Watching the Battle of MIdway on DVD am reminded once again of the greatness of this man. While not as famous as Macarthur or Eisenhower, he was every bit their equal as a Military Genius. A true master and commander and rare in that unlike many great Commanders he was loved by the men he commanded. His call to send what remained of the Pacific fleet to take on a Vastly superior Japanese force at Midway is simply the stuff that legends are made of.
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Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
Yes, despite the fact that we had broken the Japanese code and knew that Midway was going to be their target, he was the right man in the right position at the right time.
Not to be contractory, but only with the perfect 20/20 vision of hindsight do we know for certain that Midway was the target. In spite of the fact that the JN-25 code was broken, the Japanese were well known for sending out fake and misleading messages just in case someone was listening. That in fact is what Nimitz's superiors in Washington thought was happening with those transmissions and they did everything short of issuing a direct order to keep Nimitz from sending the fleet to defend Midway at the risk of exposing Hawaii and the West Coast to attack if he had been wrong. That is what made it such an incredibly gutzy call. The essence of command.. making mindbendingly difficult decisions based on imperfect information. He was one of the best there ever was at doing that. He made the call in spite of the fact that he undoubtedly knew that if he was wrong he would suffer the same fate as his predecessor, Husband Kimmel.
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
We sent out a fake message stating that the water filtration system was broken on Midway.
The Japanese intercepted our misleading message. A later Japanese coded message was intercepted by us reporting the filtration system problems on what the Japanese were referring to as Midway. In a later intercept, We knew their next target was Midway because the intercept used the same Japanese word for Midway as their Midway filtration problem message. Through coded intercepts, we knew the next target of the Japanese fleet was going to be Midway. Why else would Nimitz risk our entire Pacific carrier fleet?
We had the same advantage, late in the war, in Europe. We knew what the Germans were planning almost before the German field commanders did. Coventry in England was nearly leveled and with great loss of life, even though Churchill knew the attack was coming in advance. He did not evacuate or warn them. He let the attack take place to avoid letting the Germans know we had broken their code.
Another example, the Russians won the great tank battle of Kursk because we told them when and where the giant German assault would take place based upon our enigma code breaking. Kursk was a giant ambush and a devastating defeat for the German army in the east. Sure made the Russians look good.
Obviously, It's much easier for any commander to beat an enemy when they know their plans in advanced.
Additionally, at Midway it was most fortuitous that our dive bombers attacked the Japanese carriers when they had planes on their decks with bombs for use against Midway. Their own bombs greatly helped to destroy the Japanese carriers. Even with our intelligence, I still think we were very lucky at Midway. Lucky and well informed. The battle of Midway turned the tide of the Pacific war.
I understand what you are saying. My point though was that some of the best intel analysts in Washington were telling Nimitz that the coded transmissions they intercepted that had identified Midway were phony and designed to pull the fleet away from their intended target. Nimitz correctly believed that the information was factual even though there were many including the President who thought he was being purposefully misled. The intercept you spoke of enabled our code crackers to know for certain that previous and subsequent messages containing that particular code word were about Midway for sure. What they did not know was whether or not the Japanese were really planning to attack Midway or if it was a diversion to draw attention away from their real intended target. I read some where that there were dozens of other code words for other supposed targets that the Japanese were flooding the airways with. Our code crackers knew for certain what the code word for Midway was, but they did not know for certain that Midway was the intended target. That is why Spruance chose to position the fleet Northeast of Midway so that he could be in position to cut off the Japanese if in fact they were headed to Hawaii instead of Midway. Its late and I hope I'm making sense here. LOL
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I will be with you always even unto the end of the age. Mathew 28:20
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