Suppose Midway had gone the other way?

I am tired of speculations based on fairy dust.

One of the most interesting naval battles of WW2 was the Battle of Midway. The U.S. won decisively, forever ending Japan's ability to project naval airpower in any meaningful way.

But it could have gone the other way around. Japan could have kept a CAP over its carriers large enough to deal with the dive bombers that ultimately destroyed their fleet. Or Japan could have found U.S. forces first. The battle hinged on several rather fortuituous events, not just on strategy/tactics or experience.

So lets assume that the battle ended up just about reversed- that the American carriers were sunk or put out of action. Midway was captured.

At that point, the United States would have had no effective carrier force in the Pacific.

What would have been the subsequent events of the war?

 

Actually the turning point was actually made by the decision of a single Japanese Admiral, Admiral Nagumo.

The Admiral was following established Japanese doctrine, and only commiting half of his aircraft at any one time. This allowed the other have to respond to American attacks.

However, the timing of the attacks worked perfectly in the favor of the US. Unlike the slant deck carriers of today, carriers of that era (US and Japanese both) could either recover aircraft, or launch them. And when Admiral Fletcher's attack was pressed home, the decks were full of planes that were being resupplied for another attack. The fuel and bombs on the deck was what really destroyed the Japanese Carrier Fleet, much more then the attacks alone would have done.

I read many years ago (I forget where exactly, this was in the 1980's) that the US War College has gamed this battle many many times. However, in not a single replay of this battle did the US ever win. In every single reenactment, the timing did not work the same way and the battle was either a Japanese victory, or a draw.

However, the US would still have won the war. More then likely you would have seen an increase dependence for the next 2-3 years on "Unconventional Naval Warfare", like sumbarines and PT boats. And other attacks like Guadalcanal would still have happened, but the islands would have become instead huge stationary aircraft carriers until more could be built.

Because the US had one other major advantage that Japan did not have. They had magic.

Japan never realized that the US had broken most of their naval codes (as well as their diplomatic codes). And with this advantage, they could have used what resources they had very efficiently until the fleet was rebuilt. And they were doing this at a rate that Japan could never match.

Between Midway and the end of the war, the US launched 17 brand new Fleet Carriers. And they launched another 6 between the end of the war and the end of 1946.

During that time, Japan built 9 fleet carriers, one of them built from a battleship hull. And the timeframe needed for construction was also very different. It took Japan 2 years from keel laying to completion to make a single Unryu class carrier. It took the US 20 months to do the same thing with the first Essex class carrier.

And by the end of the war, that time shrank to 15 months. Because of material and personnel shortages, that time never decreased for the Japanese. Towards the end of the war, the Japanese were so desperate that they were sending out their carriers uncompleted with crews that were not fully trained.

I expect the war would have lasted an additional year, 2 on the outside. But with the defeat of Germany, you would have seen a huge rush of men and equipment flooding to the theatre which would also have made a huge difference.

 

Japan wins The Battle of Midway. By war's end the US has still built over 100 carriers of all types. Japan still loses the war.

 

MI is low on water.

 

HAHAHAHA, is nice to see that somebody else understands exactly what I was talking about.

Yes, Midway is low on water. This is the signal that may have changed the course of the entire war.

The US with MAGIC was able to read most Japanese Naval Codes. However, the Japanese still used code words, so even if you broke the code, you then had to decide what the code word meant. This is the problem that the US had when they knew a major offensive was brewing.

They knew an attack was coming, but where was it aimed? The Japanese simply refered to the target of this attack as "AF". But where was AF? The Alutians? Midway? New Guinea? Hawaii again? The West Coast of the US?

Well, an American Naval Officer figured out a way to find out. He suspected the target was Midway, so he had Midway send an unencrypted emergency message claiming that they were dangerously low of fresh water.

The Japanese took the bait, and when they intercepted and decyphered signals that told the invasion fleet to load extra desalination equipment, they knew what the destination was.

 

It was a risk too, because a more intelligent Japanese radio operator, or his superiors, should have wondered why the US was suddenly sending in the clear messages about MI when MI was the next target for the Japanese. It could have backfired.

 

Have to remember when comparing industrial output of the US (and allies) vs Japan that the Japanese never actually planned to defeat the Allies on the battlefield all the way to victory. The Japanese just thought that they were brave, everyone else was a coward and so the Allies would give up. Not exactly the best plan ever. No plan B.

 

If things had gone the other way, we might be eating lots more bratwurst and sushi...that's if we weren't murdered before we got anything to eat anyway.

 

No. Germany couldn't win and Japan couldn't win. Both countries overestimated themselves and underestimated their enemies.

Germany thought that the Soviets would just fold and the Japanese thought that same of the Allies. Both countries couldn't win if their plan of the enemy just folding didn't happen.

 

US economic power would still have won the war.

 

Well, the two major nations in the Tripartite Pact made the exact same mistake when considering the power of the US. And that is that they both thought of the US as a nation of shopkeepers, and not as "real warriors". And this is essentially the same mistake the Soviet Union made during the Cold War.

They thought that the US had no real "Warrior Spirit", and that once a war became to expensive, both Germany and japan thought the US would give up and start fighting. However, they never fully realized the US "Warrior Tradition", from the Minuteman of New England to the "Aristocratic Officer" tradition of the American South. Between the two, they formed an American Military which to this day will take almost any hardship needed to win a conflict.

Of course, it did not hurt that all of those deligerant nations thought that they were a "Master Race", and also could not understand how a nation made up of mongrels and "mud people" could possibly overcome "true genetic warriors".

 

If the Japanese had won at Midway, Anerica still wins three months later than historical.

 

Look at the game War in the Pacific. If as the Allies you lose a carrier you just go, "Oh well, I'll be getting another one before too long."

 

AF not MI.

 

I always thought the battle of the Coral Sea was more important, we stopped Japans advance on Australia, not that they could have kept it or even defeated Australia, but it would have sent the war in a different direction. As pointed out the Japanese never really had a chance, we were bigger and could mass produce much faster.

 

And how many people would have understood the reference if it was put like that?

 

Few would have understood.

The men of the three torpedo bombing squadrons were the most interesting of the combatants. With the exception of Ensign George Gay they all died. They all attacked in the sure and certain knowledge that they would die. This is really quite remarkable. In a sense it was an American display of the Bushido Spirit. The valor of Commanders Waldron and McCloskey will never be forgotten.

 

Have you ever read the Axis of Time trilogy? In it a WoT task force from about 2020 goes back in time due to an accident to just before the Battle of Midway. Anywhere, in the book Yamamoto is given some captured future databases and is moved when he reads about the American pilots sacrificing themselves in the real Midway battle.

 

No I haven't. Interesting premise. It reminds me of a movie called The Final Countdown.

 

Yeah, I've got that on DVD.

 

Interestingly, I have all of those books by Australian Author John Birmingham, and also the movie Final Countdown (which I referenced earlier).

Axis of Time is a very good series, although I do have some issues with how he had society of the future made out. And they put so much emphasis on the "gee whiz" aspects of the technology, and not much on the actual fighting and tactics. But I still thought it was well written. And the "USS Hillary Clinton", named after the "greatest wartime President in history" always made me laugh.

In fact, after the movie "The Final Countdown" came out some friends and I actually decided to game the scenario from the movie with the SPI tabletop game "The Fast Carriers"

http://mapandcounters.blogspot.com/2010/02/spi-fast-carriers-1975.html

And while we did this scenario multiple times, we were never able to make the Nimitz win the scenario and be able to escape. the damage from the sheer numbers of Japanese aircraft involved against a single carrier without it's protective fleet was always overwhelming.

However, we tried a few alternate scenarios also. One of them had the Nimitz simply pull back to Pearl and operate as a Command and Control vessel. And in that scenario, the Japanese attack was utterly destroyed with little damage to the US fleet.

 

Actually, the Japanese were attacking Port Moresby on the Solomon Islands, not Australia.

Also, that battle was pretty much a wash. The Japanese won a tactical victory, destroying 2 Fleet Carriers. They only lost 1 Fleet Carriers.

However, the tactical victory for Japan was a strategic victory for the US. Because the invasion of Port Moresby was put on hold.

 

Port Moresby was on the way to Australia, hence my reference-it's where the japanese were aiming. We changed that at Coral Sea. Yorktown was assumed sunk in the battle so was part of the surprise at Midway. Midway was considered "on the way" to Hawaii but was really no strategic prize in the modern world of navies. We set a trap. they fell into it. The unsung hero's were the workers who fixed the Yorktown and stayed on for further repairs even after the ship left for Midway, without that tactical surprise Japan might have won.

 

Well, the only real thing of note at Coral Sea is that it was the first naval battle where no ships saw or attacked each other. It was the final proof on both sides of the power of Naval Aviation.

But the battle planned for Port Moresby was simply an attempt to cut off shipping in the region to isolate Australia. The Japanese actually had no plans at all to invade Australia. In February 1942 there had been some discussions on the concept of invading Australia, and the Japanese leadership realized that they lacked the manpower or resources to even attempt such an operation.

Japanese estimates of Australia indicated that the continent was defended by around 600,000 soldiers. And that to invade, they would have needed a force of 1.5-2.5 million men. The plans were placed on the shelf, only to be looked at again after Japan successfully accomplished their other goals.

And no, there was no "trap set" at Midway. Japan was planning on attacking it, because it was important for their goal of keeping the US as far away from Japan as possible.

The Japanese reason for attacking Midway was for two different reasons, both strategic and tactical. For one, they wanted another choke point, to prevent another bomber raid like that done by General Doolittle. And with Midway in their hands, they would have an air base that would let them extend their own air power.

And while they were at Coral Sea, they failed to learn any kind of lesson from the battle. They still followed Japanese Naval Doctrine, and has their carriers forward of their main fleet.

Remember, their plan of battle was very different then what really happened. It was thought that their carriers would take their arcraft and attack the base, destroying defensive structures. Then their Capitol ships would come in and shell the island, then land the Naval Infantry to seize it.

And it was only during this phase that the US Carrier Fleet would arrive. They expected by this time that their carriers would be safe on the other side of the island, with their Battleships able to better protect them, and a significant part of the island in their possession.

However, the battle did not go that way at all. They were still on the way to the island when the US sprang an "ambush" on them before they were ready. The US did not "spring a trap", what actually happened is that the US learned of the Japanese trap, and set up a counter-trap.

 

No, PM was on the way to PM. The plan was not to go to Australia, it was to isolate Australia. The Japanese did not have the manpower or the shipping needed to invade Australia and so they planned to use PM and Guadalcanal to isolate Australia from the US.