THE ROUNDTABLE FORUM
Official newsletter of the Battle of Midway
Roundtable
http://www.midway42.org/
"To promote awareness and understanding of the
great battle,
and to honor the men who fought and won it."
12 SEPTEMBER 2008..........ISSUE NO.
2008-35..........OUR 11th YEAR
=============== AROUND THE TABLE ===============
Members' topics in this issue:
1. Escaping the Yorktown
2. Carrier Doctrine Failures at Midway
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1. ESCAPING THE YORKTOWN (see issue #29, 1 Aug 2008)
Ed. note: Bryan Crisman shares more
details of his personal BOM saga.
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10 September 2008
Bryan A. Crisman
Tennessee
BOM vet, ENS, Disbursing Officer, USS Yorktown (CV-5)
I was swimming toward the USS Anderson
(DD-411). All ships ceased rescue
operations and left us in the water when unidentified aircraft approached the
site (it turned out to be Hornet pilots). The ships returned and continued their rescue operations. I grabbed the overhanging cargo net and
climbed aboard the Anderson with about 200 others. I was handed something to wipe the fuel oil
from my face and removed my .45 Colt pistol belt and laid it at my feet. While I wiped my face, someone swiped the
belt, Colt and all!
Of course, there was no shower, but a young ensign took me to his
quarters and gave me dry and clean (no fuel oil soaked) underwear. After drying my khaki shirt and pants, I put
these back on. Like many, I had removed
my shoes and left them on the flight deck of the Yorktown. I was transferred to the cruiser Astoria,
then to the Fulton and to Pearl Harbor where I realized I needed my
shoes as I crept to the Ship Store to replace my clothes, my watch, and get a
chocolate milkshake.
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2. CARRIER DOCTRINE FAILURES AT MIDWAY
Ed. note: Dusty Kleiss follows up his
description of the pre-war doctrine for carrier air group operations in last
week’s issue with a hypothesis as to what might have happened if that doctrine
had been abandoned at Midway, as he believes should have been the case. He suggests that if RADM Fletcher had given
better consideration to the capabilities of his aircraft and launched them
accordingly rather than per the old doctrine, a much better set of
circumstances would have resulted at the start of the air-sea battle.
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30 August 2008
Captain N. J. “Dusty” Kleiss, USN-Ret
Texas
BOM vet, SBD pilot, VS-6, USS Enterprise (CV-6)
What went wrong in the Battle of
Midway? Answer: almost everything
possible. We VS-6 pilots were
instructed by Earl Gallaher [squadron commander] to keep our position plotted
in a latitude-longitude diagram in the right hand corner of our plotting
board. That way we could easily
calculate the enemy position in a few seconds; much easier than a reference to
Midway. We did plot Midway, since we
were told to make a 40 mile dog-leg before heading home.
Just for a moment, suppose that the admiral in charge of our three carriers had
told us of his intentions: was he going
to follow the combined doctrine? Let us
suppose he sent us instructions that each ship should proceed independently
with its SBDs, as soon as he sent a signal, "proceed as
scheduled." At dawn (0600), we
would have been 200 miles north of Midway; we would have launched our F4Fs to
protect the Big E and a few minutes later we would have launched our SBDs when
the admiral gave us the "proceed" signal. Our TBDs would be in the
hangar deck, and all of our SBDs would carry 1,000 pound bombs since we had a
full takeoff run. Our information from
Ady and Chase, from 0503 through 0552, was sufficient to locate the enemy.
If we had taken off at 0600, we could have flown at an efficient 160 knots, and
we almost certainly could have found the enemy because we had practiced 20 mile
wide searches without using radios.
Certainly one pilot of six squadrons would have found the enemy carriers,
and his squadron leader would have broadcast the enemy’s latitude and
longitude. Six squadrons of dive
bombers, from different directions, would have scored numerous hits at the
enemy's MOST VULNERABLE time. That’s
when most of his planes would be absent and the course of their carriers was
predictable. Our 40 mile dog-leg home
would not have given the enemy a clear picture of our location. Our YE-ZB system would have brought the
pilots home because they'd have fuel enough to fly high and join bunches
together for safety.
Of course none of this happened. RADM
Fletcher kept silent about his intentions.
All we knew was that we were about 90 miles east of Nimitz' planned
position and that an enemy scout had just flown above us. Our flight decks were shuffled and
reshuffled, putting TBDs on deck. At
about 0700 we were launched, having been told "proceed southwesterly and
attack enemy carriers as definitely located." We circled at 20,000 feet, expecting other SBDs to join us. Finally, at 0745 we were signaled,
"proceed independently." We
flew at 190 knots, using twice as much fuel as our normal 160 knots. By that time the enemy vulnerability period
had vanished, and the projected location of the enemy had also vanished. We were truly in a "No Right to
Win" situation.
The rest of that horrible BOM is well known.
Many SBD planes had to land on the ocean. Many great TBD pilots were lost flying useless torpedoes; the
ones that were left showed the Hiryu pilots a direct path to the Yorktown. Those TBD pilots certainly never had enough
fuel to make a dog-leg.
It should be noted that if Fletcher had left all his F4Fs at home, they might
have saved his Yorktown. We
should thank Peter C. Smith [author of Midway Dauntless Victory] for
pointing out important BOM facts and doctrine considerations that are not shown
in other books. All of us must agree
that "Group Grope" missions [the “combined doctrine”] achieved
fabulous successes when we finally had planes that were modern, flew fast, had
long ranges, IFF, radar, and good torpedoes, bombs and rockets.
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=============== NOW HEAR THIS! ===============
News & info in this issue:
- “What-If” at the BOM
- Crashing
the Mikuma
- Photo of the Week
- Removed from the Roundtable
- Forum Notes
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“WHAT-IF” AT THE
BOM
The message above from Enterprise air group vet Dusty Kleiss is an
example of a popular exercise among many of our members, postulating on what
might have happened if one or more facts the battle had been different. There’s a detailed treatment of such
what-ifs in No Right to Win, the short version of which is almost
anything you can think of that differs from what actually happened would most
likely have turned out worse for the U.S. side.
Dusty’s scenario of six TF-16 and -17 SBD squadrons striking Kido Butai simultaneously
because they launched closer to their target and weren’t delayed by TBDs has a
solid ring to it if you ignore what the enemy might have done in that
event. For one thing, take a look at
the track of the Japanese scouts in Dallas Isom’s Midway Inquest (the
diagram appears just before page 1, and it’s also on the No Right to Win companion
CD in the “Bonus Features” section: click “Why Japan Lost the BOM”). If TF-16 and -17 had been 90 miles closer to
the Japanese fleet upon launch, and if the SBDs had departed some time around
0600 as Dusty suggests, would the IJN Tone 4 scout have found the
American carriers far sooner than it actually did? Would it have found all three of them instead of just one? Would its pilot have even seen the American
planes inbound on a reciprocal course?
Would his warning have allowed Nagumo to launch his reserve attack
planes while they were still preloaded with anti-ship ordnance? And would the lack of TBDs in the formation
have left the Japanese CAP well positioned at high altitude as the SBDs
approached?
There are other facets of Dusty’s hypothesis that invite inquiry and discussion,
but in the end there’s that basic problem with going back and changing history:
you can’t guarantee that doing so will result in better history. Any changes that you make would inevitably
bring about other changes that you didn’t foresee, and it’s doubtful that all
of them would help your cause. The Law
of Unintended Consequences always seems to prevail.
Still, the discussion of pre-war carrier doctrine and how it was applied at
Midway is always of high interest. I’m
sure some of you will have other thoughts on Dusty’s conjecture, and look
forward to your messages on the subject.
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CRASHING THE MIKUMA
There are a number of BOM issues that will most likely never be resolved to
everyone’s satisfaction, such as the “Flight to Nowhere” of the Hornet air
group and whether admirals Nagumo and Fletcher were to blame for losses
suffered by their fleets. We can
include on that list the question of whether or not Medal of Honor-winner
Richard Fleming actually crashed his damaged Vindicator on the Mikuma. Like the other two issues, there are
advocates for both possibilities. You
can get a good summary of each side of the Fleming matter on the following web
page:
http://www.rpadden.com/docs/richardfleming.htm
It opens to an essay by Roundtable member Ron Martell that focuses on eyewitness testimony that Fleming did dive
upon and hit the enemy cruiser, Kamikaze-style. Once you’ve read that, click the link on the upper left side of
the page for Rich Leonard’s opposing argument, “Richard E. Fleming Kamikaze
Myth.”
Your comments on these two articles are welcome.
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PHOTO OF THE WEEK
For some additional perspective on the Richard Fleming matter (above), here’s
an excellent, screen-filling image of an SB2U Vindicator. The markings on this aircraft date it within
a few months of the BOM.
http://www.military.cz/usa/air/war/bomber/sb2u/cam/SB2U
cam. 007.jpg
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REMOVED FROM THE ROUNDTABLE
In yet another effort to deal with the incessant e-mail rejections that I get
due to overzealous spam filtering at some members’ ISPs, here’s a list of members
who risk being removed from our roster this weekend. These e-mail addresses have rejected two weeks in a row and their
owners haven’t supplied me with an alternate.
My policy is to transfer an address to a “hold” file upon its third
consecutive rejection, rather than continue sending e-mail to an ID that won’t
accept it.
For clarification, this relates only to rejections due to faulty spam blocking,
not routine rejections due to overloaded in-boxes or obsolete e-mail addresses.
While the following members probably won’t be able to read this notice in their
e-mail, it will appear in the on-line version of the Forum, which they
may see. Additionally, another member
who is acquainted with one of them might help the cause by notifying him or her
of the problem and suggesting that he or she contact me in order to work out a
solution. We really hate to lose anyone
who has no intention to leave us!
Here is this week’s list, with the problem e-mail IDs. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
(The IDs will not appear in the on-line issue.)
Bill Eldard (location
unknown) eldardw@erols.com
Francine Kraus (Connecticut) ffkraus@cox.net
“Whitey” Feightner (Virginia) whiteyf@erols.com
For more on this subject, see the FAQs page on our web site, sixth item.
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FORUM NOTES
~ One more e-mail problem: please remember that when you change your
e-mail address, I need to receive your notification from the new
address, not the old one. It’s another
little annoyance caused by anti-spam measures.
Details upon request. (See also Forum
issue #21, May 30th.)
~ The U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine has a lengthy article
centered on the USS Hornet (CV-8) in the current issue. The cover features a painting of the ship
under attack at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. You can see it at:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/
The article is based on the writings of a combat artist who spent 66 days on
board during 1942, departing just prior to Santa Cruz. All aspects of the ship and its air group
are well covered, and much of the author’s artwork is included in the article
as well as the cover image. USNI
members can read the article on-line via the above link.
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Get the Roundtable's Book: No Right
to Win: a Continuing Dialogue With Veterans of the Battle of Midway
Now available with a companion CD—click for full information: http://www.russbook.com/
If you cannot access the above web site, send a
message to the editor for full details on No Right to Win or the CD. (Roundtable members can just click
"reply" on this message.)
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For a glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The Roundtable
Forum, go to our home page and click the "Roundtable Glossary"
link, or here is the direct URL:
http://www.midway42.org/glossary.htm
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The Roundtable Forum, the Official Newsletter of the Battle of Midway
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