1 Congrats! How does it feel to be a historian?

2

First, my congratulations.

Now, on to substance: there's been something about your post that's bothered me ever since. Your fundamental supposition is that when a military commander's mistakes can lead to the deaths of his subordinates, then he should be held responsible for them and relieved of command.

I understand the feeling that losing people should be a high burden and a huge black mark. But, well, everyone makes mistakes, and that's true during war just as much as in any other time. If we insist that our generals and admirals be perfect, we won't be able to come up with any admirals or generals.

There isn't a single major allied commander in WWII who didn't have at least one such blunder to his name. For instance, there was Halsey and Typhoon Cobra. Nimitz screwed up in not taking the reports of torpedo failures seriously enough early enough, defanging his submarine force for most of the first year of the war.

Spruance is often accused of not being sufficiently aggressive. MacArthur... well, the list of his mistakes is a long one.

And that was true in Europe, too.

It's been said that everyone makes mistakes in war, and the side that makes the fewest wins. But no one ever manages to get through with no mistakes at all.

If Nimitz had been as eager to can people for mistakes as you implied he should have been, then who would he have had as commanders by the end of the war?

Nimitz knew that mistakes were inevitable. But he also could tell that men like Marc Mitscher were valuable, and he  couldn't spare them even if they screwed up royally.

3 Where is, repeat, where is Task Force 34? The world wonders...

I don't know if that extends to whitewashing the record, though. It's one thing for high command to get accurate reports of a screw-up and then to decide that it doesn't merit disciplinary action. It's quite another if they just don't know what really happened because someone's CO covered their ass.

The Japanese had a bad case of that, especially when it came to cross-service information sharing. The Japanese army knew it was over-committed; the Japanese navy knew (after Midway, anyway) that it couldn't win in a standard fleet action. But each service thought the other was in much better condition than it was. Lots of "if only they had been honest with us!" in after-war comments. Of course, they lost the war...

4 Steven, Av's got the right of it... I AM more concerned about the "sweeping it under the rug" aspect and the blatant falsification of records than I am the "he made a mistake" aspect.

People make mistakes.  But it's fairly clear that Ring should never have been in the position of command that he had, it cost two squadrons of aircraft and many people their lives for no material gain against the enemy, and then for all intents and purposes he got rewarded and promoted for his failure.  That's what I have the biggest problem with.

5 Conga-rats!

1 Nice post! I didn't know about this.

2

Out-bloody-standing, my friend.  Now Ring is right down with "Swede" Larsen in the pantheon of screw-ups.

Nicely done and a smooth read.  Gotta love it.

3 I never thought of Swede Larsen as being a screw-up, oddly enough.  A martinet with delusions of godhood who couldn't command his way out of a wet paper bag yes, but not a screw-up.

4 I'd heard of references to this screw up once or twice, but I'd never seen a full detailed description like this.  I'm sure they're out there, but here you have a clean readable blog post with a good explanation of the facts and consequences.  Bravo!

5

It should be noted that Mitscher exerted a baneful influence on the planning of Hornet's air operations even before the battle was joined.  He had a major say in the poor coordination between the escort fighters and the bombers which would have led to major disaster had the Hornet's birds attacked the Japanese carriers.  And unlike Enterprise's George Murray, Mitscher did not redeem himself at all with his later actions through-out Midway for his earlier mistakes.

Even before Midway, the less than adequate performance of Air Group 8 had caused Bull Halsey to stand them down one day to conduct more training.

The performance of Hornet and Mitscher at Midway had ramfication for the latter during the war.  Raymond Spruance's style of command depended on giving wide latitude to trusted subordinates, which meant less well regarded officers like Mitscher (When Spruance was CO of 5th Fleet, and Mitscher ran the Fast Carrier Force.) were kept on a tight reign.  In Mitscher's case, that was probably a good move, since the man did not confine his mistakes to the decisions he made on Hornet.  That includes the mishandling of his crucial decision to turn on the lights at Philippine Sea.

Then we have William Halsey's performance as fleet and theater commander, but that is another story.

6 Great post - thanks!

7 Holy cow. I swear I've read and seen a lot of Midway stuff, and bitter stuff was mentioned about the coverup, but nobody ever explained what happened and who covered it up. Educational for sure.

Also, Bath and Body Works has pink sparkly light-up bath duckies. Goodness knows why, but they do. I will think of them as Twilight vampire ducks, in keeping with the Halloween items elsewhere in the store.

8

IIRC, Mitscher had already been tapped for a promotion to flag rank as well as a position in Washington by time Hornet sailed for Midway.  Since the US won the battle, the Powers That Be probably decided that there was little gain from sacking people (However deserving some were.).  And yes, his replacement as captain of the Hornet was aboard the carrier at Midway, but graciously delayed the change of command so not to create confusion and uncertainty on the eve of battle.

9 CXT, that's why I said he was Captain (Admiral select).  His next duty was as commander, Patrol Wing 2, not a Washington tour.  That didn't come until 1946.

10 My bad.  I realized that I somehow missed that piece.  And I had always thought that Mitscher had been scheduled for a post in the BuAer after Hornet.

11

Excellent job in tying all the threads together on something as complex as the Midway battle. I, too, had read Walter Lord's book as well as several other accounts, but had never read as nice a summary of Hornet's AG fubar as yours.  Bravo zulu, WD.

 

12 Excellent post, fun to read.  Really clarifies the mess. Parshall and Tully make the point in Shattered Sword that there was a real contribution to the battle by the VT-8 - it changed the course of the Kido Butai, which delayed search efforts for the American fleet.  Also, smoke laid by the cruisers and anti-aircraft fire may have helped Lindsey's squadron locate the Japanese ships a half-hour later.  Waldron's a real hero.

13 I enjoyed your article a lot, however, there are a few amplifying comments that are food for thought, if nothing else.  LCDR Waldron had the opportunity and did object to the course of attack selected by CMDR Ring at a meeting attended by the other three squadron commanders and CAPT Mitscher just prior to the launch of Air Group 8.  During that meeting, Waldron did strongly object to Ring's plan in favor of his own, but Mitscher himself ordered Waldron to follow Ring's plan.  I believe that it was Mitscher's and Ring's plan that the Hornet's planes were deliberately intended to fly practically due west to intercept the course of approach of the Kido Butai to Midway, well north of their reported location, and then to turn left as a group and parallel the course of the Kido Butai until they intersepted the Japanese carriers which would then be retiring from Midway.  Had this plan been followed by the entire air group, I think there is little doubt that the Japanese would have been sighted and attached by the entire air group.

Now, as far as the official report of the Hornet is concerned, it would have been very difficult if not impossible for Mitscher to have written that Waldron had not only disobeyed orders to maintain strict radio silence but also disregarded Mitscher's and Ring's specific orders to follow Ring's Plan of Attack, and not court martialed the dead hero, Waldron.  It would likewise have been difficult for Mitcher not to have court martialed at least two of the other three squadron commanders for also disregarding Ring's orders to continue with the original plan of attack.

14 Jim, that's quite correct.  Regarding your comments on the official report, however, I have two points.  First, I'm not at all sure you can court martial a dead man.  I can't find any record of it ever occurring in the US.  Second, while Mitscher may very well have had to charge Rodee, Johnson and Mitchell, at what point does simple self-preservation trump orders?  I find it hard to believe that the squadron leaders would be found guilty of disobeying orders when those orders were guaranteed to run their squadrons out of fuel.

Regarding your first point, VB-8 essentially followed that same flight profile.  They never sighted Kido Butai, and never really came near it.  Their nearest approach would have come around 1020 on the Weisheit map, approximately fifty miles.  VF-8 would be down to about 20 minutes of fuel, the Dauntless crews would have to assume they would be swimming home.  VT-8, carrying the torpedoes would, like as not, already be in the water.  If that really was Mitscher and Ring's flight plan, it probably would have cost the Hornet her entire Air Group for even less effect than what it actually managed, instead of half of it.

15

Thank you. I have been looking for a clear article on this and you have done a great job. I was hoping to do something on this for my website, but now I don't need to!.

My take is we needed heroes. we got them, but not necessarily the right ones.

 

Best,

Jay Hambleton

16 George J Walsh, next time just include a link instead of copying 1000 words from somewhere else.  Like this: Essay Here.

17 People, did you try to analyse or simply COUNT the data from that nice chart above?

For example, the distance between the point were VF-8 claimed turned about 0910 and point were they ditched at 1040 (1.5 hours) is not less than 266 nautical miles even along the straight line! It means not less than 177 knots speed during fighters' return leg! Almost 50 knots more than F4F-4 cruising speed! It was only one example, but the timings, distances and speeds of other "tracks" are even more fantastic than VF-8's ones.

So you can believe in that revisionist сonspiracy rubbish as much as you want, but I recommend you to read discussions on The Battle of Midway Roundtable website, were the Midway veterans of VS-8 and VB-8 disproved Weisheit's fantasies.

18 Oh, good grief. 

19 The Battle of Midway Roundtable?  I've heard of it... assuming you're talking about the same BOMRT that featured this very post in its "Now Hear This!" page in October 2011?  I appreciate that some of the veterans of the squadrons disagree with Weisheit; heck, in some instances I do, too.  But you're missing the point.

Arguing that the F4Fs of VF-8 didn't make it back to the Hornet, or weren't found to the northeast of Midway, or that the SBDs didn't leave Ring, or that Hornet's Air Group wasn't completely frittered away on a useless flight to nowhere, is ridiculous.  I grant that it's quite possible that the tracks on the map aren't exact... and that there's no way to prove the matter either way.  Given.

But Ring screwed up, from the beginning of the day to the end.  Mitscher screwed up, from the beginning of the day to the end.  What little after-action report was released from the Hornet was realized to be worthless, if not totally fictitious, by Nimitz. 

That's the point of this post, Midnike, not exactly where VF-8 came down, or when VS-8 turned back to the Hornet.  *shrug*  I apologize if you didn't get that from the post.  It'd be my fault if that wasn't clear enough.