Jimmy Thatch was the one who came up with the Thatch weave.A pilot would allow a Zero to get on it's tail and then weave towards his wingman so the wingman could shoot down the Zero,hence the Thatch weave.
About half way through there is mention of a group of SBDs from Hornet going to Midway. It makes the comment that 'somewhere along the way" they dropped their bombs. For the record, they jettisoned their bombs in the lagoon. This prompted several gunners on Midway to open up on them. I know this because my father was in one of those SBDs as a radio-gunner. I have heard the story many, many times. But, I have never seen it treated in so much detail. I truly regret that my father did not live to see such brilliant historical scholarship regarding this battle. Thank you so much for this excellent work.
I found out about the ditching of the bombs on the northern reef after I had finished the project. There are other details that I wish I's had. I would like to redo this as a single video but a computer crash lost my files so I would have to do start all over.
It's still amazing they were diving at five hundred miles an hour with canopies open and no oxygen masks. I'm not a pilot and have only flown in a helicopter and a piper cub but that to me seems like a sign of some real badasses.
As I recall dive bombers have dive brakes on their wings that they deploy to keep the plane steady and at a steady speed. I have read more than once that the speed was about 250 mph. You try to pull up going 500 mph and you'll tear the wings right off the aircraft.
At 2:56, we get a nice picture of where the IJN had their forces/vessels positioned. Most people don’t seem to realize how close the IJN was to slaughtering the US Force. Take a look at the “Main” Body. It’s interesting the IJN termed it main body since during the actual Battle this force did nothing. Had the IJN positioned the Main Force in the lead and kept the Mobile Force behind and the Main Force went full speed ahead east the US Force would have been dead. The IJN force didn’t need to have Kondo’s Invasion Occupation Force sitting south doing nothing either. A few adjustments with a 2 more battleships with this group would have allowed the IJN to shell Midway.
Dick Best should have received the Congressional Medal of Honour for his actions at the Battle of Midway. His strike on the Akagi was the "back breaker" that won the the battle...
@@rogerpattube Officially it is just the "Medal of Honor" but since it was established and throughout most of the 20th century it was commonly referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor .. No confusion intended ...
There is debate over Fuchida's account of "bombs everywhere". Also, the Japanese hanger decks were semi-sealed and they never drained their fuel lines like USN, so any battle damage made the hangers fill with avgas and fumes, and fires made them explode, also breaking the water mains so the fires could not be extinguished. Hence the reason we had to put up with that nasty CPO at the San Diego Firefighting School--not exploding after every bomb made the Yorktown "live again" multiple times...
One inaccuracy is the dive angle attack.They always attacked a carrier in an elongated front to rear or rear to front which gives them a better chance of hitting the deck.Dusty Kleiss one of the heroes of Midway took out the Hiryu by dropping his bomb to the left of that carrier,not where it was but where it was going to be because a carrier can turn dramatically to avoid bombs.That way the Hiryu actually turned to where Dusty's bomb was going to hit and his bomb hit right on the back side of the big red circle on the Hiryu.
The US failed to score a single torpedo hit on the Kido Butai, but late in the battle of midway, the Japanese achieve 2 torpedo hits on the Yorktown. Why the difference? I have heard that the American torpedo's had a defect. Was this the only difference? When the Yorktown was hit, was it's maneuvering hampered by the dive bomb hits earlier? Was the CAP covering the Yorktown less effective than the CAP covering the Japanese carriers?
Four reasons, 1: the American MK 13 mod 1 aerial torpedoes were lousy. 2: The American crews were inexperienced. 3: they were getting badly mauled due to lack of fighter cover and 4th: the TBD-1 was hopelessly outdated, slow and vulnerable.
I think japanese torpedoes were more better than its counterpart the usa. Kido Butai was more skilled with more than 4 years with practice and seen more actuall combat and American pilots took less than half of the required training the Japanese standards had unfortunately they lost all their best at midway and only had shokaku and zuikaku pilots left and they used them to train new pilots but with the amount of time to train and make new carriers was not going to be achieved at that time. So they became kamikazes. And Yorktown wasn’t Really fully repaired it was just patched up and only made aircraft deck launch able again. That’s why it was completed(the patch up repair)so fast. And just sent out to do what it was meant to do, launch planes. A
Roy Burton yea it was sunk by a submarine. Americans torpedoes detonated too prematurely until they fixed that problem in 44-45. Development team didn’t think it was their fault but the submarines crew ability to perform their duties. The torpedoes was a copy from the Germans but they didn’t had the technology, skills or experts on that particular area until they realized that ships don’t go face to face anymore. Even with their high production that can replace their losses they knew that training submarine crews wasn’t that expendable
@@imstupid4life They didn't lose all the Kido Butan pilots; but they lost their "corporate élan". They lost all their best pilots in the brutal attrition around Guadalcanal.
In a book called sbd-3 dauntless, by Hernandez, Best states that his 2 wingmen's bombs, also hit the akagi. Everyone else, seems to classify them as near misses ?
My uncle was on the USS Astoria during this. I wonder if he was one of the crew that helped LCDR Leslie. He did like getting into the thick of the action.
Japanese long lance torpedoes were the best in WW2. Longer ranged than any other countrie's. And they had good detonators. Amercian torpedoes were almost useless until redesigned in 1943.
What if question. "What if VF-3 Had top shooter Butch O'Hare at Midway?" Days later, he would take over Command of VF-3 from Thach. Thach could have used the help.
VS-5 never launched after VB-3 until around noon on a search mission to find any remaining Japanese carriers. Had VS-5 been launched right after VT-3 and VF-3 around 9:30 AM, the Yorktown may have not been lost.
What always amazed me was that only two carriers made it back home out of a total of seven. Just think of al the money, time and manpower spent on those other 5 carriers.
@@johnemerson1363 Yeah that's a major offense for sure and Mitscher was never disciplined for it, in fact he was given major command postitions later in the war. There's no direct proof but the Hornet logs do not reflect what really happened with the subpar performance. I read about this in John Lundstrom's "The First Team, Naval Aviation From Pearl Harbor To Midway."
Very talented pilots, but I have immense admiration for the rear gunners, those young men who had the guts to be seated backwards as their planes dived at over 75 degrees, at nearly 500 mph, never seeing the target and trusting in their pilots to avoid crashing into the sea, even as they manned their machine guns to protect their planes. I would have been a screaming mess.
More critical than most people realize. J. Parshall showed that the best torpedo pilots in the world were on Akagi. If they had gotten airborne the US Navy would have been screwed. 1 man, 1 bomb. Right place, right time. Amazing
Other than the final bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bomb Dick Best delivered into the heart of the Akagi was the most significant of the war...
Nukes changed the relevancy of alot of our history of war cause we always kill each other since man 2 saw man 1. 3 generations changed a world with 8 billion people. Kill more
I mean if you had all you planes tucked tightly in your hanger, Fully fueled and full armed... theres nothing they can do.... Once a bomb ignites.... Its gone... the entire ship... They didnt suck at damage control...
If a single PBY could radio in the position of the enemy fleet, how come all those attacking planes from Midway and the carriers couldn't do the same? An updated contact report could probably have allowed Hornet's SBDs to find the target rather than flying off into wild blue yonder (same thing nearly happened to Enterprise's bombers). And if Hornet's bombers had found the enemy, then perhaps Hiryu would've been sunk before it could launch its planes.
I would surmise it was a combination or radio silence and the limited range of the smaller radios in the carrier planes (PBYs were equipped with more substantial radio gear).
Mercy delta5291.... this was almost new stuff for most Naval Aviators. Coordination and navigation over a lot of open ocean. Most of these pilots were Ensigns out of flight school. They’re weren’t enough experienced section leaders. Coral Sea had been the Carrier on Carrier battle prior to Midway. Tactics were being developed in a pressure cooker!
It would be utterly unfair to give the SBDs pilots the whole credit for the USA victory. The TBDs, B 17 and Other marine pilots helped keep the enemy in confusion
I agree, that is why I went to such extremes to show all of the operations and how they interconnected. Without all of the other aircraft and the Nautilus, the IJN carriers and SBDs are not where they are when they are to make the magic 5 minutes happen. But in the end it was the navy SBDs that got steel on target.
Juan Manzano you’re right that others deserve credit also. The torpedo bombers and dive bombers were supposed to make a coordinated attack instead of arriving piecemeal, but plans and planned tactics often go out the window in the confusion of battle. Who even knows if a propper attack would have worked any better than what happened when the Japanese Zeros were distracted by the Midway attacks and then the torpedo attacks and pulled to low altitudes before the divebombers arrived for their attacks. The Midway and torpedo crews should never be forgotten for their sacrifices to make it a success. It should never be forgotten that the Japanese carrier pilots at this early war stage were some of the most elite air crews in the world. As a kid, I read Saburo Sakai’s book “Samarai”. In it he recounted what training they went through. He was one of the leading Japanese navy aces of the war and he didn’t even make the grade as a carrier pilot!
Juan Manzano Not true. Back then every one pitched in. That includes the rich, middle, and the poor. John Basilone? Audie Murphy? Etc. They came from working families. They were awarded the CMH. They received a lot of accolades.
Japan has 0 chance of winning the war, their best chance is in delaying US victory and drag it on as long as possible. Once American full production might kicks in it's not IF but WHEN Japan will surrender...
Those SBD's were under powered and could only reach 255 mph top speed in level flight at 14.000 ft. With their dive flaps engaged in a dive it would be impossible to get to those speeds indicated .
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Jimmy Thatch was the one who came up with the Thatch weave.A pilot would allow a Zero to get on it's tail and then weave towards his wingman so the wingman could shoot down the Zero,hence the Thatch weave.
Original dive bomber sounds, awesome
About half way through there is mention of a group of SBDs from Hornet going to Midway. It makes the comment that 'somewhere along the way" they dropped their bombs. For the record, they jettisoned their bombs in the lagoon. This prompted several gunners on Midway to open up on them. I know this because my father was in one of those SBDs as a radio-gunner. I have heard the story many, many times. But, I have never seen it treated in so much detail. I truly regret that my father did not live to see such brilliant historical scholarship regarding this battle. Thank you so much for this excellent work.
I found out about the ditching of the bombs on the northern reef after I had finished the project. There are other details that I wish I's had. I would like to redo this as a single video but a computer crash lost my files so I would have to do start all over.
Douglas Wells I salute your father
It's still amazing they were diving at five hundred miles an hour with canopies open and no oxygen masks. I'm not a pilot and have only flown in a helicopter and a piper cub but that to me seems like a sign of some real badasses.
Training and testosterone
Balls
roflmao
As I recall dive bombers have dive brakes on their wings that they deploy to keep the plane steady and at a steady speed. I have read more than once that the speed was about 250 mph. You try to pull up going 500 mph and you'll tear the wings right off the aircraft.
At 2:56, we get a nice picture of where the IJN had their forces/vessels positioned.
Most people don’t seem to realize how close the IJN was to slaughtering the US Force.
Take a look at the “Main” Body. It’s interesting the IJN termed it main body since during the actual Battle this force did nothing.
Had the IJN positioned the Main Force in the lead and kept the Mobile Force behind and the Main Force went full speed ahead east the US Force would have been dead.
The IJN force didn’t need to have Kondo’s Invasion Occupation Force sitting south doing nothing either. A few adjustments with a 2 more battleships with this group would have allowed the IJN to shell Midway.
Dick Best should have received the Congressional Medal of Honour for his actions at the Battle of Midway. His strike on the Akagi was the "back breaker" that won the the battle...
No such medal.
@@rogerpattube Officially it is just the "Medal of Honor" but since it was established and throughout most of the 20th century it was commonly referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor .. No confusion intended ...
tosius2 no worries-definitely knew what you meant 😊!
@@rogerpattube I don't know about the MOH, but there should have been a lot more Navy Cross's.
2 carriers in one day!
There is debate over Fuchida's account of "bombs everywhere". Also, the Japanese hanger decks were semi-sealed and they never drained their fuel lines like USN, so any battle damage made the hangers fill with avgas and fumes, and fires made them explode, also breaking the water mains so the fires could not be extinguished. Hence the reason we had to put up with that nasty CPO at the San Diego Firefighting School--not exploding after every bomb made the Yorktown "live again" multiple times...
One inaccuracy is the dive angle attack.They always attacked a carrier in an elongated front to rear or rear to front which gives them a better chance of hitting the deck.Dusty Kleiss one of the heroes of Midway took out the Hiryu by dropping his bomb to the left of that carrier,not where it was but where it was going to be because a carrier can turn dramatically to avoid bombs.That way the Hiryu actually turned to where Dusty's bomb was going to hit and his bomb hit right on the back side of the big red circle on the Hiryu.
The US failed to score a single torpedo hit on the Kido Butai, but late in the battle of midway, the Japanese achieve 2 torpedo hits on the Yorktown. Why the difference? I have heard that the American torpedo's had a defect. Was this the only difference? When the Yorktown was hit, was it's maneuvering hampered by the dive bomb hits earlier? Was the CAP covering the Yorktown less effective than the CAP covering the Japanese carriers?
Four reasons, 1: the American MK 13 mod 1 aerial torpedoes were lousy. 2: The American crews were inexperienced. 3: they were getting badly mauled due to lack of fighter cover and 4th: the TBD-1 was hopelessly outdated, slow and vulnerable.
I think japanese torpedoes were more better than its counterpart the usa. Kido Butai was more skilled with more than 4 years with practice and seen more actuall combat and American pilots took less than half of the required training the Japanese standards had unfortunately they lost all their best at midway and only had shokaku and zuikaku pilots left and they used them to train new pilots but with the amount of time to train and make new carriers was not going to be achieved at that time. So they became kamikazes. And Yorktown wasn’t Really fully repaired it was just patched up and only made aircraft deck launch able again. That’s why it was completed(the patch up repair)so fast. And just sent out to do what it was meant to do, launch planes. A
Yorktown was sunk by a Japanese sub. American torpedoes were bad.
Roy Burton yea it was sunk by a submarine. Americans torpedoes detonated too prematurely until they fixed that problem in 44-45. Development team didn’t think it was their fault but the submarines crew ability to perform their duties. The torpedoes was a copy from the Germans but they didn’t had the technology, skills or experts on that particular area until they realized that ships don’t go face to face anymore. Even with their high production that can replace their losses they knew that training submarine crews wasn’t that expendable
@@imstupid4life They didn't lose all the Kido Butan pilots; but they lost their "corporate élan". They lost all their best pilots in the brutal attrition around Guadalcanal.
It all sounds exciting. The reality of war must have been terrifying for all involved.
Superb seven years later it is still superb
thanks
In a book called sbd-3 dauntless, by Hernandez, Best states that his 2 wingmen's bombs, also hit the akagi. Everyone else, seems to classify them as near misses ?
How big were the holes that the torpedoes put into the side of the Yorktown?
huge. check out pics in the last episode.
There are photos of Yorktown turning turtle just before she sank and the torpedo holes were huge! Japanese warheads were larger than US warheads.
@@maxsmodels www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/images/i06000/i06001.jpg
My uncle was on the USS Astoria during this. I wonder if he was one of the crew that helped LCDR Leslie. He did like getting into the thick of the action.
Japanese long lance torpedoes were the best in WW2. Longer ranged than any other countrie's. And they had good detonators. Amercian torpedoes were almost useless until redesigned in 1943.
What if question. "What if VF-3 Had top shooter Butch O'Hare at Midway?" Days later, he would take over Command of VF-3 from Thach. Thach could have used the help.
VS-5 never launched after VB-3 until around noon on a search mission to find any remaining Japanese carriers. Had VS-5 been launched right after VT-3 and VF-3 around 9:30 AM, the Yorktown may have not been lost.
Richard Best essentially sank Akagi single-handedly. Astounding and critical to the battle.
Agree. And all the others shot down before him did their part allowing him to take his shot esp in drawing down the JN CAP.
What always amazed me was that only two carriers made it back home out of a total of seven.
Just think of al the money, time and manpower spent on those other 5 carriers.
Was is costly in both blood and treasure.
God Bless Chester Nimitz
...should give mention to C. Wade McCluskey
The long lance does not release bubbles.. It runs on pure o2
sdb,s had a swing fork that swung the bomb down and away from the spinning prop.
05:18 Worse, RADM Mitscher altered the Hornet logs to hide their "subpar" performance.
I would like to see proof of that. That is a major court martial offense.
@@johnemerson1363 Yeah that's a major offense for sure and Mitscher was never disciplined for it, in fact he was given major command postitions later in the war. There's no direct proof but the Hornet logs do not reflect what really happened with the subpar performance. I read about this in John Lundstrom's "The First Team, Naval Aviation From Pearl Harbor To Midway."
Very talented pilots, but I have immense admiration for the rear gunners, those young men who had the guts to be seated backwards as their planes dived at over 75 degrees, at nearly 500 mph, never seeing the target and trusting in their pilots to avoid crashing into the sea, even as they manned their machine guns to protect their planes. I would have been a screaming mess.
Sorry, Art, but the Dive Brakes on the SBD kept the dive speed at less than 300 knots. 500 knots would have torn the wings off the planes!
@@johnemerson1363 I must have mixed up mph with kph. Thanks for the correction.
@@artmoss6889 No problem.
Nice video! Not to be too picky, but the animation at 7:10 is a Lexington class carrier, not the Yorktown.
Good eye. It was all I had
stuka?
How Standhope Ring ever made Vice Admiral after this mess, is a mystery
Some officers flourish in peacetime where others flourish in wartime. Different skills.
His father was United States Navy Commodore James Andrew Ring. Connections.
@@academyofshem That helps.
More critical than most people realize. J. Parshall showed that the best torpedo pilots in the world were on Akagi. If they had gotten airborne the US Navy would have been screwed. 1 man, 1 bomb. Right place, right time. Amazing
Other than the final bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bomb Dick Best delivered into the heart of the Akagi was the most significant of the war...
Nukes changed the relevancy of alot of our history of war cause we always kill each other since man 2 saw man 1. 3 generations changed a world with 8 billion people. Kill more
IF IF IF IF The Martians fought against The US. But they didn't , and América crushed The imperial navy. Sorry pal.
I believe that the attack on the Yorktown, the Yorktown in the video is the Saratoga.
nice video.
Thank you
No way these aircraft dived at 500 MPH.
The Americans has superior damage control and recovery skills. Much better the Japanese Carriers had
Robert Dawson way better
I mean if you had all you planes tucked tightly in your hanger, Fully fueled and full armed... theres nothing they can do.... Once a bomb ignites.... Its gone... the entire ship... They didnt suck at damage control...
If a single PBY could radio in the position of the enemy fleet, how come all those attacking planes from Midway and the carriers couldn't do the same? An updated contact report could probably have allowed Hornet's SBDs to find the target rather than flying off into wild blue yonder (same thing nearly happened to Enterprise's bombers). And if Hornet's bombers had found the enemy, then perhaps Hiryu would've been sunk before it could launch its planes.
I would surmise it was a combination or radio silence and the limited range of the smaller radios in the carrier planes (PBYs were equipped with more substantial radio gear).
Mercy delta5291.... this was almost new stuff for most Naval Aviators. Coordination and navigation over a lot of open ocean. Most of these pilots were Ensigns out of flight school. They’re weren’t enough experienced section leaders. Coral Sea had been the Carrier on Carrier battle prior to Midway. Tactics were being developed in a pressure cooker!
If s & ands The things legends and conspiracies are made of. If the bubble dome had been installed in Dallas
It would be utterly unfair to give the SBDs pilots the whole credit for the USA victory. The TBDs, B 17 and Other marine pilots helped keep the enemy in confusion
I agree, that is why I went to such extremes to show all of the operations and how they interconnected. Without all of the other aircraft and the Nautilus, the IJN carriers and SBDs are not where they are when they are to make the magic 5 minutes happen. But in the end it was the navy SBDs that got steel on target.
@@maxsmodels team work was very crucial.
Juan Manzano you’re right that others deserve credit also. The torpedo bombers and dive bombers were supposed to make a coordinated attack instead of arriving piecemeal, but plans and planned tactics often go out the window in the confusion of battle. Who even knows if a propper attack would have worked any better than what happened when the Japanese Zeros were distracted by the Midway attacks and then the torpedo attacks and pulled to low altitudes before the divebombers arrived for their attacks. The Midway and torpedo crews should never be forgotten for their sacrifices to make it a success. It should never be forgotten that the Japanese carrier pilots at this early war stage were some of the most elite air crews in the world. As a kid, I read Saburo Sakai’s book “Samarai”. In it he recounted what training they went through. He was one of the leading Japanese navy aces of the war and he didn’t even make the grade as a carrier pilot!
Have you not watched the previous episodes?
WALTERBROADDUS no, I just saw this.
U.S.S. Yorktown: Tough little ship.
“Little”? /scowls
Finally, the good part! BTW the muzaks a bit loud. And unnecessary.
The American planes weren't "retreating," they were "returning."
Even if the japanese had won this battle the US of A would have caught up. Their resources were superior.
Agreed, but at how much more time and casualties?
@@maxsmodels very true. Too bad that it is the working and poor classes who do the fighting and the "leaders " get all the credit. Such is life
Juan Manzano Not true. Back then every one pitched in. That includes the rich, middle, and the poor. John Basilone? Audie Murphy? Etc. They came from working families. They were awarded the CMH. They received a lot of accolades.
@@johnl.5303 What school is teaching all this Karl Marx garbage to Juan?
@@WALTERBROADDUS ok...im not going to answer That question of yours! Im not gonna start a "class war"
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Nice CGI !
it's crazy how bad the american navy was back then to japan! man..things sure have changed..no one messes with the americans now!
ordnance--- not ordinance...
dooh
@@maxsmodels still good videos---keep up the good work!!!
captain tanabe of i168 sunk the ship, hes a japanese hero. though i would say we could have won the whole battle with better intelligence.
5 min ended any chance the Japanese had to win that war.
Japan has 0 chance of winning the war, their best chance is in delaying US victory and drag it on as long as possible. Once American full production might kicks in it's not IF but WHEN Japan will surrender...
WHy is the sound so horrible!
Thanks, but I've already read the book.
Zeke
500 mph power dive???? don't think so....
Yeah, that was from a wartime promotional film complete with some wartime bravado.
Those SBD's were under powered and could only reach 255 mph top speed in level flight at 14.000 ft.
With their dive flaps engaged in a dive it would be impossible to get to those speeds indicated .
@@squarebodychevyoverhauls6982 Without the split flap dive brakes the wings would come off in a pullout at over 400 knots.