Battle of Midway World War II - Research Paper Example

? Topic: Battle of midway World War II Battle of Midway (WWII) Introduction In 1942, Battle of Midway was fought by the Imperial Japanese Navy under their admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the World War II. Few months after their success at Pearl Harbor in December, the IJN had destroyed the surrounding of the Pacific and sank the warships of the British in the Indian Ocean. It was just one month after the battle of Coral Sea where the United States Navy under the admirals had won the attack by the IJN. American Doolittle raid launched on Tokyo which threatened emperor’s life prompted Japanese navy admiral Yamamoto to plan a showdown with the remainder of the American fleet before he would let his force rest (Symonds. 44). He wanted to destroy the American carrier fleet. With the advantage of big numbers of navy and of good quality he planned to confuse the Americans with a diversion attack at the coast of Alaska hence the Americans drew to the north and launched his attack on the island of Midway the next day1. Into an ambush the Americans ran to the south hence he used the Midway Island as an Allied air base. Commanders’ intent/ scheme of maneuver for both sides Commander’s intent captures the commanders thinking, assessments and guidance on the concept of battle operations. This mostly is what brings out the result in a battlefield. If he acts too slowly, his coordination, and mental preparedness determines the outcome of the war. Imperial Japanese Navy was under three admirals namely Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo and Nobu take Kondo. The United States Navy also had three admirals namely Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance. Yamamoto had the advantage of numbers against the Americas Chester Nimitz naval. The Americas still had few ships and their strength was coming down slowly and this gave Yamamoto confidence that he was going to defeat them. Nevertheless, Chester gained advantage over the Japanese out of deciphering the Japanese radio code by his intelligence team. With this advantage the Americans were able to know that Yamamoto’s target was at the Midway. Japanese had no idea that their radio calls were being trapped and being listened to, Yamamoto kept on giving his navy directions through the radio because they were scattered all over. The Japanese relied on a sub-marine air reconnaissance to locate the Americans carriers at the Pearl Harbor where they would sink them when they responded (Kernan. 73). Due to the tapping of the radio calls by the Americans they knew about this plan and they spoiled the reconnaissance and the submarine ambush did not ambush their fleet, and therefore the Alaskan diversion placed by the Japanese proved to be no resourceful because the Americans ignored it. Yamamoto believed that Chester had at least two carriers as maybe they had sunk the USS Yorktown at the Coral Sea. Chester had repaired the damaged ships at the Pearl Harbor2. Still there was a great imbalance in the two fleets when it came to the machinery. Chester had in two task force, three carriers, eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers. Yamamoto on the other hand had the advantage of 4 large and 2 medium carriers, 11 battleships with many cruisers and destroyers in his amphibious task force in which he sorted to capture Midway. Strategic, Operational and Tactical setting of the battle The setting for the battle was interesting and came with a lot of force and intelligence. Yamamoto had divided his task force into three divisions namely the invasion force, the battle fleet and the four big carriers. The carrier group operated in close order and it was commanded by admiral Nagumo who led them for an attack at the Pearl Harbor. The problem was that these three groups were at a distance from each even for mutual support. Chester put his entire stake on his intelligence because engaging in a direct contact would see him defeated and looses the remaining task force. He strengthened the air units on the Midway by using the island as aircraft carrier which could not sink (Olsen. 133). The sea-going carriers were positioned at the north east of the island on the wait to ambush the Japanese carriers on arrival for the attack. Tactics used by Americans depended on the carrier warfare3. Chester was sure that the first attack would be a great decision taken by either of the side. For him to engage first was a major risk, so he ensured that his carriers were full of fuel therefore they were vulnerable to torpedoes and bombs, so they kept the task forces apart one with each admiral and in case of deaths the third admiral Spruance would be the battle hero. June 3rd another attack was launched by the Americans and they bombed Japanese fleet but did minimal damage. On retaliation Nagumo launched 100 planes on the island, the Americans defended with 50 planes but they could not succeed. Midway nevertheless remained to be effective. Japanese carriers would strike the midway and directly engage the fleet of Americans when it arrived; this was the plan Yamamoto had in his mind. He did not expect the Americans to be in cover before his forces arrived as it was the case hence brought about confusion to Nagumo. He was faced with two tasks now, one of attacking the American fleet and the other of seizing the island. He failed to act promptly and this caused the war to turn on him. On the other hand the Americans only task was to find and destroy the Japanese carriers. The admirals in charge of this were Spruance and Fletcher. Spruance launched a full strike from the enterprise and the Hornet once they had located the carriers. Fletcher only sent half of his task force. Nagumo prepared his second strike bombers to attack the Midway once again. He found out that the American carrier Yorktown had been located; instead of bombing it he decided to sink it. On this move, he had to recover planes that bombed the midway and refuel his fighters. The Americans plan was to strike the same time the Japanese came to strike so as to overwhelm the defenders. They put a combined assault by mixing low-level torpedo bombers with high level dive bombers. The squadrons became separated and some of the USS Hornets units were inexperienced so they missed the battle. The first force to reach the Japanese was badly beaten by the Japanese fighters. In this attack 47 out of 51 American torpedo planes were shot down hence they were defeated again. Nagumo now planned a bigger and final strike on the Americans to finish them off. Enterprise dive-bombers found their target after getting lost by following a Japanese destroyer which was on its way to join the carriers after they had driven away an American submarine. When the bombers arrived, they found the Japanese zero fighters out of position and so they were unable to defend themselves from the bombers. Japanese being caught unawares, enterprise carried out a text-book dive bombing attack on the Japanese big ships. In less than five minutes their carriers Kaga and Akagi were hit, starting unmanageable fires. Their decks were cluttered with bombs, torpedoes and hoses charged with high octane fuel, while every plane soon explodes because of the petrol contents. All their big ships were put ablaze. Yorktowns bombers came next and dealt with Soryu carrier while Hiryu carrier escaped in the rain squall. Nagumo ordered the forces on Hiryu to launch a 40 plane attack on the Yorktown the only carrier they had located. It was highly damaged but did not catch fire as it had good damage-control, fire fighting and safety systems installed in it. Hence its planes landed on the other carriers. Hiryu having revealed them, an attack would just be around the corner. Yamamoto together with his main crew heard of these and they had to reverse his whole course. They had to come help his other carriers fight their losing battle. Spruance on the other hand had to proceed with caution since he thought he might be trapped. June 6th, the Americans sank a big cruiser and on the following day Yorktown was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Japanese lost four carriers, heavy cruiser, 3500 men and 270 aircraft during this battle. Their pilots survived but the maintenance team who had made the ships so efficient did not survive. Americans nevertheless lost one carrier that is the Yorktown, 100 men and 130 aircraft but they had stopped the Imperial Japanese Navy. Aspects of METT-TC METT-TC is a famous acronym used by the military personnel that stands for Military, Enemy, Terrain and Weather, Troops, Time, Civilians and support available. It helps the commanders remember their duties and prioritize on them. METT-TC uses a knowledge representation language which is a system of formal symbols to represent a collection of proportions believed by some putative agent that can be given semantics. Military A military going to war should always gather the key information for use in a mission. The task force you are preparing to use should understand all the tasks they are going to undertake. They must know that they have put their lives there and they are the ones to determine the outcome of the battle. Commanders in military use a decision making tool called the Troop Leading Procedures. Total preparedness is the key issue for the commanders hence they are supposed to use most of the time they have planning the specified tasks and not just attacking since this disables them. They must familiarize with the nature of the mission, time of operation, participants in the force, place and time for issuing the operational orders. Enemy and troops Commanders in the military need a clear understanding of the enemy they are about to face. Therefore a commander should consider these aspects of the enemy; Organization, strength, location, and tactical mobility. Doctrine Equipment Capabilities Threat The application of METT-TC in the World War II The METT-TC provides that to visualize the forces of the enemy commanders need to know their intelligence, size, tempo, and type, speed of advance and their strengths and weaknesses (Smith. 17). Always the commander should identify the greatest threat and their greatest vulnerability. For the troops, they should consider their strengths and capabilities before they assign tasks to the subordinate units4. US army used METT-TC to understand the aspects of a war mission. The US commanders used the METT-TC in defining the mission of the World War II thus determining the purpose of the war as well as the supporting tasks. The METT-TC was used in the war as an indicator of the mission to be accomplished during the war. Once the mission is fully analyzed, the troop responds by placing strategic plans to be followed during attacks and how the soldiers were to defend themselves in case they were instantly attacked by the enemy. An assessment of the threat is done to outline the dispositions, capabilities, location, future and current activities, which determine the planning of the missions. The terrain was used to observe the field of fire outlining the obstacles and avenues of approach, identify tactics of cover and concealment. Weather was assessed together with the terrain since they were both used to indicate limitations and conditions favorable for an operation. Conditions, limitations and capabilities were used to estimate the conditions of the battle. The amount of time estimated to be available for the mission was used to determine the nature of the operation. The METT-TC was used to rescue civilians in case an operation was done in their vicinity. The METT-TC provided mitigation for civilians during the US army operations. METT-TC was used to define missions as well as organize the US troops during the Second World War. Terrain and Weather In this aspect, military have five guidelines; Observation and fields of fire- the potential ability to see friendly and enemy forces and key aspects of the terrain in order to determine the strength of retaliation using fire. Fields of fire are the areas where weapons can be launched and cover effectively from a specific given point. Fires can be direct fire weapons like machine guns, and indirect fire weapons like artillery and mortars. Cover and concealment – this is the potential for providing cover against enemies from both direct and indirect fire and air to ground. Some aspects of terrain can provide good cover for these covers while others cannot. Concealment from the enemy observation can be done by the same object providing cover. This is because a cover can be used to protect a force from observation. Covered and concealed approaches can be important to reconnaissance units, terrorist forces and dismounted infantry. Obstacles – availability of natural or manmade terrain features that restrict, slow, or prevent movement of the forces put up by the defendants. They can be of two categories, the reinforcing ones and the existing ones. Existing obstacles are present on the field meaning they are natural for instance, Rivers and swamps. Reinforcing obstacles are put by the forces to slow down the movement of the enemies. Key and decisive terrain- this means any terrain that must be controlled to achieve an advantage. Key terrain is determined by how a commander wants to use it and whether his enemies can use it on their advantage. They include things like road junctions and mountain gaps. Decisive terrain is not present in every battlefield. Its identified as decisive if its recognized that the mission will depend on its capture They include things like communication lines. Avenues of approach- these are ground routes of an attacking force of a given size leading to its key terrain. When it comes to weather they must represent current and projected weather and atmospheric conditions in a location as well as to record the effect of weather on terrain, troops and equipment. Man-made features are represented in JC3IEDM as facilities whereas natural terrains are represented as features. Time The time available is refined as per the plan put forward or incase the situation changes. With the right timing, the commander should get the unit moving to where it needs to be without wasting any time. If there is enough time, they should make a reconnaissance to verify the terrain and verify the usability of the routes and time any grave movements. Civil Consideration These comprise of various characteristics including Areas Capabilities Structures People Events Organizations Always consider the effect of the local civilians they might have on the operation. Technology advancements or TPPs utilized Cryptanalysis- Through use of technology the Americans were able to break the imperial Japanese naval codes from their radio calls hence they got first hand information of the plans and intentions of Japanese. Aircraft technology- Americans had bomb aircrafts, torpedoes, and hoses charged with high octane fuel (Isom. 32). Due to this advancement it took them only 1000 lb bombs to set the massive ships on fire. Ships – development of new ships during the war was a major technological advancement. After the Americans had been mauled at the Coral Sea battle, they invested on the advancement of the ships and carriers5. The Yorktown due to its high damage control system resisted attack from the Japanese when they tried to destroy it. Weapons- despite Americans Yorktown’s radar warnings and the removal of its fuel lines with carbon dioxide and well- organized fighter defenses, it was hit by three bombs and torpedoed twice making the Japanese squadrons live up to their reputation as masters of carrier warfare. Lessons learnt to help in future battles Importance of intelligence- in a battlefield the most important and resourceful aspect is the intelligence. The commanders should be able to gather information that is useful to the war. As from the Battle of Midway, the American navy had no enough task force but they defeated the Japanese who had a very massive task force just because of the intelligence they gathered from the ground. Preparedness and training- in planning for missions, the commanders are supposed to supervise the execution of tasks. Also they should ensure that the units have all the equipments they need and they are taken good care of. You should also keep them fit and on check every time because if their wellbeing is not at a good state then your plans go unfulfilled. Speed of action- this is another vital thing in the war zone. Speed of action comes with issuing the orders at the right times and without hesitation. Commanders should issue the complete order and more to it they should see that the soldiers understand the orders. Before they go out to the field, the commander can issue an order in their sight and see how they respond if they don’t respond he is supposed to draw them a map or a sketch and make sure they understand. He is not supposed to hesitate since this might cause the enemy to act fast than they should. Conclusion Battle of midway fought by the United States Navy to capture the pacific can be said that was a very interesting war (Marshall. 45). The Americans can be said that they won the battle out of mere luck. All the credit for a massive task force, weapons, ships and aircraft would go to the Imperial Japanese Navy. They had all it took to win the way but their plans made them lose6. On the other hand the Americans defeated them out of the intelligence they had over them. References Symonds C, L. The Battle of Midway. London. Oxford University Press. 2011 Olsen J, A. A History of Air Warfare: new York. Potomac Books, Inc. 2010 Kernan A. The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons: New Haven. Yale University Press. 2007 Isom D, W. Midway Inquest: Why the Japanese Lost the Battle of Midway: Indiana. Indiana University Press. 2007 Smith D, V. Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm's Way: New York. Naval Institute Press. 2006 Marshall S.L. A. Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command: New York. University of Oklahoma Press. 2012 Read More