Hornet mishandled at Midway?

[Brian Kennedy]

Am reading a history of the Marianas battle (which I agree is highly under-reported) where the author mentions that Mitscher faced quite a bit of censure for mishandling Hornet at the Battle of Midway. He obliquely refers to him launching (longer-ranged) bombers before fighters, but was there anything more to that? Enquiring minds etc.!

[Ken Estes]

Hornet bombers failed to score a single hit, right? Did they at later Solomons battles? She does not seem to have the envious record of the rest, down to the ignominous IJN destroyer torpedos sinking her. Only Sara was so problematic.

Edited May 9, 2011 by Ken Estes

[RETAC21]

Hornet bombers failed to score a single hit, right? Did they at later Solomons battles? She does not seem to have the envious record of the rest, down to the ignominous IJN destroyer torpedos sinking her. Only Sara was so problematic.

 

IMO Sara was unlucky rather than mishandled, and the Big E was lucky.

[John Dudek]

IMO Sara was unlucky rather than mishandled, and the Big E was lucky.

 

The Big E also had the flak protection of a modern battleship as one of her supporting ships.

[RETAC21]

The Big E also had the flak protection of a modern battleship as one of her supporting ships.

 

But, IIRC, it was mentioned in one of Joe Brennan's posts some time ago, SoDak's 26 planes down are rife with overclaiming.

[glenn239]

See some of the newer US histories on the battle – these cover the Hornet debacle in detail. Fletcher (TF-17) was in overall command, with TF-16 (Spraunce) left to its own devices on air operations. Lundstrom (Black Shoe Carrier Admiral) has a theory that Hornet took it upon itself – without authorization - to attack a suspected trailing group of Japanese CV’s that were expected to be sailing behind Nagumo’s reported position. The Hornet’s DB group flew a path of roughly 270 degrees out and back, never spotting the enemy. After some time, Waldron’s TB group broke southwest in disgust and attacked Kido Butai on its own. After the battle, there was a cover-up on Hornet to conceal the depths of the debacle.

 

One problem with the theory is that near the US carriers, Gray’s Fighting Six escort latched onto Hornet’s Torpedo 8 for the trip to the Japanese fleet. Gray’s hand-drawn map of T-8’s course to the enemy is found in Climax at Midway, and it does not show Lundstrom’s 270 degrees then dogleg, but rather a beeline straight to the Japanese fleet at about 240 degrees. Gray’s account is not compatible with Lundstrom’s theory, IMO.

 

The origin of the debacle falls on Nimitz’s shoulders – it was he that assigned a green carrier air group (Hornet) to a green carrier admiral (Spruance) while isolating his elite carrier (Yorktown). One can assume that under Fletcher’s direct guidance that Hornet would have performed better.

[Steven P Allen]

But, IIRC, it was mentioned in one of Joe Brennan's posts some time ago, SoDak's 26 planes down are rife with overclaiming.

 

The number shot down is much less important than the amount of flak in the air to help break up coordinated attacks. However many SoDak shot down, her gunnery was instrumental in defending her charge.

[Steven P Allen]

 

The origin of the debacle falls on Nimitz’s shoulders – it was he that assigned a green carrier air group (Hornet) to a green carrier admiral (Spruance) while isolating his elite carrier (Yorktown). One can assume that under Fletcher’s direct guidance that Hornet would have performed better.

 

Nimitz rightly avoided shuffling so many commands in the extermely limited time he had. Hornet had to put to sea ASAP, and swapping Fletcher with Spruance would have really sliced and diced the ability of the staffs to operate. Over and above that, Spruance did pretty well, and he was not all that green. Halsey's endorsement pretty well covers that.

[Marek Tucan]

Just an idle thought... Would the US be better or worse off if they created one CVBG with 3 carriers at Midway?

[Sardaukar]

Just an idle thought... Would the US be better or worse off if they created one CVBG with 3 carriers at Midway?

 

Probably worse, since it would not have been their doctrine and militaries fight according to their dictrines. It took a while to get USN CVBGs as functional as they were later, lot of it was based on experiences from Coral Sea and Midway.

[Marek Tucan]

Still, Hornet and Enterprise were in one group... OTOH might have been viewed as "putting all eggs into one basket" back then.

[glenn239]

Would the US be better or worse off if they created one CVBG with 3 carriers at Midway?

 

IMO, 3 in 1 was better both for offense and defense. On offense, the chances of detection should be lower because there would be only one TF for the Japanese to find (not two TF's and therefore two chances) and Yorktown's staff could better countermand the (poor) decisions made by Enterprise and Hornet air staff. On defense, it seems improbable that Hiryu could have crippled the Yorktown with TF-16’s entire CAP piled on.

 

I believe Fletcher proposed this solution at some time around the battle, but doctrinally it was too fresh and he was ignored.

 

Over and above that, Spruance did pretty well, and he was not all that green.

 

Lunstrom’s take is that Spruance’s inexperience caused him to give his air staffs more or less free reign in their strikes. He gives Spruance good marks overall, but did note that on the afternoon of the 4th TF-16 became lethargic and unsupportive of the struggle TF-17 had entered into. Yorktown’s air staff “nailed” all aspects of the strike cycle from launch to recovery, while errors were made in TF-16. One can suppose that if Hornet were with Fletcher, or if Halsey had been in command, she’d have done better, since both admirals had far more experience than Spruance at the time.

Edited May 10, 2011 by glenn239

[DKTanker]

Still, Hornet and Enterprise were in one group... OTOH might have been viewed as "putting all eggs into one basket" back then.

And yet the one egg not in the basket was the one egg lost.

[binder001]

I believe it was in "Shattered Sword" that it was pointed out that the Japanese were the ones who were the first to get the idea of a massed carrier attack. All the carriers travelling and attacking together with mass. The US and Britain were still operating one or two carriers together into 1943. The large number of carriers coming online in 1943 gave the USN the material and the combat lessons learned influenced revision of carrier doctrine. It was the use of mass as well as the improved carrier aircraft designs that allowed the USN to create a force that could sail anywhere they wanted and take on land-based air. The USN still hadn't learned that lesson in June of 1942. US carriers still operated as one or two CV strike groups through the Solomons campaign - although the lack of flight decks precluded doing anything differently at that time.

[Steven P Allen]

I believe it was in "Shattered Sword" that it was pointed out that the Japanese were the ones who were the first to get the idea of a massed carrier attack. All the carriers travelling and attacking together with mass. The US and Britain were still operating one or two carriers together into 1943. The large number of carriers coming online in 1943 gave the USN the material and the combat lessons learned influenced revision of carrier doctrine. It was the use of mass as well as the improved carrier aircraft designs that allowed the USN to create a force that could sail anywhere they wanted and take on land-based air. The USN still hadn't learned that lesson in June of 1942. US carriers still operated as one or two CV strike groups through the Solomons campaign - although the lack of flight decks precluded doing anything differently at that time.

 

Actually, two-carrier CVBGs continues to be USN doctrine (when they aren't operating alone). While later war groupings exceeded that number, pairing was still the preferred practice. Hence the multple Task Groups that made up the big Task Forces (38/58, for example). The make up of the Task Groups usually reflected the capabilities of two big decks.

[Cinaruco]

I still believe that the key "mistake" by American commanders was the fact that they disregarded their most powerful aircraft carrier in the whole battle, Midway itself. What was it its air garrison? Nothing, not if your foe is Kido Butai at the pinnacle of their power. Air defense was based on a limited number of F4Fs and Buffalos, the earlier might had proven useful in sufficient numbers of course, and the fact that most of the attack aircraft based there were ineffective especially when it came to attacking ships. IIRC no hits were reported on Japanese ships by land based bombers.

 

Point is, had the first strike package of Midway had been intercepted by P-38s and P-40s, even P-39s in concentrated numbers (which could be ferried, as the defense of the island took months to prepare) it might had turned a decisive victory into a true definitive slaughter. To some of us dreamers even F-4Us, if what if what if...

 

Easy to say now so many years later of course. To leave with a question, what changes would had been made to optimize the Midway based forces?

[shep854]

Not much. Midway was the classic "fight with what you have" battle. The US was still scrambling to get on an actual war footing, and didn't have time to organize and train a true joint-service command structure for Midway. All they could do was throw planes and people at the Japanese and hope something worked. I don't think there was a clear plan for Midway-based air to distract the Japanese so the US carriers could sucker-punch them; it just worked out that way. All anyone knew to do was attack and hope for the best.

Edited May 11, 2011 by shep854

[Sardaukar]

. IIRC no hits were reported on Japanese ships by land based bombers.

 

 

Actually, only US torpedo hit scored on IJN ships was done by night attack from Midway with PBY Catalina, moderately damaging one transport in Invasion TF.

 

 

[John Dudek]

Not much. Midway was the classic "fight with what you have" battle. The US was still scrambling to get on an actual war footing, and didn't have time to organize and train a true joint-service command structure for Midway. All they could do was throw planes and people at the Japanese and hope something worked. I don't think there was a clear plan for Midway-based air to distract the Japanese so the US carriers could sucker-punch them; it just worked out that way. All anyone knew to do was attack and hope for the best.

 

It was definitely a "fly by the seat of your pants" sort of battle. While Nimitz had committed all of the Pacific Fleet's Carriers to Midway, except for Saratoga that was on its way there from the stateside repair yard after running afoul of a Japanese submarine torpedo, Admiral Pye sortied Task Force 1 consisting of a combination of repaired and other old US battleships plus the light carrier, USS Long Island for a lengthy patrol off the western US coast. Pye did so because of the possibility of Japanese mounting carrier air raids on key US aircraft factories and other defense plants along the west coast.

[shep854]

Plus, Yorktown was essentially crippled going into the battle.

[glenn239]

I still believe that the key "mistake" by American commanders was the fact that they disregarded their most powerful aircraft carrier in the whole battle, Midway itself. What was it its air garrison?

 

I think the most serious error was the choice of approach routes for TF-16 and TF-17 (though TF-17's ingress was more time sensitive since she departed later); straight through possible enemy submarine picket lines. While sub shot was unlikely, even a single contact report could have ended in disaster.

 

Easy to say now so many years later of course. To leave with a question, what changes would had been made to optimize the Midway based forces?

 

Get rid of all the B-17s, push the Vindicators into the sea, ground all the inexperienced Marine pilots. Double the number of fighters with the room freed from useless B-17's, and make the fighters all F4F Wildcats. Replace all Marine pilots with Navy aviators, (most of Lexingtons aviators survived Coral Sea, for example). Saratoga showed up a day late and a dollar short (Fletcher transfers flag on 8 June) with 45 Wildcats, 45 SBDs and 15 torpedo bombers (Lundstrom, 294). Perhaps some of these aircraft and pilots (if not the ship) could have been shipped by freighter to Pearl Harbor in May 1942, and ferried to Midway via carrier at the end of the month. The Midway Strike goes a touch worse if 50 F4F's make the interception, and if aviators had made the Henderson attack, IMO, Hiryu would have been sunk outright.

 

According to the internet, Saratoga herself sortied from Bremerton on 22 May, but still missed the battle due to logistical details.

Edited May 11, 2011 by glenn239

[Steven P Allen]

According to the internet, Saratoga herself sortied from Bremerton on 22 May, but still missed the battle due to logistical details.

 

And this point doesn't suggest to you that the pie-in-the-sky-ing wasn't feasible? Just one example: where are all those F4Fs gonna come from? How're they gonna get there? Who's gonna fly 'em?

 

Every history I've read says that CinCPac threw everything they physically could at the problem.

[Mk 1]

I still believe that the key "mistake" by American commanders was the fact that they disregarded their most powerful aircraft carrier in the whole battle, Midway itself. What was it its air garrison?

 

I have trouble seeing this as a key "mistake". Closer to either a "lucky ommission" or a "surprisingly well reasoned strategy".

 

Yes an island is unsinkable. That's an advantage over a carrier. But that's about as far as the advantage goes.

 

Very few islands have multi-deck surfaces. Carriers have considerable vertical stacking -- they can store their aircraft on one level, fly and recover them from another level, and store their ordnance and gas on further levels. So don't be too quickly impressed by the land-mass available on a corral or volcanic island. It needs to be pretty big, or VERY well developed, to be able to host an airfield that is more capable than a carrier.

 

If the island is big enough, then most often an airfield support infrastructure expands along the surface rather than underneath. Easier to build. But vulnerable to strafing in ways that carrier hangers and bunkers are not.

 

The key is that you don't have to sink the island to ruin its value as a "super carrier". You only need to beat up its airfield. And that's not too hard to do.

 

The key edge that carriers have is that it is very hard to hide an island airfield. It is usually there, at the same location, 24/7/365. The same is not true of carriers. They come and go. Only they know for certain when they are within range to launch a strike. So the carries have the initiative. The carrier force decides when to attack. The island sits and waits until it has real and realtime information that the carriers are within range, and what their bearing is.

 

As the actual Midway timeline demonstrates, even with all of the code-breaking advantage the USN had, Midway got whacked very hard. Put more resources there, and more resources get shot up. Yes, you might take a higher toll of the raiders, but you will pay a higher price for doing it.

 

If you have excess aircraft, pilots, fuel and munitions, and you don't have enough carrier decks, then beefing up your land-based air makes sense. But if you are short on all of those items (as the US was in the Pac theater at that time), you are better off to count on your island bases to be "outposts", with enough combat capability to pose a threat if left unmolested, so that they can delay your opponant and develop information by forcing him to action, but then to rely on your carriers to be your striking force.

 

This is all stated with the clarity of hindsight, including the perspective originally offered on this site by King Sargent (hallowed be his memory) who observed that there is not one case in history of land-based air defeating a carrier strike force. But also, whether by design or by happenstance, this is a pretty direct description of how CinCPAC did things.

 

-Mark 1

[Marek Tucan]

Also, Midway was tiny. Henderson field held out because it was some distance from coast, and pretty large (and surrounded by trees), this all made attack a bit harder, plus it was large complex (and still, it was often nearly crippled).

[JOE BRENNAN]

Also, Midway was tiny. Henderson field held out because it was some distance from coast, and pretty large (and surrounded by trees), this all made attack a bit harder, plus it was large complex (and still, it was often nearly crippled).

I agree. It was seen many times also later in the war that Japanese airfields on atolls were untenable in the face of serious carrier air power. An airfield on a significant landmass, ie with space to disperse the a/c farther from the field and/or under trees, was much more difficult to neutralize, especially if out of range of naval gunfire, IOW less vulnerable than Henderson Field. And a large landmass could just hold more a/c, once both sides had expanded their air arms later in the war.

 

As far as stationing a larger fighter force on Midway, which could also in theory have included Army fighters, it's like most what if's, depends too much on hindsight:

-Navy fighters were key to carrier air power. Not until the number of available carriers dropped near zero could the USN be expected to base carrier planes on islands. The USN would never have, and didn't later on, strip *fully functional fast carriers* of fighters to put them on island bases. The USN a/c on G'canal came from damaged or sunk carriers. The Midway battle might have gone on for several more days, in which case Saratoga could have reinforced. There's no way that would have been pre-empted by putting her fighters on the island. And probably likewise for any significant reduction in the Army fighter force in Hawaii to send more to Midway, though that's a more realistic idea. One exception to the above is F4F-4's of VGS-9, CVE Bogue's air unit in training, which were stationed at Kodiak in June '42, but the Japaense thrust in the Aleutians might have extended to Kodiak, again hingsight that it didn't.

-The ineffectiveness of B-17's against maneuvering ships was barely realized at that time. Many hits had been claimed prior to Midway, and many were claimed at Midway and given credence at least by the USAAF; not firmly disproven until Japanese accounts were available postwar, though there was a general recognition that medium/high altitude attack didn't work well by late 1942.

-The dive and torpedo bombers at Midway might have scored some key hit. It's also hindsight bias to assume they couldn't have. Japanese carrier defense at that time was often porous: some British a/c were detected by their bomb splashes in the raids on Ceylon, and a 2 plane section of SBD's scored a hit on Zuiho at Santa Cruz without being intercepted till their pull out, even though the Japanese TF in that case had functional radar. The Marine/USN SBD/SB2U/TBF's and USAAF B-26's at Midway had training/readiness deficiencies but it's just not in the nature of most military organizations to fully recognize such deficiencies upfront and sideline a unit. Rather, they usually proceed with 'a can do attitude'.

-The same goes for the USMC fighters at Midway. And, some of the USMC fighter units at Guadalcanal were no more experienced, but overcame it with 'a can do attitude' under excellent leaders. The F4F v F2A was part of it as well, but even nowadays people approaching that issue afresh (or with a bias toward the Buffalo) are often quite hard to convince that the F4F was a significantly superior air combat fighter; doesn't seem so on paper. At the time the Marines didn't like the F2A-3, but it was less than obvious that the F4F would do so much better against Japanese fighters* at Guadalcanal than the F2A did at Midway (the actual result of the few Marine F4F-3's at Midway was not a lot worse than F4F-4 results at G'canal, interestingly).

 

So would the US have been better off to put the biggest and highest quality possible fighter force on Midway and forget other strike capabilies *and* forget about being able to reinforce the carriers with Saratoga if things dragged on a few more days? maybe; would anyone have adopted such a concept at that time? no.

 

*and yes that really *is* key, apologists for poor performing fighters will often quote their 'kill ratio' against weak nonfighter targets but that's mainly irrelevant. In the vast majority of WWII cases, any reasonable fighter could inflict unacceptable losses on non-fighters if escorts couldn't prevent it, but if escorts could achieve multi:1 kill ratio's against interceptors, their charges' losses would be moderate at most. The ability of the Zero escort to do that at Midway, and frequent failure to at G'canal, and the result in each case, was typical of most cases in WWII, with a much smaller proportion of exceptions.

 

Joe

Edited May 11, 2011 by JOE BRENNAN