Two Stories

[Jim Craik]

Shattered Sword (and its attacks on Fuchida) have come under a fair amount criticism, just a discussion board but a lot of info their (in particular note the statements about Hiryu arming and spotting a strike in 25 min, and Vals being armed on deck):

Shattered Sword, Fuchida, and the Fateful Five Minutes. in Aircraft Carriers Forum[/QUOTe

Those comments are not correct.

At that time the Japanese never armed their aircraft on deck, their ordinance elevators did not do to the flight deck, their dollies for moving 500 to 1,000 lb bombs were not on deck. At Midway they absolutely did not arm them on deck.

Now it is absolutely possible to do this, they could have used the aircraft elevators to bring the ordinance and dollies to the flight deck. But they never had done that before and the morning of June 4th was no tme to experiment. Plus they were landing and launching CAP fighters, the logs confirm this, the deck was not available.

The Japanese elevators were notoriously slow. Just the time needed just to take 20-40 aircraft up from the hanger was more than 25 minutes. Then they need to be warmed up (very important), that's another 15+ minutes. The best estimated from people who know is 1 to 1.5 hours, to bring them up, warm them and launch them.

 

[Jeff Young]

And yet by all accounts Hiryu did it in 20-25 minutes while under torpedo bomber attack.

 

[Jeff Young]

More eye-witness reports from American dive bomber pilots of a strike being ready to go from the decks of the Japanese carriers:

Captain N. J. "Dusty" Kleiss (then Lieutenant (j.g.) Kleiss in Scouting Six) describes the extraordinary experience that changed the course of the Pacific War:
"We went into echelon formation. McClusky and his two wing men dived first, then Gallaher and two wing men, then me, and then the rest of Scouting Six, all heading for the Kaga. Dick Best and Bombing Six dived for the Akagi. The Yorktown dive-bombers dived for the Soryu. The situation was a carrier pilot's dream. No anti-aircraft; all three carriers heading straight into the wind. McClusky and his two wing men missed. Earl Gallaher's 500-pound bomb hit squarely on a plane starting its take-off. His two 100-pound incendiaries hit just beside it. Immediately the whole pack of planes at the stern were in flames fifty feet high. I couldn't see the bombs landing from the next two planes, but flames had spread to the middle of the ship. My bombs landed exactly on the big red circle forward of the bridge. Seconds later, the flames were 100 feet high. Walter Lord * later learned from the Japanese that my bomb splashed a gasoline cart, throwing its flaming contents into the Kaga's bridge. A fighter attacked us as I pulled out of my dive. John Snowden, my gunner, disposed of him in five seconds. A second fighter came at us. John disposed of him. Then it was a survival to escape anti-aircraft fire while passing near a dozen ships until I'd reached ten miles toward Midway. Ten minutes after the attack, I saw a large explosion amidship on the Kaga. Rockets of flame, pieces of steel bolted upward to about three or four thousand feet high. Dick Best's squadron had bombed the Akagi and the Yorktown bombers hit the Soryu. Both were burning fiercely."

 

[Jim Craik]

Jeff,

I have been checking and i was absolutely wrong about loading bombs on deck, it appears that the dive bombers were loaded on deck. Ill check to see where else my brain has failed me.

Pay no attention to what I say, it's only the rabies talking

 

[Jeff Young]

Hey no worries, I was wrong about the timing of the VT-8 attack v. the Enterprise and Yorktown dive bomber groups. A lot of (sometimes conflicting) facts out there.....

Check this out. In reading through the sources for Shattered Sword, they found a 1945 interview with the Captain of the Akagi, who said some very interesting things. First, he claimed the ship had been hit at lesat twice and possibly three times and claimed the decks were cleared when it happened.

But then he said it occurred just a few hours after sunrise and BEFORE the torpedo bomber attacks!

I then read the action report from the Marine dive bombing squadron from Midway, consisting of SBDs that went after Akagi and SB2U Vindicators that attacked Haruna.

One Marine pilot of the SBDs claimed a hit, and that timing coincides direclty with the Akagi Captain's claim of an early hit and empty decks!

You couple that with the long standing belief that the Marine dive bombers hit nothing and you see where the Shattered Sword authors might have thought Best hit Akagi when the decks were empty.

In reality what MAY have happened is they didn't realize the timing error. Akagi could have been hit earlier by the Marine SBDs when the decks were cleared of the Midway strike and the carrier strike planes still in reserve in the hanger.

Interesting stuff.

 

[Jeff Young]

Jim, great thread because it got me searching for after action reports from the Japanese.

Here's another one, this time from the XO of the Kaga. Check it out. Kaga did NOT launch any planes to attack Midway. He says 30 planes in the hanger, 6 on CAP and the rest (probably 40 planes) on deck at the time of the attack:

USSBS: Interrogations of Japanese Officials -- Nav-1 / USSBS-6

 

[Jim Craik]

Jeff,

I've been busy all weekend, as my college room mate is up from LA for a visit. That comment about the early hit on Akagi, I have never heard that before! If true, that would change a lot of views about that day.

This is great stuff!

I'll look into all this after the weekend, unfortunately we are going to a funeral of an old friend today

 

[Jeff Young]

I'm sorry to hear that. LOTS to read, so many after action reports/interviews out there.

Here's the report from the Marine dive bombing squadron claiming a hit or two on Akagi early that morning (8:00 or so) that seems to be confirmed by the Akagi CO.

I can't believe Morrison and all the others could have missed this though -- the "lore" always was no hits on the Japanese fleet, AT ALL, until the Navy dive bombers got there.

Wow! So much to sort through STILL after all these years.

Marines at Midway: Chapter 4

 

[Jim Craik]

Jeff,

Good morning.

Well, I'm back at the office, I'll have more time now to look into this stuff.

One thing to keep in mind and I'm sure you know, in this sort of thing, when only fleeting glances were taken in the heat of battle, tremendous exagerations often crept in.

This was the same for both sides.

I know thay just after Midway, the Army B-17s got back to Oahu befor the Navy, and they clamed to have won the battle, with many hits. As we know know, that just did not happen, but it sure pissed off the sailors.

Additionally, almost all the early, Midway based attacks also claimed hits, so just because there after action reports say something, it aint nessacerally so.

 

[Jeff Young]

Totally agree. The exaggeration on both sides could be tremendous. And I don't think there is any doubt that the Japanese themselves confirmed that no ships in the fleet took hits from the B-17s or from the torpedo bombers.

I always thought that was true for the Marine dive bombers as well.

What really caught my eye though was the Akagi's XO mentioning hits at a time that ONLY the Marine dive bombers could have accounted for.

Take a look.