Quote:
Originally Posted by BigFish
Clue us in Mike....I love history!
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John (as I knew he would) mentioned it already.
On June 4th, 1942, virtually the entire Imperial Japanese Navy was closing in on Midway atoll, with the dual purpose of capturing the atoll and luring what was left of the US Pacific Fleet out to be annihilated. By virute of ingenious code breaking, the US was aware of the plan, and sent out a shoestring force to try to hit the Japanese from their flank. The task force of 3 carriers and a handful of cruisers and destroyers was under the command of a lowly rear admiral, Raymond Spruance, who turned out to be one of the most outstanding naval commanders in history, for any navy. The Japanese force was under the overall command of their top dog, Admiral Yamomoto.
The fist of the Japanese navy was the carrier striking force under Admiral Nagumo, who commanded the carriers during the Pearl Harbor raid, and who subsequently wreaked havoc with US and British naval forces in the Indian Ocean. It cosisted of 4 of the 6 carriers that struck Pearl and was supported by many battleships and fast, heavy cruisers. The Japaese possessed the best fighter plane of the early war, the Zeke or "Zero", and their pilots were well trained and had ample combat experience. Against these aces, the US had obsolete TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, obsolescent F4F Wildcat fighters, and a decent dive bomber, the SBD Dauntless. Nagumo launced his planes on a strike against Midway, where they were met by land based Marine fighter planes that were slaughtered. Spruance tried to time his attack for the time that the Midway strike force was being re-armed and re-fueled on the decks of the carriers. Half of the planes he lauched got lost and never reached the Japanese carriers. The other half pressed an attack against overwhelming odds. The obsolete torpedo planes came in low and slow, and were dead meat. Their losses were appalling. In one squadron, Torpedo 8 from the carrier Hornet, every torpedo plane was shot down, and only one pilot from the entire squadron survived, being picked up a day after the battle on his life raft. Yet, every plane in those 3 torp squadrons pressed the attack against murderous oppositon. But, while they were being cut to ribbons, they succeeded in luring the Zeros down to their level, and kept the attention of the Japanese gunners on the ships on them. As a result, 3 squadrons of dive bombers were able to get in their licks and sank 3 of the 4 Japanese carriers. The 4th carrier was sunk a few hours later by a hodgepodge collection of dive bombers from the US carriers. The Battle of Midway was won by fewer than 200 aviators who suffered horrendous casualties, but never wavered in pressing the attack. It stopped the Japanese advance, put them on the defensive, and virtually every historian believes that it was the turning point in the Pacific, much as Stalingrad was the turning point in Europe.
D-Day came when the outcome was really no longer in doubt. The German war machine had been ground to dust on the Eastern front by the Soviets. The Red Army was virtually in Poland when the Allies landed in Normndy. In fact, they launched a major offensive in the east simultaneously with the D-Day landings and were in Warsaw by late summer.