What if the USS Yorkown’s VB-3 actually sank the Akagi at Midway?

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glenn239
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Re: What if the USS Yorkown’s VB-3 actually sank the Akagi at Midway?

#16

Post by glenn239 » 27 Jan 2020, 21:35

Richard Anderson wrote:
27 Jan 2020, 20:24
It is not a "'what if' discussion" it is your latest nonsensical hobbyhorse on a par with your scheme of how B-17s and TBD's as level bombers were the best way to destroy the Kido Butai.
SBD's with well trained USN aviators were the only effective weapons against IJN fleet carriers in the US arsenal in June 1942. B-17's were near to completely ineffective against moving targets if using high level bombing tactics, and TBD's suffered from defective torpedoes and obsolescence - they were too slow. TBF's - the Avengers - were a formidable attack platform and once US torpedoes were made more reliable, were lethal. TBF's were at Midway, but only half a dozen based on the island.

If examining tactics from a 'what if' perspective, later in the war USAAF bombers adapted skip bombing tactics, which were considerably more lethal than level bombing tactics. But this was after Midway. In terms of the TBD's, I doubt under USN doctrine existent in June 1942 they'd have ever been used in the level bombing role against carriers.
Plotting the locations of the wreckage will tell you where the wreckage is, it will not tell you where the ships were when attacked or what their orientation was.
When Soryu's upper works were blown to smithereens by hanger explosions just after she was bombed, exactly where do you propose all that debris went?

The relative position of the ships when attacked is what matters. If Soryu was east of Akagi when bombed, then Leslie's VB-3 was the only squadron to have attacked it because VB-3 came in the furthest east. Best therefore will have bombed the Akagi. But, if Soryu was northwest of Akagi when bombed as shown in the Nagumo Report, then Leslie could not have attacked the Soryu because to do that he would have had to fly straight over the Akagi to reach it. (You made this exact argument upthread and you are correct - Leslie did not overfly any carrier). In this case the pilot that sank the Soryu would have to have flown over either the Akagi or the Kaga. No one flew over Akagi to attack a carrier beyond. But, Richard Best flew over the Kaga to attack a carrier beyond. Therefore, if Soryu is northwest of Akag when bombed, Best attacked the Soryu and Leslie of Yorktown sank the Akagi. This possibility is evident from a glance at the carrier positions shown on the Nagumo Report action track.

FYI, there are a second set of coordinates given for the sinking location of the Japanese carriers, not shown on the Action track. In this alternative set, (which you can see in Lord's Incredible Victory), the Soryu's sinking position is shown far to the east of Akagi's. If these coordinates are indeed correct, this would be absolute proof that Yorktown bombed the Soryu, as she is too far east for Enterprise to have possibly reached her.

The three carriers in question drifted some distance from their attack positions to their sinking positions.

With the Kaga, it's attack position could be identified because one of its attackers was shot down during the attack, and will be resting on the sea bed within some hundreds of yards from its crash location. If this SBD is found, it is the location of the attack on Kaga, (and will confirm absolutely that McClusky's group did indeed attack the Kaga).

With Akagi, since you seem to have great interest with Fuchida's account of the battle, the attack location of the Akagi will either be strewn with planes and plane debris blown overboard from the flight deck by the bomb hits from the point of attack towards the point of sinking, or it will not. If not, then since the wreck is known to be upright on the sea floor, with the flight deck in large part missing, then the examination of its wreckage should be able to tell whether all or some of the strike aircraft were in the hanger or on deck. If the debris field is strewn with B5N2's, then Fuchida's account is correct. If it is not, and their wreckage is in the hanger below the burned remains of the flight deck, then Fuchida's account was not truthful. Either way, we may know this year.

With Soryu, as per above this ship apparently suffered massive chain explosions inside its hanger immediately after being bombed, meaning that there will be a debris field of the material thrown into the sea by these explosions practically at the point of its bomb location

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Re: What if the USS Yorkown’s VB-3 actually sank the Akagi at Midway?

#17

Post by Richard Anderson » 27 Jan 2020, 23:13

And the Nonsense Hobbyhorse rocks on.
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glenn239
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Re: What if the USS Yorkown’s VB-3 actually sank the Akagi at Midway?

#18

Post by glenn239 » 28 Jan 2020, 21:49

Shattered Sword does not mark either the Soryu fighter pilot or the Osmus downing locations in any figure anywhere in the book. When this is done, on the SS track Osmus ditches at about Akagi's 2 o'clock, distance about 12 nautical miles. The direction from Akagi's bombing position to Akagi's sinking location is 11 o'clock, so not towards the Osmus crash site. Arashi, the ship that picked up Osmus, is approaching Akagi from her approx. 8' clock, from the west. Arashi should never gets within 10 nautical miles of the position Osmus crashed at according to the Shattered Sword reconstruction. How did Arashi pick up Osmus?

With the Soryu fighter pilot Fujita the situation is similar. The engagement should have occurred about 10-15 miles southeast of Hiryu's location in the SS reconstruction. At the time Nowaki picked up Fujita about 8-10 hours later Akagi had drifted towards its sinking position, so was maybe 15 or 20 miles northwest of where Fujita went down. It seems unlikely or impossible that Nowaki was ever anywhere near the location that Fujita must have crashed in if the Shattered Sword positions for Soryu and VT-3's approach are correct. Therefore, the SS reconstruction might not be correct.

The Akagi bombing position in the Nagumo Report is considerably to the east of where it is shown in Shattered Sword. When the Nagumo Report Akagi bombing position is superimposed on the Osmus crash position as given in Glorious Page, the Osmus crash is almost right on top of the Akagi. Or, as the Nagumo Report puts it,

0724 Noting that the two torpedo plane groups to starboard of the Akagi were preparing to launch their torpedoes, she goes into evasive action. Then, seeing that she was about to be dive bombed, she makes maximum reverse turn.

Same idea for Fujita - the NR carrier positions I think explain much better how it was possible for Nowaki to pick him up because, rather than being 12 miles east of Akagi's location, the carrier moved right over his crash site as it drifted to the northwest.

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Re: What if the USS Yorkown’s VB-3 actually sank the Akagi at Midway?

#19

Post by Terry Duncan » 30 Jan 2020, 13:31

Whilst this does not fit the recommended format for a 'What If' with regards to how the future would play out, it is certainly 'What If' when it comes to speculation around the existing evidence, so I am happy for it to continue as long as interesting details that can be considered by people or rebutted by them with other evidence continue to be posted.

For those not interested, there is little point in posting 'I will take no part in this' or words to that effect over and over. Either post something to refute or confirm the details under discussion or simply ignore the thread entirely. Posting 'I will take zero part' five or six times just looks silly as it is obvious you are taking part.

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Re: What if the USS Yorkown’s VB-3 actually sank the Akagi at Midway?

#20

Post by glenn239 » 03 Feb 2020, 21:28

Richard Anderson I see you are back to Fuchida is a reliable witness again...
Yes, the basis of the hobby horse 'what if' is that all of Best, Leslie and Fuchida were telling the truth. Because Shattered Sword is convincing in its conclusions that the Japanese strike was still largely in the hanger at the time of attack, and because only Yorktown matches up to Fuchida's account of Akagi's bombing, that this means Akagi was more advanced in its preparations than the other carriers and Leslie's squadron bombed it. Best could not have bombed Akagi because Best's target had only few aircraft on deck. Or, as Raymond Spruance put it,

Our dive bombers arrived in the nick of time, caught one enemy CV (Akagi) with most, if not all, of his planes on deck. The other carriers had some planes on deck.

Lord assumed that both Best and Leslie were avoiding claiming the Soryu because they both wanted to have hit the big ones - Kaga and Akagi. But, under this what if theory, Best was actually motivated by the knowledge that he'd allowed himself to become distracted inbound, had failed to survey the target on approach, and so failed to understand McClusky's orders and attacked the wrong carrier. Presumably, as this theory goes, he understood what had happened only as he was exiting the battle and watching Akagi being pasted, only then realising that the 'right hand' carrier was not the one he'd assumed it was, and that McClusky (a recent fighter pilot transfer) knew what he was doing when he issued his attack orders. Since all the enemy carriers in question had been pasted anyways, his error did not matter and he need not report it.

Fuchida never claimed that any carrier but Akagi was caught about to launch, so Spruance's June 1942 comments about the differing state of launch preparations between Akagi and the others are noteworthy. In Fuchid's book The Battle That Doomed Japan, his account of the loss of Kaga had no aircraft being even mentioned on the flight deck, (there is a flight deck fire, but this is caused by a gasoline truck, not aircraft). Soryu was still preparing her strike and was not yet ready, and Hiryu launched independently at 1040, not at 1025 as Shattered Sword incorrectly suggested. The key being the assumption Nagumo would only launch all four carriers simultaneously in an emergency situation. In Fuchida's account Nagumo had no intention of leaving Akagi vulnerable in the meantime - her planes could orbit nearby until the other carriers caught up.

In terms of the accusations leveled at Fuchida in Shattered Sword, the most contentious - the launch state of Akagi at 1025 - will be determined by the inspection of the wreck, as she is intact and upright with her hanger decks open. Of the others in that book, none are particularly convincing. For example, it's stated in passing that Fuchida did not allocate oil tanks as a target for a follow-up attack at Pearl Harbor because ships were the primary target. But, the 5th Division at Hawaii was employed only against land targets, and given that the airfields were already well worked over, it was perfectly logical that Fuchida would opportunistically earmark the oil tanks as a potential target for the 5th division's level bombers.

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