A Question about MIDWAY: history info

[Widder, SASS #59054]

In the movie, Midway, it depicts the Japanese considered advancing their fleet 

to Midway, even after the loss of their 4 carriers.

 

QUESTION: if they had continued their plan towards Midway, with the Yamato leading the charge,

would our (U.S.) carriers still possess enough air power to defend Midway against the Yamato?

 

Do we even know if this was even considered by Yamamoto?   

 

..........Widder

 

[Trailrider #896]

The Japanese lost a majority of their air cover when their carriers went down.  We lost a lot more aircraft than most people realize, especially in the remaining torpedo bombers and even the dive bombers. However, even with the loss of Yorktown, we still had operational carriers.  Yamato would have been a sitting duck, just as she was later around Layte.  Yamamoto-san was no fool.  Without his four main carriers, he had not choice but to retreat. He was still such a threat as a planner, that he had to be eliminated. 

[Bad Bascomb, SASS # 47,494]

  The book "Pacific Crucible" gives a good explanation of Yamamoto's orders to the battleships, and his challenges with limited options dictated by a reality that he and his staff had difficulty admitting to.  The fear was that in order to engage our carriers it would put them in range of the still-dangerous air assets on Midway itself.

The other elements of the Japanese forces were spread out too far to be of practical use as backup (up north in the Aleutians).

While there were recriminations against the 'lack of aggressive spirit' by the Japanese critics, Admiral Spruance was criticized by American armchair strategists for not pursuing the westward withdrawal of the Japanese forces.  He was cautioned by his orders to not foolishly endanger his force.  He would have sailed into range of land-based Japanese aircraft had he done so.

[Chantry]

13 hours ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

In the movie, Midway, it depicts the Japanese considered advancing their fleet 

to Midway, even after the loss of their 4 carriers.

 

QUESTION: if they had continued their plan towards Midway, with the Yamato leading the charge,

would our (U.S.) carriers still possess enough air power to defend Midway against the Yamato?

 

Do we even know if this was even considered by Yamamoto?   

 

..........Widder

 

 

Yamamoto did briefly advance eastward with 3 battleships and their screening force in the hope of engaging the remaining US naval forces under Spruance in a night surface action.    Equally Spruance briefly advanced westward in the hope of launching another air strike against Japanese forces.  Both choose to retreat, Spruance to avoid a night action and Yamamoto to avoid  air strikes the following morning.

 

To answer your question, Spruance probably could have defended Midway against the Japanese forces.  In addition to the remaining aircraft on Enterprise, Hornet and Midway, the Saratoga left Pearl Harbor June 7th and arrived at Midway June 11th with 107 aircraft aboard, primarily Wildcats and Dauntlesses.  At her maximum listed speed Saratoga could have arrived sometime on June 8th if the situation had required it.

 

 

 

 

[Sixgun Sheridan]

Both sides had been bruised up pretty bad, and both knew not to push their luck. I doubt Spruance had enough aircraft left to sink a ship like the Yamato but Yamamoto didn't know that.

[Colorado Coffinmaker]

 

Who Knows??  We can now only guess at "What might have been."  We can only know "they lost and we won."   Anything beyond that is a WAG (Military acronym for Wild A$$ Guess).  It is known, the Biggest, Baddest, Most heavily armed Battleship on the planet is/was susceptible to Air Attack.  Another scenario the War Gamers have played out, Yamamoto continues forward and puts his force between Spruance and Midway and is annihilated by the cross fire.  WAG.

[Four-Eyed Buck,SASS #14795]

At the time of Midway, the Japanese were the premier night fighting Navy. Although we didn't discover that until guadalcanal. Also, we didn't have any big gun ships( think BB's) back in service in the Pacific. Biggest mounted guns were the 8" cruisers. And those were flawed as discovered at Guadal as well( aircraft hangers/stores amidships. One hit and you're lit up like a christmas tree). Spruance was conserving what assets he had left. The U.S. did sink a heavy cruiser on the 6th, I believe, after it was damaged in a collision with one of it's sister ships. That was by aircraft again

[Sixgun Sheridan]

Actually the USS North Carolina reached the Pacific right after Midway, and the Pennsylvania and Colorado were steaming up and down the west coast trying to ease the public that the Navy hadn't been completely sunk after Pearl Harbor. Of course none of the three would've been a match for the Yamato, but like they say that's one for the war gamers to argue over.

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

The movie was good.

 

GG ~