Pacific War #1 - Attack on Pearl Harbor: th-cam.com/video/ZzS1ZAulpoY/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #2 - Japanese Invasion of Malaya: th-cam.com/video/mpBGUC8OjE4/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #3 - Japanese attack on Guam, Wake, and the Philippines: th-cam.com/video/MZ4d7Qeyivk/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #4 - Japan Continues Attacking: Borneo, Philippines: th-cam.com/video/MhQrv82HHn8/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #5 - Fall of Wake Island: th-cam.com/video/tgtagewcqKo/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #6 - Battle of Kampar: th-cam.com/video/AGYaghICqkY/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #7 - Battle of Slim River: th-cam.com/video/meWALqmsXxs/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #8 - Battle for the Dutch East Indies: th-cam.com/video/lBwjgesFsFU/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #9 - Invasion of New Britain: th-cam.com/video/rUL538i8Oms/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #10 - Fall of Malaya: th-cam.com/video/z7KaNtn2sFo/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #11 - Battle of Makassar Strait: th-cam.com/video/XJMxr7ED8tI/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #12 - Fall of Singapore: th-cam.com/video/d_xE4CVG3rY/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #13 - Invasion of Sumatra: th-cam.com/video/DA2HKaeu8w4/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #14 - Invasion of Timor: th-cam.com/video/PID0vt52-vY/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #15 - Fall of Java: th-cam.com/video/QOOJcr2DQSQ/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #16 - Fall of Rangoon: th-cam.com/video/oyu7z7wQNqg/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #17 - How the US Responded to Pearl Harbor: th-cam.com/video/z-0liSYA60M/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #18 - Hideki Tojo: Bringing Japan Into The Pacific War: th-cam.com/video/7FO4o-N2fKk/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #19 - Japanese Raids in the Indian Ocean: th-cam.com/video/E75hxwGbFHE/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #20 - Fall of Bataan & The Bataan Death March: th-cam.com/video/gZsxpgNwxYc/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #21 - Doolittle Raid: th-cam.com/video/TTM2HR3Mtyo/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #22 - Japanese Advance on Burma Road: th-cam.com/video/bdJ_373NyME/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #24 - Battle of the Coral Sea: th-cam.com/video/kMX7Y6Njc9A/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #25 - Fall of the Philippines: th-cam.com/video/AEwH8oQk6H8/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #26 - Fall of Burma: th-cam.com/video/LyHqNY_p27Y/w-d-xo.html Pacific War #27 - Operation Sei-Go: th-cam.com/video/6Ta_eum5hdU/w-d-xo.html
Hey Kings and Generals, I appreciate really what you’re doing regarding the pacific war, it’s really informative and entertaining. I have a few things to say: 1) How’s the Chennault and the flying tigers episode going and when is it going to be released? 2) I have created a playlist called Pacific War: Week by week - Supplementary Content which includes five videos that you guys for more information regarding the pacific war which is battle of Tsushima 1904-1905, battle of Sihang warehouse 1937, battle of khalkin gol 1939, battle of Taranto 1940, and battle of Hong Kong 1941. If you’re interested about the playlist, feel free to reply back and I’ll sent the link to you via email. 3) Can you do a video about the battle of lake khasan 1938 like you guys regarding the battle of khalkin gol 1939? and 4) a person named Arthur Fields and myself realized that you made a mistake regarding the two-side ship comparison of the battle of midway at the end of the video which is episode #28 where for the US side should be USS Hornet, USS Enterprise, and USS Yorktown and definitely not the USS Lexington because specifically the USS Lexington (CV-2) was sunk on May 8th, 1942 after the battle of the coral sea and nowhere near the timeline of the battle of midway from May 31 - June 7th, 1942. Please check episode #28 at 24:23 frame of the video to notice the error. Thank you for reading and please reply back soon.
@KingsandGenerals I think that y’all made a mistake, you put USS Lexington as fighting in the battle of Midway, did you mean to put USS Hornet instead when you put out the two sides ship compliments?
@@arthurfields9575 I checked of what you said, yeah, you’re right. It should be the uss hornet in the end comparing the us navy to the ijn, not the uss Lexington because that ship sunk after the battle of the coral sea. Good observation there, I didn’t realize that. Thank you for pointing that out.
@@dominicguye8058 I'll assume you're not familiar with the Monkey's Paw. It's from a story about a family that comes into possession of a mummified Monkey's Paw that can grant 3 wishes, but at a terrible price. They wish for stuff, but the price they pay far surpasses what they gained Yamamoto wished for a decisive battle with the USN, and that's what he got. Midway was a disaster for the IJN and Yamamoto's fleet was left crippled. His wish was granted, but the price he paid left him in a much worse state than he had been prior to the wish.
That's not how I see it going... I feel like McClusky's arrival isn't the gut punch...it's when his bombs connected with the first two CVs. At the point he arrived, the Kido Butai had been under continual air attack for over two hours. Over and over and over again the American planes came, missed, and were shot down or chased away. But they still kept coming. And then, the IJN carriers 'luck' ran out...and they paid heavily for their poor defense systems and terrible damage control.
Highly recommended Montemayor video on Japanese perspective of the Battle of Miday. Very informative and shows how the US intelligence, Japanese overestimating their own strength, superior US engineering which made American carriers considerably tougher compared to the Japanese counterparts and a stroke of lucks for Americans led to this monumental victory. His video on the Battle of Coral sea is also very good.
Hmm... I'm not sure US carriers were particularly tougher because of their engineering, although they probably were better the US had several advantages going into the war - lessons of damage control learnt in the North Sea and Mediteranian, including the time spent repairing and investigating HMS Victorious plus the lessons learnt regarding use of radar and fighter control - again something that the Japanese had not experienced. The main contribution of US engineering was the ability to produce new carriers and aircraft - something that Japan couldn't do. The other factors that were important were the "fleet problem" exercises which had practiced most of the scenarios in the past (including actually one very similar to Pearl Harbour... embarrassingly). Plus poor Japanese 25mm AAA and the rather stupid traditional officer corp who insisted on killing themselves...That and quite a bit of luck..
@@ph89787 And therefore after Midway, the IJN never recovered from their aircraft carrier deficit, as the USN started producing the Essex-class aircraft carriers.
I don’t often comment on TH-cam videos, but I must make an exception for this one. This is an absolutely phenomenal series - both informative and entertaining. I just finished reading the “Pacific War Trilogy” by Ian W. Toll and I am fascinated by this period in history (which I believe is vastly understudied and glossed over in many history books). Thank you for such a brilliant series. Keep up the good work!!
Best thing about this series is it isn't all American Propaganda like so many other WWII documentries. Kings And Generals isn't scared to show the American and other Allies mistakes and how they were not just totally unprepared for war but had underestimated their enemy. A lesson we need to think about today as tensions between China and the US escalate.
No matter how many movies, books, documentaries or YT videos I watch about Midway I can never get enough. It's such an insane battle and one of the largest turning points in a war ever.
There are a bunch of europeans on Quora who want to destroy the US, so that they can bring back the old glory of europa, or at the very least overthrow the US and allow China and Russia to claim world domination, so that at least the US won't have it.
I always look forward to your series in the pacific. This theatre is under representation and it's value in history as the European theatre given most historical values. Great job buddy for giving this area prominence
@crassgop the scale really is staggering, for DDay the US alone fielded roughly ~800 full size warships, while at the same time on the same day on the other side of the planet at Saipan an invasion fleet of ~600 warships bore down on the japanese, later for Okinawa over 1800 warships from the allied navies were arrayed against the Japanese. For comparison the US Navy today has fewer than 300 warships
Technically the origins of Midway were right after Pearl Harbor, when after Nagumo failed to find the US carriers at port Yamamoto immediately began planning to bring them to battle and pressuring his superiors to agree. He had largely succeeded by the time the Doolittle Raid occured, so all he had to do was convince the Army to agree. Also, Enterprise's divebombers were able to find the Japanese thanks to an earlier duel between the submarine USS Nautilus and one of the escorting Japanese destroyers; the destroyer had to travel at high speed to rejoin the Kido Butai, and the Americans simply followed her to the Japanese fleet. Other than that, an excellent video, accurate and dramatic. I especially appreciated that you mentioned the Flight to Nowhere and the fact that the Japanese flight decks were empty and the gravest damage occurred in the hanger decks.
Nagumo has been called Yamamoto's achilles heel. While Yamamoto outranked him, nagumo was his "social" superior and in Japan that counted for alot(still does to some extent)
@@patrickjeffers7864 Yamamoto did plenty of fucking up himself; he was right about how powerful the US was, but he went about dealing with that in the worst way possible. His strategy of rapid expansion, a departure from previous Japanese war plans, played straight into the revised versions of War Plan Orange, which abandoned the original plans for an immediate strike against Japan and involved retreating from most of the Pacific and letting Japan take over, while the American war industry geared up for a massive counterstrike against a now-overextended Japan. Which is basically what happened (though the specifics of when and how that American counterstrike happened was rather different from prewar expectations). Furthermore, in this particular operation his errors were ultimately what caused the most damage to his own side (denying that the American carriers could outflank them in the way they did in the actual battle, bringing battleships along for no reason and wasting fuel/taking himself out of the actual battle when it was the Kido Butai that was supposed to be dealing with the American carriers, adding way too many secondary objectives to the operation, etc).
@@oneofspades In their book "Shattered Sword" Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully tell a story of how in mid-May, the Japanese admirals gathered to wargame the upcoming Midway operation. Instead of honestly going over the plan and trying to find weaknesses to rectify, they were more interested in rubber-stamping what they felt was already a perfect plan. Twice Admiral Ugaki Matome, Yamamoto's chief of staff who was acting as MC, changed the rules to disallow the Americans from inflicting serious damage on the Japanese; and when Yamamoto himself suggested the possibility of the Americans doing something unexpected, Genda Minoru scornfully stated that "one touch of the armored gauntlet" would be enough to ensure victory.
Lt Best lost his brother in Pearl Harbor, and then in Midway he leads his wing of only 3 planes to target the Japanese flagship Akagi, with Best himself landing the killing blow. Of all the tens of thousands of men in that battle, and the fate of the entire Pacific war on the line, it came down to a _single_ man avenging his brother.
"Funny how often the wheels of human history hinge on family affairs." Misquoting the french king from the movie ''The King'' which is riddled with historical innacurracies, but that quote really stuck with me
This is why I love history, especially as well-presented as it is here: no matter how many times I've read about, watched videos about, or even played video games about Midway and know the conclusion to the battle, it's always a nail-biter. I can't help but feel the pain of the failures of the first American waves, the crescendo of excitement at McClusky's arrival, and the anxiety about the ultimate fate of the resilient Yorktown. To me, it's better drama than the best fiction.
"I can run wild for six months to a year, winning battle after battle. If the war lasts longer than that, I have no hopes for victory." Admiral Yamamoto
I can't remember where on earth I saw it, but I recall reading somewhere that Yamamoto knew the future of sea-bourne warfare was the aircraft carrier, and he knew that when they couldn't destroy U.S. aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor that the worst was yet to come. Damn I wish I remembered the source and google isn't bringing any help sadly. Anyway, the point is that I'm giving context to what you're saying here, G. Admiral. *shakes fist in fury at the universe for my memory*
@@solomonthefoolish Yamamoto is an odd case. On one hand he advocated air power heavily, but on the other he still ran his fleet like battleships were the decisive element to be held back for the Kantai Kessen.
@@solomonthefoolish yes there were. Most of the Kido Butai officers did(minus Nagumo ironically who was often placed in charge of it) There was a very sharp divide among the IJN.
Yamamoto told the high command before Pearl Harbor that he could "run wild" for 6 months before the US's industrial capacity would bury him. How prophetic. He about got it right, but he lost 2 months. The US Navy intelligence started to break their codes 3 months into it. Coral Sea was a test of those code-breakers with deciphering the code and finding the Japanese were heading south. Midway was a fruition of those efforts. Could the "turning point" have been when the Navy was reading the Japanese codes?
😒 , could be Yamamoto figured six months even without any code breaking going on. Japan was hoping we were soft and simply would not care about the welfare of the Pacific Rim. Unfortunately for them, they believed their own propaganda concerning the 🇺🇸. Many commanders not blinded by Bushido knew Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the end for Imperial Japan, six months of running wild or not.
@@michaelsmyth3935 I agree. I don't think Togo rationalized his moves, but that racism thing reared it's ugly head. How foreigners were inferior and all that clap-trap. Yamamoto, who had been in the US as Naval Attache', had seen American industrial capabilities but was ignored. Togo was Army and Yamamoto was Navy and the Army ran the show. After the loss of 4 fleet carriers and all the aircrews, I think even Yamamoto saw the writing on the wall, but continuee to do his duty. A lot of Yamamoto's plans broke the KISS rule, Keep It Simple Stupid. He had way too many layers to his plans. Great ideas, but one part goes wrong the whole thing comes crashing down to failure.
@@paulceglinski3087 True, his plans should have been more simplified, then again what if the Americans didn't had the information they had and actually were taken by surprise? For all we know then his plans could turn out successfully and might be seen as a masterstroke. In end it is easy to see for us how his plans were overly complicated and from our point of view flexibility and taking into account the possible breaking of the codes should have been a focus, but that is why it is called hindsight.
@@MDP1702 I agree, but we're starting to get into the land of "what if". His plans were excellent,a little over the top, but excellent. Simple plans almost have a fail safe attached because the planner has no real idea what's happening on the other side of the hill. Napoleon said, I think it was him, no plan survives first contact with the enemy and Yamamoto's plans were like a script, very little if any flexibility. That's the watch word of a great planner, flexibility. If your opponent does something unexpected and your plan is not flexible or adaptable to the new situation it's just a matter of time before you get beat.
That moment when the most decorated ship of the US Navy ever has technically sunk 2 of the 4 Japanese carriers on Midway with a 3rd as a kill assist.....
@@alexandersturnn4530 20 battle stars, 911 planes shot down and 71 ships sunk. Its just awesome that after a submarine for a first kill, she technically sunk 3 aircraft carriers.
My Grandpa on my mom's side fought in the Pacific on the USS Hazelwood. While my grandpa on my dad's side fought in the European theater as a US army sniper. Learning about what either one went through is always so interesting to me, so thank you for covering it!
Imagine losing 3 fleet carriers, as well as numerous capable, well-trained, experienced commanders, pilots, technicians in a single day. If I were Yamamoto, I'd have a mental breakdown.
The war would be far from over but yeah I just could not imagine being responsible for basically the crippling of my fleet with irreplaceable losses and only the Yamato class to fall back on when I know that my strategic window is closing rapidly. It is amazing that he did not have a mental breakdown and resign right there.
If I was in Yamamotos shoes, I would have felt sick to my stomach. After the battle, officers asked Yamamoto how they should apologize to the Emperor for their failure. Yamamoto said that he was the only one who had to apologize to his Majesty. And Hirohito was quite lenient towards him, given the disastrous outcome. The Japanese government went to great extent to cover up the outcome of the Midway battle.
@@wolfu597 yeah from what I understand they did their damnedest to cover it up mostly so the army wouldn't know the true scale of the disaster. But from here you see the shift to defensive strategy making the Pacific a giant fortress and also just seemingly the general hope that the Japanese would make the war so horrific for Americans that they just would not have the stomach to make it all the way to Japan. With the Brits and ANZACs mostly focused on defense in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific Islands and India, and then the major focus of the army being final victory in China this idea of just sheer brutality to deter The Americans on offense seems to have merit. When you look at what the Japanese have in 1943 that's really the only course of action that they can pursue. I'm not saying the Japanese won't continue to attack because they will have major combat around Guadalcanal, but it seems like for the most part the strategy of just aggressive defense with pretty much be this policy until the end, the idea that the Japanese fighting spirit will carry them through to the end.
They lost 110 pilots and aircrew. This point is usually forgotten in ALL video or TV programs about Midway, only focussing on 4 carriers and 280 airplanes losses. The bomber pilots were lost in Guadalcanal campaign, both Land based and Carrier borne bombers. Fighters were worn down during Solomons and Rabaul campaigns. Japan still had some great pilots/crews left after Midway. They just weren't very mobile enough to give hammer blows at the points of attack. The other thing never mentioned is the aviation mechanics losses. Japanese only had a small cadre of mechanics in their entire empire as they didn't have the same know how and initiative to learn about these new "machines" at Commonwealth and US population. Most of the other pre war land based mechanics were left at Rabaul as the war moved on in 1944. The fresh mechanics trained in the war were left in the Philippines and even these guys did a poor job maintaining planes.
Nagumo's dilemma is something I heard about when I was in military classes years ago, but for some reason I didn't ask about it. This video just gave me a Nostalgia-fueled Adrenaline shot of sudden comprehension of a phrase that I feel like I've been hearing for years. Imagine that doesn't get it-gets it ticker from scott pilgrim versus the world. I also learned the /correct/ spelling of dilemma which gave me a headache. People the world over have the 'wrong' spelling thanks to some random british book in 1842. We love to see it lol. The next topic of research is why the hell it has two m's in it anyway. Top marks as always!!!
Thank you for this series. As a Italian and European we underestimated the importance of the Pacific war in our school books that is a crucial part of the second war. Waiting already for the next chapter!
The Battle of Midway proved to everyone of how good the American codebreakers were, as well as how the Japanese poorly calculated the timing, especially the infamous Nagumo's Dilemma
Japan fighting the strongest economy in the world they could not take out (USA), also their main pacific rival, and the UK/Anzac/India... at the same time was alost guaranteed sucide. One whoudl think after the Soviets smacked them up1938 and Japan getting bogged down in China they needed no new major enemies?
Carrier battles are awesome because it's basically chess. If you send up fighters you better have them around for when enemy bombers arrive, if your bombers go up you better know where the enemy fighters are etc. And there are critical minutes of landing to refuel and rearm in between that can absolutely screw you if you time it wrong as the Japanese learned.
@@firingallcylinders2949 One thing to remember is that it didn't take mere minutes to launch a strike in WWII - it took between 45-60 minutes depending on training of the flight crews. What killed the Kido Butai's carriers that day was less the fortuitous arrival of USN dive bombers, and more the fact that all the piecemeal attacks for 2 hours prior tied up those flight crews in servicing the CAP over the IJN carriers.
@@jeffreyestahl exactly, the USN by that time until Midway, were pretty much on low morale, many sailors and pilots were inexperienced, and the US itself was threatened if the Japanese conquered Hawaii. Midway was the actual turning point not only the Pacific Theater, but also the whole of WW2, as I seen on Wikipedia, Japan have to canceled their plan to meet the Germans at the Indian subcontinent. The number of aircraft that the Japanese have were slightly smaller than the American (if u combined 3 US Carriers and the island of Midway)
@@doanphat1480 Most evidence shows that India was never a consideration for Japan. The IJA didn't want it (they understood that 80% of their army was tied up in China); the IJN didn't want to support (they instead wanted to consolidate Indonesia for fuel - the primary reason Japan went to war in the first place). The reasons behind Operations MI and AL were largely Yamamoto's desire for the 2nd. He felt embarrassed about the Doolittle Raid. The presumption was if another major blow could be made to the USN and US morale, the US might be more inclined to recognize Japanese suzerainity over the territories they'd seized in the Pacific. The American public all believe that Midway was the Pacific War's turning point, but I still have to point to the IJN/IJA's campaign to secure Guadalcanal as reason they still believed they could conduct offensives. Nations don't take major offensives if they believe they're on the strategic defensive. Guadalcanal was intended to help cut off Australia from the US. It should also be remembered that Hyakutake (the 17th Army's CO based in Rabaul) was still making plans to reinvade New Guinea even at the time Guadalcanal took place (one of the reasons his response to the Marines landing there was so disjointed; he actually considered it a diversion). Mid to late 1942 was definitely the turning point in the war, but it's likely that no single event precipitated it.
For the Japanese 17th Army back in Rabaul, the outcome of the battle of Midway meant that any chance for a re-run of operation MO, the capture of Port Moresby by a landing operation, were now gone. Forever. But that doesn't mean that they've given up on Port Moresby, as we're looking forward to the covering of the New Guinea campaign.
We take this battle as a given, but it should never be understated how powerful the Japanese navy was and how well they fought despite enemies having massive intel advantage.
what impresses me is that most of these pilots on both sides knew they were going on suicide missions, yet they flew, given their best every time. Imagine your plane shot and you are floating on the ocean, but because the fight is not yet done there is no rescue mission launched, because there are bigger fishes to fry than you in the ocean.
@@best5345 its a different matter of how both country took care of their pilots. Americans would rescue any salvageable pilots as they know the value of these peoples. At the other hand, japanese would send their pilots on a suicide mission and die gracefully for imperial ambition. That just wont win any country a war
For a navy as badly crippled by Pearl Harbor debacle, the Coral Sea and Midway victories are quite amazing. In six months, an untried Navy went from desperate defense to a tentative offense.
Coral Sea was a tactical loss to the Americans, but their bravery left Japanese not achieving their goal of capturing Port Moresby. Poor Japanese intelligence played in favor of the Allies.
It's interesting to consider what options Japan really had in the East. Personally I think combined with intelligence/code breaking, Coral Sea was as significant as Midway- Had all the carriers been present at Midway it could well have gone the other way... I don't think they ever recovered from Midway...
Jonathan Parshall just did a video with Drachinifel yesterday running through the results of a new stochastic salvo model of variations of the battle, and, strikingly, it consistently shows the Japanese decisively losing Midway even if Zuikaku (the one other intact Kido Butai fleet carrier) had been present.
The fact remains, USA could have lost all 3 carriers and all their aircrews but they would have won the war. Somewhere in 1942 or early 1943, there had to be an attritional campaigns as every other war, as the Japanese rubber band reached its limits of its supply. US only needed to apply attrition tactics like they did in the Solomons and pry out a carrier or two through submarines or opportune moment via Intel. 5th Air Force in Australia or mass (carrier/ships) fleets would have started to overwhelm the Japanese air groups or their fleet through the degrading/loss of elite units/pilots at some point. That is also disregarding Japanese military leadership poor and their poor tactics and doctrine in campaign/long term wars which led to many needless losses as well throughoutthe war. It might have been expensive in Allied lives and the war may have ended in 1946 but a favourable Allied peace terms were enviable But that view is not sexy. What the US built for the Navy in 1944 alone would have defeated the rest of the world's navy combined in 1941 including the US pre-war fleet! And a 1945 or 1946 built fleet was on the stocks as well...if it was needed.
Even had all the carriers been present, it wouldn't have mattered that much: the US could always decline battle and pull out of range, and the garrison had 1700 soldiers well prepared for battle, with the 5-inch guns guarding the beaches having gone apparently unnoticed by the bombers that had attacked, supported by underground concrete bunkers, with plenty of machine guns and ammo. If the Japanese attempted to land despite this, it would have been infantry with no tank support fighting an enemy with superior equipment and 5 light tanks acting in reserve, and the IJN had somehow convinced itself that the Midway garrison had never been reinforced (the Army had better estimates of the manpower, but not its effective strength.) The Japanese would thus have almost zero chance of taking the island without a lengthy bombardment, which would have been such an enormous risk so close to Pearl Harbor that it's almost impossible to believe the Japanese would take it; at the very least, they would never risk keeping most (or any) of their carriers in the area for so long, with submarines possibly in the area.
This is your best work to date. It is amazing how the USA was able to crack the codes of the IJN and to set up the “trap.” Also I can’t believe the Japanese admirals went down with their ship.
As a subject that has received numerous videos of what happened, I still love that you did your usual detailed account of the battle. Excellently done and just a pleasure to watch. The narrator is in a class to himself. Keep up the great work. Love this series!
I've heard it said that the US had four carriers at the Battle of Midway: Yorktown, Enterprise, Hornet, . . . and the island of Midway itself - an unsinkable carrier.
WoW, this battle could have ended much more differently. Respect all naval soldiers , pilots who fought in the battle. especially engineers of the Yorktown.
I really liked how well detailed the battle is narrated and described, showing a lot of perspectives and background to the role both sides played in the battle. My only criticisms however is that there was no mention of the role the submarine Nautilus played during the engagement, and there was no mention of Dick Best who scored hits on the Akagi and Hiryu, the only pilot to ever hit two carriers successfully.
Excellent narration. At the end of the video where losses are being totaled (24:20) the USS Lexington is listed as one of the three US Carriers that took part, despite it being sunk a month earlier.
Well done. For those who want a movie appreciation I recommend the 1976 movie Midway. Even though it's Hollywood the sequence of events is accurate and it has some detail on Nagumo's dilemma of waiting to carry out a doctrinal correct attack or attack immediately the aircraft he had on hand. Nagumo's dilemma is a cautionary tale. The adherence of doctrine is commendable but it leads to a bad decision by Nagumo. Commanders know when to follow the principles of war and know when to break them. Fletcher, who had experience, was in overall command but willfully violated the principal of mass by separating his task forces instead of keeping them together.
Nagumo didn't have a choice. Had he launched the strike early, he would have been unable to land the Midway strike in time and lost almost a hundred planes to ditching. Even if the early strike had reached its goal and sunk 1-2 carriers, Nagumo now has less than half his strike force available, and would have still lost carriers to the already initiated American attack. Nagumo made the right choice tactically, but strategically, the Japanese plan was flawed from the beginning and no action by Nagumo at that point would have saved the mission.
@@evankohne5053 from the Japanese point of view he didn't have a choice. Personality comes into play as the weight of responsibility weighed on Nagumo. That being said I do not believe that Nagumo closed the distance in order to close the range so his Midway strike did not have to fly as far to be recovered. That being said when the Japanese war gamed their attack on Midway, the Japanese officers who played the Americans did what Nimitz did and ambushed the Japanese. Nagumo cried foul so they forced the Americans to adhere to the Japanese plan that did not account for an American ambush.
I needed this 3 weeks ago for my History Class. Come on KaG....I need your stuff for teaching! In all seriousness love your stuff and it has educated many a student in my classroom.
Ah a nice way to relax before my exams.... Great job as always 😊 I remember the movie Midway but seeing this video is a great way to learn abt the battle as it happened exactly
One thing left out was that Yorktowns air group had replaced its losses at Coral Sea with planes from the drydocked Saratoga. The Japanese were not able to replace losses to Zuikaku's losses easily so it was left behind.
It took them I think about 3 to 4 months to totally bring the air craft numbers back to pre-Coral Sea levels. And even then, all of those pilots were raw recruits that lacked the extensive combat experience really needed to be highly effective.
Nice pun but it's 1942, there's 3 more years of this horrendous campaign. After this comes the brutal island hopping. I can't wait for Guadalcanal, Pelelieu, Cape Gloucester, Tarawa, Iwo, Okinawa....such crazy defenses of those islands.
Despite the US Navy having a strong contingent of battleship-centric leaders, war games before WW2 revealed the nature of successful carrier tactics. USN WW2 carriers were strike-first weapons, with limited ability to survive an attack. Those USN carrier tactics are portrayed well in this video.
I've seen two movies on this battle. One was okay and the other good IMO. But neither comes close to capturing what the battle was really like. A docu-drama should be made on this battle one day. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.
Love this piece of History, I've studied it since I was a kid. The original Midway movie got me interested. I ended up serving on an old Essex Class carrier that battled in the Pacific War, The Blue Ghost from 89-91. I was proud to be there for sure. She's a museum now in Corpus Christy TX. Visit if you can, it's awesome to see her adorned with vintage Hellcats, Avengers, Corsairs and the like. We had T2, A4 and A6, A7's when I was onboard.
@@barbiquearea they went from a grand IJN fleet the famed Kido Butai; to by the end of the war they were dumping crude oil in their ships just to have something to make them move, and it destroyed the engines.
Yes and No. Midway was a "end of the beginning" kind of battle (like the Battle of Britain in western Europe), but it's arguable that the real turning point (due to the Japanese Empire still making offensives in the Solomons even after Midway) was the grind at Guadalcanal. The IJN over the course of 4 major battles in a fairly small naval operations area lost 25 major warships. The USN lost the same number, but the replacement rate was enormously in favor of the Americans. Guadalcanal became the very last thing the IJN could afford - a war of attrition. On land, the IJA's 17th Army was still focused on New Guinea and didn't take the landings at the Florida Islands and Guadalcanal seriously, leading to a piecemeal response. I don't ascribe to the "Victory Disease" argument forwarded by Fuchida Mitsuo after the war (it's too apologist - BTW, it was Mitsuo who created the "6 minutes of destiny" myth about Midway), however, it IS arguable that the IJA/IJN seriously underestimated all combatants after those early victories, leading to a culturally elitist arrogance that cost them dearly.
@@firingallcylinders2949 Yeah they also had to convert some of their ships to using coal as well. Yamamoto should have called it quits and ordered a general retreat after suffering so much loses but instead he decided to go all in like mad gambler thinking they could turn things around with that all or nothing mentality.
In that battle, the IJN lost more than 3000 men that were the cream of the crop in experience... Pilots, experience aircraft mechanics and other sailors in all jobs that you can do in a carrier!
Guys I love this channel! From the 6 day war back to ww2 and back to Russias war on Ukraine, they always keep me looking forward to looking at new content! With that said shout out to the channel guys? You are doing a helluva job guys!
Another excellent video. Could it be that once the series is complete a massive full length video could be in the works? Well made, excellent animation and flawless narration seems to be Kings and Generals calling card. Outstanding! Thanks K&G for another great video.
Between the US, Canadian, and British (and resistance forces) they dominated the code breaking part of the war and it won them countless engagements. On the flip side Japan never figured out how the Navajo language worked.
In the end, luck also played a huge part in this battle. The fact that the planes were launched into different groups by delays and subsequently arrived and attack one after another eventually drawing all patrol fighters down low to allow for the dive bombers to attack without fighter intercepting them.
The way Yorktown's crew repair the damage and keep her fighting is one of the best feats they performed that day unfortunately they are attack again. Luckily they were rrssurected as an Essex Class carrier.
Great video! The only things I would are the fact that the torpedo bombers occupied the attention of the Zero fighters, leaving the skies virtually fighterless and the carriers unprotected. Secondly, Jimmy Thach played a major role in this battle: introducing the Thach Weave which wreaked havoc on, and commanded the attention of, many Zero pilots. Lastly, you said "unfortunately Tomanaga missed his torpedo strikes." Whose side are you on!? 🤣🤣🤣 Lol
Also, it's never been confirmed, but it is generally believed that Thach himself shot down Kobayashi during the first attack on Yorktown. And Tomonaga adamantly refused to swap planes even though several other pilots offered to do so (his damaged fuel tank was never repaired).
@@joshuariddensdale2126 the Tomanaga part (I beleive) has been confirmed. The Thach part, I've heard as well but have not read anywhere that it was definitive nir confirmed.
Best and his bombers were from Enterprise. McClusky and Bests squadrons both initially dived on Kaga, McClusky broke doctrine and dived on the first carrier he seen and Best only pulled out in time so He could go after Akagi.
Outstanding. What a triumph of a video. Excellent visuals, thoroughly researched commentary and highly entertaining WWII material. Looking forward to more videos.
Although often overlooked as a pinprick, Doolittle's raid was actually the impetus to the Battle of Midway. Yamamoto locked himself into his cabin for at least a day and was quite depressed about the fact that the Emperor was attacked. It led directly to him deciding to destroy the American carriers still floating.
This is a really good video but it leaves out a lot of very interesting details. It's understandable because it would've made the video very long. That said I appreciate that they mention that the airstrikes didn't sink Yorktown most videos and even some documentaries leave that out. If you're interested in more details but aren't a big reader Drachinifel did a Midway video with Jon Parshall that's really good. Thank you Kings and Generals this series is amazing.
Japan was a nation that was limited in terms of its manufacturing capability and personnel training. Losing the fleet carriers was a mortal blow to their ability to contest the seas. The air crews in particular were a stinging blow.
One thing you did not mention in this video is that McClusky screwed up. He sent Enterprise's entire detachment of dive bombers after Kaga when you are supposed to split the air forces to attack different ships. Richard Best recognized the mistake and pulled off with himself and his wingmen. Best's detachment redirected towards Akagi, and were in such a hurry to make their dives they didn't have time to shift out of their "Vic" formation into the line-astern normally used for dive bomber attacks. Best's wingmen missed, but Best scored a single hit on Akagi's deck.
Started it's rise with a "Battleship vs Battleship Battle" (Tsushima: 1905) against a Superpower. Started it's downfall with a "Carrier vs Carrier Battle" (Midway: 1942) against a Superpower. What a coincidence for IJN.
I know you mentioned it in a sidenote, on the bottom of the screen and the video but I think it deserve more attention about how Wade McCluskey and the dauntless dive bomber. Enterprise came across the Japanese ships by following the Japanese destroyer Arashi, because it has stayed behind to hunt, the submarine USS Nautilus was a big factor in the battle outcome.
Good video. The channel Montemayor has the best video I have ever seen on this battle (and a few other WW2 naval engagements). Called something like Midway from the Japanese Perspective. I highly recommend it!
They lost 110 pilots and aircrew. This point is usually forgotten in ALL video or TV programs about Midway, only focussing on 4 carriers and 280 airplanes losses. The bomber pilots were lost in Guadalcanal campaign, both Land based and Carrier borne bombers. Fighters were worn down during Solomons and Rabaul campaigns. Japan still had some great pilots/crews left after Midway. They just weren't very mobile enough to give hammer blows at the points of attack in the future campaign. The other thing never mentioned is the aviation mechanics losses. Japanese only had a small cadre of mechanics in their entire empire as they didn't have the same know how or enthusiasm as the Americans did. The Japanese land based mechanics were left behind at Rabaul in 1944 as the war moved on.
They completely lost their cream of the crop after Santa Cruz. Which to be honest, that battle had presented them their last chance to reverse the turning point in Midway but they did not.
At 24:14, you list what forces were involved at Midway. However, it wasn't USS Lexington at Midway as she was lost at Coral Sea. Instead, as part of TF16, USS Hornet was there. But in all, it was a decisive victory, just not for Yamamoto. Instead, it was for Nimitz. This was the battle that turned the tide for the US Navy and Marine Corps in the Pacific
It's nice that your ad here is about D-Day because I tend to watch Midway (the old one with Mr Miyagi in it) and Saving Private Ryan every June 04 and 06. This year I think I'll watch the less talky, updated special effects version of the Midway movie. And this documentary (Operations Room's). --- Re: the battleships from Pearl Harbor, they weren't used not because battleships were utterly useless, but that these specific battleships were. Not all had modern radar and fire direction for the AA guns (and since they weren't fighting the British, this wasn't an advantage; see: Bisrmack vs Swordfish), but most importantly, they can't even reach the same top speed as the modern carriers. This is why during the Leyte invasion the Pearl Harbor survivors were all in the 7th Fleet bombardment group (that they fought the last battleship gun battle was not part of the original plan), while the newer battleships were in the 3rd fleet escorting the carriers, which were otherwise still useful as either oversized Atlantas for escorting carriers while they can be detached for surface action and have more firepower to sink battleships while being capable of taking way more pummeling than the Atlanta did.
Capture of Port Moresby was 1 month behind the NGS schedule (10April). MO needed a carrier escort of more than Shoho. The Kido Butai needed a rest after 6 months of combat (18Nov - 20April) and CarDiv 5 the least experienced, also had 2 months of training in home waters (Dec41- Feb42) were the least fatigued. Ryjuo needed refit as well. MO and AL was more important to NGS and Japan as a whole than a specific campaign ( MI was Combined Fleet). You could call it Yamamoto Dilemma but some carriers had to go south. It was logical to sent at least CarDiv 5, if not the whole 1st Air Fleet. They just had to be back in Japan by 25 May for a 26 May departure from Kure. Maybe Yamamoto could have delayed his plan by a month, but that gives the Americans another month to prepare.
There were plenty of bad decisions by Yamamoto that led to the defeat. Detaching CarDiv 5 to the Coral Sea was certainly one, but there were a lot of others.
Pacific War #1 - Attack on Pearl Harbor: th-cam.com/video/ZzS1ZAulpoY/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #2 - Japanese Invasion of Malaya: th-cam.com/video/mpBGUC8OjE4/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #3 - Japanese attack on Guam, Wake, and the Philippines: th-cam.com/video/MZ4d7Qeyivk/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #4 - Japan Continues Attacking: Borneo, Philippines: th-cam.com/video/MhQrv82HHn8/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #5 - Fall of Wake Island: th-cam.com/video/tgtagewcqKo/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #6 - Battle of Kampar: th-cam.com/video/AGYaghICqkY/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #7 - Battle of Slim River: th-cam.com/video/meWALqmsXxs/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #8 - Battle for the Dutch East Indies: th-cam.com/video/lBwjgesFsFU/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #9 - Invasion of New Britain: th-cam.com/video/rUL538i8Oms/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #10 - Fall of Malaya: th-cam.com/video/z7KaNtn2sFo/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #11 - Battle of Makassar Strait: th-cam.com/video/XJMxr7ED8tI/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #12 - Fall of Singapore: th-cam.com/video/d_xE4CVG3rY/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #13 - Invasion of Sumatra: th-cam.com/video/DA2HKaeu8w4/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #14 - Invasion of Timor: th-cam.com/video/PID0vt52-vY/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #15 - Fall of Java: th-cam.com/video/QOOJcr2DQSQ/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #16 - Fall of Rangoon: th-cam.com/video/oyu7z7wQNqg/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #17 - How the US Responded to Pearl Harbor: th-cam.com/video/z-0liSYA60M/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #18 - Hideki Tojo: Bringing Japan Into The Pacific War: th-cam.com/video/7FO4o-N2fKk/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #19 - Japanese Raids in the Indian Ocean: th-cam.com/video/E75hxwGbFHE/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #20 - Fall of Bataan & The Bataan Death March: th-cam.com/video/gZsxpgNwxYc/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #21 - Doolittle Raid: th-cam.com/video/TTM2HR3Mtyo/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #22 - Japanese Advance on Burma Road: th-cam.com/video/bdJ_373NyME/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #24 - Battle of the Coral Sea: th-cam.com/video/kMX7Y6Njc9A/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #25 - Fall of the Philippines: th-cam.com/video/AEwH8oQk6H8/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #26 - Fall of Burma: th-cam.com/video/LyHqNY_p27Y/w-d-xo.html
Pacific War #27 - Operation Sei-Go: th-cam.com/video/6Ta_eum5hdU/w-d-xo.html
What happened to #23?
Hey Kings and Generals, I appreciate really what you’re doing regarding the pacific war, it’s really informative and entertaining. I have a few things to say: 1) How’s the Chennault and the flying tigers episode going and when is it going to be released? 2) I have created a playlist called Pacific War: Week by week - Supplementary Content which includes five videos that you guys for more information regarding the pacific war which is battle of Tsushima 1904-1905, battle of Sihang warehouse 1937, battle of khalkin gol 1939, battle of Taranto 1940, and battle of Hong Kong 1941. If you’re interested about the playlist, feel free to reply back and I’ll sent the link to you via email. 3) Can you do a video about the battle of lake khasan 1938 like you guys regarding the battle of khalkin gol 1939? and 4) a person named Arthur Fields and myself realized that you made a mistake regarding the two-side ship comparison of the battle of midway at the end of the video which is episode #28 where for the US side should be USS Hornet, USS Enterprise, and USS Yorktown and definitely not the USS Lexington because specifically the USS Lexington (CV-2) was sunk on May 8th, 1942 after the battle of the coral sea and nowhere near the timeline of the battle of midway from May 31 - June 7th, 1942. Please check episode #28 at 24:23 frame of the video to notice the error. Thank you for reading and please reply back soon.
Make a Video about Japanese Yakuza
@KingsandGenerals I think that y’all made a mistake, you put USS Lexington as fighting in the battle of Midway, did you mean to put USS Hornet instead when you put out the two sides ship compliments?
@@arthurfields9575 I checked of what you said, yeah, you’re right. It should be the uss hornet in the end comparing the us navy to the ijn, not the uss Lexington because that ship sunk after the battle of the coral sea. Good observation there, I didn’t realize that. Thank you for pointing that out.
Yamamoto certainly got the decisive battle he wanted.
Certified Monkey's Paw moment
@@UnNuclear ????
@@dominicguye8058 I'll assume you're not familiar with the Monkey's Paw. It's from a story about a family that comes into possession of a mummified Monkey's Paw that can grant 3 wishes, but at a terrible price. They wish for stuff, but the price they pay far surpasses what they gained
Yamamoto wished for a decisive battle with the USN, and that's what he got. Midway was a disaster for the IJN and Yamamoto's fleet was left crippled. His wish was granted, but the price he paid left him in a much worse state than he had been prior to the wish.
Only not the way he planned. 😏
@@dominicguye8058 whoosh
McClusky’s arrival was truly some Star Wars-level entrance.
That's not how I see it going...
I feel like McClusky's arrival isn't the gut punch...it's when his bombs connected with the first two CVs.
At the point he arrived, the Kido Butai had been under continual air attack for over two hours. Over and over and over again the American planes came, missed, and were shot down or chased away. But they still kept coming.
And then, the IJN carriers 'luck' ran out...and they paid heavily for their poor defense systems and terrible damage control.
When The Force decided that the japanese has had enough
Basically the Ride of the Rohirrim for naval air warfare.
maclunkey
Star Wars' battles were very much modelled on WWII carrier warfare, so that's a fairly apt comparison
"The fate of a battle depends on a single moment." - Napoleon Bonaparte
Highly recommended Montemayor video on Japanese perspective of the Battle of Miday. Very informative and shows how the US intelligence, Japanese overestimating their own strength, superior US engineering which made American carriers considerably tougher compared to the Japanese counterparts and a stroke of lucks for Americans led to this monumental victory.
His video on the Battle of Coral sea is also very good.
Attention to detail
The best videos on the topic. I wish he had help to produce more videos
Watch Invicta's video about the battle of Midway too. The one telling the story in that video was great
His Pearl Harbor video is the best I've seen on the attack.
Hmm... I'm not sure US carriers were particularly tougher because of their engineering, although they probably were better the US had several advantages going into the war - lessons of damage control learnt in the North Sea and Mediteranian, including the time spent repairing and investigating HMS Victorious plus the lessons learnt regarding use of radar and fighter control - again something that the Japanese had not experienced. The main contribution of US engineering was the ability to produce new carriers and aircraft - something that Japan couldn't do. The other factors that were important were the "fleet problem" exercises which had practiced most of the scenarios in the past (including actually one very similar to Pearl Harbour... embarrassingly). Plus poor Japanese 25mm AAA and the rather stupid traditional officer corp who insisted on killing themselves...That and quite a bit of luck..
Japan:" We have 6 months to secure our empire"
USA:" It's been 6 months, play time is over"
Japanese Admirals: Ay yo wtf is that the Yorktown???
The Yorktown: I never yielded, and as you can see I am not dead!
@@firingallcylinders2949 Yorktown: If you strike me down i shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
@@ph89787 1943: CV-10 has joined the battle
@@ph89787 And therefore after Midway, the IJN never recovered from their aircraft carrier deficit, as the USN started producing the Essex-class aircraft carriers.
@@Duomaxwell02M not to mention the Independence-Class light carriers and hundreds of escort carriers.
I don’t often comment on TH-cam videos, but I must make an exception for this one. This is an absolutely phenomenal series - both informative and entertaining. I just finished reading the “Pacific War Trilogy” by Ian W. Toll and I am fascinated by this period in history (which I believe is vastly understudied and glossed over in many history books). Thank you for such a brilliant series. Keep up the good work!!
I feel the same!!! I seldom engage w youtube because...internet people. BUT I too feel moved by this one in particular. Cheers!
you were supposed to mention what type of beer you drink too
Understudied? Are you serious?
Best thing about this series is it isn't all American Propaganda like so many other WWII documentries. Kings And Generals isn't scared to show the American and other Allies mistakes and how they were not just totally unprepared for war but had underestimated their enemy. A lesson we need to think about today as tensions between China and the US escalate.
@@jefferynelson lol
No matter how many movies, books, documentaries or YT videos I watch about Midway I can never get enough. It's such an insane battle and one of the largest turning points in a war ever.
This is such a brilliantly done series!
There are a bunch of europeans on Quora who want to destroy the US, so that they can bring back the old glory of europa, or at the very least overthrow the US and allow China and Russia to claim world domination, so that at least the US won't have it.
I always look forward to your series in the pacific. This theatre is under representation and it's value in history as the European theatre given most historical values. Great job buddy for giving this area prominence
Just as much as the rise & fall of Islamic & African empires throughout history.
I think at this point the Korean War is the most under-represented in Western media.
@crassgop the scale really is staggering, for DDay the US alone fielded roughly ~800 full size warships, while at the same time on the same day on the other side of the planet at Saipan an invasion fleet of ~600 warships bore down on the japanese, later for Okinawa over 1800 warships from the allied navies were arrayed against the Japanese. For comparison the US Navy today has fewer than 300 warships
Let's hope people our children don't have to repeat these heroics. Unfortunately it seems mankind never learns from past deeds. God bless you all
Technically the origins of Midway were right after Pearl Harbor, when after Nagumo failed to find the US carriers at port Yamamoto immediately began planning to bring them to battle and pressuring his superiors to agree. He had largely succeeded by the time the Doolittle Raid occured, so all he had to do was convince the Army to agree. Also, Enterprise's divebombers were able to find the Japanese thanks to an earlier duel between the submarine USS Nautilus and one of the escorting Japanese destroyers; the destroyer had to travel at high speed to rejoin the Kido Butai, and the Americans simply followed her to the Japanese fleet.
Other than that, an excellent video, accurate and dramatic. I especially appreciated that you mentioned the Flight to Nowhere and the fact that the Japanese flight decks were empty and the gravest damage occurred in the hanger decks.
Nagumo has been called Yamamoto's achilles heel. While Yamamoto outranked him, nagumo was his "social" superior and in Japan that counted for alot(still does to some extent)
@@patrickjeffers7864 Yamamoto did plenty of fucking up himself; he was right about how powerful the US was, but he went about dealing with that in the worst way possible. His strategy of rapid expansion, a departure from previous Japanese war plans, played straight into the revised versions of War Plan Orange, which abandoned the original plans for an immediate strike against Japan and involved retreating from most of the Pacific and letting Japan take over, while the American war industry geared up for a massive counterstrike against a now-overextended Japan. Which is basically what happened (though the specifics of when and how that American counterstrike happened was rather different from prewar expectations).
Furthermore, in this particular operation his errors were ultimately what caused the most damage to his own side (denying that the American carriers could outflank them in the way they did in the actual battle, bringing battleships along for no reason and wasting fuel/taking himself out of the actual battle when it was the Kido Butai that was supposed to be dealing with the American carriers, adding way too many secondary objectives to the operation, etc).
Success had blinded them. If they weren't so successful maybe they would have realized how vulnerable they are and how dangerous the USN.
Overconfidence was the issue. "luck" just exposed their vulnerability.
@@oneofspades In their book "Shattered Sword" Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully tell a story of how in mid-May, the Japanese admirals gathered to wargame the upcoming Midway operation. Instead of honestly going over the plan and trying to find weaknesses to rectify, they were more interested in rubber-stamping what they felt was already a perfect plan. Twice Admiral Ugaki Matome, Yamamoto's chief of staff who was acting as MC, changed the rules to disallow the Americans from inflicting serious damage on the Japanese; and when Yamamoto himself suggested the possibility of the Americans doing something unexpected, Genda Minoru scornfully stated that "one touch of the armored gauntlet" would be enough to ensure victory.
I doesn't matter how many times a channel has made a battle of Midway video. I will always watch them and most importantly, love them.
Lt Best lost his brother in Pearl Harbor, and then in Midway he leads his wing of only 3 planes to target the Japanese flagship Akagi, with Best himself landing the killing blow.
Of all the tens of thousands of men in that battle, and the fate of the entire Pacific war on the line, it came down to a _single_ man avenging his brother.
Best also got a hit on Hiryu later in the day. A pretty good day for him. Only Dusty Kleiss had a better one.
"Funny how often the wheels of human history hinge on family affairs." Misquoting the french king from the movie ''The King'' which is riddled with historical innacurracies, but that quote really stuck with me
He sunk two carriers that day from what I remember.
@@richardmalcolm1457 q
@@NotOurRemedy He had some help on Hiryu, though...
This is why I love history, especially as well-presented as it is here: no matter how many times I've read about, watched videos about, or even played video games about Midway and know the conclusion to the battle, it's always a nail-biter. I can't help but feel the pain of the failures of the first American waves, the crescendo of excitement at McClusky's arrival, and the anxiety about the ultimate fate of the resilient Yorktown. To me, it's better drama than the best fiction.
"I can run wild for six months to a year, winning battle after battle. If the war lasts longer than that, I have no hopes for victory." Admiral Yamamoto
I can't remember where on earth I saw it, but I recall reading somewhere that Yamamoto knew the future of sea-bourne warfare was the aircraft carrier, and he knew that when they couldn't destroy U.S. aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor that the worst was yet to come. Damn I wish I remembered the source and google isn't bringing any help sadly. Anyway, the point is that I'm giving context to what you're saying here, G. Admiral. *shakes fist in fury at the universe for my memory*
@@solomonthefoolish Yamamoto is an odd case. On one hand he advocated air power heavily, but on the other he still ran his fleet like battleships were the decisive element to be held back for the Kantai Kessen.
@@grandadmiralzaarin4962 so was there actually even a Japanese Naval Officer that saw aircraft carriers as the future? Am I misremembering this 🥲
@@solomonthefoolish yes there were. Most of the Kido Butai officers did(minus Nagumo ironically who was often placed in charge of it)
There was a very sharp divide among the IJN.
@@grandadmiralzaarin4962 Welp. *pucks* At least I wasn't totally off course; just got things a bit reversed. Thank you kindly for the history lesson
Yamamoto told the high command before Pearl Harbor that he could "run wild" for 6 months before the US's industrial capacity would bury him. How prophetic. He about got it right, but he lost 2 months. The US Navy intelligence started to break their codes 3 months into it. Coral Sea was a test of those code-breakers with deciphering the code and finding the Japanese were heading south. Midway was a fruition of those efforts. Could the "turning point" have been when the Navy was reading the Japanese codes?
😒 , could be Yamamoto figured six months even without any code breaking going on. Japan was hoping we were soft and simply would not care about the welfare of the Pacific Rim. Unfortunately for them, they believed their own propaganda concerning the 🇺🇸. Many commanders not blinded by Bushido knew Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the end for Imperial Japan, six months of running wild or not.
@@michaelsmyth3935 I agree. I don't think Togo rationalized his moves, but that racism thing reared it's ugly head. How foreigners were inferior and all that clap-trap. Yamamoto, who had been in the US as Naval Attache', had seen American industrial capabilities but was ignored. Togo was Army and Yamamoto was Navy and the Army ran the show. After the loss of 4 fleet carriers and all the aircrews, I think even Yamamoto saw the writing on the wall, but continuee to do his duty. A lot of Yamamoto's plans broke the KISS rule, Keep It Simple Stupid. He had way too many layers to his plans. Great ideas, but one part goes wrong the whole thing comes crashing down to failure.
@@paulceglinski3087 True, his plans should have been more simplified, then again what if the Americans didn't had the information they had and actually were taken by surprise? For all we know then his plans could turn out successfully and might be seen as a masterstroke.
In end it is easy to see for us how his plans were overly complicated and from our point of view flexibility and taking into account the possible breaking of the codes should have been a focus, but that is why it is called hindsight.
@@MDP1702 I agree, but we're starting to get into the land of "what if". His plans were excellent,a little over the top, but excellent. Simple plans almost have a fail safe attached because the planner has no real idea what's happening on the other side of the hill. Napoleon said, I think it was him, no plan survives first contact with the enemy and Yamamoto's plans were like a script, very little if any flexibility. That's the watch word of a great planner, flexibility. If your opponent does something unexpected and your plan is not flexible or adaptable to the new situation it's just a matter of time before you get beat.
@@paulceglinski3087 You mean Tojo right? Togo was the admiral commanding the japanese fleet agains russia in the russo japanese war
That moment when the most decorated ship of the US Navy ever has technically sunk 2 of the 4 Japanese carriers on Midway with a 3rd as a kill assist.....
Well, there is a reason she is the most decorated ship, after all.
@@alexandersturnn4530 20 battle stars, 911 planes shot down and 71 ships sunk. Its just awesome that after a submarine for a first kill, she technically sunk 3 aircraft carriers.
One of them solo’d by a pilot with the Best name ever
@@gurk_the_magnificent9008 Lt. Best brought his best game that day...
The fact that the Enterprise was scrapped and not turned into a floating museum is criminal. At least her name lives on and so does her anchor.
My Grandpa on my mom's side fought in the Pacific on the USS Hazelwood. While my grandpa on my dad's side fought in the European theater as a US army sniper. Learning about what either one went through is always so interesting to me, so thank you for covering it!
As a general history buff, and someone who loves well done documentaries, I love this channel and series.
Imagine losing 3 fleet carriers, as well as numerous capable, well-trained, experienced commanders, pilots, technicians in a single day.
If I were Yamamoto, I'd have a mental breakdown.
The war would be far from over but yeah I just could not imagine being responsible for basically the crippling of my fleet with irreplaceable losses and only the Yamato class to fall back on when I know that my strategic window is closing rapidly.
It is amazing that he did not have a mental breakdown and resign right there.
@@aaronrowell6943 Or better yet commit Seppuku.
If I was in Yamamotos shoes, I would have felt sick to my stomach.
After the battle, officers asked Yamamoto how they should apologize to the Emperor for their failure.
Yamamoto said that he was the only one who had to apologize to his Majesty. And Hirohito was quite lenient towards him, given the disastrous outcome.
The Japanese government went to great extent to cover up the outcome of the Midway battle.
@@wolfu597 yeah from what I understand they did their damnedest to cover it up mostly so the army wouldn't know the true scale of the disaster.
But from here you see the shift to defensive strategy making the Pacific a giant fortress and also just seemingly the general hope that the Japanese would make the war so horrific for Americans that they just would not have the stomach to make it all the way to Japan.
With the Brits and ANZACs mostly focused on defense in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific Islands and India, and then the major focus of the army being final victory in China this idea of just sheer brutality to deter The Americans on offense seems to have merit. When you look at what the Japanese have in 1943 that's really the only course of action that they can pursue.
I'm not saying the Japanese won't continue to attack because they will have major combat around Guadalcanal, but it seems like for the most part the strategy of just aggressive defense with pretty much be this policy until the end, the idea that the Japanese fighting spirit will carry them through to the end.
They lost 110 pilots and aircrew. This point is usually forgotten in ALL video or TV programs about Midway, only focussing on 4 carriers and 280 airplanes losses.
The bomber pilots were lost in Guadalcanal campaign, both Land based and Carrier borne bombers. Fighters were worn down during Solomons and Rabaul campaigns.
Japan still had some great pilots/crews left after Midway. They just weren't very mobile enough to give hammer blows at the points of attack.
The other thing never mentioned is the aviation mechanics losses. Japanese only had a small cadre of mechanics in their entire empire as they didn't have the same know how and initiative to learn about these new "machines" at Commonwealth and US population.
Most of the other pre war land based mechanics were left at Rabaul as the war moved on in 1944.
The fresh mechanics trained in the war were left in the Philippines and even these guys did a poor job maintaining planes.
Pasific War is definately the best series you have ever made. Thank you so much guys, keep up the good work!
Nagumo's dilemma is something I heard about when I was in military classes years ago, but for some reason I didn't ask about it. This video just gave me a Nostalgia-fueled Adrenaline shot of sudden comprehension of a phrase that I feel like I've been hearing for years. Imagine that doesn't get it-gets it ticker from scott pilgrim versus the world. I also learned the /correct/ spelling of dilemma which gave me a headache. People the world over have the 'wrong' spelling thanks to some random british book in 1842. We love to see it lol. The next topic of research is why the hell it has two m's in it anyway. Top marks as always!!!
Thank you for this series. As a Italian and European we underestimated the importance of the Pacific war in our school books that is a crucial part of the second war. Waiting already for the next chapter!
Always love watching videos about the battle of midway, its a better story than an author could come up with.
I have been waiting for this video since the series came out! The wait was definitely worth it!
The Battle of Midway proved to everyone of how good the American codebreakers were, as well as how the Japanese poorly calculated the timing, especially the infamous Nagumo's Dilemma
Japan fighting the strongest economy in the world they could not take out (USA), also their main pacific rival, and the UK/Anzac/India... at the same time was alost guaranteed sucide. One whoudl think after the Soviets smacked them up1938 and Japan getting bogged down in China they needed no new major enemies?
Carrier battles are awesome because it's basically chess. If you send up fighters you better have them around for when enemy bombers arrive, if your bombers go up you better know where the enemy fighters are etc. And there are critical minutes of landing to refuel and rearm in between that can absolutely screw you if you time it wrong as the Japanese learned.
@@firingallcylinders2949
One thing to remember is that it didn't take mere minutes to launch a strike in WWII - it took between 45-60 minutes depending on training of the flight crews. What killed the Kido Butai's carriers that day was less the fortuitous arrival of USN dive bombers, and more the fact that all the piecemeal attacks for 2 hours prior tied up those flight crews in servicing the CAP over the IJN carriers.
@@jeffreyestahl exactly, the USN by that time until Midway, were pretty much on low morale, many sailors and pilots were inexperienced, and the US itself was threatened if the Japanese conquered Hawaii. Midway was the actual turning point not only the Pacific Theater, but also the whole of WW2, as I seen on Wikipedia, Japan have to canceled their plan to meet the Germans at the Indian subcontinent. The number of aircraft that the Japanese have were slightly smaller than the American (if u combined 3 US Carriers and the island of Midway)
@@doanphat1480
Most evidence shows that India was never a consideration for Japan. The IJA didn't want it (they understood that 80% of their army was tied up in China); the IJN didn't want to support (they instead wanted to consolidate Indonesia for fuel - the primary reason Japan went to war in the first place). The reasons behind Operations MI and AL were largely Yamamoto's desire for the 2nd. He felt embarrassed about the Doolittle Raid. The presumption was if another major blow could be made to the USN and US morale, the US might be more inclined to recognize Japanese suzerainity over the territories they'd seized in the Pacific.
The American public all believe that Midway was the Pacific War's turning point, but I still have to point to the IJN/IJA's campaign to secure Guadalcanal as reason they still believed they could conduct offensives. Nations don't take major offensives if they believe they're on the strategic defensive. Guadalcanal was intended to help cut off Australia from the US. It should also be remembered that Hyakutake (the 17th Army's CO based in Rabaul) was still making plans to reinvade New Guinea even at the time Guadalcanal took place (one of the reasons his response to the Marines landing there was so disjointed; he actually considered it a diversion). Mid to late 1942 was definitely the turning point in the war, but it's likely that no single event precipitated it.
For the Japanese 17th Army back in Rabaul, the outcome of the battle of Midway meant that any chance for a re-run of operation MO, the capture of Port Moresby by a landing operation, were now gone. Forever.
But that doesn't mean that they've given up on Port Moresby, as we're looking forward to the covering of the New Guinea campaign.
I have read about the Pacific Theater extensively and I learn something new every episode. Well done.
We take this battle as a given, but it should never be understated how powerful the Japanese navy was and how well they fought despite enemies having massive intel advantage.
what impresses me is that most of these pilots on both sides knew they were going on suicide missions, yet they flew, given their best every time. Imagine your plane shot and you are floating on the ocean, but because the fight is not yet done there is no rescue mission launched, because there are bigger fishes to fry than you in the ocean.
@@best5345 its a different matter of how both country took care of their pilots. Americans would rescue any salvageable pilots as they know the value of these peoples. At the other hand, japanese would send their pilots on a suicide mission and die gracefully for imperial ambition. That just wont win any country a war
Japan army , navy and air forces are second best in the world just behind US .
@@SONMINHTRAN1 what?
Only 3 planes detached from the formation and struck the Akagi, imagine how history would have changed if they didn't.
Amazing how with all the men, logistics, industry, planning and major battles often come down to seconds and a few men.
@@firingallcylinders2949 they don't call it "five minutes of fate" for nothing
History would still have the USA defeating Japan. Only the schedule would have been changed.
@@radrook2153 Makes sense, the US can afford to build new ships, Japan can't
Why Lt Best was the greatest dive bomber in the US fleet
For a navy as badly crippled by Pearl Harbor debacle, the Coral Sea and Midway victories are quite amazing. In six months, an untried Navy went from desperate defense to a tentative offense.
Coral Sea was a tactical loss to the Americans, but their bravery left Japanese not achieving their goal of capturing Port Moresby. Poor Japanese intelligence played in favor of the Allies.
It's interesting to consider what options Japan really had in the East. Personally I think combined with intelligence/code breaking, Coral Sea was as significant as Midway- Had all the carriers been present at Midway it could well have gone the other way... I don't think they ever recovered from Midway...
They didn't, this all started with their biggest failures of missing the carriers at Pearl Harbor.
Jonathan Parshall just did a video with Drachinifel yesterday running through the results of a new stochastic salvo model of variations of the battle, and, strikingly, it consistently shows the Japanese decisively losing Midway even if Zuikaku (the one other intact Kido Butai fleet carrier) had been present.
The fact remains, USA could have lost all 3 carriers and all their aircrews but they would have won the war.
Somewhere in 1942 or early 1943, there had to be an attritional campaigns as every other war, as the Japanese rubber band reached its limits of its supply.
US only needed to apply attrition tactics like they did in the Solomons and pry out a carrier or two through submarines or opportune moment via Intel. 5th Air Force in Australia or mass (carrier/ships) fleets would have started to overwhelm the Japanese air groups or their fleet through the degrading/loss of elite units/pilots at some point. That is also disregarding Japanese military leadership poor and their poor tactics and doctrine in campaign/long term wars which led to many needless losses as well throughoutthe war.
It might have been expensive in Allied lives and the war may have ended in 1946 but a favourable Allied peace terms were enviable
But that view is not sexy.
What the US built for the Navy in 1944 alone would have defeated the rest of the world's navy combined in 1941 including the US pre-war fleet! And a 1945 or 1946 built fleet was on the stocks as well...if it was needed.
@@Wayne.J "The fact remains, USA could have lost all 3 carriers and all their aircrews but they would have won the war." True enough.
Even had all the carriers been present, it wouldn't have mattered that much: the US could always decline battle and pull out of range, and the garrison had 1700 soldiers well prepared for battle, with the 5-inch guns guarding the beaches having gone apparently unnoticed by the bombers that had attacked, supported by underground concrete bunkers, with plenty of machine guns and ammo.
If the Japanese attempted to land despite this, it would have been infantry with no tank support fighting an enemy with superior equipment and 5 light tanks acting in reserve, and the IJN had somehow convinced itself that the Midway garrison had never been reinforced (the Army had better estimates of the manpower, but not its effective strength.) The Japanese would thus have almost zero chance of taking the island without a lengthy bombardment, which would have been such an enormous risk so close to Pearl Harbor that it's almost impossible to believe the Japanese would take it; at the very least, they would never risk keeping most (or any) of their carriers in the area for so long, with submarines possibly in the area.
This is your best work to date.
It is amazing how the USA was able to crack the codes of the IJN and to set up the “trap.” Also I can’t believe the Japanese admirals went down with their ship.
misplaced sense of honor. their best men died in 'honorable' ways, while the cowards ran to fight (poorly) another day.
@@oldfrend kamakaze, banzai charges,etc crazy how humans are
As a subject that has received numerous videos of what happened, I still love that you did your usual detailed account of the battle. Excellently done and just a pleasure to watch. The narrator is in a class to himself. Keep up the great work. Love this series!
I've heard it said that the US had four carriers at the Battle of Midway: Yorktown, Enterprise, Hornet, . . . and the island of Midway itself - an unsinkable carrier.
They had 5: Yorktown, Yorktown again, Enterprise, Hornet, Midway
@@Badger17805 Actually 6: Yorktown, Yorktown again, Yorktown somehow again, Enterprise, Hornet, and Midway.
WoW, this battle could have ended much more differently. Respect all naval soldiers , pilots who fought in the battle. especially engineers of the Yorktown.
Much better that the recent film... Good job as always!
Thanks!
Kings and Generals scores another fabulous episode! What a terrific channel!!
I really liked how well detailed the battle is narrated and described, showing a lot of perspectives and background to the role both sides played in the battle. My only criticisms however is that there was no mention of the role the submarine Nautilus played during the engagement, and there was no mention of Dick Best who scored hits on the Akagi and Hiryu, the only pilot to ever hit two carriers successfully.
We're finally Midway through the amazing story of how America Saved the World!
@@paulfri1569 I have many American friends from the army and navy who respect the Australia for being their country's best ally.
I wasn’t a fan of ww2 history but the focus on the pacific war has been so interesting. Great videoes
Superb series! The level of detail that you guys show us is magnificient. Thank you very much!
Excellent narration.
At the end of the video where losses are being totaled (24:20) the USS Lexington is listed as one of the three US Carriers that took part, despite it being sunk a month earlier.
I have watched a lot of documentaries about the Battle of Midway and this one definitely takes the cake!!
Thank you very much for this! :)
Outstanding depiction. My compliments for the high quality animation and the coverage of the topic as a whole.
Well done.
For those who want a movie appreciation I recommend the 1976 movie Midway. Even though it's Hollywood the sequence of events is accurate and it has some detail on Nagumo's dilemma of waiting to carry out a doctrinal correct attack or attack immediately the aircraft he had on hand.
Nagumo's dilemma is a cautionary tale. The adherence of doctrine is commendable but it leads to a bad decision by Nagumo. Commanders know when to follow the principles of war and know when to break them. Fletcher, who had experience, was in overall command but willfully violated the principal of mass by separating his task forces instead of keeping them together.
Nagumo didn't have a choice. Had he launched the strike early, he would have been unable to land the Midway strike in time and lost almost a hundred planes to ditching. Even if the early strike had reached its goal and sunk 1-2 carriers, Nagumo now has less than half his strike force available, and would have still lost carriers to the already initiated American attack. Nagumo made the right choice tactically, but strategically, the Japanese plan was flawed from the beginning and no action by Nagumo at that point would have saved the mission.
@@evankohne5053 from the Japanese point of view he didn't have a choice. Personality comes into play as the weight of responsibility weighed on Nagumo. That being said I do not believe that Nagumo closed the distance in order to close the range so his Midway strike did not have to fly as far to be recovered.
That being said when the Japanese war gamed their attack on Midway, the Japanese officers who played the Americans did what Nimitz did and ambushed the Japanese. Nagumo cried foul so they forced the Americans to adhere to the Japanese plan that did not account for an American ambush.
I needed this 3 weeks ago for my History Class. Come on KaG....I need your stuff for teaching!
In all seriousness love your stuff and it has educated many a student in my classroom.
Ah a nice way to relax before my exams.... Great job as always 😊
I remember the movie Midway but seeing this video is a great way to learn abt the battle as it happened exactly
One thing left out was that Yorktowns air group had replaced its losses at Coral Sea with planes from the drydocked Saratoga. The Japanese were not able to replace losses to Zuikaku's losses easily so it was left behind.
It took them I think about 3 to 4 months to totally bring the air craft numbers back to pre-Coral Sea levels. And even then, all of those pilots were raw recruits that lacked the extensive combat experience really needed to be highly effective.
This is one of my favorite battles to continually learn about
We might say we are Midway through this amazing series
*I'll see myself out...* 😊
Take this on your way out lol 🌟
@@iamaloafofbread8926 😍
Nice pun but it's 1942, there's 3 more years of this horrendous campaign. After this comes the brutal island hopping. I can't wait for Guadalcanal, Pelelieu, Cape Gloucester, Tarawa, Iwo, Okinawa....such crazy defenses of those islands.
this is such a legendary battle, amongst all the battles fought in WW2, Midway will always be a decisive victory that stands out the most
I have been looking forward to this episode the most. Thank you for uploaded it. 👌
Despite the US Navy having a strong contingent of battleship-centric leaders, war games before WW2 revealed the nature of successful carrier tactics. USN WW2 carriers were strike-first weapons, with limited ability to survive an attack. Those USN carrier tactics are portrayed well in this video.
I've seen two movies on this battle. One was okay and the other good IMO. But neither comes close to capturing what the battle was really like. A docu-drama should be made on this battle one day. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.
Yamamoto: We took out two of their aircraft carriers why do I still hear boss music?
Americans: You idiots hit Yorktown twice
Amazing series! Thank you!
Have had those history march, magellan tv subs for years, not 1 of them is close to your quality content ever. Best History-Battle channel
Love this piece of History, I've studied it since I was a kid. The original Midway movie got me interested. I ended up serving on an old Essex Class carrier that battled in the Pacific War, The Blue Ghost from 89-91. I was proud to be there for sure. She's a museum now in Corpus Christy TX. Visit if you can, it's awesome to see her adorned with vintage Hellcats, Avengers, Corsairs and the like. We had T2, A4 and A6, A7's when I was onboard.
My Grandfather always told me that "Midway is the turning point of the Pacific War"
It was pretty much the beginning of the end for the Japanese during the Pacific War.
@@barbiquearea they went from a grand IJN fleet the famed Kido Butai; to by the end of the war they were dumping crude oil in their ships just to have something to make them move, and it destroyed the engines.
Yes and No. Midway was a "end of the beginning" kind of battle (like the Battle of Britain in western Europe), but it's arguable that the real turning point (due to the Japanese Empire still making offensives in the Solomons even after Midway) was the grind at Guadalcanal. The IJN over the course of 4 major battles in a fairly small naval operations area lost 25 major warships. The USN lost the same number, but the replacement rate was enormously in favor of the Americans. Guadalcanal became the very last thing the IJN could afford - a war of attrition. On land, the IJA's 17th Army was still focused on New Guinea and didn't take the landings at the Florida Islands and Guadalcanal seriously, leading to a piecemeal response.
I don't ascribe to the "Victory Disease" argument forwarded by Fuchida Mitsuo after the war (it's too apologist - BTW, it was Mitsuo who created the "6 minutes of destiny" myth about Midway), however, it IS arguable that the IJA/IJN seriously underestimated all combatants after those early victories, leading to a culturally elitist arrogance that cost them dearly.
@@firingallcylinders2949 Yeah they also had to convert some of their ships to using coal as well. Yamamoto should have called it quits and ordered a general retreat after suffering so much loses but instead he decided to go all in like mad gambler thinking they could turn things around with that all or nothing mentality.
In that battle, the IJN lost more than 3000 men that were the cream of the crop in experience... Pilots, experience aircraft mechanics and other sailors in all jobs that you can do in a carrier!
Quickly becoming my favorite channel, thank you!
Thank you , K&G .
Guys I love this channel! From the 6 day war back to ww2 and back to Russias war on Ukraine, they always keep me looking forward to looking at new content! With that said shout out to the channel guys? You are doing a helluva job guys!
I never knew most of this. Thank You, Kings and Generals!
Another excellent video. Could it be that once the series is complete a massive full length video could be in the works? Well made, excellent animation and flawless narration seems to be Kings and Generals calling card. Outstanding! Thanks K&G for another great video.
That would great. I hope they can do that at some point.
Midway and the battle of the bulge always fascinate me whenever I think of WW2. Hell the whole pacific theater during 1944-1945 is fascinating to me
K&G keeps delivering. Good one
Always amazing to hear about the skilled code breaking skills of the allies.
Between the US, Canadian, and British (and resistance forces) they dominated the code breaking part of the war and it won them countless engagements. On the flip side Japan never figured out how the Navajo language worked.
Well done thanks
Very interesting and well put together. Thanks! :D
In the end, luck also played a huge part in this battle. The fact that the planes were launched into different groups by delays and subsequently arrived and attack one after another eventually drawing all patrol fighters down low to allow for the dive bombers to attack without fighter intercepting them.
The way Yorktown's crew repair the damage and keep her fighting is one of the best feats they performed that day unfortunately they are attack again. Luckily they were rrssurected as an Essex Class carrier.
Another fantastic informal video. Shocking even. 😯
Great video! The only things I would are the fact that the torpedo bombers occupied the attention of the Zero fighters, leaving the skies virtually fighterless and the carriers unprotected. Secondly, Jimmy Thach played a major role in this battle: introducing the Thach Weave which wreaked havoc on, and commanded the attention of, many Zero pilots. Lastly, you said "unfortunately Tomanaga missed his torpedo strikes." Whose side are you on!? 🤣🤣🤣 Lol
Also, it's never been confirmed, but it is generally believed that Thach himself shot down Kobayashi during the first attack on Yorktown. And Tomonaga adamantly refused to swap planes even though several other pilots offered to do so (his damaged fuel tank was never repaired).
@@joshuariddensdale2126 the Tomanaga part (I beleive) has been confirmed. The Thach part, I've heard as well but have not read anywhere that it was definitive nir confirmed.
Best and his bombers were from Enterprise. McClusky and Bests squadrons both initially dived on Kaga, McClusky broke doctrine and dived on the first carrier he seen and Best only pulled out in time so He could go after Akagi.
Outstanding. What a triumph of a video. Excellent visuals, thoroughly researched commentary and highly entertaining WWII material. Looking forward to more videos.
Finally its here
When you have victory in your grasp, but it was taken away in one single battle because you were too overconfident......
Assuming that were are surprising their enemy led to defeat.
There’s a typo at the end: Lexington wasn’t at midway, the Hornet was
Although often overlooked as a pinprick, Doolittle's raid was actually the impetus to the Battle of Midway. Yamamoto locked himself into his cabin for at least a day and was quite depressed about the fact that the Emperor was attacked. It led directly to him deciding to destroy the American carriers still floating.
Been waiting for this episode. And it delivered 👍🏻
Not only the video Your graphics are also superb!!! ♥️🔥
Yes I have been waiting for this one
This is a really good video but it leaves out a lot of very interesting details. It's understandable because it would've made the video very long. That said I appreciate that they mention that the airstrikes didn't sink Yorktown most videos and even some documentaries leave that out. If you're interested in more details but aren't a big reader Drachinifel did a Midway video with Jon Parshall that's really good. Thank you Kings and Generals this series is amazing.
Magistral, trully notable work!
Japan was a nation that was limited in terms of its manufacturing capability and personnel training. Losing the fleet carriers was a mortal blow to their ability to contest the seas. The air crews in particular were a stinging blow.
Another great episode! I know this is nitpicking but the Japanese heavy cruiser sunk at the Battle of Midway was IJN Mikuma, not IJN Mikuna.
One thing you did not mention in this video is that McClusky screwed up. He sent Enterprise's entire detachment of dive bombers after Kaga when you are supposed to split the air forces to attack different ships. Richard Best recognized the mistake and pulled off with himself and his wingmen. Best's detachment redirected towards Akagi, and were in such a hurry to make their dives they didn't have time to shift out of their "Vic" formation into the line-astern normally used for dive bomber attacks.
Best's wingmen missed, but Best scored a single hit on Akagi's deck.
Started it's rise with a "Battleship vs Battleship Battle" (Tsushima: 1905) against a Superpower.
Started it's downfall with a "Carrier vs Carrier Battle" (Midway: 1942) against a Superpower.
What a coincidence for IJN.
Thank you for all the excellent work!
I know you mentioned it in a sidenote, on the bottom of the screen and the video but I think it deserve more attention about how Wade McCluskey and the dauntless dive bomber. Enterprise came across the Japanese ships by following the Japanese destroyer Arashi, because it has stayed behind to hunt, the submarine USS Nautilus was a big factor in the battle outcome.
Good video. The channel Montemayor has the best video I have ever seen on this battle (and a few other WW2 naval engagements). Called something like Midway from the Japanese Perspective. I highly recommend it!
They lost 110 pilots and aircrew. This point is usually forgotten in ALL video or TV programs about Midway, only focussing on 4 carriers and 280 airplanes losses.
The bomber pilots were lost in Guadalcanal campaign, both Land based and Carrier borne bombers. Fighters were worn down during Solomons and Rabaul campaigns.
Japan still had some great pilots/crews left after Midway. They just weren't very mobile enough to give hammer blows at the points of attack in the future campaign.
The other thing never mentioned is the aviation mechanics losses. Japanese only had a small cadre of mechanics in their entire empire as they didn't have the same know how or enthusiasm as the Americans did.
The Japanese land based mechanics were left behind at Rabaul in 1944 as the war moved on.
They completely lost their cream of the crop after Santa Cruz. Which to be honest, that battle had presented them their last chance to reverse the turning point in Midway but they did not.
correct.
At 24:14, you list what forces were involved at Midway. However, it wasn't USS Lexington at Midway as she was lost at Coral Sea. Instead, as part of TF16, USS Hornet was there. But in all, it was a decisive victory, just not for Yamamoto. Instead, it was for Nimitz. This was the battle that turned the tide for the US Navy and Marine Corps in the Pacific
I was there and saw everything on my canoe. It was awesome to have watched it live in person. 😊
The last Moments of the battle can be compared to the slaughter that comes after an ancient battle
It's nice that your ad here is about D-Day because I tend to watch Midway (the old one with Mr Miyagi in it) and Saving Private Ryan every June 04 and 06.
This year I think I'll watch the less talky, updated special effects version of the Midway movie. And this documentary (Operations Room's).
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Re: the battleships from Pearl Harbor, they weren't used not because battleships were utterly useless, but that these specific battleships were. Not all had modern radar and fire direction for the AA guns (and since they weren't fighting the British, this wasn't an advantage; see: Bisrmack vs Swordfish), but most importantly, they can't even reach the same top speed as the modern carriers. This is why during the Leyte invasion the Pearl Harbor survivors were all in the 7th Fleet bombardment group (that they fought the last battleship gun battle was not part of the original plan), while the newer battleships were in the 3rd fleet escorting the carriers, which were otherwise still useful as either oversized Atlantas for escorting carriers while they can be detached for surface action and have more firepower to sink battleships while being capable of taking way more pummeling than the Atlanta did.
Imagine thinking you took out an enemy carrier only to have the ghost of that same carrier come back and give you a good rogering.
The battle was lost when Yamamoto caved and split up Kido Butai to send CarDiv 5 down to Coral Sea.
Capture of Port Moresby was 1 month behind the NGS schedule (10April). MO needed a carrier escort of more than Shoho.
The Kido Butai needed a rest after 6 months of combat (18Nov - 20April) and CarDiv 5 the least experienced, also had 2 months of training in home waters (Dec41- Feb42) were the least fatigued.
Ryjuo needed refit as well.
MO and AL was more important to NGS and Japan as a whole than a specific campaign ( MI was Combined Fleet).
You could call it Yamamoto Dilemma but some carriers had to go south. It was logical to sent at least CarDiv 5, if not the whole 1st Air Fleet. They just had to be back in Japan by 25 May for a 26 May departure from Kure.
Maybe Yamamoto could have delayed his plan by a month, but that gives the Americans another month to prepare.
There were plenty of bad decisions by Yamamoto that led to the defeat. Detaching CarDiv 5 to the Coral Sea was certainly one, but there were a lot of others.