SBD Series Part 3 The Dauntless at the Battle of Midway 

Wow thanks

Thanks, you leave great comments

That's largely incorrect. The aircraft for the strike against the U.S. carriers were on the flight decks of Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu. Those of Akagi were still in her hangars.

@@manilajohn0182 Not according to Parshall & Tully's research.

@@michaelhorning6014 Parschall and Tully’s claim on this issue is based on the Japanese official history of the battle published 30+ years after the event, and noncommittal postwar statements of Japanese aviators who stated that as far as they were aware, the flight decks were either empty, or only had fighters on them. In order to make their claim appear valid, they all but branded Fuchida a liar (I believe that in the forward or preface of the book, they stated their intent to “bury” Fuchida). In the course of the book however, they never presented evidence that Fuchida was lying on anything. They merely challenged some of his statements and referred to the fact that Fuchida was not popular in postwar Japan (which is only natural). The worst which can be established about Fuchida is that his “five more minutes” statement was an exaggeration- by perhaps 15-20 minutes. Moreover, they disregarded the after action reports of both Wade McClusky and Maxwell Leslie. The former stated in his that Kaga’s after flight deck was packed with aircraft, while the latter said that his target (Soryu) had approximately thirty aircraft parked aft on the flight deck. Since neither Parschall nor Tully was willing to call either of these two men a liar or delusional, they sidestepped their after action reports by referring to them as “lurid tales”- an easy action for them to do since neither man was still alive to defend his statements. While no senior surviving officers of Kaga survived, Soryu’s senior surviving officer- her executive officer stated in a USSBS interrogation after the war that Soryu’s aircraft had been rearmed for the attack on the U.S. carriers and were on the flight deck awaiting the order to launch when Soryu was attacked. The dive bombing attack ended at about 1030. Twenty minutes later at 1050, Hiryu launched 24 aircraft to attack the Americans. The TROMs for both Kaga and Soryu show that, from the last time at which they landed aircraft (1005 and 0950 respectively), both carriers had more than enough time to begin spotting aircraft aft for the strike. While Shattered Sword is full of details regarding the imperial navy, the author’s analysis is questionable. Topping this off is the fact that the authors have the audacity to tell the reader at a number of points in the book what senior Japanese officers were actually thinking. That’s a big no-no in historical writing. The book should be read with extreme caution. But that’s just my opinion.

Fuchida became a Christian which made him very unpopular in Japan.

@@manilajohn0182 Google search on "Wade McClusky After Action Report" From the References section of the Book "Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway By David Rigby books.google.com/books?id=HvWGDwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PR61&lpg=RA1-PR61&dq=Wade+McClusky+After+Action+Report&source=bl&ots=mABjc6uflu&sig=ACfU3U0jY8Apc-_6zNlRnpTxtf61Ps_9Vw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2hrDLxOzxAhWR4J4KHaBCBJ8Q6AEwCXoECBsQAw#v=onepage&q=Wade%20McClusky%20After%20Action%20Report&f=false Here is McClusky's version on the CV6 web site: www.cv6.org/company/accounts/wmcclusky/ All I found for Max Leslie was a section of another book "The Ship that Held the Line: The U.S.S. Hornet and the First Year of the ... By Lislie Rose" books.google.com/books?id=taeSaPXO5k8C&pg=PT156&lpg=PT156&dq=Max+Leslie+After+Action+Report&source=bl&ots=0q7qX5XpOp&sig=ACfU3U3yv_D3WAbEhCKezFX2gpUMFx6_GA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_8OjJyOzxAhXWvp4KHW0sBIQ4ChDoATAJegQIGxAD#v=onepage&q=Max%20Leslie%20After%20Action%20Report&f=false Eh ... the thing to do - if I was a young man with a lot of energy - would be to go around and track down all these sources and check them - but I'm not a young man any more - and - not writing a book ... I'm reading Shattered Sword right now and have found *_most_* of it to be well done and Parshall has done a number of talks on his sources. One of the main sources Parshall & Tully use is these reports on Japanese aircraft operations from the ships. This disagreement on details is actually very common in history ... But then of course - sorting such things is why Historians get paid the big bucks. Right? Ha! Ha! Ha! (What I did with my MA in History was have a career in computers!). .

Ah, if only I had all the time I wanted to work on this I would cover every interwar and ww2 combat plane. Maybe someday

@@MarkSeven the Vindicator was only used once by the USMC at Midway , so this would be a VERY short presentation, cheers source Web

@@MarkSeven I knew a former USN guy in my younger days, 1960s in Alameda, CA who recalled pilots and ground crew having a nick name for these planes: "wind indicators" not the most complimentary, cheers

Thanks for your feedback. I'm no expert and I am working from some older sources, so I'm bound to get some details wrong. A lot of my motivation in producing this series is to learn from all the other military history enthusiasts around the world. I am gratified that you find some value in my efforts here!

I agree but I must add , Nagumo was a tragic figure who was encumbered with Yamamoto’s piss poor plans but it was not just Yamamoto all of the Japanese plans were overly complex which meant that they could never concentrate their strength at a breakthrough, take advantage of it and not pursue a breakthrough . Pearl Harbor had the Full 6 carriers and they did not stay around to finish the job . The picture we see of Nagumo says it all you can see in his eyes a sadness he carries the weight of Command even prior to these loses Fujita is a very interesting character, who became very worldly I am not going to tell you about him because I don’t want to destroy a good story so please investigate Fujita for yourself you will enjoy it !

@@oceanhome2023 Excellent reply. If I remember my history correctly though, Nagumo was a Battleship proponent and the only reason that Yamamoto hadn't replaced him prior to Midway with a more carrier-centric commander was that Nagumo was a national hero due to the popular success of the Pearl Harbor attack. It's hard to say what a more carrier-capable and -trained admiral would have done in his place. But Nagumo went into the battle hampered by a fatally flawed plan that had too many objectives and no contingencies on what to do if the American Navy didn't respond exactly as Yamamoto anticipated. And are you referring to Mitsua Fuchida or Iyōzō Fujita? The former was the air commander who co-authored "Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story" and the latter was an ace pilot who knocked down 13 American planes during the battle. Both are fascinating.

The flight decks of the carriers Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu each had a large number of aircraft on them for the impending strike on the U.S. carriers. This was made clear from after action reports of a number of our dive bomber pilots and corroborated by postwar statements from a number of Japanese officers- with Fuchida being only one of them. Fuchida's account is inaccurate not because he was lying (much of what he said regarding the attack itself was accurate), but because of failed memory- possibly from injuries and the passage of time. He also made a number of inaccurate statements in his autobiography which were of no significant consequence. He's not popular in Japan because he's seen as 'sleeping with the enemy".

@Doctor Detroit Dude, I DID read them. Eye witness reports are very often inaccurate. Parshall shows the timeline of the attacks on the Japanese carriers and the CAP launches and recoveries. The decks were either too busy with the CAP or the ships were maneuvering too violently to spot the strike aircraft. Since the Japanese ships relied more on maneuvering than on AAA, they would turn at high speeds during aerial attacks, FYI, making it impossible to move aircraft to the elevators and spot the decks. Between the aerial attacks, they had time to land the CAP aircraft and reload, refuel and launch them again. But that's it. Even the Japanese historians have long ago discounted the "Fatal Five Minutes" myth.

Actually, 1 of the U.S carriers ( USS Hornet ) only had one squadron that engaged and where destroyed by the Japanese. It’s other aircraft searched in the wrong direction and a large number of them where lost. Out of that, 1 squadron refused to obey orders and broke off from the main group they eventually engage the Japanese and we’re devastated. So, only 2 of the 3 U.S carriers actually used the full force available to them. Also, the Japanese battle group was VERY well trained with combat experience. They where pitted against the ill equipped/ badly trained U.S Navy and the U.S Army Air force

Eh ...I would not discount the utility of having 4 flight decks. Then of course - they actually had other carriers with the other forces providing air cover to other groups. Zuihō and Hōshō which were CVL's and Chitose, Kamikawa Maru, Chiyoda and Nisshin which were SeaplaneTenders. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_order_of_battle .

The book, SHATTERED SWORD reiterates that same point. The Japanese aircraft had plenty of time to climb up and face the Americans. That was not the issue. They also exposed the fact that the Japanese flight decks were not filled with torpedo and dive bomber aircraft like previously thought. However, on the hangar deck is where it all took place. Getting attack aircraft armed and fueled.

This makes a lot of sense. I used some older sources for this video and this and other comments makes me see that the particulars of the strikes on the carriers are part of an older narrative that is no longer prevalent. I appreciate you going through the trouble of looking up the A6M climb rates, I will look into it one day when I get around to making a revised version of this episode

@@MarkSeven SHATTERED SWORD is a must read! Genuinely hard to put down. It goes over things like the climb rate of the Zero, and other similar details.

@@timg2088 Shattered Sword is a mixed bag at best, and should be read with extreme caution. The "revelation in the book regarding all the Japanese attack aircraft being in the hangar decks when the ships were attacked is blatantly false, and nothing but an echo of the Japanese official history of WW2 concerning Midway- a document compiled 25- 30 years after the battle and with at least two major flaws in it.

@@timg2088 The aircraft for the strike on the U.S. carriers were spotted and ready for launch on the flight decks of both Soryu and Hiryu. Kaga had approximately 20 aircraft on her flight deck, a handful of which were actually spotted. Akagi had six- seven zeros spotted aft and in the process of launching.

Yeah I just kind of threw these old ones together before anyone paid any attention to them.

@@MarkSeven lol well beyond that amazing videos! The dauntless always an all time favorite.

I think it had a lot do with whether or not the country had a robust independent naval air arm. The Japanese, for example, who had the only contemporary rival to the American naval air force, fielded dive bomber units that carried out effective anti-shipping strikes as early as 1937 against the Chinese. The British Fleet Air Arm, by contrast, did not develop its own aircraft, but used types developed for it by the Air Ministry. Dive bombing was not given much emphasis by British interwar air doctrine (as was the case in the US Army Air Corps at the time), and as a result the dive bombers they had aboard their carriers, ie Blackburn Skuas, were multirole compromise planes of mediocre utility like most FAA carrier planes.

@Doctor Detroit sinking is not killing though. Those 1000lb bombs turned those Japanese carriers into burning wrecks, the Japanese only really scuttled them with torpedoes to prevent their being taken and paraded through the papers. The IJN went through great lengths to cover up Midway, especially from the Germans.

I can't imagine how it would feel boring in on an enemy fleet through all the fighters and flak, straight and level in a big torpedo plane. White knuckle time for sure

@Doctor Detroit Thats cute….😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

@@MarkSeven Well, later in the war USN's VT groups flying TBF/TBMs determined that they didn't NEED to fly low and slow for the WHOLE attack. They just needed to be at release altitude AT the time of release and flying no faster than the rated max speed for the aerial torpedo. Consequently, TBFs could come in at several thousand feet at 275 kts and then perform a shallow dive to release altitude and slowing at the last moment to release airspeed at aiming point. This minimized their exposure to oppositional AA fire and CAP fighters.

Thanks for your feedback. This is something I've been trying to get better about, I'm still pretty unskilled at all this. I'm glad you found you like in the video though!

@@MarkSeven Thanks for accepting my constructive criticism. Good luck.

@@tjanders No problem friend, and thank you!

@@MarkSeven For the past few years I have been fascinated with the US Navy aviators of 1941-42. They were a rare breed. I also know the Navy was innovative in tactics and operations. They adapted quickly. They didn't get stifled by Doctrine. Someone should do a video on all the innovation.

​ @TJ Andersen That's a good idea. I'm starting a new series on the F2A Buffalo soon, I was going to include some material about the fighter squadrons of the Navy during the time the changeover from biplanes to monoplanes took place, rather like I did about Navy dive-bombing development in the SBD series

what could SBDs do as fighters?

Yes, actually, especially in the period up to and including Coral Sea SBDs were often retained as a so-called Inner Air Patrol around the carriers to supplement the regular fighters. This came in for a great deal of criticism after Coral Sea, not just because of the relative (but not total) ineffectiveness of the Dauntless in the role, but because it was felt that the deployment of the full strength of these squadrons on the offensive would have resulted in greater harm to the enemy fleet.

@@asherpat They could be effective against aircraft like the D3A dive bomber or the B5N torpedo plane, which were of similar performance. They were somewhat useful in breaking up attacks and distracting enemy pilots from concentrating on their attack runs even if they didn't have a strong chance of making a kill.

@@asherpat a competently handled SBD loaded for CAP could turn inside of even a A6M at lower speeds. They did really well against attack aircraft, especially low flying torpedo bombers. They also had a really legit loiter time, comparatively speaking.

@@asherpat SBDs as emergency(typically when fighters were not available) cap was a practice used by the USN. Remember, they would not be carrying bombs.