The navy itched to demonstrate its parity/superiority to the white powers.
They were desperate. The oil embargo + the Dutch East Indies also embargoing them + the Americans planning to build ten fleet carriers in 1942 and a hell of a lot of escorts and battleships meant they had limited time left to act before they got crushed. Roosevelt was clearly moving towards war with Japan, as could be interpreted from his rhetoric, rebasing the Pacific fleet to Pearl Harbour, the oil embargo, US volunteers in China, B-17s being deployed to the Philippines and the gargantuan military build-up. The US negotiating position was pretty heavy-handed too, demanding unilateral withdrawal from China, Manchuria and Indo-China.
Plus Japan fought well at Midway and lost the battle due to factors beyond their control - the US having broken their codes and the dive-bombers appearing out of a cloud at the absolute worst time.
Do you think it was luck that german and japanese codes were broken? Just one of the myriad of easily predictable weaknesses the axis leaders had to ignore before embarking on their doomed adventure.
When the US makes a “heavy-handed” demand that Japan leave China, it is not merely a question of the morality, of whose right it is to occupy the country. The real question is whose will is backed by superior might. And clearly, the japanese miscalculated. They were as wrong as one can be, and even they knew it. Surprised Drmanhattan didn’t give that yamamoto quote: ‘“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
One can talk of the memory tsushima, of the luck of the dive bombers (forgetting all the things that did go wrong), of the parallel operations, of the crippled aircraft carriers that didn’t get swapped, but really, the whole war was stupid and decided before it began. If it wasn’t midway, it would have been another, even more dominating one. I think nimitz was crazy to give battle at merely better than even odds. Why give them the ‘decisive battle’ they want for some useless bait like midway, literally the only way they could possibly eke out a limited win, when the alternative is far more punishing for them? Just sit back, strangle shipping with ironed out sub torpedoes, fight purely training & PR battles until every battle odds estimate reads north of 95%. The fabian strategy doesn’t require weakness.
‘“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
That quote would be more fitting for the final part of this series, which will include a small point about Midway's nature as a "decisive" battle.
Just sit back, strangle shipping with ironed out sub torpedoes, fight purely training & PR battles until every battle odds estimate reads north of 95%. The fabian strategy doesn’t require weakness.
Firstly, it was not until the end of the war, nearly 3 years after Midway, that the Mk. 14 torpedo became "reliable". That's a long time to be waiting to strangle shipping. Leaving the Japanese Merchant Marine alone to fuel their war machine is not good.
Secondly, the US may have been unthreatened by Japan, but China, Burma, the South Pacific, and even Australia were in danger. Leaving the Japanese to use their carriers with impunity elsewhere meant devastating strikes that could force the Allies out of their strongholds. Operation MO failed, but a second one with more carriers might have succeeded.
Ultimately, Japan's carriers represented an incredibly valuable national asset that cost that country a tremendous amount. America had pilots confident and capable of dive-bombing or torpedoing them. Nimitz knew his enemy's plan. I think his risk was justified as it would ultimately put the Japanese on the defense going forward.
If they could take valuable targets, they wouldn’t have needed to attack midway.
Firstly, it was not until the end of the war, nearly 3 years after Midway, that the Mk. 14 torpedo became "reliable".
I got November 43, less than two years. Even with the malfunctioning torpedoes and slow gearing-up the japanese merchant fleet was down 25% from the start in 1943. 1944 would be the biggest year ever for anti-shipping before they ran out of targets.
I think his risk was justified as it would ultimately put the Japanese on the defense going forward.
Why is that good? They were already spent, they should have been left free to overextend further into the jungle before the hammer came down. The last thing the US should want at this point would be to get the japanese to switch to their “fortify and make them pay for every inch” strategy. Perhaps if americans had waited until supremacy to engage instead of sending every ship into battle right off the line, the whiplash would have broken the japanese, while minimizing casualties and any japanese chance of winning a limited war in the process.
Everyone thinks about WWI for generals sending men to their deaths for useless dirt, but the case is equally strong for WWII pacific. Given how it ended, any soldier who lost his life in guadalcanal and most of those grinds was wasted. But the brass needed a ‘fair fight’ over one neat island or other for those little stars to mean something. Hard to brag about winning the battle of the philippine sea or an even more lopsided battle in a wargame.
If they could take valuable targets, they wouldn’t have needed to attack midway.
Maybe so. But remember, the Japanese Navy had given a great deal of control over to Yamamoto, and it was he that insisted on sinking the American carriers. The others wanted to strike elsewhere.
Why is that good? They were already spent, they should have been left free to overextend further into the jungle before the hammer came down. The last thing the US should want at this point would be to get the japanese to switch to their “fortify and make them pay for every inch” strategy.
For one thing, leaving them alone means Japan can and would start threatening the America-Australia routes. Lose Australia as a war partner and the US has a much harder time staging land invasions, or even just the ability to resupply vessels from a nearby friendly port.
I won't comment on the loss of life in the island-hopping campaign, but the costs of losing four heavy carriers and all the experience ship crew, mechanics, and officers, were hardly replaceable to the Japanese.
Perhaps if americans had waited until supremacy to engage instead of sending every ship into battle right off the line, the whiplash would have broken the japanese, while minimizing casualties and any japanese chance of winning a limited war in the process.
Carrier warfare at the time was about launching your strike first. Nimitz knows the Japanese are coming. He gets confirmation when Midway-based scouts report that the attack is happening. His own vessels are precisely where the Japanese aren't expecting. He took his opportunity and it paid off. Yes, it relied on quite a bit of luck to make victory possible, but that is hardly an excuse to not try.
Moreover, the morale impacts cannot be understated. We are sitting 80 years in the future and know both sides of the war, I don't think the American public would have been quite aware of just how much the Japanese had overextended. They might very well insist that the navy start fighting back more aggressively if all they saw was Japan attacking national allies and taking US soil (the Aleutians and Midway Island) while the US just waited for the Japanese to overstretch.
Lastly, preventing further naval offensives had a positive moral effect as well. Let us not forget how brutally conquered civilians were treated by both the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. You say that America should have left Japan to wear itself thin, but they were certainly willing to be monsters regardless of the nature of their supply lines. It may not be a thing to consider when planning, but it should be a positive added to the list after the fact.
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Notes -
They were desperate. The oil embargo + the Dutch East Indies also embargoing them + the Americans planning to build ten fleet carriers in 1942 and a hell of a lot of escorts and battleships meant they had limited time left to act before they got crushed. Roosevelt was clearly moving towards war with Japan, as could be interpreted from his rhetoric, rebasing the Pacific fleet to Pearl Harbour, the oil embargo, US volunteers in China, B-17s being deployed to the Philippines and the gargantuan military build-up. The US negotiating position was pretty heavy-handed too, demanding unilateral withdrawal from China, Manchuria and Indo-China.
Plus Japan fought well at Midway and lost the battle due to factors beyond their control - the US having broken their codes and the dive-bombers appearing out of a cloud at the absolute worst time.
Do you think it was luck that german and japanese codes were broken? Just one of the myriad of easily predictable weaknesses the axis leaders had to ignore before embarking on their doomed adventure.
When the US makes a “heavy-handed” demand that Japan leave China, it is not merely a question of the morality, of whose right it is to occupy the country. The real question is whose will is backed by superior might. And clearly, the japanese miscalculated. They were as wrong as one can be, and even they knew it. Surprised Drmanhattan didn’t give that yamamoto quote: ‘“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
One can talk of the memory tsushima, of the luck of the dive bombers (forgetting all the things that did go wrong), of the parallel operations, of the crippled aircraft carriers that didn’t get swapped, but really, the whole war was stupid and decided before it began. If it wasn’t midway, it would have been another, even more dominating one. I think nimitz was crazy to give battle at merely better than even odds. Why give them the ‘decisive battle’ they want for some useless bait like midway, literally the only way they could possibly eke out a limited win, when the alternative is far more punishing for them? Just sit back, strangle shipping with ironed out sub torpedoes, fight purely training & PR battles until every battle odds estimate reads north of 95%. The fabian strategy doesn’t require weakness.
That quote would be more fitting for the final part of this series, which will include a small point about Midway's nature as a "decisive" battle.
Firstly, it was not until the end of the war, nearly 3 years after Midway, that the Mk. 14 torpedo became "reliable". That's a long time to be waiting to strangle shipping. Leaving the Japanese Merchant Marine alone to fuel their war machine is not good.
Secondly, the US may have been unthreatened by Japan, but China, Burma, the South Pacific, and even Australia were in danger. Leaving the Japanese to use their carriers with impunity elsewhere meant devastating strikes that could force the Allies out of their strongholds. Operation MO failed, but a second one with more carriers might have succeeded.
Ultimately, Japan's carriers represented an incredibly valuable national asset that cost that country a tremendous amount. America had pilots confident and capable of dive-bombing or torpedoing them. Nimitz knew his enemy's plan. I think his risk was justified as it would ultimately put the Japanese on the defense going forward.
If they could take valuable targets, they wouldn’t have needed to attack midway.
I got November 43, less than two years. Even with the malfunctioning torpedoes and slow gearing-up the japanese merchant fleet was down 25% from the start in 1943. 1944 would be the biggest year ever for anti-shipping before they ran out of targets.
Why is that good? They were already spent, they should have been left free to overextend further into the jungle before the hammer came down. The last thing the US should want at this point would be to get the japanese to switch to their “fortify and make them pay for every inch” strategy. Perhaps if americans had waited until supremacy to engage instead of sending every ship into battle right off the line, the whiplash would have broken the japanese, while minimizing casualties and any japanese chance of winning a limited war in the process.
Everyone thinks about WWI for generals sending men to their deaths for useless dirt, but the case is equally strong for WWII pacific. Given how it ended, any soldier who lost his life in guadalcanal and most of those grinds was wasted. But the brass needed a ‘fair fight’ over one neat island or other for those little stars to mean something. Hard to brag about winning the battle of the philippine sea or an even more lopsided battle in a wargame.
Maybe so. But remember, the Japanese Navy had given a great deal of control over to Yamamoto, and it was he that insisted on sinking the American carriers. The others wanted to strike elsewhere.
For one thing, leaving them alone means Japan can and would start threatening the America-Australia routes. Lose Australia as a war partner and the US has a much harder time staging land invasions, or even just the ability to resupply vessels from a nearby friendly port.
I won't comment on the loss of life in the island-hopping campaign, but the costs of losing four heavy carriers and all the experience ship crew, mechanics, and officers, were hardly replaceable to the Japanese.
Carrier warfare at the time was about launching your strike first. Nimitz knows the Japanese are coming. He gets confirmation when Midway-based scouts report that the attack is happening. His own vessels are precisely where the Japanese aren't expecting. He took his opportunity and it paid off. Yes, it relied on quite a bit of luck to make victory possible, but that is hardly an excuse to not try.
Moreover, the morale impacts cannot be understated. We are sitting 80 years in the future and know both sides of the war, I don't think the American public would have been quite aware of just how much the Japanese had overextended. They might very well insist that the navy start fighting back more aggressively if all they saw was Japan attacking national allies and taking US soil (the Aleutians and Midway Island) while the US just waited for the Japanese to overstretch.
Lastly, preventing further naval offensives had a positive moral effect as well. Let us not forget how brutally conquered civilians were treated by both the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. You say that America should have left Japan to wear itself thin, but they were certainly willing to be monsters regardless of the nature of their supply lines. It may not be a thing to consider when planning, but it should be a positive added to the list after the fact.
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