On this day, June 4,1942

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HONDO74
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On this day, June 4,1942

Postby HONDO74 » Fri Jun 04, 2021 12:57 pm

On this day, June 4,1942 The World War II Battle of Midway begins, resulting in a decisive American victory against Japan and marking the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

4 of the 6 Japanese aircraft carriers that took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor were sunk

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chuck
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Re: On this day, June 4,1942

Postby chuck » Fri Jun 04, 2021 1:36 pm

4 of the 6 Japanese aircraft carriers that took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor were sunk


Yes, BUT, the real irreplaceable loss was in the number of experienced pilots who could actually fly planes off a carrier, were able to effectively attack the enemy be it naval resources or ground targets and then return and land on a carrier to repeat the process. Carrier flight operations are not easily learned/developed (look at how far the Russians and Chinese have not progressed in this area). The Japanese still had six carriers in total AFTER Midway but almost no skilled pilots and more importantly no one to train replacements. While two carriers "escaped" Midway they did so minus their air wings. They could build replacement airplanes but they had no one to fly them. It was only a matter of time before the rest of their fleet was tracked down and sunk.

This wasn't even well understood by US forces and almost lead to a catastrophic failure at Leyte Gulf when Halsey pulled his brand new fast battleships (Iowa class) to try to chase down a phantom (and sacrificial carrier force). While a carrier is a major threat it isn't the ship itself it is the carrier wing that operates off of it. Halsey should have realized that there weren't any effective planes on those carriers based solely on their tactics. If they had any planes they would have been used against the US landing forces and not run away trying to (successfully) bait him. If not for the heroic actions of Task Force Taffy 3 and the stupidity of Admiral Kurita the battle of the Philippines could have turned out dramatically different. Japanese fleet (what was left of it) retreated and never posed a realistic threat afterwards.
Once I built a railroad, I made it run,
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it's done --
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