Hi there! This is part 19 of an entire series. Watch the rest here: Part 1: kzread.info/dash/bejne/m5l4o86lh8nAlZM.html Part 2: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hHt8vJWbedXXmrA.html Part 3: kzread.info/dash/bejne/d5qFxsGklLDOkbw.html Part 4: kzread.info/dash/bejne/jG2Bl7ajk5qYp8o.html Part 5: kzread.info/dash/bejne/ZoGqytGrcZnXqdo.html Part 6: kzread.info/dash/bejne/lmZso9ifmdC_f6g.html Part 7: kzread.info/dash/bejne/p2qOmdGBebfPd6w.html Part 8: kzread.info/dash/bejne/moyGs8qkksfgc7A.html Part 9: kzread.info/dash/bejne/iW2NlqN8m7e1kbw.html Part 10: kzread.info/dash/bejne/i2elspmucbvIh6Q.html Part 11: kzread.info/dash/bejne/mHis1c2SZpyeirQ.html Part 12: kzread.info/dash/bejne/lZmfw8SeorPcY5c.html Part 13: kzread.info/dash/bejne/fJ-T2K2OXdXVgtY.html Part 14: kzread.info/dash/bejne/fZOttZd-nsSelrA.html Part 15: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hIZotMWdZ5eZaM4.html Part 16: kzread.info/dash/bejne/rI5_s6elndWcdqw.html Part 17: kzread.info/dash/bejne/k4eXsLSzoLjbppM.html Part 18: kzread.info/dash/bejne/pmeYq8mOhqqTppc.html Part 19: kzread.info/dash/bejne/m515yZeCe6iToLA.html

While Japan prepared for war for years, the U.S.was very isolationist and although the military tried preparing the enlistment wasn’t there. The military was manned by old hands, and the equipment was outdated. The U.S. was not the most powerful nation, only the most potential powerful.

@sleazyfellow

17 күн бұрын

Most of the west was not ready for war in 1939, and Russia as well. Japan did what Yamamoto said, ran wild for a few years until American production just totally eclipsed them, same with the eastern front against the nazis.

@LostInThe0zone

14 күн бұрын

It's a reasonable perspective. But there was something that America had that Japan already couldn't improve despite their decades of militaristic preparation. The Americans were able to rethink their approach to the interdiction of a war. Japanese deeply ingrained racist thinking certainly prevented them from adjusting to an enemy that they couldn't fathom could ever defeat them. It was simply unthinkable.

@rinkevichjm

12 күн бұрын

@@LostInThe0zoneit wasn’t their racism but their imperial fallacy that they had never been conquered. They were essentially conquered a century before opening them up for the Meiji restoration

Great series! Thanks! 👍👍👍👍

It's mind-boggling to think about the size of the US fleet if the war had gone on until 1946. How many unfinished ships were still in the dry docks or being fitted out in Aug. 1945? The same is true of the air fleet. In addition, a flood of American and English troops and ships would have begun to arrive from the European theater by then.

The pacific war was everything the US planned for. Maybe it started badly but the US knew that they were going to lose and tactically draw at least a few battles, but they were going to presevere the whole war.

The one thing that we should have and one thing they should have assumed is more is not what is assumed here, a few planes can cause more damage than many. We could have seen that when the Marines shot down a high number of aircraft, having many targets is one way to lose.

What about Taffi 3, now that's good turning point

@garypowell9071

17 күн бұрын

The role of destroyers of Taffy 3 is often overemphasized. Their role, while heroic, was much less important to the outcome of the battle compared to that of the planes from the escort carriers.

It's an interesting question on whether the Japanese could have held the two islands of Midway if they had managed to capture them. The islands are small, not much cover to hide. The number of planes would be relatively small and exposed. The Japanese would have had problems properly supporting Midway, like they did the Aleutian islands. Midway would naturally would have been a major target for the Americans to recapture.

One thing thing the alternative histories seem to miss is that in any scenario the US would have nuclear weapons by the end of July 1945 so the likelihood of the war extending much beyond that date is remote

I never thought about the maintenance crew the loss of those experience technicians And those crews that load the bombs they make the difference wow them nothing moves💯🙄

Hi, I think you posted an excellent analysis of both midway and the problems the Japanese had and created.

If the Japanese had recognized the fact that the presence of American carriers at Coral Sea meant that their codes had been broken, they could havve won at Midway.

What is barely mentioned here is that war is essentially an industrial endeavor and the United States had a decided edge in natural resources, work force and industrial infrastructure; which the Japanese could scarcely compete. We have lost that edge and now are in a position quite similar to the position the Japanese held at the start of WWII.

@alanrobertson9790

17 күн бұрын

USA is self-sufficient in raw materials so its still in a much better position than Japan was. USA military expenditure is still 37% of the world expenditure so to say "lost that edge and now are in a position quite similar to the position the Japanese held at the start of WWII" seems unduly pessimistic!

@nevergiveup19841

14 күн бұрын

Yes. It's 13 carrier fleets are unable to hold a candle to anyone. 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

@alanrobertson9790

14 күн бұрын

@@nevergiveup19841 Generals and Admirals always want more but honestly if you can't be satisfied with the overwhelming advantage the USA has got at the moment then you will never have enough.

@nevergiveup19841

14 күн бұрын

@@alanrobertson9790 I was being sarcastic to the spongebob-esque comment op made

@alanrobertson9790

14 күн бұрын

@@nevergiveup19841 I know. Don't worry there was never any danger of being interpreted otherwise. My comment was to underline the point you were making.😜

While the Japanese planned of attacking midway yet realized that they would not have been able to keep midway in supply.

Sun Tzu predicted the Japanese defeat ages ago. In every facet of the war.

@alanrobertson9790

17 күн бұрын

No it was Nostradamus. ☺

You can talk about material loss but what about moral they set there watched 4 carriers get taken out in 1 day that had to do something about moral

Our company had a distributor in Japan including “intellectual consultants.” 2 of my colleagues spent a couple years there to “share technology.” When they came home I asked what they learned. These very sr consultants do not talk out of school or are catty. But, they said that they couldn’t find any creativity or inventiveness in their peers there and as I am sure we all know the Japanese are frankly a bit “rasist” for anyone not Japanese.

The truly definitive work on the Battle of Midway is "Shattered Sword," by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. As this book has been available for for about twenty years, the above production is outdated, erroneous and irrelevant.

IMHO, the extremely hierarchical nature of Japanese culture in general and their naval culture in specific was the ultimate major cause of their loss. They were not able to take suggestions and ideas from below and missed an awful lot that way. Further, they had a bad case of Unwarranted Cultural Superiority Syndrome and had major problems admitting that their enemies had advances that they themselves ignored and left undeveloped or simply didn’t think important - because they, the superior people, hadn’t come up with it or authorized it.

@Jens-Viper-Nobel

17 күн бұрын

These issues were indeed a huge part of their ultimate defeat. But you still have to factor in a couple of other issues. One is directly mentioned in this analysis. And that is the Japanese fixation on the massed decisive battle to crush the enemy completely. This was a direct result of the battle in Tsushima strait in 1904, paired with the strict and inflexible following of doctrine. Remember that right up to the end of th Pacific war, a faction within the IJN high command still believed that surface ships were the only real and important weapon systems, and the carriers only supporting units to these battle ships. And their only admition to the importance of carriers were that these would be vital for the protection against enemy aircraft, being that the sinking of the British battleships in the early days of the war had at least driven home the fact that battleships were volnerable to air attacks. But to the battleship faction within the IJN high command, that was as far as the usefulness of the carriers went. And to one extent, that attitude has some merit even today. Even the current US navy have no illusions about the fact that carriers are indeed volnerable to both other aircraft and submarines and surface forces, and so cannot hope to operate and survive for long in a combat environment if they are not given a strong escort taskforce to help them fight off such enemy attacks. So, they are to some extent hampered by the fact that they cannot operate close inshore because the screen that is required to keep the carriers safe takes up so much space that operations in confined waters becomes almost impossible. Take a hypothetical situation. Let's say that combat operations in the Danish waters were to occur. As long as the carrier will remain in the North sea, she can conduct operations and still have her screening force operating at high efficiency. But this has the drawback of increasing the response time to a situation evolving somewhere near Zealand to the point that the situation there may already have changed into one where the mission profile of the aircraft is no longer viable. And if the enemy is holding the Jutland peninsula and is well equipped with anti aircraft weapons, the planes would have to run the gauntlet to even get to the area they are to perform the combat mission in. On the other hand, she can't go around the tip of Jutland and engage in full scale combat operations because even north of Zealand and Fyn, the waters are so shallow and stutted with banks and underwater obstacles that her screening force is forced to move in really close to her and the geological conditions would render a lot of her anti submarine detection gear unusable in any practical sense. Yet, conventional small submarines would still be able to operate there. And enemy aircraft would be able to hide from her detection gear by hugging the ground and disappear in the ground return waves on the scopes. Sure. An awacs type could discover them despite of this, but it would still leave the taskforce extremely volnerable to air and submarine attack on a scale that is unacceptable and unviable as well as an increased danger from anti ship missiles fired from ashore. They further have the disadvantage in there of an enemy not even needing radar equipment or recon aircraft or vessels to discover their presence. Once they are in there, they are never out of sight from land. So the enemy will be able to see them and not even remotely give away his own position while doing so. In other words. Just as with the war in the Pacific, a carrier task force even to this day still needs to be out in open waters where it can move injust about any direction if it is to be useful at all. Now, going back to the actual topic of the IJN internal power struggle and strict doctrine, the above undeniable facts made for the battleship faction to have a viable point to the extent that they could not dictate supremely, but could still exert enough power to hamper the carrier faction significantly in terms of both operational requirements, logistics and shipbuilding issues. Logistics also encompassing such issues as manpower on all levels of a carrier and it's operation and the training and education facilities needed to provide their carriers with homogenous and functional crews as the war progressed and replacements were needed. And to make things even more ridiculous, this also hampered the IJN submarine force which could otherwise have been a truly valuable asset to the carrier groups when it comes to recon and support and delaying actions against the US. The other issue that comes from this was the incapability of the IJN to keep their forces concentrated once they had established themselves in all the islands and countries in the south Pacific and reaching into the Indian ocean. To be able to patrol and conduct operations in such a huge area as well as retaining at least a token force in home waters, they had to spread their forces so thinly that it took much too long to respond to rising threats from the US once that country started offensive operations, so that by the time a viable concentrated force could be sent against them, the US forces had already amassed forces big enough to make any major battle one where the outcome could not be assured without the enemy making a complete fool of himself. And this lead to the situations we saw throughout the war there where both sides went back and forth and both gave and took losses without really achieving total supremacy until the US were able to build and send forces so numerous that the IJN could no longer hope to win a decisive battle. It has to be said that this latter issue was in part caused by the army putting way too much work on the IJN by demanding constant transport and escort to all theaters of operation and also having the same superiority issues towards both the enemy and the IJN. And this combined with the IJN's own problems and issues would in reality ensure that the Japanese empire had effectively lost the war before they even left the Kuriles to attack Pearl.

Although I can agree that USA was bound to win against Japan sooner or later the loss of 4 Japanese fleet carriers at Midway did decisively change the balance of naval forces in the Pacific. Yes it would have happened at some point anyway but Midway was the turning point and it happened earlier in the war than expected. So I am at a loss why this video underplays the victory. Yes he explains but I don't find it convincing.

Thank you. You do not, as you believe share new knowledge. The majority are not aware of interconnectivity Or how vital logistics, strategy and awareness of capabilities are. Admiral Yamamoto was. He said that hevcoukd run wild for 6 months, and that then the sleeping giant would crush Japan. Before pearl harbor. Hr was right. Few are aware of that either

Either way they lose, should have left us alone and continued with China and Asia

@mmkkggggoodd2315

18 күн бұрын

The Japanese needed the USA oil, which was embargoed as long as they were in China.

@christopherconard2831

17 күн бұрын

Attacking Hawaii was similar to Germany invading France instead of just focusing on going east in to Russia. Maybe the rest of Europe would have considered it a German/Russian war and not wanted anything to do with it and let it run it's course. But leaving the western front open, and if Europe (France) decided to invade Germany while they were otherwise occupied was too big of a risk. Similarly, Japan could have hoped America would remain isolationist and decide it wasn't worth helping some European countries hold on to their Asian empire. But if America did decide to get involved, the fleet at Hawaii plus what could be built up there made the possibility too much to overlook.

@alanrobertson9790

17 күн бұрын

It was USA oil sanctions that made Japan do it. They would have run out of oil.

@alanrobertson9790

17 күн бұрын

@@christopherconard2831 Britain and France had declared war on Germany, Russia had made a pact. So it made sense to remove one front when they could, as you said.

@markprange2430

16 күн бұрын

​@@alanrobertson9790: Was Japan also affected by a Dutch oil embargo?

Written by AI, read by AI. Riddled with mistakes, "written" in loops that circle back and contradict itself. Full of filler, multi-syllable collegiate level words meant to sound thorough but ultimately say the same exact thing 3-5 times in a row. KZread it absolutely chock full of this stuff now.

@stevebainbridge310

12 күн бұрын

Still a great series that greatly expands our understanding of the war down to the micro, individual level.