America's Greatest Victory of WW2 ?
Comments
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Battle of Midway - 1942
In the near term, neither Japan or German had the military and industrial capability to invade the US mainland. Germany didn't even have the navy to cross the channel. The only countries that ever had the capability to "end" the US were Great Britain, the CSA, and the Ruskies. Funny how we ended up making it possible for Russia to beat Nazi Germany (via Lend Lease) and they end up being the greater threat over the long term. Obviously if the Germans win, get some lebensraum and the bomb we'd be looking at a different threat.
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F.O. Row Peter Puffer, you left off...
You could also argue for Guadalcanal. The start of a long offensive and we FINISHED breaking the back of their navy.
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Battle of Midway - 1942
I'm kind of a Navy homer so I'll go with Midway. Had three uncles serve in the Navy in WW2 and lost one on the USS Langley (CV-1, AV-3) off the coast of Java in February 1942. We still have letters he sent to my mom from the Philippines in November 1941. His body was never recovered and he is memorialized on a plaque in the Manila American Cemetery.
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Battle of Midway - 1942
Yep, Midway was a big deal and it wasn’t luck ~ it was the over confidence of the previously unbeaten Japanese Navy and Air Core and the tactical surprise advantage the US navy had by virtue of breaking the code and knowing the attack on Midway was coming
The advantage the US had was they knew the Japanese were coming and when, how they were likely arrayed and the likely direction they were coming from… they also knew that the Japanese expected that the American response would come from Carriers that were supposedly in and around Hawaii so that the Japanese would be looking in the South and West for the retaliation force.
By design, the American carrier fleet was split and located further East and North than the Japanese would expect and the Japanese fleet was consolidated into a single group in the general area that the American Navy expected. The Americans had radar, the Japanese did not… the Americans had 3 carriers, one of which was damaged and operating at 70% of power and that the Japanese didn’t know about.
The search was on and fortunately the American pilots found the consolidated group of all of the Japanese carriers, had the firepower to send the sequential waves of planes needed to sink the 5 carrier fleet, and had the good luck and experienced pilots to do it.
The Japanese fleet had been largely unopposed and consequently were relatively inexperienced for full scale battle from a battle group tactical standpoint, and as a result of carrier multi level design error limitations + logistical mistakes such as storing fuel and explosives on the deck, they were sitting ducks and could not rapidly respond either offensively or defensively to the attack as it unfolded.
As Yella said, at the beginning of the day the Japanese navy was in control of the Pacific, and at the end of the day they had lost more than half of their planes, 25% of their best pilots, 70% of their carriers and lacked the industrial capacity and resources to replace what they had just lost.
Unlike the Germans, it was Game Over in one battle, from that moment on they were beaten and the Japanese Navy knew it.
I know, TLDR and every board has one, but the story is an interesting one…
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Battle of Midway - 1942
A couple other things the U.S. Navy had advantages over the Japanese was the firefighting capability on our ships. Made a huge difference between losing and saving a carrier.
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Beating the Indonesian junk that was going round among the WACs in the Philippines was huge.
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Battle of Midway - 1942
If the Japanese had destroyed US carriers and kept their own the west coast would have been in range
The US carriers not being at Pearl Harbor and then Midway secured the Pacific
Took a lot of death to get Japan to surrender though
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Battle of Midway - 1942
There’s an author named Ian Toll or Tolle who wrote a trilogy on the war in the Pacific that’s really damn good. I know one of the books is called Twilight of the Gods.
It’s pretty damn amazing how we went from 3 carriers in the Pacific at Midway to carrier task forces by the end of the war.
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F.O. Row Peter Puffer, you left off...
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. - GP
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Several years ago during a spirited discussion about the evils of war with my progressive/socialist daughters, I ended it with “You can make arguments about what has gone on since WWII, but if the bomb is not dropped, you are speaking Japanese, and I do not exist”…
