Kido Butai is, of course, most well known for its attack on Pearl Harbor. We did ten half hour episodes about the Pearl Harbor attacks- covering them minute by minute in real time. If you somehow managed to miss that, here's the first episode for your entertainment: th-cam.com/video/Joh2BXPsrXs/w-d-xo.html And please read our rules of conduct before you comment, saves everyone a hassle: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
Japanese tactics are to run their 4 carriers in a box formation far enough apart so that they cannot be easily attacked but close enough together to be mutually supporting. When launching strikes the 4 carriers in a carrier division would mass as many planes as possible in each strike - around 120 in fact. Japanese aircraft having less armor were both more maneuverable and had greater range. The tactical idea was to strike the enemy at the greatest range possible so that they could hit without being hit. The USN would be unable to match the massed power of the Kido Butai in its own version of these tactics until 1943. Pilot attrition and abysmal training meant that when the reconstituted Japanese carrier force met the USN in the Marianas the Japanese suffered enormous pilot attrition. Their tactics did however allow them to save their carriers which were however denuded of aircraft and pilots never to be reconstituted again as a serious fighting force.
@World War Two A few corrections with regards to the ships. The Akagi and Kaga were not sister ships, they weren't even made from the same hull-types. Akagi was also not originally intended to be a battleship, but a battlecruiser (yes, there is a difference especially in the 1920s when the 8-8 Fleet Program was being built before Washington Treaty forced Japan to scrap that plan.) Akagi was meant to be the 2nd ship of the Amagi-class battlecruisers and Kaga was meant to be the 2nd ship of the Tosa-class battleships. Akagi's nearest parallel would be the Lexington-class carriers, since they were also supposed to be the USN's first battlecruisers. Hell, Kaga was actually meant to be scrapped along with Tosa while Amagi and Akagi were converted to CVs but by a twist of fate the Amagi was damaged during the infamous Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and so Kaga survived to be converted. Both Akagi and Kaga did serve as the main ships of the CarDiv1, sister ships are meant to be from the same class. Similar things can be said about the Hiryuu not being a Souryuu-class carrier due to changes in her design and build but I won't fight that fight because due to the IJN naming a new subclass with minor changes that one can get muddy. Not really related to this, but in a few years when you guys are getting ready for the massive clusterfuck that was Leyte Gulf, I recommend picking up Anthony P. Tully's Battle of Surigao Strait which covers in great detail Rear Admiral Nishimura and his Southern Force as it headed to its death along the south route towards the two pronged ambush of the landing forces in the Shou-Gou 1 operation. Also worth of note is that just 3 years ago (!) the late Paul Allen's RV Petrel was able to find and explore the 6 ships that sunk in that battle, including Japan's oldest domestically designed and constructed dreadnoughts, the Fusou-class battleships! Tully also runs a very popular website called combinedfleet.com with tabular records of just about every ship in the IJN as well as some other writings.
I second this for reading recommendation by Ari Hougai. It not only shares the lead up and battle itself of Nishimura's force, but also some of the post-battle incidents such as the final sinking of Asagumo, Mogami (included with photos), the tragedy that was Fujinami and Shiranuhi, and clarifies the myths of Fuso's magazines exploding (she in fact just capsized). Although I have not read it myself, Tully also has another book called Shattered Sword, about the Battle of Midway. Looking forward to the coverage of Operation Drumbeat as well :)
For those interested in the names of the Japanese carriers I've listed some below: Akagi (赤城) Red Castle Kaga (加賀) named after the Kaga Province Hiryuu (飛龍) Flying Dragon Souryu (蒼龍) Blue/Green Dragon Zuikaku (瑞鶴) Auspicious Crane Shokaku (翔鶴) Soaring Crane
@@jubbeisamuro I saw a video once where they were asking Japanese people in their 20s about world war ll, only one knew that it ended in 1945, is it really that bad?
The first three or four were very interesting and conveyed a great sense of excitement, being released more or less in real time. The last episode gave a interesting strategic and political exposition of the situation too. Half way though the series I realised I like the short format better, but I expect I am in a minority.
It controlled only a part of the Pacific because Japan never had ports throughout the world (like the Royal Navy did) that would allow them to logistically support a fleet that would exert control.
@@VersusARCH I never said Kido butai controlled world's oceans. What I said is it's the world's first full fledged carrier fleet. US was still in era of Battleships when Kido Butai proved to US that age of Battleships is over and they should value their own carriers like Yorktown, Enterprise etc and build new carriers for their fleet. That realisation induced by Kido Butai is the precursor to the modern US's domination of world's oceans using carrier fleets. I never thought I should peel the banana to feed the people to this extent. Dumb and what a drag.....
@@redjournals2817 You are correct, sorry, my bad. Kido Butai achieved better multi-carrier task force coordination before USN at the time (up to 6 carriers, but often 2-5 vs just 2). But USN was not far behind.
3:49 Despite having a similar appearance, undergoing similar modifications, and operating in the same unit for the duration of their service history, Akagi and Kaga were not technically sisterships. Akagi was a converted Amagi-class Battlecruiser. Kaga was a converted Tosa-class Battleship. There are other variations in their specifications as well, particularly with their propulsion systems. But I understand why, for the sake of simplicity, this terminology was used.
Akagi had a serious design flaw that Kaga did not-- its bridge was on the port side, which created a collision hazard for planes doing emergency turns on the flight deck.
@@stephenjacks8196 if I recall correctly the idea was you could have the two ships flying (edit: flying ships? As cool as that would be, perhaps I should gave another coffee this morning) parallel and their air groups wouldn't interfere with one another, as they turn away different directions. Fine in theory, but it's more effective to keep operations consistent across carriers. In addition, humans have a tendency to shy away from their dominant side when in danger and operating on instinct (port/left for most people). It's been offered as one of the reasons driving on the left is statistically safer when otherwise comparable countries are considered - you may hit a tree if you veer left in a left driving country, but that's better than natural instinct being into oncoming traffic. Of course, there are MANY factors and arguments about this, as well as individual differences, so don't look for consensus on which side is better any time soon!
@@stephenjacks8196 Pilots were universally taught to veer left in emergencies because of the direction of propeller spin. I forget if this still applies to jet aircraft but Akagi and Hiryu remain to this day the only carriers ever built with port-side islands.
@@DarklordZagarna These ships were laid down when how to operate a carrier was still experimental. I suppose that is part of the reason the Japanese were reluctant to transfer air wings between their carriers. That practice meant that Zuikaku was unavailable for Midway despite being operational and much of Shokaku's air group was intact.
And then the battle of Midway happened. Which for the Kido Butai went like a textbook case of Murphy's law. 1.nothing is as easy as it looks 2.everything takes longer than you expect. 3.if anything can go wrong IT WILL GO WRONG. 4. and at the worst possible moment.
Thank you for throwing light into key personalities in Kido Butai. One interesting fact: Ironically, it was the Brits who helped IJN developing its aircraft carrier capabilities in the 1920s, specifically, ex-British officer F.J. Rutland, a Japanese spy who was hired as an advisor on IJN carrier-based aircraft. Another interesting fact: The outcome of IJN's pre-war naval gaming exercises warned time and again that Japan stood no chance of winning a war against the USA and Great Britain: Captain Tasuku Nakazawa, the Operations Department Chief of Navy General Staff, wrote the following about a war with American and Britain: “We have no chance to win the war. War games resulted in heavy losses in shipping and the loss of control of overseas lanes and lines of communication. If we wage a long, drawn-out war, we will not have any means to bring the US and the UK to terms. Source: Memoir of Nakazawa Tasuku, The National Institute for Defense Studies Military Archives, Tokyo, Japan. C-in-C of IJN Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's warned that his IJN could run riot for the first 6 months of the Pacific war but could not guarantee victory for Japan if war stretches to 2-3 years. His warning turned out to be prophetically true.
The Japanese had the most effective carrier-borne aircraft in 1941, but did not have the industrial capacity to build on that advantage. Looking forward to your 1942 content (RIP Singapore)!
The Japanese navies didn't have proper fire support systems and lack of radars on their ships meaning many ships could technically shoot far, but it can't because they couldn't see what they're shooting at. The Japanese had terrible fire/damage control. Just to show how bad it was compared to the US systems during the battle of Midway the Lexington, US carrier, got bombed 2 times because Japanese pilots thought it was different a ship the second time that's how efficient the US fire/damage control was. If I can remember correctly the Japanese airforce only trained about 100 pilots a year while the US were training thousands of pilots per year so in a war of attrition Japan is undoubtedly going to lose not to mention the Zero is a bit of overrated plane with some glaring drawbacks. Edit: Yorktown not Lexington
d lakoba...if school was ever taught as these documentaries, and I mean all of them, all of us would've remembered all historic events much better! I am talking of how European children were taught history (all the periods from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present) for which there isn't enough time (12 yrs isn't enough!).
As student of war, I love the detail your team provides on each of the key leaders, their backgrounds, training, and personal characteristics. It’s very interesting to see how each of these commanders stood out within their own branch of service and their own personalities affected their interaction with opposing commanders. Keep it up!
All this talk about the 1920s to early 30s discussion on "guns vs aircraft" needs mentioning that back then, aircraft carriers were not the kings of the ocean that they became in the late 30s and early 40s. Early aircraft were much slower, had shorter range, smaller payloads, and were generally just much less capable than what we saw in WW2 (in the late 30s, aircraft technology took a huge leap forward), so there was a good argument to make that battleships were indeed superior. Of course now we know that aircraft carriers were the way to go, but hindsight is 20/20. Even in World War II we had events like the sinking of HMS Glorious by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
The HMS Glorious was sunk because it didn't have any carrier capable aircraft loaded, instead it was transporting Hurricanes out of Norway with only a small destroyer escort.
@@firemochimc , HMS Glorious did have a couple of Swordfish on board, which played no role because the group relied solely on lookouts while heading home. When HMS Acasta got sight of the germans Glorious did not try to evade for whatever reason and got in gunnery range of the germans soon after HMS Acasta got sunk. The main problem of HMS Glorious was its commander DÓyly-Hughes who got into a fight with his Air group commander and intended to court martial him instead of running his ship as an aviation platform. Ironically DÓyly-Hughes was a submariner and he succeeded in submerging HMS Glorious too.
Certainly an important point, and one that often does get lost when we looks back on those debates from decades later. I think it is legitimate to say, though, that the eventual trajectory of aircraft capabilities overtaking battleships was reasonable foreseeable at the time. After all, the issues of limited aircraft speed, range, and payload in the 1920s and 1930s were mostly a function of limited design experience and especially of limited engine power. Those were issues that clearly could be dramatically improved and provide the quantum leaps in aircraft performances that did in fact occur in the late 1930s and the 1940s. On the other hand, battleship technology had reached something of a ceiling, with only incremental improvements possible in the future, regardless of how big the ships and guns became.
Well said. Indeed, if you look at the dates that many of the famous early war carrier aircraft came into service, they all started being used from about 1937-1940. Even the Fairy Swordfish didn't come into service until 1936. And since the Royal Navy never experimented with grouping their carriers together, it was left to the Japanese to show what the then modern carrier-borne aircraft could do. Also, it should be noted that both the US and Royal Navy both considered carriers as advance scouting units to located enemy fleet units, and to damage a few ships here and there to slow the enemy fleet so the battleships could engage and wipe them out (as they did with the Bismarck and at the Battle of Cape Matapan).
It's also important to note that until very late in the war, carriers were not really capable of night-time operations, while the surface gun ships were, and the Japanese were really quite capable at night fighting.
On the other hand, they'll be around for 18 months between pearl harbor and midway. 18 months! The way most tellings of the war go, you'd think its was four months. Its a long war ahead.
I enjoy the subtlety of this tie, which really shines through in the close-up shots. I might have gone for a darker waistcoat to offset it, however. 4/5
Thanks for these day by historical days of WWII. The amount of research, documentation, collation, and video graphic coordination has my utmost respect. WELL DONE
I really appreciate your pronunciation of some of these names. I'm sure that in their cultures they are the equivalent of Smith or Jones, but they can be tongue twisters.
Actually Japanese pronunciation is easy as pie. It's about the only easy thing about the language! (Ok, the grammar isn't too bad. But dont get me going on the writing system...)
Word Kido Butai(機動部隊) doesn't specifically mean it's a carrier fleet. Word Kido Butai (aka Mobile Force) was invented to make distinction from stationary force like fortress and was also used for Battleship Fleet but became synonym to carrier fleet, which was originally called Kubo Kido Butai(空母機動部隊), later in the war.
Briliant yet again Happy christmas to you all and lets hope a better 2021 which it will be trust me it will !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKY YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Super interesting to hear about the rivalries in the fleet. Despite their initial successes, you really get the sense that if they had promoted better leadership, they could have performed even better.
No, they could only buy time. The outcome was inevitable. Japan could not replace the losses due to lack of resources. When they send out their fleet, they could not send them out again untill they could get new fuel.
It shows you the weight of Nagumo's decisions at Midway, when future historians remind us that, until those dive bombers WHACKED his carriers, he was THE most experienced carrier commander in the world.
I think it's important to note that the Kido Butai functioned as a single, coordinated tactical unit, comprised of the air groups from all 6 carriers. The Americans at Midway, by contrast, could not, with the outstanding exception of USS Yorktown, even manage tactical coordination of the assets of a single *flight deck*.
@@spudskie3907 well the Yorktown was not exactly lost. Sure the ship sunk after the battle and all, but most of her crew survived. And that’s the important part for the US: we can print another carrier or 4 out in 6 months, but the crew was irreplaceable. Yamamoto sending a sub to finish off the York was ultimately pointless.
@@artruisjoew5473 The loss of the Yorktown was important to the overall US operations in the pacific. A single US carrier did not matter when looking at the whole of WW2, but at this point in 1942, the Yorktown represented 1 of 5 carriers (one of which was moving from Atlantic) that the US had in the Pacific theater. She was lost just when the US finally had carrier parity with Japan. Going into December 1942, the US only had 2 carriers in the Pacific due to the additional loss of the Hornet and Wasp. There was an immense stress on both sides in 1942 as their carrier strength dwindled with reinforcements not truly coming till 1943 for the US and 1944 for Japan.
Nagumo was not a natural carrier leader but he did very well using this new weapon. Kido Butai did well when the had the full complement of 6 Carriers not so much with just 4 Carriers . Am I the only one who can see the incredible weight of Command in Nagumo’s eyes ?
@Sean Clancy: Yes one of the carriers' biggest advantages was the ability to hide undetected somewhere on the surface of the vast and trackless ocean between air strikes. Just like GPS removed the shield provided by trackless deserts for nations and tribal people of those arid regions for millennia, modern satellites and drones have done the same to surface fleets. From now on, they will have to hope that their stand off weapons have longer reach than the ones which are stalking them.
I think kirov style ships will become the new capital ships. Airpower is still very useful but the carriers now cost 13 billion dollars to build, another 3 billion for the air group and needs to be manned by 5000 sailors. You can build thousands of useful missiles for the cost of a single carrier. All it takes is one lucky shot to put the carrier out of action and if it sinks, then it could potentially lead to the loss of 5000 lives. If I was in charge of the USN, i would scrap the damn carriers and build 30 40,000 ton guided missile battle cruisers like the kirov class but they are gonna be much more heavily armoured, 80 9,000 ton destroyers and 150 4,000 ton frigates. This kind of navy could be very formidable defensively when operating under the cover the land based aviation and missiles. This is basically a copy of the soviet navy of the mid 1980s. Hardly any presence in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean but almost invincible in the barent sea, Norwegian sea, sea of japan and sea of okhotsk due to huge concentration of naval forces and protection of land based aircraft.
@@dragosstanciu9866 Yeah they only destroyed the old and outdated Dreadnought battleships and and few cruisers and destroyers. So yes a short term victory but a long term failure as they would come to find out at midway when the US carriers showed up.
@@dragosstanciu9866 Even the harbor facilities, oil storage and intelligence buildings aren't damaged or destroyed. Either they missed it or the Japanese pilots ignore them completely.
Your 10 pieces on Pearl Harbor were fascinating and I like the perspective in including backgrounds from both sides. I'm finding almost a dearth of comprehensive documentaries on TH-cam about the Battle of Savo Island which, as you might imagine, is little known about in contemporary US audiences of WW2 Naval history. There are some decent ones by the History Channel's coverage of Guadalcanal and Montemayor but if someone could put together some of the details of the battle like Montemayor did and the repercussions for the Marines having landed at Guadalcanal like the History Channel did with a first rate commentator such as you have, it would be a stand out in a TH-cam history lesson.
Page one chapter one of the US air combat tactics is written by the same man who helped fine tuned the attack on Pearl harbor!! Lieutenant Commander Genda! The second part about this is that his nickname was Gandhi Genda!!
Merry Christmas Indy Very thankful for you guys, always maintaining this steady information flow of cool & captivating historical events of ww2 for us all to enjoy. Y'all are the shit . Merry Christmas and hope 2021 is another great year for yall. 🤜💥🤛
Just found your channel and subscribed. Appreciate your video and extensive knowledge about the japanese military and navy, found it very interesting and informative. Thank you for doing this!
This was excellent. Though it would fit better in June when you cover the Battle of Midway. The bios of the IJN admirals and captains will be very handy then. The lesser known story of Midway is the suicides of crucial IJN officers that followed the American victory. The IJN lost so much that it didn't need to lose there and you've set the stage to tell that tale.
@@porksterbob But if this was really about the Kido Butai and not a setup for Midway there would have been coverage of the 3rd Carrier Division as well.
On the subject of the Japanese Carrier Fleet working 8 days a week, there's a popular song from the period called Getsu Getsu Ka Sui Moku Kin Kin, which translates as Monday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Friday.
The 1st air fleet will never be defeated right? Edit: 1. Yamaguchi sounds like the ideal commander for a carrier group. 2. How stiff is the command hierarchy in the Imperial Japanese Navy? 3. How bad is the factionalism in the Imperial Japanese Navy and army?
Japan's victorious early sweeps, were due in part to the British and US under-estimation of the "little yellow man" (Churchill's words, I believe) who was seen as being incapable of standing on the same field of battle with the glorious bearers of "civilization"
@CKS1949 Tsushima was a war between Slavs and "little yellow man", which both were considered weak and inferior. Then in WWII US lost most of their Pacific Fleet battleships in a single day and even more warships in subsequent night battles, while Britain had one of their newest battleships sunk without a single enemy battleship in sight and their fleet driven all the way to Madagascar. Hubris has its price and both US and Britain paid dearly for it.
That's pretty much the way Japan trained its' pilots. Dogfighting was sought out as the modern equivelant of individual samurai duels. Hence, the emphasis on speed and manueverabilty in the Zero and Oscar at the expense of armor and ruggedness in the airframe.
repatriated. once a war starts the diplomats have failed and because diplomats jobs are to prevent wars they (or do i mean we?) often (usually!) lack solid actionable military intelligence. E.g. I know the U.S. strategic choices for the next ten years. So what. I do not know the dispositions of the US submarine fleet, not even slightly. It's a case of "chinese walls".
@@QuizmasterLaw Yes that is really highlighted in the Pearl Harbor series - the Japanese ambassador in Washington had no idea about the planned attack which was for the best (from their perspective) since the Americans had cracked their diplomatic codes and were reading the messages.
Germany: I see that you have, "aircraft carriers"? What can they do that battleships can't? Japan: Sink battleships! Germany: That's impossible. Imagine that, mere airplanes sinking battleships! The ghost of General Billy Mitchell: Franz, you have no idea what's in your future.
While I can understand why you might imagine that, your synopsis doesn't at all reflect the thinking either of the German high seas fleet nor of the Imperial Japanese Navy, nor their respective diplomatic services views or ideas. Germany didn't complete its aircraft carriers because its priorities were elsewhere, not because they had no understanding of the role of aircraft carriers.
As a side note after serving a tour with the US Navy in Japan their modern Maritime self defense force holds true to alot of these traditions in their officers. Everyday the ship is inspected and rust is busted and painted(with lead paint or so the rumor mill says.) they still train buglers to perform morning colors and ceremonies. Their navy isn't as well trained equipped or experienced as the US Navy but as a fleet they are an imposing bunch.
It will be interesting if this channel puts out the difference of carrier doctrine of the US and Japan up to Midway. The US came up with several new ideas and techniques for carrier doctrine during the same time the Japanese came up with theirs.
"In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success." --Yamamoto the prophet, he timed it almost to the day.
Once in charge of the Kido Butai the only real mistake Nagumo made, considering circumstances he faced at Pearl Harbor and Midway, was to hold his Aichi D3As until torpedo planes were armed at Midway upon learning of only one of our carriers in range. Yamamoto on the other hand made the serious mistakes in planning the Midway operation and ignored warnings that Japan's code might be compromised despite the coincidences of our unexpected appearance at Coral Sea and Midway.
IJN Admiral Toadie: "Most Honorable Emperor... Our naval strike force has been destroyed at Midway!" Emperor: "What... Destroyed!! You got to be Kidoing me!"
Hi Indy and team, have you read Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully? It covers the Battle of Midway very well with a heavy focus on the Japanese perspective, and challenged a few things in the traditional narrative. Well worth a look!
Given the amount and detail of information we get about Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu and the lack of similar information we get about Shokaku and Zuikaku I got the impression that Shattered Sword was the primary source for this video. Because Shokaku and Zuikaku missed Midway there is not much info about them in the book.
@@gildor8866 Which is a shame, because those two were the true heavy hitters of the Kido Butai despite the IJN not giving them as much credit as the other four.
@@bkjeong4302 Actually their crews weren't yet trained to the same level of effiency as the older four carriers. They needed longer to spot their planes on deck and also to recover them. IIRC several times flight operations of the Kido Butai fell behind schedule because the schedule was based on the times of Akagi and the older carriers and then everybody had to wait for Shokaku und Zuikakau to finish. There was a reason why people commented on the battle of Coral Sea "If the concubines can beat the best of the enemy the wives will have no problems".
@@gildor8866 But when they were faced with enemies that could actually hit them back (other carriers), they had a better track record than the rest of the Kido Butai combined in similar situations. Even at Coral Sea alone they sank one American fleet carrier and seriously damaged another while having one of their own be heavily damaged-which is still a better record than what all the older carriers managed in their entire service histories. Furthermore, this attitude of dismissing CarDiv5 when they actually had valuable experience from Coral Sea contributed to the Japanese underestimating the opposition at Midway.
I wish that the Royal Navy had a chance to avenge their losses of Repulse and Prince of Wales to the Imperial navy. The Americans got to have all of the fun taking out the Japanese carriers. It would be interesting to see how the Kido Butai would have faired against the British Pacific fleet of 1944.
@CKS1949 True. And the British pacific fleet was a pretty substantial force in November 1944. The fleet included 6 fleet carriers, 4 light carriers, 9 escort carriers and 2 aircraft maintenance carriers, with a total of more than 750 aircraft, 4 battleships, 11 cruisers, 35 destroyers, 14 Frigates, 44 smaller warships, 31 submarines, and 54 large vessels in the fleet train. I think the Kido Butai would have had a tough fight on it's hands going against that.
@digital communist That was a skirmish though with only a fraction of our navy involved, it was never a fair match there anyway all the advantages in the indian ocean were in japans favour. The British pacific fleet in the later years of the war would have wrecked the Japanese though.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-The British Pacific Fleet lacked fighting experience that the US had gathered for 2 years, from 1942 to 1944. The American fleets that the Kido Butai dared to go up against (Leyte Gulf, Philippines Sea) were more substantial than whatever the British Pacific Fleet had to offer.
Yamamoto castigated Nagumo for his failure to launch a third strike on Pearl. Yet if you actually work the numbers Nagumo was probably correct in his decision. (Main references Jonathan Parshall's Shattered Sword, and Montemayor's excellent Midway TH-cam series where he graphically outlines Nagumo's Dilemma). Parshall gives us the best descriptions about how the Japanese Carriers worked (or at least best English Language version) While he is discussing Midway, the operational flow and timing would be the same. Kido Buttai's operations went something like this. Each Carrier could spot and launch half their aircraft at a time. So the launch tasks would be split with half the carriers launching Dive Bombers and half torpedo planes in wave one, then the tasks would reverse for the second wave. So a full launch of all Carriers would occur in 2 waves. At maximum efficiency the second wave would launch roughly 45 minutes after the first. So while wave 1 is spotted and launching, wave 2 is arming and warming up in the hangers. So Nagumo is able to launch and send off the first wave. Complete surprise. Second Wave is facing increasing resistance. As the first wave returns they must be landed, and cycled below deck to began the process of refueling, repairing and rearming. This will take at least an hour, probably closer to 90 minutes. BUT before they can be returned on deck to be spotted for launch, the Second Wave must be recovered and moved below deck which adds another 45-60 minutes to the cycle. So from the Recovery of the First Wave the time to launch the Third Wave will be about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. So here's where you can start to see Nagumo's thought process. (or more likely Genda's. Who was possibly Japan's best Carrier operations and planning officer at the time) The First Wave went in and took the American's by complete surprise. With almost no losses and heavy damage scored. The second wave was facing an increasing amount of resistance as American Anti Aircraft Fire was ramping up and they were starting to get planes airborne. While the Zero's were near invulnerable, the attack planes were not. Further by this point he knew the American Carriers were not in port. That's a major Uh Oh! And even worse Some Returning aircraft from Wave One had been engaged by, and in some cases shot down by American Carrier Aircraft, inbound to Hawaii, but much too far out to have been operating from land. The American Carriers were at Sea, were now alerted, were looking for him, were somewhere within flight range of Hawaii and could quite possibly be coming up from behind him or on an unexpected flank. Further he did not know how neutralized Hawaii's airfields were, which could very quickly put him between two enemy air contingents. And he would be hard pressed to get out of range of the land based bombers if they were still operational. Did he hold position for 2-3 hours in the hopes that the enemy didn't close in on him while prepping the next strike? Did he launch the third wave against Pearl keeping him on station for almost 6 hours, not knowing if the American Carriers would then strike him from behind? Or should he do the sane, rational and doctrinal thing and take his win and get the hell out of dodge before things very quickly went to hell? And yes, the First and Second Wave can be rightly criticized for not going after the fuel tanks. But Quite frankly that wasn't how the pilots were trained to think or operate. They were trained to aggressively go after the enemy combatants. See a ship sink a ship above any and all other targets. The institutional culture of the pilots at that point did not have them thinking or selecting targets with logistics in mind. This was the great failing of the Japanese Navy as a whole throughout the war. They were so focused on great decisive battles against enemy warships that they largely ignored the vast armadas of logistical shipping until it was too late. Their Submarine forces were especially guilty of this.
Or, the planners didn't know about the fuel tanks or the repair facilities because of incomplete and/or outdated information? According to Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute, they were working from 1930's plans for the base and intelligence sources on the island itself; they missed an important administrative building used as an Officer's Club while one was being moved/built. If Fuchida is the only one with a radio, and even then only to talk to the ship, then he can't really direct the attack; he can only give a play-by-play.
The Imperial Japanese war philosophy, like the German blitzkrieg, only worked on Depression ravaged unprepared enemies. One of the side effects was known as Victory Disease. In their minds they became invincible. As we saw, once the Allied war machine got rolling no amount of samurai spirit could help them.
I agree with the German philosophy but I also disagree with the Japanese statement. The Japanese knew very lucidly that a prolonged war with the USA would result in their inevitable defeat. They went to war with this in mind, hoping to destroy American morale or at the very least, buy themselves enough time to anchor themselves in China so that they could gain more favorable leverage in peace talks. What really screwed them over, (apart from attacking the USA) was their oversight of unconditional surrender. Once the war began, there would be no negotiations. The book "Japan 1941" by Eri Hotta is a great resource regarding the Japanese war philosophy. It's a great read for anyone who is interested.
AL...the Japanese thought they could keep it up with a very ltd amount of resources. They lost a lot of what they gained from Chinese invasion in the same conflict.
@@marinazagrai1623 they gained little in China. The war in China only was beneficial to Japan if China surrended and let Japan keep any incremental gains without Japan having to spend many troopa. Japan had been able to do that since 1931. However, the total war in 1937 was far longer and more costly than Japan wanted or could afford... But they wanted to lose even less, so they kept throwing good money after bad into China which didn't gain them anything.
Great work as always. Just wanted to point out that Kaga and Akagi are not sister ships. Akagi is a conversion from Amagi-class battlecruiser and Kaga is a conversion from Tosa-class battleship and those are different ship hulls. It's a veeeeeery common mistake, because wherever you see - Akagi and Kaga are always paired together. But that's because they form the first carrier division when the Japan joins the war.
2:44 that lack of experience in Carrier Operation Command is something the US Navy would improve on. I believe US Carrier Captains (on the Island) are often Naval aviators or Naval Flight Officers promoted to the role because they have experience how to best use the aviation arm the carriers are carrying. Admirals are drawn specific to what they would be commanding. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_(United_States_O-6)
Kido Butai is, of course, most well known for its attack on Pearl Harbor. We did ten half hour episodes about the Pearl Harbor attacks- covering them minute by minute in real time. If you somehow managed to miss that, here's the first episode for your entertainment: th-cam.com/video/Joh2BXPsrXs/w-d-xo.html
And please read our rules of conduct before you comment, saves everyone a hassle: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
Japanese tactics are to run their 4 carriers in a box formation far enough apart so that they cannot be easily attacked but close enough together to be mutually supporting. When launching strikes the 4 carriers in a carrier division would mass as many planes as possible in each strike - around 120 in fact. Japanese aircraft having less armor were both more maneuverable and had greater range. The tactical idea was to strike the enemy at the greatest range possible so that they could hit without being hit. The USN would be unable to match the massed power of the Kido Butai in its own version of these tactics until 1943. Pilot attrition and abysmal training meant that when the reconstituted Japanese carrier force met the USN in the Marianas the Japanese suffered enormous pilot attrition. Their tactics did however allow them to save their carriers which were however denuded of aircraft and pilots never to be reconstituted again as a serious fighting force.
Was this supposed to air in June? There is alot of early 1942 spoilers.
@@Trigm The time travelling section and codebreaker section compared notes.
Blame Singapore.
And Alpha Centauri.
@World War Two A few corrections with regards to the ships. The Akagi and Kaga were not sister ships, they weren't even made from the same hull-types. Akagi was also not originally intended to be a battleship, but a battlecruiser (yes, there is a difference especially in the 1920s when the 8-8 Fleet Program was being built before Washington Treaty forced Japan to scrap that plan.) Akagi was meant to be the 2nd ship of the Amagi-class battlecruisers and Kaga was meant to be the 2nd ship of the Tosa-class battleships. Akagi's nearest parallel would be the Lexington-class carriers, since they were also supposed to be the USN's first battlecruisers. Hell, Kaga was actually meant to be scrapped along with Tosa while Amagi and Akagi were converted to CVs but by a twist of fate the Amagi was damaged during the infamous Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and so Kaga survived to be converted. Both Akagi and Kaga did serve as the main ships of the CarDiv1, sister ships are meant to be from the same class. Similar things can be said about the Hiryuu not being a Souryuu-class carrier due to changes in her design and build but I won't fight that fight because due to the IJN naming a new subclass with minor changes that one can get muddy.
Not really related to this, but in a few years when you guys are getting ready for the massive clusterfuck that was Leyte Gulf, I recommend picking up Anthony P. Tully's Battle of Surigao Strait which covers in great detail Rear Admiral Nishimura and his Southern Force as it headed to its death along the south route towards the two pronged ambush of the landing forces in the Shou-Gou 1 operation. Also worth of note is that just 3 years ago (!) the late Paul Allen's RV Petrel was able to find and explore the 6 ships that sunk in that battle, including Japan's oldest domestically designed and constructed dreadnoughts, the Fusou-class battleships! Tully also runs a very popular website called combinedfleet.com with tabular records of just about every ship in the IJN as well as some other writings.
I second this for reading recommendation by Ari Hougai. It not only shares the lead up and battle itself of Nishimura's force, but also some of the post-battle incidents such as the final sinking of Asagumo, Mogami (included with photos), the tragedy that was Fujinami and Shiranuhi, and clarifies the myths of Fuso's magazines exploding (she in fact just capsized). Although I have not read it myself, Tully also has another book called Shattered Sword, about the Battle of Midway. Looking forward to the coverage of Operation Drumbeat as well :)
For those interested in the names of the Japanese carriers I've listed some below:
Akagi (赤城) Red Castle
Kaga (加賀) named after the Kaga Province
Hiryuu (飛龍) Flying Dragon
Souryu (蒼龍) Blue/Green Dragon
Zuikaku (瑞鶴) Auspicious Crane
Shokaku (翔鶴) Soaring Crane
Thank you for your thought.
@@zulubeatz1 Anytime my friend
You my friend might be the only Japanese I ever came across that actually have an interest in wwll
@@Saleh-994 Really lol. Trust me there are more out there.
@@jubbeisamuro I saw a video once where they were asking Japanese people in their 20s about world war ll, only one knew that it ended in 1945, is it really that bad?
I highly recommend that anyone who hasn’t seen the Pearl Harbor episodes to please watch them
The first three or four were very interesting and conveyed a great sense of excitement, being released more or less in real time. The last episode gave a interesting strategic and political exposition of the situation too. Half way though the series I realised I like the short format better, but I expect I am in a minority.
They were a treat, I watched them all in a day between breaks and literally my entire evening. Such a good series!
Of course! One of the best series ever made!
Spoiler alert: there are Nazis. But no snakes...I hate snakes.
I’d call it the premier documentary on Pearl Harbor now, one of the finest out there and on top of that it’s free!
Kido Butai, the first ever fullfledged naval carrier fleet before modern US carrier fleet that controls world's oceans. Impressive.
It controlled only a part of the Pacific because Japan never had ports throughout the world (like the Royal Navy did) that would allow them to logistically support a fleet that would exert control.
@@VersusARCH I never said Kido butai controlled world's oceans. What I said is it's the world's first full fledged carrier fleet. US was still in era of Battleships when Kido Butai proved to US that age of Battleships is over and they should value their own carriers like Yorktown, Enterprise etc and build new carriers for their fleet.
That realisation induced by Kido Butai is the precursor to the modern US's domination of world's oceans using carrier fleets.
I never thought I should peel the banana to feed the people to this extent. Dumb and what a drag.....
@@redjournals2817
You are correct, sorry, my bad.
Kido Butai achieved better multi-carrier task force coordination before USN at the time (up to 6 carriers, but often 2-5 vs just 2). But USN was not far behind.
The Blade of the Gods will protect us.
The Japanese could only get so far with their limited output and resources. Same with the Germans in regards to the USSR.
with such a powerful Aircraft carrier fleet the Empire of Japan cannot possibly lose this war!
And it will never loose the control over the Pacific! Its navy will rule the waves for centuries
xD
Certainly the Zero will be unbeatable, and the war will be done by Christmas!
meanwhile in US:
*spams ships*
SBD Dauntless: Are you sure about that!?
3:49 Despite having a similar appearance, undergoing similar modifications, and operating in the same unit for the duration of their service history, Akagi and Kaga were not technically sisterships. Akagi was a converted Amagi-class Battlecruiser. Kaga was a converted Tosa-class Battleship. There are other variations in their specifications as well, particularly with their propulsion systems. But I understand why, for the sake of simplicity, this terminology was used.
Akagi had a serious design flaw that Kaga did not-- its bridge was on the port side, which created a collision hazard for planes doing emergency turns on the flight deck.
Why is the island on the wrong side?
@@stephenjacks8196 if I recall correctly the idea was you could have the two ships flying (edit: flying ships? As cool as that would be, perhaps I should gave another coffee this morning) parallel and their air groups wouldn't interfere with one another, as they turn away different directions.
Fine in theory, but it's more effective to keep operations consistent across carriers. In addition, humans have a tendency to shy away from their dominant side when in danger and operating on instinct (port/left for most people).
It's been offered as one of the reasons driving on the left is statistically safer when otherwise comparable countries are considered - you may hit a tree if you veer left in a left driving country, but that's better than natural instinct being into oncoming traffic. Of course, there are MANY factors and arguments about this, as well as individual differences, so don't look for consensus on which side is better any time soon!
@@stephenjacks8196 Pilots were universally taught to veer left in emergencies because of the direction of propeller spin.
I forget if this still applies to jet aircraft but Akagi and Hiryu remain to this day the only carriers ever built with port-side islands.
@@DarklordZagarna These ships were laid down when how to operate a carrier was still experimental. I suppose that is part of the reason the Japanese were reluctant to transfer air wings between their carriers. That practice meant that Zuikaku was unavailable for Midway despite being operational and much of Shokaku's air group was intact.
And then the battle of Midway happened.
Which for the Kido Butai went like a textbook case of Murphy's law.
1.nothing is as easy as it looks
2.everything takes longer than you expect.
3.if anything can go wrong IT WILL GO WRONG.
4. and at the worst possible moment.
Thank you for throwing light into key personalities in Kido Butai.
One interesting fact:
Ironically, it was the Brits who helped IJN developing its aircraft carrier capabilities in the 1920s,
specifically, ex-British officer F.J. Rutland, a Japanese spy who was hired as an advisor on IJN carrier-based aircraft.
Another interesting fact:
The outcome of IJN's pre-war naval gaming exercises warned time and again that Japan stood no chance of winning a war against the USA and Great Britain:
Captain Tasuku Nakazawa, the Operations Department Chief of Navy General Staff, wrote the following about a war with American and Britain: “We have no chance to win the war. War games resulted in heavy losses in shipping and the loss of control of overseas lanes and lines of communication. If we wage a long, drawn-out war, we will not have any means to bring the US and the UK to terms.
Source: Memoir of Nakazawa Tasuku, The National Institute for Defense Studies Military Archives, Tokyo, Japan.
C-in-C of IJN Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's warned
that his IJN could run riot for the first 6 months of the Pacific war
but could not guarantee victory for Japan if war stretches to 2-3 years.
His warning turned out to be prophetically true.
The Japanese had the most effective carrier-borne aircraft in 1941, but did not have the industrial capacity to build on that advantage. Looking forward to your 1942 content (RIP Singapore)!
Nor the experienced officers to capitalize on it
The Japanese navies didn't have proper fire support systems and lack of radars on their ships meaning many ships could technically shoot far, but it can't because they couldn't see what they're shooting at.
The Japanese had terrible fire/damage control. Just to show how bad it was compared to the US systems during the battle of Midway the Lexington, US carrier, got bombed 2 times because Japanese pilots thought it was different a ship the second time that's how efficient the US fire/damage control was.
If I can remember correctly the Japanese airforce only trained about 100 pilots a year while the US were training thousands of pilots per year so in a war of attrition Japan is undoubtedly going to lose not to mention the Zero is a bit of overrated plane with some glaring drawbacks.
Edit: Yorktown not Lexington
@@generalfred9426 Yorktown not Lexington
@@fifthcrusade4607 thx for correction
@@generalfred9426 no problem
Knowing what’s about to happen to these carriers and Japan’s fleet in just a few months is almost unbelievable.
Dear Kido Butai,
Looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you better.
Sincerely,
USS Yorktown CV-5
if this guy was my teacher in high school ... I would have received straight As .....
d lakoba...if school was ever taught as these documentaries, and I mean all of them, all of us would've remembered all historic events much better! I am talking of how European children were taught history (all the periods from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present) for which there isn't enough time (12 yrs isn't enough!).
But with the Time Ghost squad to do the illustration and research. This should be licensed to schools.
Have you heard of khan Academy
He should be a College level profssor for World War 2 class.
I had a teacher this good 5th to 9th grade. I never had to study for a single test, just listening to him talk was more than enough to ace every one.
As student of war, I love the detail your team provides on each of the key leaders, their backgrounds, training, and personal characteristics.
It’s very interesting to see how each of these commanders stood out within their own branch of service and their own personalities affected their interaction with opposing commanders.
Keep it up!
All this talk about the 1920s to early 30s discussion on "guns vs aircraft" needs mentioning that back then, aircraft carriers were not the kings of the ocean that they became in the late 30s and early 40s. Early aircraft were much slower, had shorter range, smaller payloads, and were generally just much less capable than what we saw in WW2 (in the late 30s, aircraft technology took a huge leap forward), so there was a good argument to make that battleships were indeed superior. Of course now we know that aircraft carriers were the way to go, but hindsight is 20/20. Even in World War II we had events like the sinking of HMS Glorious by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
The HMS Glorious was sunk because it didn't have any carrier capable aircraft loaded, instead it was transporting Hurricanes out of Norway with only a small destroyer escort.
@@firemochimc , HMS Glorious did have a couple of Swordfish on board, which played no role because the group relied solely on lookouts while heading home. When HMS Acasta got sight of the germans Glorious did not try to evade for whatever reason and got in gunnery range of the germans soon after HMS Acasta got sunk. The main problem of HMS Glorious was its commander DÓyly-Hughes who got into a fight with his Air group commander and intended to court martial him instead of running his ship as an aviation platform. Ironically DÓyly-Hughes was a submariner and he succeeded in submerging HMS Glorious too.
Certainly an important point, and one that often does get lost when we looks back on those debates from decades later. I think it is legitimate to say, though, that the eventual trajectory of aircraft capabilities overtaking battleships was reasonable foreseeable at the time. After all, the issues of limited aircraft speed, range, and payload in the 1920s and 1930s were mostly a function of limited design experience and especially of limited engine power. Those were issues that clearly could be dramatically improved and provide the quantum leaps in aircraft performances that did in fact occur in the late 1930s and the 1940s. On the other hand, battleship technology had reached something of a ceiling, with only incremental improvements possible in the future, regardless of how big the ships and guns became.
Well said. Indeed, if you look at the dates that many of the famous early war carrier aircraft came into service, they all started being used from about 1937-1940. Even the Fairy Swordfish didn't come into service until 1936. And since the Royal Navy never experimented with grouping their carriers together, it was left to the Japanese to show what the then modern carrier-borne aircraft could do.
Also, it should be noted that both the US and Royal Navy both considered carriers as advance scouting units to located enemy fleet units, and to damage a few ships here and there to slow the enemy fleet so the battleships could engage and wipe them out (as they did with the Bismarck and at the Battle of Cape Matapan).
It's also important to note that until very late in the war, carriers were not really capable of night-time operations, while the surface gun ships were, and the Japanese were really quite capable at night fighting.
Soryu and Hiryu are such badass names together
Why do I have a sinking feeling about this fleet? It's not like 4 of the ships are gonna be destroyed in 1942 right? Right?
“Sinking feeling...”
No pun intended?
Yea I mean they won't just get destroyed after 1 battle right I mean thats just the highly unlikely right, right
@@Gidi66 And even then, it's not as though two thirds of them could be doomed in just five minutes, right?
@@Spindrift_87 I can’t believe all four carriers were destroyed at Midway. Smh.
On the other hand, they'll be around for 18 months between pearl harbor and midway. 18 months! The way most tellings of the war go, you'd think its was four months. Its a long war ahead.
Great vid
Kido Butai: I am inevitable.
USS Yorktown: And I...am.......Iron Man!
*IRON MAN THEME SONG*
I enjoy the subtlety of this tie, which really shines through in the close-up shots. I might have gone for a darker waistcoat to offset it, however. 4/5
Thanks for these day by historical days of WWII.
The amount of research, documentation, collation, and video graphic coordination has my utmost respect.
WELL DONE
10:11 I believe this photo is the last picture of Yamamoto alive - his plane would be shot down the next day (or soon after).
I really appreciate your pronunciation of some of these names. I'm sure that in their cultures they are the equivalent of Smith or Jones, but they can be tongue twisters.
Actually Japanese pronunciation is easy as pie. It's about the only easy thing about the language! (Ok, the grammar isn't too bad. But dont get me going on the writing system...)
Looking sharp, Indy! Great work team!!
1942 event spoilers in this video! Especially a lot of hints at a certain Midway island!
You've had 78 years to catch up ;)
pfah, that rock doesn't even have an adequate water purifier!
@@QuizmasterLaw hell, they even crippled the Yorktown. There is no way the Americans can win.
Uh oh, Sook Ching is coming.
Kido Butai is going to have a bad day on June the 4th, 1942.
Yamamoto : "if we strike Pearl Harbor, we'll have around 6 months before the US industry overwhelms us"
The clock : (starts ticking loudly)
well it was the last bad day it would ever have
@@Duke_of_Lorraine *RA2 sounds*: Timer started
@@Duke_of_Lorraine right on schedule. He could've been a fortune teller.
Spoilers!
Word Kido Butai(機動部隊) doesn't specifically mean it's a carrier fleet. Word Kido Butai (aka Mobile Force) was invented to make distinction from stationary force like fortress and was also used for Battleship Fleet but became synonym to carrier fleet, which was originally called Kubo Kido Butai(空母機動部隊), later in the war.
Thank you for this, Indy and WW2 team. ❤
Briliant yet again Happy christmas to you all and lets hope a better 2021 which it will be trust me it will !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKY YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great vid ! This is the best WW2 channel in youtube for sure!
Thank you Marco. We're glad you enjoy our content.
Super interesting to hear about the rivalries in the fleet. Despite their initial successes, you really get the sense that if they had promoted better leadership, they could have performed even better.
No, they could only buy time. The outcome was inevitable. Japan could not replace the losses due to lack of resources. When they send out their fleet, they could not send them out again untill they could get new fuel.
Aoki ... a seaplane carrier commander ... catapulted to command the flagship ... I see what you did there.
No catapults back then.
@@stephenjacks8196
They had compressed air and rocket-assisted catapults back then.
I wonder if their Patreon account loses a nickel for every bad pun.
"Slow to adapt" I hope that doesn't bites Nagumo
Thank you for all your work this year. Merry Christmas. Best channel ever made.
Midway: Nice carriers, it's a shame if something would happen to them
Oof Lmfao
D: by dive bombers too not even torpedo planes
«Scratch one flat-top!»
Yamamoto refused to pay for protection. He thought he was Capo di tutti capo,
@@deepcosmiclove 😂😂😂.
Good video
It shows you the weight of Nagumo's decisions at Midway, when future historians remind us that, until those dive bombers WHACKED his carriers, he was THE most experienced carrier commander in the world.
I would like to see an episode on the dreaded Secret Police in japan.
I second that.
This is one of my top 5 videos you have released for WW2 in Real Time.
I think it's important to note that the Kido Butai functioned as a single, coordinated tactical unit, comprised of the air groups from all 6 carriers. The Americans at Midway, by contrast, could not, with the outstanding exception of USS Yorktown, even manage tactical coordination of the assets of a single *flight deck*.
An absolute shame Yorktown was lost at Midway.
@@spudskie3907 well the Yorktown was not exactly lost. Sure the ship sunk after the battle and all, but most of her crew survived. And that’s the important part for the US: we can print another carrier or 4 out in 6 months, but the crew was irreplaceable.
Yamamoto sending a sub to finish off the York was ultimately pointless.
@@spudskie3907 Couldn't agree more. Especially given the heroic efforts to save her and how stubbornly she resisted going down.
@@artruisjoew5473 The loss of the Yorktown was important to the overall US operations in the pacific. A single US carrier did not matter when looking at the whole of WW2, but at this point in 1942, the Yorktown represented 1 of 5 carriers (one of which was moving from Atlantic) that the US had in the Pacific theater. She was lost just when the US finally had carrier parity with Japan. Going into December 1942, the US only had 2 carriers in the Pacific due to the additional loss of the Hornet and Wasp. There was an immense stress on both sides in 1942 as their carrier strength dwindled with reinforcements not truly coming till 1943 for the US and 1944 for Japan.
Great video Indy
Nagumo was not a natural carrier leader but he did very well using this new weapon. Kido Butai did well when the had the full complement of 6 Carriers not so much with just 4 Carriers . Am I the only one who can see the incredible weight of Command in Nagumo’s eyes ?
Pride goes before destruction. Kids Butai was proud of its achievements since Pearl Harbor. Suddenly.
Reminds me of naval arguments today...the age of carriers is coming to an end, though people are only just beginning to realize it on a large scale
@Sean Clancy: Yes one of the carriers' biggest advantages was the ability to hide undetected somewhere on the surface of the vast and trackless ocean between air strikes. Just like GPS removed the shield provided by trackless deserts for nations and tribal people of those arid regions for millennia, modern satellites and drones have done the same to surface fleets. From now on, they will have to hope that their stand off weapons have longer reach than the ones which are stalking them.
I think kirov style ships will become the new capital ships. Airpower is still very useful but the carriers now cost 13 billion dollars to build, another 3 billion for the air group and needs to be manned by 5000 sailors. You can build thousands of useful missiles for the cost of a single carrier. All it takes is one lucky shot to put the carrier out of action and if it sinks, then it could potentially lead to the loss of 5000 lives.
If I was in charge of the USN, i would scrap the damn carriers and build 30 40,000 ton guided missile battle cruisers like the kirov class but they are gonna be much more heavily armoured, 80 9,000 ton destroyers and 150 4,000 ton frigates.
This kind of navy could be very formidable defensively when operating under the cover the land based aviation and missiles.
This is basically a copy of the soviet navy of the mid 1980s. Hardly any presence in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean but almost invincible in the barent sea, Norwegian sea, sea of japan and sea of okhotsk due to huge concentration of naval forces and protection of land based aircraft.
This was entertaining and informative. Thank you!
A bit late to the show but these vids are really well written and researched. AND narrated/hosted. Great job
Kido butai the terror of the seas
Battle of Midway: Allow me to introduce myself
This Japanese Navy had so much destructive potential, fortunately the Japanese never used it with maximum efficiency.
Pearl harbor was pretty maximum
@@porksterbob Pearl Harbor was a failure, no US aircraft carriers were destroyed.
@@dragosstanciu9866 Yeah they only destroyed the old and outdated Dreadnought battleships and and few cruisers and destroyers. So yes a short term victory but a long term failure as they would come to find out at midway when the US carriers showed up.
They didn’t have the logistical support. Neither did the US Pacific Fleet until 1944.
@@dragosstanciu9866 Even the harbor facilities, oil storage and intelligence buildings aren't damaged or destroyed. Either they missed it or the Japanese pilots ignore them completely.
'loved the 8 days a week' part
It's always fascinating to get a better picture of the Japanese side of things, which always feels underrepresented when talking about this war.
Your 10 pieces on Pearl Harbor were fascinating and I like the perspective in including backgrounds from both sides. I'm finding almost a dearth of comprehensive documentaries on TH-cam about the Battle of Savo Island which, as you might imagine, is little known about in contemporary US audiences of WW2 Naval history. There are some decent ones by the History Channel's coverage of Guadalcanal and Montemayor but if someone could put together some of the details of the battle like Montemayor did and the repercussions for the Marines having landed at Guadalcanal like the History Channel did with a first rate commentator such as you have, it would be a stand out in a TH-cam history lesson.
Another fantastic episode.
Page one chapter one of the US air combat tactics is written by the same man who helped fine tuned the attack on Pearl harbor!! Lieutenant Commander Genda! The second part about this is that his nickname was Gandhi Genda!!
Merry Christmas Indy
Very thankful for you guys, always maintaining this steady information flow of cool & captivating historical events of ww2 for us all to enjoy. Y'all are the shit .
Merry Christmas and hope 2021 is another great year for yall. 🤜💥🤛
Great detailed video, gives the Japanese individual personalities.
Indy could read the back of a cereal box and it would still be riveting.
Just found your channel and subscribed. Appreciate your video and extensive knowledge about the japanese military and navy, found it very interesting and informative. Thank you for doing this!
Welcome!
This was excellent. Though it would fit better in June when you cover the Battle of Midway. The bios of the IJN admirals and captains will be very handy then. The lesser known story of Midway is the suicides of crucial IJN officers that followed the American victory. The IJN lost so much that it didn't need to lose there and you've set the stage to tell that tale.
It needs to be now because the carriers will do a lot of stuff between now and midway.
@@porksterbob But if this was really about the Kido Butai and not a setup for Midway there would have been coverage of the 3rd Carrier Division as well.
@@MakeMeThinkAgain fair point
I really appreciate the great research you guys have done. Merry Christmas to all. Here's to a better New Year for everyone.
This was excellent.
On the subject of the Japanese Carrier Fleet working 8 days a week, there's a popular song from the period called Getsu Getsu Ka Sui Moku Kin Kin, which translates as Monday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Friday.
FIRST, LOVE YOU GUYS AND YOUR AWESOME WORK
Not first but I love them too
If you didnt write "first" i would have liked this comment. How about you just stop with it
@@anttitheinternetguy3213 it was my first time and I thought I had an oportunity to be first, sorry mate
Asashio class destroyer, Asagumo at 5:20
The 1st air fleet will never be defeated right?
Edit:
1. Yamaguchi sounds like the ideal commander for a carrier group.
2. How stiff is the command hierarchy in the Imperial Japanese Navy?
3. How bad is the factionalism in the Imperial Japanese Navy and army?
No wonder Akagi Kaga Hiryu and Soryu all went to the bottom.
"Eight days a week!"...20 years before the Beatles.
Thank you Indie, Sparty.
Excellent job sorting out the command structure, it was always confusing to me. You introduced the personality of the men with the names I have heard.
Japan's victorious early sweeps, were due in part to the
British and US under-estimation of the "little yellow man"
(Churchill's words, I believe)
who was seen as being incapable of standing on the same field of battle
with the glorious bearers of "civilization"
@CKS1949 Tsushima was a war between Slavs and "little yellow man", which both were considered weak and inferior.
Then in WWII US lost most of their Pacific Fleet battleships in a single day and even more warships in subsequent night battles, while Britain had one of their newest battleships sunk without a single enemy battleship in sight and their fleet driven all the way to Madagascar.
Hubris has its price and both US and Britain paid dearly for it.
Good research. Thanks. !:-)
Air fighting as a philosophy.
That's wild.
Sort of like bushido, but in the sky!
That's pretty much the way Japan trained its' pilots. Dogfighting was sought out as the modern equivelant of individual samurai duels. Hence, the emphasis on speed and manueverabilty in the Zero and Oscar at the expense of armor and ruggedness in the airframe.
wow im soooo early
already 241 views you guys are good but indy and the team deserve it though
One of the greatest loses at Midway was the death of Adm. Yamaguchi.
Hi Indy and team, what happened to all the diplomats when war was declared ? Thanks
Most were interned and then deported back to their home countries via a neutral third party nation.
repatriated. once a war starts the diplomats have failed and because diplomats jobs are to prevent wars they (or do i mean we?) often (usually!) lack solid actionable military intelligence. E.g. I know the U.S. strategic choices for the next ten years. So what. I do not know the dispositions of the US submarine fleet, not even slightly. It's a case of "chinese walls".
you can't betray secrets you don't have. Ask me anything lol
@@QuizmasterLaw Yes that is really highlighted in the Pearl Harbor series - the Japanese ambassador in Washington had no idea about the planned attack which was for the best (from their perspective) since the Americans had cracked their diplomatic codes and were reading the messages.
Its great how he literally compares the commander with the ship itself
Japan: K we just attacked Pearl Harbor and weakened the US navy. We have about 6 months to win the war, or else.
Clock: *Starts Ticking*
Germany: I see that you have, "aircraft carriers"? What can they do that battleships can't?
Japan: Sink battleships!
Germany: That's impossible. Imagine that, mere airplanes sinking battleships!
The ghost of General Billy Mitchell: Franz, you have no idea what's in your future.
While I can understand why you might imagine that, your synopsis doesn't at all reflect the thinking either of the German high seas fleet nor of the Imperial Japanese Navy, nor their respective diplomatic services views or ideas.
Germany didn't complete its aircraft carriers because its priorities were elsewhere, not because they had no understanding of the role of aircraft carriers.
As a side note after serving a tour with the US Navy in Japan their modern Maritime self defense force holds true to alot of these traditions in their officers. Everyday the ship is inspected and rust is busted and painted(with lead paint or so the rumor mill says.) they still train buglers to perform morning colors and ceremonies. Their navy isn't as well trained equipped or experienced as the US Navy but as a fleet they are an imposing bunch.
HOW IS IT ALMOST 1942! DANG time flys by when your having fun!!!!
3:30 Cue what happened to Yamato herself on April 7th 1945
It will be interesting if this channel puts out the difference of carrier doctrine of the US and Japan up to Midway. The US came up with several new ideas and techniques for carrier doctrine during the same time the Japanese came up with theirs.
Epic
Joy a new episode!
The thing I like most about Kido Butai is how Indy pronounces it idk why but it sounds cool
The first person to be called kid-o that’s scary
Anyone in the time between that and Beatrix kiddo?
Seeing what the captains of the 4 Japanese carriers that were sunk at Midway looked like
"In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success." --Yamamoto the prophet, he timed it almost to the day.
That was the quote that I am looking for.
I bet he & Japan would’ve loved for their dominance to last till December 1942 for the year
But he was indeed right in the money for six months
How could he have timed it to the day when he gave a 6-month wide range? Lol
At 5:07 if that bush isn't waved "just right" you better call off the next strike. ;)
Once in charge of the Kido Butai the only real mistake Nagumo made, considering circumstances he faced at Pearl Harbor and Midway, was to hold his Aichi D3As until torpedo planes were armed at Midway upon learning of only one of our carriers in range. Yamamoto on the other hand made the serious mistakes in planning the Midway operation and ignored warnings that Japan's code might be compromised despite the coincidences of our unexpected appearance at Coral Sea and Midway.
overlooking the ground crews that armed the planes and kept them in the air
Nice videos- informative and well. I am curious though as to what your sources/references are for all the points/facts you state? thank you
IJN Admiral Toadie: "Most Honorable Emperor... Our naval strike force has been destroyed at Midway!"
Emperor: "What... Destroyed!! You got to be Kidoing me!"
Kido Butai is the mightiest naval aviation fleet in the world...as yet.
Task Force 38/58 gleams in Admiral King's eye.
Hi Indy and team, have you read Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully? It covers the Battle of Midway very well with a heavy focus on the Japanese perspective, and challenged a few things in the traditional narrative. Well worth a look!
Given the amount and detail of information we get about Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu and the lack of similar information we get about Shokaku and Zuikaku I got the impression that Shattered Sword was the primary source for this video. Because Shokaku and Zuikaku missed Midway there is not much info about them in the book.
@@gildor8866
Which is a shame, because those two were the true heavy hitters of the Kido Butai despite the IJN not giving them as much credit as the other four.
@@bkjeong4302 Actually their crews weren't yet trained to the same level of effiency as the older four carriers. They needed longer to spot their planes on deck and also to recover them. IIRC several times flight operations of the Kido Butai fell behind schedule because the schedule was based on the times of Akagi and the older carriers and then everybody had to wait for Shokaku und Zuikakau to finish. There was a reason why people commented on the battle of Coral Sea "If the concubines can beat the best of the enemy the wives will have no problems".
@@gildor8866 But when they were faced with enemies that could actually hit them back (other carriers), they had a better track record than the rest of the Kido Butai combined in similar situations. Even at Coral Sea alone they sank one American fleet carrier and seriously damaged another while having one of their own be heavily damaged-which is still a better record than what all the older carriers managed in their entire service histories.
Furthermore, this attitude of dismissing CarDiv5 when they actually had valuable experience from Coral Sea contributed to the Japanese underestimating the opposition at Midway.
I wish that the Royal Navy had a chance to avenge their losses of Repulse and Prince of Wales to the Imperial navy. The Americans got to have all of the fun taking out the Japanese carriers. It would be interesting to see how the Kido Butai would have faired against the British Pacific fleet of 1944.
@CKS1949 True. And the British pacific fleet was a pretty substantial force in November 1944.
The fleet included 6 fleet carriers, 4 light carriers, 9 escort carriers and 2 aircraft maintenance carriers, with a total of more than 750 aircraft, 4 battleships, 11 cruisers, 35 destroyers, 14 Frigates, 44 smaller warships, 31 submarines, and 54 large vessels in the fleet train. I think the Kido Butai would have had a tough fight on it's hands going against that.
@digital communist That was a skirmish though with only a fraction of our navy involved, it was never a fair match there anyway all the advantages in the indian ocean were in japans favour. The British pacific fleet in the later years of the war would have wrecked the Japanese though.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-The British Pacific Fleet lacked fighting experience that the US had gathered for 2 years, from 1942 to 1944. The American fleets that the Kido Butai dared to go up against (Leyte Gulf, Philippines Sea) were more substantial than whatever the British Pacific Fleet had to offer.
@@tigerace518 The British fleet in 1944 was a lot stronger then
Yamamoto castigated Nagumo for his failure to launch a third strike on Pearl. Yet if you actually work the numbers Nagumo was probably correct in his decision. (Main references Jonathan Parshall's Shattered Sword, and Montemayor's excellent Midway TH-cam series where he graphically outlines Nagumo's Dilemma). Parshall gives us the best descriptions about how the Japanese Carriers worked (or at least best English Language version) While he is discussing Midway, the operational flow and timing would be the same. Kido Buttai's operations went something like this. Each Carrier could spot and launch half their aircraft at a time. So the launch tasks would be split with half the carriers launching Dive Bombers and half torpedo planes in wave one, then the tasks would reverse for the second wave. So a full launch of all Carriers would occur in 2 waves. At maximum efficiency the second wave would launch roughly 45 minutes after the first. So while wave 1 is spotted and launching, wave 2 is arming and warming up in the hangers. So Nagumo is able to launch and send off the first wave. Complete surprise. Second Wave is facing increasing resistance. As the first wave returns they must be landed, and cycled below deck to began the process of refueling, repairing and rearming. This will take at least an hour, probably closer to 90 minutes. BUT before they can be returned on deck to be spotted for launch, the Second Wave must be recovered and moved below deck which adds another 45-60 minutes to the cycle. So from the Recovery of the First Wave the time to launch the Third Wave will be about 2 1/2 - 3 hours.
So here's where you can start to see Nagumo's thought process. (or more likely Genda's. Who was possibly Japan's best Carrier operations and planning officer at the time) The First Wave went in and took the American's by complete surprise. With almost no losses and heavy damage scored. The second wave was facing an increasing amount of resistance as American Anti Aircraft Fire was ramping up and they were starting to get planes airborne. While the Zero's were near invulnerable, the attack planes were not. Further by this point he knew the American Carriers were not in port. That's a major Uh Oh! And even worse Some Returning aircraft from Wave One had been engaged by, and in some cases shot down by American Carrier Aircraft, inbound to Hawaii, but much too far out to have been operating from land. The American Carriers were at Sea, were now alerted, were looking for him, were somewhere within flight range of Hawaii and could quite possibly be coming up from behind him or on an unexpected flank. Further he did not know how neutralized Hawaii's airfields were, which could very quickly put him between two enemy air contingents. And he would be hard pressed to get out of range of the land based bombers if they were still operational. Did he hold position for 2-3 hours in the hopes that the enemy didn't close in on him while prepping the next strike? Did he launch the third wave against Pearl keeping him on station for almost 6 hours, not knowing if the American Carriers would then strike him from behind? Or should he do the sane, rational and doctrinal thing and take his win and get the hell out of dodge before things very quickly went to hell?
And yes, the First and Second Wave can be rightly criticized for not going after the fuel tanks. But Quite frankly that wasn't how the pilots were trained to think or operate. They were trained to aggressively go after the enemy combatants. See a ship sink a ship above any and all other targets. The institutional culture of the pilots at that point did not have them thinking or selecting targets with logistics in mind. This was the great failing of the Japanese Navy as a whole throughout the war. They were so focused on great decisive battles against enemy warships that they largely ignored the vast armadas of logistical shipping until it was too late. Their Submarine forces were especially guilty of this.
Or, the planners didn't know about the fuel tanks or the repair facilities because of incomplete and/or outdated information? According to Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute, they were working from 1930's plans for the base and intelligence sources on the island itself; they missed an important administrative building used as an Officer's Club while one was being moved/built.
If Fuchida is the only one with a radio, and even then only to talk to the ship, then he can't really direct the attack; he can only give a play-by-play.
The Imperial Japanese war philosophy, like the German blitzkrieg, only worked on Depression ravaged unprepared enemies. One of the side effects was known as Victory Disease. In their minds they became invincible. As we saw, once the Allied war machine got rolling no amount of samurai spirit could help them.
I agree with the German philosophy but I also disagree with the Japanese statement. The Japanese knew very lucidly that a prolonged war with the USA would result in their inevitable defeat. They went to war with this in mind, hoping to destroy American morale or at the very least, buy themselves enough time to anchor themselves in China so that they could gain more favorable leverage in peace talks. What really screwed them over, (apart from attacking the USA) was their oversight of unconditional surrender. Once the war began, there would be no negotiations. The book "Japan 1941" by Eri Hotta is a great resource regarding the Japanese war philosophy. It's a great read for anyone who is interested.
AL...the Japanese thought they could keep it up with a very ltd amount of resources. They lost a lot of what they gained from Chinese invasion in the same conflict.
@@marinazagrai1623 they gained little in China. The war in China only was beneficial to Japan if China surrended and let Japan keep any incremental gains without Japan having to spend many troopa. Japan had been able to do that since 1931. However, the total war in 1937 was far longer and more costly than Japan wanted or could afford... But they wanted to lose even less, so they kept throwing good money after bad into China which didn't gain them anything.
Great work as always.
Just wanted to point out that Kaga and Akagi are not sister ships. Akagi is a conversion from Amagi-class battlecruiser and Kaga is a conversion from Tosa-class battleship and those are different ship hulls.
It's a veeeeeery common mistake, because wherever you see - Akagi and Kaga are always paired together. But that's because they form the first carrier division when the Japan joins the war.
2:44 that lack of experience in Carrier Operation Command is something the US Navy would improve on. I believe US Carrier Captains (on the Island) are often Naval aviators or Naval Flight Officers promoted to the role because they have experience how to best use the aviation arm the carriers are carrying. Admirals are drawn specific to what they would be commanding. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_(United_States_O-6)
Ever since the 10 Pearl Harbor episodes, I am falling behind in watching your videos. I need a bit of catching up.
I watched 9 of them December 7th.
I waited two days to watch the conclusion just to process all that I saw and heard.
Some of you guys are alright, don't go to Midway Island tomorrow
The British navy ruled the seas for a long time. And when you start competing with a navy like that, that’s how you know your in trouble.