June 4th, 76 years ago; the outnumbered American pacific Fleet took a huge gamble, using code breaking, and ambushed the Japenese Imperial fleet. This battle was a focusing engagement, that changed the balance of power in the Pacific forever!
The outnumbered US Fleet, using inferior equipment and pure Guts went up against the best Naval Air Arm in the world, and totally destroyed them! The Japanese never lost a battle up to this point in the War, and after this Battle, they never won another!
I remember reading about this amazing and important battle but I need to go back and refresh my memory on it but I know it was a turning point.
I'm still charging my vote my friend, it's taking forever to charge up!
thanks for this historic reminder!
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No problem, We had 3 carriers, they had 4. They had better planes, and their pilots were battle trained. Our torpedo planes were slow, and vulnerable, with light torpedoes, but they drove in hard, and died almost to the man. Their sacrifice was not wasted, because it drew the Zero top cover down. This left zero; Zero protection when our dive bombers arrived. They hit three of the four enemy carriers, with an arming change and fueling going on all over the flight deck. Their own bombs and fuel joined in; and put all three of them down in 5 minutes!
They had hit the Yorktown, and left her dead in the water,on fire. She was able to extinguish the fires, and relight half her boiler. She patched her light decks and went back to war! They found her, and hit her again! Since they didn't see smoke, and she was underway, they assumed that she was another of our carriers. Since we only had three, and since their carriers sank when hit this hard, they assumed we were down to one carrier. In truth, the Yorktown's planes diverted to the Enterprise, and the Hornet. They pushed damaged aircraft over the side to make room for the new planes.
When the last battle started it was basically two fresh carrier to one wounded one. We were able to kill her as she was hitting the Yorktown the second time.
The biggest single thing for us was that they lost all their best pilots; and we drew even on flight experience.
This victory came from an unusual source. The real victory was our damage control crews and abilities. They kept the Yorktown in the fight when she had been written off...twice! Not many realize the damage she did just be being too Tough a nut to crack; leading to some very bad decisions from the Japanese command structure! There were no small MEN in that battle, on eirther side, but our damage control people were the hidden Heroes of this fight!
A real, bare knuckled, lights out, Bar fight!
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oh my gosh thanks so much @smithlabs for the amazing summary of this battle! Thank God for our fighting men in that battle!
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Yes, and Spruance (our man in charge) decided not to pursue; as Halsey would have done. The Japanese set a trap for our carriers, with their battleships to intercept our carriers, at night.
Spruance stayed to support Midway; and saved our two carriers to fight later at Guadalcanal. They were able to tip the scale...just barely; in our favor (we lost the Hornet there).
They thought the sank the Enterprise too, but she was patch up and reentered the fight. At that point in the war, she was our only operational carrier! They painted a sign; Enterprise Vs Japan, and it was true.
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oh this is such interesting history, I'll try to make time to watch this video. thank you sir.
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Any time. She was alone then, but later she had a LOT of help!
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