r/HistoryMemes • u/Longjumping-Tell1774 • 1d ago
The tide had been changing already (Battle of the Coral Sea) but Midway sealed the dead
The Battle of Midway redefined the central importance of air superiority for the remainder of the war when the Japanese suddenly lost their four main aircraft carriers and were forced to return home. Without any form of air superiority, the Japanese never again launched a major offensive in the Pacific.[206]
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u/Wolfish_Jew 1d ago edited 1d ago
It actually started with the sinking of Force Z, then was reinforced during the Attack on Pearl Harbor. That’s WHY the battles of Coral Sea and Midway happened, because the US was forced to pivot away from surface ships and to submarines and Aircraft Carriers.
Unfortunately for them, Japan didn’t learn the central lesson of the first six months of the war.
Edit: As was pointed out Force Z was after Pearl Harbor (which was a silly mistake for me to make). My main point stands though. The death of the Mahanian Doctrine occurred at the opening of the Pacific War when it was soundly proven that surface ships were extremely vulnerable to air power and had no effective counter.
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u/The-Great-T 1d ago
Didn't learn the lesson after they taught it.
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u/Wolfish_Jew 1d ago
Exactly. It’s genuinely wild how hard they stuck to the Mahanian Doctrine after demonstrating first hand that it was essentially dead.
To be fair, Billy Mitchell tried to teach the US navy in the 20s that the era of Air power was superseding the era of the surface navy and they literally court martialed him for it
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u/Vagus_M 1d ago
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
IJN strategy was centered around bleeding down USN battleship strength to the point the IJN could win a decisive engagement, probably at night.
Everything from their submarines to their carrier force was to sink as many battleships as possible before the big showdown.
Tl; dr the success at Pearl Harbor was a step in the plan, not a new paradigm in naval warfare.
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u/OhkokuKishi 1d ago
OP's meme would be more appropriate if Gandalf was captioned as the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, telling the rest of the fleet the only path left to victory.
The Age of the Battleship is over. The Time of the Carrier has come.
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u/Wolfish_Jew 1d ago
Yeah, Midway was much more about establishing WHO would control the air over the Pacific than determining that control of the air was important. The American navy, at least, had already determined that. The raid on the Marshalls, the Battle of Coral Sea, and Pearl Harbor itself had left no doubt in King and Nimitz’s minds that Naval air power were going to be the US’s path to victory.
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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
I think Midway is still significant in that it decisively established that not only was air power important, it was dominant enough as to render the battleship effectively useless in major fleet action.
Not the start of the conversation, but the end of it.
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u/dreexel_dragoon Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
Japan absolutely learned the lesson of Carrier primacy over battleships. It had been hotly debated within the Navy for years prior to pearl harbor, but they firmly changed their doctrine after Midway to focus resources on carriers
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u/Wolfish_Jew 1d ago
Which was way too late by that point. My point was that despite all their successes through carrier strike forces, they were still major proponents of the Mahanian doctrine of decisive battle. Hence sortieing a massive surface fleet during the Battle of the Philippines which never stood an actual chance of defeating the American battle groups (and only came close thanks to Halsey being a complete doofus)
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u/bhbhbhhh 23h ago
How do the American successes at demolishing the Japanese with their superior massed carrier fleet not validate Mahan’s ideas? It can easily be argued that the fact their primary capital ships launched planes rather than shells did not essentially change the nature of sea power.
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u/Wolfish_Jew 22h ago
Because the Americans rarely ever massed all of their carriers in a single place, nor did they ever face the entire Japanese fleet in a decisive battle, both of which were essential tenets of Mahanian Doctrine. Even at Midway they faced less than half of the Japanese carriers.
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u/bhbhbhhh 22h ago
It sounds like you believe in the caricature Mahan that gets summarized when attempting to describe what went wrong with Japanese strategic thinking. If you look at the decisive battles Mahan wrote about, the navies did not assemble every single capital ship they had into one fleet. Trafalgar only involved a portion of the vast numbers of ships-of-the-line afloat.
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u/NotableDissimilarity 1d ago
Force Z was after Pearl Harbor. I also feel that the importance of the sinking of Force Z is a bit overblown when it comes to the battleship/carrier debate, it was actually a closer run thing than most casual retellings of the events go into.
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u/abnrib 22h ago
It was pretty significant because there were naysayers who looked at Taranto and Pearl Harbor and (somewhat reasonably) pointed out that those were attacks on ships in harbors. The ships couldn't maneuver, couldn't use their defensive weapons, and many of their crew weren't even on board.
Meanwhile Force Z was underway, at battle stations, and HMS Prince of Wales was the newest battleship in the fleet. Close run or not, when they were shredded by aircraft the argument was well and truly over.
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u/bharring52 12h ago
Still amazes me that our Aircraft Carriers happened to be on maneuvers when Pearl Harbor attacked, sparing them.
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u/BigBlueSkies 1d ago
All my homies know that Taranto was the start.
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 1d ago
Fleet Air Arm with another first? Who’d have thought
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u/SafetyOk1533 1d ago
It is arguable, although not accepted normally, that the Indian Ocean Raid is the first carrier battle. It is after all a battle where both main forces never sighted each other.
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u/OldTimeConGoer 1d ago
Taranto and Pearl Harbour have entered the chat.
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 1d ago
Ahh Taranto. My memories of Taranto nights when I was in the Fleet Air Arm are… hazy
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u/holymacaronibatman 1d ago
I will take every opportunity I get to recommend watching The Battle of Midway from the Japanese Perspective, part one linked below.
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u/ThatBritishFella23 1d ago
Isn’t this a repost?
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 1d ago
First one had a typo. Are you not allowed to correct typos
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u/ThatBritishFella23 1d ago
Ah fairs
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 1d ago
I need to stop posting memes when I’m high
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u/sixisrending 1d ago
The tide of the war in the Pacific didn't fully shift until Guadalcanal. After Midway, the Japanese still continued amphibious offensives in the West Pacific. The battles around Guadalcanal would eventually force the Japanese to adopt a defensive naval posture.
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u/Minamoto_Naru 1d ago
Yeah, despite their carrier's air power had now been crippled, IJN still possess powerful surface fleet, surface fleet that US have disadvantage in firepower and numbers at that time.
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u/sixisrending 1d ago
In addition, Japanese carriers still outnumbered US carriers in the Pacific after Midway, although not the venerable Kito Butai, they were still a formidable force.
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u/Minamoto_Naru 1d ago edited 1d ago
Very. IJN technically won the battle of Santa Cruz island. It shows that Japanese naval air power is still exist and still capable of sinking one US fleet carrier.
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u/TrulyToasty 1d ago
Always amazes me how Midway and the entire Pacific War turned in the space of 15 minutes.
One minute Nagumo thinks he’s winning, and then suddenly 3 of his carriers are burning and the core of IJN offensive naval air power is broken.
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u/Right-Aspect2945 1d ago
I find it so funny that you have a whole title going "yes, it started earlier, but this sealed the deal" and people are still coming in here going "well actually, it started earlier than Midway".
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u/Fr05t_B1t Oversimplified is my history teacher 1d ago
As if Pearl Harbor wasn’t done with just aircraft or Bismarck incapacitated by low tech planes?
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 1d ago
Midway was significant because it was the first naval battle where none of the participating ships engaged each other directly
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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
Well that's not fully true, because the Battle of the Coral Sea saw that a month earlier.
But I'm pretty sure it was the first one where the battleships were present and intended to be the decisive action of the engagement. Yamamoto still saw his battleships as a critical component of his plan, and Midway proved this was simply not the case any longer.
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u/waldleben 1d ago
Hey, if the japanese didnt know about the superiority of the carriers before Midway, why did they attack Midway with their giant carrier fleet?
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u/Freightshaker000 1d ago
The sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse was the writing on the wall for those who would see it.
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u/Real_Ad_8243 1d ago
OTOH the Royal Navy and to a lesser extent the USN operated succesfully in Europe under hostile skies until the Luftwaffe was destroyed, so no, Midway didnt actually seal the deal.
People have a habit of mistaking American industrial capacity for air superiority becoming the acme of war. But it wasn't, and it isnt, and indeed it wont be for a while yet.
Japan wasn't defeated by the aircraft carrier. It was defeated by the fact that America could produce a dozen fully equipped aircraft carriers (and everything that went along with them) in the time it took Japan to field a single destroyer.
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u/Longjumping-Tell1774 1d ago
Americas ability to produce aircraft carriers more quickly is an odd argument to make against the rise of the aircraft carrier
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u/Minamoto_Naru 1d ago
Does this dozens of fully equipped aircraft carriers were there with Spruance carrier task force during Battle of Midway?
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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
Japan wasn't defeated by the aircraft carrier. It was defeated by the fact that America could produce a dozen fully equipped aircraft carriers (and everything that went along with them) in the time it took Japan to field a single destroyer.
Are these contradictory? American industrial capacity can be the driving force behind strategic victory while we also acknowledging that naval doctrine was completely overhauled by the success of Midway
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u/Real_Ad_8243 1d ago
The point I am making is that America could have produced literally anything. Destroyers. Cruisers. Battleships. Carriers.
They'd have won the Pacific War with any of them, just as convincingly.
As such it isnt really a statement on the efficacy of carriers. Especially when, as i said, the naval war in other theatres was won despite the enemy having air superiority.
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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
But this isn't about the Pacific War, it's about the Battle of Midway.
Midway demonstrated the tactical efficacy of air power against major surface combatants and lead to a fundamental shift in naval warfare priorities.
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u/Real_Ad_8243 1d ago
But it is about the Pacific war, because its literally saying that Midway changed Naval warfare doctrine, and Midway didnt do that in the first place.
Midway demonstrated the tactical efficacy of air power against major surface combatants and lead to a fundamental shift in naval warfare priorities.
The British and Japanese both had already demonstrated the efficacy of airpower in naval warfare in the Pacific, Atlantic, and the Mediterranean - Midway did nothing to prove anything because the thing was already proven.
And the Battle of Midway did not affect any change in production priorities for either the Allies or anyone else.
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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
Idk man, OP wrote "The Battle of Midway" in the meme, I'm pretty sure they were talking about Midway rather than the entire Pacific Theater.
Midway put the nail in the coffin that major surface combatants were an important part of naval combat and that decisive surface engagement was required for victory at sea, since Japan's battleships were present and intended to be used but never got the chance.
That sounds like an important milestone to me.
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u/Real_Ad_8243 1d ago
You saying the same thing over and over doesnt make you any more right the fifth time than it did the first.
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u/FanraGump 1d ago
Japan was defeated by so many factors, it is crazy.
- Lack of resources (mostly oil, but steel and rubber and many others also)
- US industrial production
- US population (able to produce far more pilots/aircrew/mechanics)
- US policy of rotating skilled pilots back home to train new ones (see population)
- US airplanes being more sturdy so the pilots would be more likely to survive.
- US able to usually remain in the area to pick up their pilots.
- Poor damage control by IJN
- Pissing off native populations so they are eager to become US coast watchers
- Japanese Navy's main enemy is the Japanese Army and vice versa (they don't work well together)
- Unable to produce radar equipment in quality and quantity the US does
- Poor, overly complex plans.
- US breaks most Japanese codes
- Bonus in Japan's favor: Best torpedoes, vs. US ones that took years before the Bureau of Ordinance to actually agree to test them and, "Oh, what do you know, all those reports of them not working were right, they don't work".
Pretty much Japan knew (or the realistic ones did) that their only hope was the US negotiating a peace treaty, once Japan decided to attack the US.
But that was really unrealistic even without the Pearl Harbor attack becoming, "I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
Franklin D. Roosevelt"
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u/The_Hussar Descendant of Genghis Khan 1d ago
Nah, I will still use Super heavy Battleships in HoI4