (strike forces tended to have 5 to 7 planes with torpedoes in a run). This is methods which stop gaped and often were used to try to bring damage stricken ships to safety often. Hell a battleship during one of the massive battles had her engines die and a tug pulled her to her designated target zones and let her fire her salvos while she was undergoing engineering repairs. Tug boats never really get credit as a lot of people never really saw them as "important", just the little worker ant. Keep in mind there are plenty of "Civilians" in these positions, such as a crane operator who was using the boom to fend off Japanese dive bombers and cannon runs on dry-dock ships during the attack on Pearl Harbor. There was also the battle for Wake Island which Japan attacked, the Marines were numbering somewhere between 300 and 600 and the civilian construction workers numbered over 1,000 personnel. A small group of brave civilians took the lead knowing the trouble ahead and asked the Marines for training, in less then 8 hours they learned to man, operate, and function under basic commands a 30 caliber machine-gun net and assisted in the defense of the island for the whole conflict they managed to lay down fire with such impressive action that the Japanese landing force purposely avoided there arc of fire thinking it was a 3 machine-gun nest as opposed to a group of 4 construction workers xD This allowed the Marines to push the Japanese Marines into a standing battle where Marines got to hammer enemy positions from defensible zones and even launch counter offensives, another great story to learn as it rallied the country and steeled the resolve of the marines yet to "Test there mettle" , even though the civilians and the marines lost and were prisoners of war from 1941 to 1945.
There are a lot of stuff all navy's have not stated as well, technically the Battle of Jutland had the first successful launch of a sea-plane from a flat top system, including specialty optics, flare attachments (To illuminate target positions), and a radio capable of handling being turned upside down and shaken vigorously (If it wanted to work) which could in fact have sent spotting splashes to the ship to adjust gun plotting. Sadly the radios of the time were crap when made for vehicles, thus this one failed, and due to poor weather conditions flares were useless as if the plane hit the wrong target it would cause friendly fire. This got the ball rolling though, and that gave a lot of ideas for national gains, but they don't get mentioned cause they didn't get a "Active primary roll" in the battle plan, just a little worker ant trying his best.
13:12 The crazy ass engineers in ship combat can do wild stuff, captain can order wild stuff, and experienced crews and captains can do miracles that most people never thought possible. Yorktown is the testament to this, suffering insane battle damage (5 direct bomb hits, 4 shrapnel near misses that damaged small components, 5 torpedo hits. Japanese strikes cratered Yorktown but even to the captains surprise he had actually had defiant damage control and crew that refused to leave when abandon ship was called, he let everyone else off the ship as they were going to a destroyer (picture was shown), however the damage control was fixed with quick reactionary choices of the well seasoned damage control crews. They managed to stop the ship from sinking, restart the boilers, and even gave her a stress test run confirming she was operational 20 minutes after receiving the blow from the last torpedo bombers. The only problem was the fact that communication wire was cut due to a rush of water to the fore section and while able to communicate to the lower area easily they sent a runner to the top. Ultimately this saved the lives of the Yorktowns crew as a hidden Japanese Submarine saw the ship moving and not sinking after that state and they decided to finish the job with 2 more torpedoes, sending Yorktown to the bottom, the crew was battered and beat, but they got pressed into action on another ship later on, the new Essex class, designated in honor of Yorktown as "Yorktown". The crew and a lot of her pilots got added to the same ship ironically. However while Yorktown was a nutty ship. Another goodie to note was after the loss of Yorktown and a further issue of damage from other operations, the only operational large scale carrier for a while will be Enterprise, which the crew was tired but fought like monsters so bad that Japan several times thought they were fighting whole new carrier forces
9:52 Depends on if a ship is sunk or not lol. It’s hard to do maintenance on a ship that’s sunk and under water.
The movie midway either old or new are good movies that tell this story fairly well
Yep, the Americans knew about it because they cracked the Japanese code. The Americans, just as a double check, said that their distillation equipment on Midway was broken and needed to be replaced even though it was operating correctly. They let the Japanese pick up this communication on purpose to find out what they designated Midway Island as, it turned out the Japanese called it objective AF and thus the Americans knew their guess was correct that the Japanese were going to attack Midway. The admiral in charge of it had a keen intuition about just how far to go, being aggressive but not so much so that he fell into a Japanese trap.
Again, I'd recommend the trilogy of books on the Pacific War by Ian W. Toll.
Well the Yorktown barely survived the attack at the Coural Sea. The Yorktown was ordered to return to to Pearl Harbor as fast as she could. Due to them knowing about the attack about to happen on Midway. It took a few days for the Yorktown to reach Pearl Harbor due to her being damaged and couldn't go at full speed. During the time the Yorktown was headed to Pearl Harbor they made a full damage report of the ship and flew it to Hawaii ahead of the ship. They estimated it would take about 90 days to get the ship up and running at full. When the Yorktown pulled in they immediately put her in a dry dock and before the water was completely drained out crews in waiters was already expecting it incliding Admiral Nimitz. Nimitz said "i need it to be done in 3 days". Repairs started almost immediately and they did a around the clock working on the ship with about 1,400 repairmen. Also due to the amount of working that was needed they contacted the person in charge of the power on Honolulu and power was diverted to the dry docks in w system of doing small blackouts all over the island. Only the most urgent and necessary repairs was done to the ship. Like instead of reparing busted seams and damaged of the hull. They welded big steel plates over the damaged areas. Within 48 hours the ship was repaired enough to leave the dry dock and be back in action. When the ship left the dry dock they still had civilians workers on the ship still doing repairs. Which is technically a no no.
So the Japanese thought the Yorktown was out of commission. So when they they thought it was just another US carrier. After the Yorktown was hit at fhe Battle of Midway the will train superior danage and fire control system/crew was able to put out fires. Along with the civilian repairman still on board with supplies they was a able to get the ship back up and running. So when the Japanese attacked her again they thought it was another carrier.
Truly the Greatest Generation
Battle of antitum 500,000 dead americans in the civil war in the bloodiest battle and loss of men in our nation.
The Pacific theater is a close second. Like in the revolutionary war vs the brits both sides were way better trained and prepared in the beginning. Those powder wigs defeated the greatest military power one generation to become to best country the worlds seen the next generation.
Our history is crazy.
We adapt to the enemys tactics and use it against them.
Out of order for a carrier means it can’t participate in air operations which is kind of the point for carriers.
5:33 drink every single time you head then say ‘ok”!….just joking, you don’t want to die by the end of this video. 🤣🤣🤣
14:50 As someone who likes naval strategy games (in this case the strategy game "Rule the waves" 2 and 3), I have to agree. Its extremely frustrating when you get your capital ship hit, the damage control works as intended, enemy starts running out ships and planes, and when you start thinking that you may get off with just some damage and zero ships permanently lost, the last remains of enemy forces starts bullying the one damaged ship yet again, until its absolutely done. One then thinks "ok, maybe you may attack another ships? Maybe some that can take more hits?". But the enemy is like "Nah, I always finish what I´ve started", and they send my ship to the bottom, causing an unrecoverable loss. Although, in this real life case it happened unknowingly, with the Japanese thinking that its another ship. They would have gladly attacked an unharmed carrier if they actually saw one.
Another good reaction video!!!! The Pacific naval battles of 1942 were one of the primary reasons that America placed anti-aircraft guns of every caliber known at the time at just about every empty space aboard their ships because of the tenacity of the Japanese pilots - they just would not die and crash into the ocean when their aircraft were hit. People from other countries always criticize/laugh at the Americans "obsession" with placing guns everywhere on their ships but it definitely served a purpose, especially when the Japanese changed tactics in October 1944 and introduced the Kamikaze. Even with ALL those guns of various calibers shooting at them, the Japanese still managed to get through the anti-aircraft & fighter protection to make some devastating blows against American warships. Look up what happened to the USS FRANKLIN (CV-13) & USS BUNKER HILL (CV-17) when they were brutalized by a single kamikaze hit each.
This is the best of the best historical content for this battle. Montemayor rules.
I’m not sure if it’s been said but watch midway 2019. Great film
Luckily for us, the Japanese had a tendency to make overcomplicated plans. At Midway they scattered four task forces over a huge area of the ocean. If they had concentrated everything they would have had enough air power to hit Midway and the carriers at the same time and wouldn't have been so vulnerable when the American dive bombers showed up.
The Japanese Navy was very fond of overly complex battle plans utilizing multiple multiple tasks forces instead of concentrating their forces.
The crew recites the boilers and there under way again
The Americans had broken the Japanese codes, and had gotten advance warning of the Midway battle. The Japanese, however, weren't able to do the same to American codes, since the Navaho language was used, and is only found in the southwest of the U.S.
They did the same thing in Europe and didn't just use the Navaho, though they are the most well known. There is a documentary called "Code Talkers" that goes into detail about this. It also wasn't just that they used their language, they also made sure to adjust words in their language to replace those English words that don't exist in their language, such as Tank or Aircraft Carrier, with that word replacement it makes it seem like they are just doing word replacement of English words when they where actual speaking another language.
BTW, they also still sent the messages out in code just like the Germans and Japanese.
So it was like if the British decrypted enigma and instead of seeing German they saw that it was written in Gothic, but had no Idea what the Gothic language was.
@@kelaEQ2 The History Channel has a good documentary on the Navajo code talkers.
Freedom isn't free.
Pearl Harbor's YardMaster told the nay "at least a month" and dockyard workers were still on board Yorktown during the battle
Love your videos. Some of the questions you pose regarding apparent tactics on both sides can be put into some perspective by keeping in mind the dates of the battle. In June of 1942 the Japanese had been conducting carrier air operations for several years and had perfected many of their tactics. They knew how to coordinate, launch, and carry out carrier air attacks better than any other nation in the world. In contrast, the Americans had been fighting for only 7 months and were still learning their tactics, usually the hard way. They were also trying to replace obsolete aircraft and munitions with newer versions, and training their personnel on these new weapons platforms, all the while fighting the Japanese. Breaking the Japanese naval code helped even the odds for the Americans, but in the end it became a war of attrition. After Midway the Japanese could not easily replace their lost carriers, or the hundreds of combat veteran pilots. The Americans could replace both their pilots and their carriers faster and in significantly greater quantities. Another perspective is that American naval damage control tactics were superior to the Japanese damage control efforts, which is one reason why the American ships were so difficult to sink. Finally, the Japanese carriers possessed an obsolete and inadequate fuel safety protocol. Their ships had inferior fume ventilation, and their aviation fuel systems remained full of aviation fuel from the fuel tanks below the water line all the way up through the vast array of hoses to the flight hanger. They were floating fuel bombs, which is why they exploded so easily and catastrophically in this phase of the war. American fuel handling, on the other hand, made safety a priority. When aircraft were not actively being fueled the lines were purged and seawater was pumped through the system to cover the fuel reserve in the storage tanks. Since water and fuel did not mix, the Americans could then pump out the seawater when they needed to fuel aircraft. I recommend checking out Drachinifel's (another Brit I believe) channel for the true naval fanatics. He breaks all of this down in detail and is fun to listen to. www.youtube.com/@Drachinifel
There was one other thing I forgot to mention in my comment on pt2 - we had cracked the Japanese naval code and used it to trick them into giving up that Midway was a target
The radar operator wasn't taken seriously when he saw the Japanese air force on the radar scope.
That was Pearl Harbor
@@donaldstewart8342you beat me to the punch
You should check out how the Americans knew what was coming. That story is just as good as the battle is!
Desert Storm perspective, it sucks to lose.
18:58 it is so sad, none of these young men, in either side, were fighting and killing because they wanted to. It’s heartbreaking. These kids, yes KIDS, were super young.
As someone who studied Japanese, I think the best way to explain how to pronounce "Hiryu" would be to pronounce the syllables "Hee ree you" as one word, or the English words "here you" as a single word.
Japanese hurt but not out. USN had superior antiaircraft fire and better fire control than the Japanese, and got better as the war went on.
Much of that improvement came from the reports filed after the loss of the Yorktown by it's Captain. If you read his full report he addresses the placement of guns and blind spots in great accuracy.
The ninth US warship named "Enterprise" is under construction and it will be the third aircraft carrier of that name, scheduled to be in service after 2028.
Yorktown, The Fighting Lady, didn’t go down easy. Not without a fight. While Hiryu did strike a fatal blow to her, she didn’t sink. It was the sub, I-168 that killed her. But, just like her nickname, she went out fighting till the end. However, Hamman and Northampton would tragically meet the same fate: sinking with the carriers they’d tried to save. After this, Enterprise would have to fight the Japanese empire alone.
In 1995 National Geographic
Took both U.S and Japanese veteran's to both the areas where
Yorktown
Kaga
Akagi
Soryu
Hiryu
Sank
They found four ships but
They couldn't find the Akagi it still missing
American carriers, at that time, used their engines to provide electrical power.
They knew
Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of Axis forces, in general, was a reluctance to do a tactical retreat when it was called for. On both theaters they needed quick victories, so their aggression and rapid tactics made sense. But both bit off way more than they could possibly chew, Germany having been crazy to attack the USSR, and Japan having been crazy to take on the US. Churchill *knew* victory was certain after hearing of Pearl Harbor.
Automatic thumbs up before watching
Hi
Hello :D
6:20 The reason for the US fleet pulling back was because they feared a surface action would be tried and as was shown with HMS Glorious carriers don't do well in a gun fight (Well unless you are HMS Victorious at the Battle of Matapan, but thats a one off), also the US didn't have anything bigger then a cruiers in their fleet outside the carriers and the Japanese did have two big gun ships in the form of two Kongo class battlecruisers in the force with the Kido Buti and battlecrusiers were made specifically to fight cruiers and their was also a chance this was to be a nightfight and the US Navy was terrible at night fighting even with radar and the Japanese were brilliant at it as was shown months later at Guadalcanal (In fact the only other navy that was good at night fighting was the British Navy and it was kind of a coin toss of who was better the British or Japanese, if you take radar out the question which the British had and the Japanese didn't).
Also shown at Guadalcanal was what happens when a battlecruiser fights cruiers as one of the Kongo class "Hiei" dealt a lot of damage to the cruisers she fought and that was in the worst case situation for the Hiei i.e. point blank so her armour wasn't effective against cruiser caliber guns (And i do mean point blank Hiei actually passed some of the cruisers and destroyers so close you could have jumped from one ship to the other), on more optimal situations where her armour would have stopped cruiser shells, it would be like a bear fighting a rabbit.
Also their is a debate on what to call the Kongo's, they were originally battlecrusiers but they were refitted and the Japanese later on called them fast battleships, however the Kongo's didn't have the armour of other fast battleships like USS Massachusetts and HMS Vanguard so some people go with Fast Battleship because thats what the Japanese called them at the time and others say they are battlecruisers because thats more in line with what they were in terms of specs.
York Town sank
Japan's anti air capabilities have straight up stormtrooper energy Yamato only shotndown 10ish planes in the battle it was sunk
To be more specific, the Americans lost 10 planes. The Yamato only had 3 confirmed AA kills.
japan did not have good anti air guns, the 25mm they used had many problems even before combat shows it to be more severe and they did not have a equivalent to the 40mm bofors, so no heavy aa guns
Watch Midway 2019 movie
Any plan to see the movies after this?
The US navy had much better fire and damage control personnel, equipment and procedures than their Japanese counterparts. In the end this didn't matter for the Yorktown as it was sunk while being towed by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine.
It did matter for the Yorktown, because if was Japanese it would have been Sunk 3 times prior to actually being sunk. Once at Coral Sea, once after the First attack on it during the battle, and once after the second attack that crippled it to the point that it was vulnerable to that torpedo strike.
🙂👍
This is a good documentary, but for you kids just trying to learn some things about World War II. I think this was not the best one for you to watch. It’s multiple parts and on top of that it’s all about the Japanese perspective so you don’t even understand why the Americans knew what was happening or all that transpired. When you guys learned about new wars or battles, you should really just watch something that is a documentary on everything that’s going on and not so focused like this. I see other people recommending the American perspective but then of course you spent five or six videos just on this one battle and there are thousands of them in World War II.
You two were better watching battle 360 episodes…way better than this
Yeah sure , York was supposed to be repaired within maybe 2 months but the workers work so hard day n night , that it took only 2 days .