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1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier

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As a wingman on an “Alpha strike”  to targets in North Vietnam  during Linebacker I in 1972 – with 30 -40  A-7s, A-6’s, F-4’s, bombers, fighters, Iron-Hand, MiG Cap, tankers, Electronic Warfare birds and an E-2 control,  inbound  was both a time of anticipation and building tension, and additionally, a period of just waiting and thinking. Over several dozens of these Alphas in an 11 month cruise, I don’t think I ever did not think about what it must have been like on the 4th of June 1942 for my former ops boss at Point Mugu, LCDR Pat Patterson as a 19 year old petty officer radioman/gunner in the backseat of a Bombing 6 (VB-6) Dauntless – and indeed, all those guys from Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown doing the same thing – looking out over the partially cloud covered Pacific Ocean on their way to the most significant naval battle of World War II. 

I first wrote about those reflections 10 years ago -“And so today -4 June 2015 – for me “officially” becomes thefirst remembered sky day.” I try to write something each year with different context. Last year in Battle of Midway – the Legacy, I discussed the issue of a decisive battle in terms of 1) the overall Pacific war outcome itself, and 2) the impact of carrier warfare for the future by ushering in  a major change in warfare.

Indeed as noted by John B. Lundstrom in Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway & Guadalcanal… a fundamental transformation in naval power had just taken place. Carriers usurped the prime strategic role of battleships in that their principal opponents were their enemy counterparts, and they should only to be committed to battle in the proper circumstances.

But along with that change with all the conundrums and paradoxes , there is also the lasting paradox brought about by Midway:

• the emergence and continuation of the aircraft carrier as a flexible dominant maritime threat and resource
  as compared to
• its potential vulnerability and significance of loss.

Next I have repeated from the original Rememberedsky Day post the final words from Destined for Glory: Dive Bombing, Midway, and the Evolution of Carrier Airpower, by Thomas Wildenberg. A well researched and excellent reference for naval aviation from 1925 through the Battle of Midway June 1942, there are intriguing comparisons for reflection on future airpower.

Finally below that are the links to past postings and multiple highly regarded and recommended references on this day in history .

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Chapter 20:

Reassessing Naval Aviation’s Contribution to Victory

Wildenberg, Thomas (2013-04-08).Destined for Glory: Dive Bombing, Midway, and the Evolution of Carrier Airpower. Naval Institute Press. 

PRIOR WORKS DISCUSSING the events surrounding the Battle of Midway have largely ignored the importance of the aerial doctrine developed by the navy during the interwar period. With few exceptions, most authors (and perhaps many historians as well) have led the public to believe that the U.S. Navy— outnumbered four carriers to three— was lucky to have won such a decisive victory, given the poor quality of its aircraft relative to that of the enemy.

Though the gods of war certainly smiled upon the navy’s airmen that day, I feel strongly that the demise of the Japanese strike force was a direct result of the navy’s efforts to perfect dive bombing as the central component of its aerial doctrine. The simultaneous arrival of three squadrons of heavily armed dive bombers over Nagumo’s ships when they were most vulnerable was certainly fortuitous, but not unpredictable, given the nature of seaborne flight operations and the U.S. Navy’s insistence that its own carriers launch their strike groups as soon as possible.

Too much emphasis has been placed on naval aviation’s shortcomings in the early months of World War II, particularly with regard to the deficiencies of its torpedo bombers, and not enough on its successes. It is certainly true that the slow, vulnerable TBD-1 Devastator was obsolete, but its successor— the TBF-1— had already entered the pipeline. A few of the new planes even participated in the Battle of Midway, albeit the TBF-1s deployed from Midway’s airstrip fared no better than their elder brethren! 1 The real problem with U.S. torpedo doctrine lay in the inherent vulnerability of these planes in the face of large numbers of enemy fighters— a situation which had not been encountered before, and one which could not be avoided given the limited number of VFs available and the need to throw everything we had at the enemy. The extremely poor performance of the their torpedoes— a fault that can be attributed directly to the Bureau of Ordnance— only ensured that no hits would be achieved by the few VTs that did get through.

Likewise, many have touted the performance of the Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero while ignoring the Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat. Although the latter was somewhat slower and less maneuverable than the Zero, the F4F-4 had better armament and could take much more punishment because of the self-sealing tanks and armor— features that enabled Jimmy Thach and his men to give as good as they received.

Not enough credence is given to the Dauntless SBD dive bomber, an exceptional aircraft that was a generation ahead of its famous rival, the Aichi D3A Val. Its ability to remain perfectly stable in a dive contributed to the remarkable accuracy obtained by its pilots on that fateful day. These SBDs were armed with a 1,000-lb. bomb fused to go off a fraction of a second after impact so that it would explode just under the flight deck, causing the maximum amount of damage possible with regard to disabling further flight operations.

No one factor determined the outcome of the battle. The navy’s successful effort to break the “Purple Code” of the Imperial Japanese Navy was certainly crucial, as was Nimitz’s decision to take a “calculated risk.” One must not discount the herculean efforts by the Navy Yard at Pearl Harbor to repair Yorktown, either, but only dive bombers and the aerial doctrine under which they were deployed were ultimately responsible for sinking the enemy ships of the Imperial Navy’s First Carrier Strike Force.

Selected Reading

• Morning After Reflection: 5 June 1942 “we sank a carrier”
• What kind of war was it? – “How do I know, I saw the whole thing backwards!” June 4-7, 1942 at Midway
• June 4th 1942 – It begins (Preface to Blown Slick -the series: The evolution of fighter, attack, and strike warfare)
• Complete Series List: 1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier by Ed Beakley
• The Battle of Midway Roundtable edited by Thom Walla
• Naval History and Heritage Command (Battle of Midway) editor Admiral Samuel Cox
• Books
• The Silver Waterfallby Kevin Miller
• Dauntless by Barrett Tillman
• A Glorious Page in Our History by Barrett Tillman, Mark Horan, Clark Reynolds, et al
• Incredible Victory by Walter Lord
• No Right to Win by Ronald W. Russel
• Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully
• Destined For Glory by Thomas Wildenberg