by chuck » Tue May 29, 2007 12:41 pm
j leyland wrote:My guess is that if Yamamoto had really wanted Midway, the landing could have been forced through with heavy losses. The US carrier airgroups were depleted and exhausted and later battles showed that a lot of hits were needed to sink a battleship. On the other hand, although B-17s couldn't hit maneuvering ships with any regularity, anchored troop and supply ships would be a different story. The marines at Wake showed how tough they were when cornered on a tiny island.
All that said, I think Yamamoto realized the futility of trying to hold Midway in the face of long supply lines and continuous air and submarine interference. He was really after the US carriers using Midway as bait, and when he realized that that chance was finished, he cut his losses and went home. The idea of continuing on to take Hawaii was a navy pipe dream. The army had other priorities and would not have consented and the War Minister was their man.
That's right, Yamaaoto didn't give a rat's ass about Midway. He wanted the decisive fleet action and Midway was just a disposible bait. When his transport fleet chief told him that it would be very difficult to support the occupation force on Midway against determined American efforts to dislodge them, Yamamoto was totally untroubled and said would be easy enough to evacuate Midway should Americans make too much trouble, provided the main American carriers were already destroyed in the effort to take it in the first place. The occupation of Midway, far from being a corner stone of any strategic position, was nothing but a oportunistic tactical probe in force. Unfortunately the probe involved so much force that its defeat crippled the main force of IJN.
During the planning phase of operation MI, the Japanese naval staff already rejected the taking of Hawaii as impossible to achieve because carrier airpower possessed by Japan is insufficient to establish air superiority over Hawaiian islands. Furthermore, the Japanese concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the actual occupation of Hawaii would have negligible effect on American's ability to wage war on Japan, and the occupation of Islands to the east of Australia would enhance Japanese security much more than occupation of Hawaii.
Had Midway operation been successful, the IJN follow up plans called for the carriers to return to Truk and launch further operations in the South rather than build upon Midway to threaten Hawaii. When you take all these things into consideration, it become more and more clear that not only was the Midway operation ill-conducted and fatally compromised from the beginning, it was really ill-conceived and ill-fitting even as part of grand overall strategy. Yamamoto the strategist was not Napoleonic in caliber.
[quote="j leyland"]My guess is that if Yamamoto had really wanted Midway, the landing could have been forced through with heavy losses. The US carrier airgroups were depleted and exhausted and later battles showed that a lot of hits were needed to sink a battleship. On the other hand, although B-17s couldn't hit maneuvering ships with any regularity, anchored troop and supply ships would be a different story. The marines at Wake showed how tough they were when cornered on a tiny island.
All that said, I think Yamamoto realized the futility of trying to hold Midway in the face of long supply lines and continuous air and submarine interference. He was really after the US carriers using Midway as bait, and when he realized that that chance was finished, he cut his losses and went home. The idea of continuing on to take Hawaii was a navy pipe dream. The army had other priorities and would not have consented and the War Minister was their man.[/quote]
That's right, Yamaaoto didn't give a rat's ass about Midway. He wanted the decisive fleet action and Midway was just a disposible bait. When his transport fleet chief told him that it would be very difficult to support the occupation force on Midway against determined American efforts to dislodge them, Yamamoto was totally untroubled and said would be easy enough to evacuate Midway should Americans make too much trouble, provided the main American carriers were already destroyed in the effort to take it in the first place. The occupation of Midway, far from being a corner stone of any strategic position, was nothing but a oportunistic tactical probe in force. Unfortunately the probe involved so much force that its defeat crippled the main force of IJN.
During the planning phase of operation MI, the Japanese naval staff already rejected the taking of Hawaii as impossible to achieve because carrier airpower possessed by Japan is insufficient to establish air superiority over Hawaiian islands. Furthermore, the Japanese concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the actual occupation of Hawaii would have negligible effect on American's ability to wage war on Japan, and the occupation of Islands to the east of Australia would enhance Japanese security much more than occupation of Hawaii.
Had Midway operation been successful, the IJN follow up plans called for the carriers to return to Truk and launch further operations in the South rather than build upon Midway to threaten Hawaii. When you take all these things into consideration, it become more and more clear that not only was the Midway operation ill-conducted and fatally compromised from the beginning, it was really ill-conceived and ill-fitting even as part of grand overall strategy. Yamamoto the strategist was not Napoleonic in caliber.