Thus, all three American carriers required two hours hard steaming to get back to within extreme striking extreme distance, wasting crucial time, during which much had happened to frustrate the ‘hit first with the maximum force’ mantra that the whole pre-war US carrier battle plans had been based upon. Unfortunately, Fletcher decided to search for more Japanese carriers away from this position and ordered Spruance’s force to follow him. Nimitz arranged an ambush accordingly based on ‘Point Option’. It was these men who, ironically, fought the most important air-sea action of the Pacific War.Īkagi, the flagship of the Japanese carrier striking force in April 1942 prior to the battle. Nimitz was a submarine specialist, Fletcher and Spruance were both cruiser specialists. In overall command was Admiral Chester W Nimitz at Pearl Harbor, while at sea the two US Task Forces were TF17 ( Yorktown) under Frank J Fletcher and TF16 ( Enterprise and Hornet) under Raymond A Spruance. Three USN carriers were present at the Midway battle in June 1942. There were plus and minus factors in each scenario in the Japanese case, find one carrier and you found them all in the American case their policy spread chances, but could result in uncoordinated attacks.īut being the first to attack the enemy was paramount to both sides.Īmerican carriers carried fighter aircraft (VF), torpedo-bombers (VT), scouting (VS) and dive-bombers (VB) to form an Air Group. The American aircraft-carriers had a different policy whereby, although acting in concert, each carrier mounted her own strike. The Japanese operated their carriers in groups of four to six, fully harmonised to maximise the attack force, as at the Pearl Harbor attack. The pre-war policy then was always to land the first blow with the maximum number of aircraft, as that could decide the issue in carrier warfare. Now only a handful of veterans remain - will they get the recognition they deserve before it's too late? One determined band of Brits are in a battle against time to make sure they do. In the darkest hours of World War 2, thousands of men from Burma (now Myanmar) gave their lives fighting a brutal war for Britain against the Japanese, and to carry out the most successful guerrilla campaign of the war. But American and Japanese carriers in the wide wastes of the Pacific only had wooden decks, with the vulnerable hangar decks and engine rooms below them. One only had to score hits on the carrier’s flight deck to render her inoperative.īritish aircraft carriers had armoured decks – their main threats were expected to be the heavy bombers of the German Luftwaffe or the Italian Regia Aeronautica in the confined waters around Europe. In Second World War carrier-versus-carrier naval battles, although desirable, it was not essential to actually sink an aircraft-carrier target in order to take her out of the battle. What this aircraft did have, however, were two things that were to prove vital in the battle against the Imperial Japanese Navy: the accuracy that dive-bombing alone could provide and a two-man crew (pilot and rear-gunner), totally trained and dedicated to their mission and the will to carry it out. Navy Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive-bombers approaching the burning Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma to make the third set of attacks on her, during the Battle of Midway, 6 June 1942.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |