Jim Craik
Lifetime Supporter
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.
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