The Battle of Midway with Craig Symonds | Pivotal Battles in American History #3

0:00 the americans by winning this battle sinking four japanese carriers in a single day it’s one of the most outsized victories in all of naval history [Music] hi this is tony williams senior fellow with the bill of rights institute and we

0:21 are pleased to bring you another episode of scholar talk series in pivotal battles in american history and we’re especially honored to have scholar craig simons who is going to discuss the battle of midway in world war ii the guiding question for this series is how did this battle shape the outcome of

0:42 the war in which it was fought and why was it so pivotal to american history now dr craig simons is professor of history emeritus at the u.s naval academy he’s a lincoln prize winner and the author of numerous books on naval history several of which i’ve read including world war ii at c

1:04 american naval history a very short introduction uh five naval battles that shaped american history uh which is decision sc and also the subject of today’s discussion the battle of midwife uh craig i want to thank you for joining us

1:24 well thank you tony i’m happy to be here i think this is an important series and i’m glad to be part of it great thank you very much uh love your books you know you’re just such a compelling storyteller uh and i i really love this book because as we’re as we’re gonna talk about you know this idea of contingency right that things could have turned out a little differently if some

1:45 things had changed uh you know really adds to the drama uh and and the compelling nature of this battle so so why don’t we just jump right in to to discussing it uh your your book battle of midway is is part of the oxford pivotal moment series which really focuses a lot on

2:06 important events in american history but also on contingency as i mentioned what is historical contingency and and how does it play out in the battle of midway well that’s a great question you know uh on what it brings to mind is yogi berra’s famous comment that when you come to a fork in the road

2:27 take it and what this series does and the battle of midway belongs in that grouping what this series does is say here’s where history was at a fork in the road and it could have gone one way it could have gone a different way and that’s what one of the many things that makes history so exciting and this battle in particular because it could

2:48 have gone otherwise and had it gone otherwise the series of sequential dominoes that follow that of course would have gone in any number of predictable or unpredictable directions the battle of midway perhaps more than even most of the other episodes in this wonderful series is

3:08 significant because it took place at a very specific moment it’s arguable that at 10 25 in the morning on june 4th 1942 the japanese were winning the battle they were winning the war and 10 minutes later that was no longer true that is a pivotal moment now it doesn’t mean that the battle of midway

3:30 decided the outcome of the war obviously it’s only six months into a four-year war so there’s much more bloodshed much more violence still to come and all of that mattered but it also changed the trajectory of that war because up to that moment the japanese made all the decisions

3:50 about where the next initiative would be what the next battlefield would be they decided what was coming next and after that it was the americans who made that decision and soon after midway the americans went into guadalcanal the whole south pacific campaign and subsequent to that to central pacific drive

4:10 those i’m not saying would have been impossible but they would probably have been significantly delayed if the outcome of the battle of midway had been any different and here’s one more thing to consider the overarching strategy of the allies in 1942 was that it was important to defeat germany first

4:31 germany had the stronger economy the more powerful army they had conquered most of europe they were the most dangerous foe so the idea was to remain on the defensive in the pacific had the united states lost the battle of midway that might have come up for reconsideration and that would have changed the entire

4:52 character of the global war so midway is one of those moments a pivotal moment to use the title of the series where things could have gone differently and that’s that’s what contingency is right now now naval warfare changed a lot uh in in the pacific war with the rise of

5:12 the aircraft carrier so how did the carrier change the nature of naval warfare during world war ii well a lot is the short answer of course but we have to be careful too that we don’t say uh it was all the battleship and then it was all the carrier there were lots of people in the united states

5:33 navy and other navies as well that recognized the emergence of the aircraft carrier you can really date that back to 1922 20 years before pearl harbor and the battles of 1942 when in the aftermath of the washington naval arms limitation conference

5:54 several nations including both the united states and japan took advantage of a loophole in the limitation of the number of battleships each nation was allowed to have by converting several of them that were under construction into large aircraft carriers now the idea of an aircraft carrier prior to that was

6:15 that it would provide air cover for the battleship it would scout the enemy battle line and perhaps report on the fall of shot since those 14 to 16 inch shells could travel 20 miles or more but now with the much larger aircraft carriers built on the holes of pro tow

6:36 battleships carriers now displaced 35 40 000 tons they could carry 80 to 90 aircraft and became striking platforms in their own right so even in the 19 late 20s and certainly in the 1930s there were naval officers who recognized that but there is a lag between understanding

7:00 the emerging technology and building the weaponry necessary to affect it so it is in world war ii that the evidence that carriers had surpassed battleships becomes clear the battle of the coral sea in may of 1942 and particularly of course the battle of midway in june of

7:21 1942 and that’s another reason why midway is a turning point it’s a turning point strategically and tactically and in terms of momentum it’s also a turning point technologically so the emergence of the carrier is critical here right so um you know simply what events led up to the battle of midfield

7:42 well yeah that’s a great question this is gonna be a long answer i’m afraid because uh that goes back really to pearl harbor uh americans in particular are uncertain why the japanese did this i mean good heavens attacking the united states of america what were they thinking well this is more or less what they were thinking what they wanted

8:04 was access to the resource materials in the south pacific the oil of java and borneo and sumatra the tin and the rubber of french indochina and all those raw materials they did not have themselves and had to import when the united states tried to use oil to

8:24 keep the japanese from being even more aggressive in asia the japanese said we either have to do what the americans want or find our own source of raw materials and especially oil and they chose the second option but they feared that attacking and seizing those resources in the south pacific

8:45 might cause war with the united states or might lead the united states to interfere with that so the plan was to knock the american battle fleet out of the way with a preemptive strike use the next six months to gobble up those resources and then say to the united states okay we’ve got what we

9:05 wanted let’s talk let’s negotiate now what’s wrong with that strategic plan is that by attacking the united states they woke the sleeping bear and instead of the united states saying oh well it’s a fata complete let’s negotiate the united states instead went full scale to war well the japanese

9:26 commander of the combined fleet isaroko yamamoto saw that the key element of the american fleet was the carriers he’s one of those who had figured this out and when the japanese attacked pearl harbor there were no carriers in port he wanted to go get them and that’s really what the midway attack was all

9:48 about midway was a tiny little atoll it had an airfield and that’s useful but really it was a a small target for such a commitment but the plan was that if the japanese attacked midway the american carriers would come out to resist it the japanese could then pounce on those carriers

10:10 sink them to the bottom of the ocean and then have control of the pacific for the time necessary to complete their conquest of those resources in the south pacific the fly in the ointment for them was that because of american code breaking the americans particularly chester w

10:30 nimitz knew they were coming and his dilemma of course was what to do about it now we know that he could have decided oh well midway’s not that important and the overall strategy is germany first why don’t we just let them have it they’re coming with this overwhelming force

10:51 and then we can attack their supply lines as they attempt to stay there that might have been the smart strategic decision but nimitz had the advantage of knowing they were coming he had three carriers plus the airfield on midway he calculated that the odds looked pretty good and

11:12 decided to take them on so what it was all about was the japanese effort to sink those american carriers that they had missed at pearl harbor and it didn’t work out because of the code breakers right and i’ll ask you another simple question uh and and please put your storytelling

11:33 uh skills to use here uh can you just briefly explain the dramatic course of this battle uh and how the americans were able to win such a stunning victory over the japanese well it’s it really is an astonishing story it’s one that if someone had crafted it as a novel and presented it to a new

11:54 york publishing house it would have been dismissed as far too unlikely this sequence of events is just so unlikely we’re not going to believe it’s possible but of course it did happen the plan for the japanese was to attack the island of midway with their aircraft that would cause the american carriers to come out and then they would pounce

12:17 on those carriers but the americans knowing they were coming pre-positioned their carriers north of midway in quite literally the last place the japanese would look for them so that on the morning of june 4th when the japanese attacked the island of midway the american carrier planes were just

12:39 warming up on the decks of those three american carriers planning to ambush the japanese but there were all sorts of things that went on here one of which is that once the japanese figured out oh my gosh there are american carriers in the vicinity we have to adjust this they turned around and headed north

12:59 so that many of the planes from the carriers heading for the position the japanese were expected to be found there was nothing there one large element of those planes commanded by wade mccluskey decided oh my i’ll have to look for them well they were already at the end of a very long flight their fuel tanks were

13:22 getting low so the decision to look for them was quite risky but as he was circling the area he saw one japanese destroyer that had been left behind to suppress an american submarine and it was speeding north at 33 knots and he thought to himself mccluskey did i’ll bet he’s going to find the main body i’m

13:44 going to follow that course northward which he did and it led him to the japanese carriers that contingency since we were talking about that theme seems unlikely but was a critical factor in the entire battle so he arrives mccluskey and his airplanes over the

14:05 japanese carriers at about the same moment that the airplanes from a different american carrier the yorktown also arrived by coincidence by happenstance because they flew a different course so they arrive overhead just at the moment when the japanese are preparing

14:25 to change their ordinance package on their planes from explosive bombs to attack the island to torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs to attack the american carriers they’re refueling they’ve got ordinance piled on the deck all of a sudden the american dive bombers appear overhead

14:47 and in the next five minutes the americans seized control of the battle and of the pacific war so uh simply why was the battle of midway pivotal to the outcome of the pacific war in world war ii and why is it important to american history okay that’s good it doesn’t let me emphasize

15:08 that it doesn’t decide the outcome of the war that’s not what midway does but it changes the trajectory of the war the americans by winning this battle sinking four japanese carriers in a single day it’s one of the most outsized victories in all of naval

15:30 history where the opposing fleet is all but annihilated if we decide that carriers are the striking arm of the modern fleet and second world war by seeking all four of the heavy carriers the japanese brought to midway the japanese were forced to retreat and it also took away their ability to initiate further offenses now what would be up to

15:53 the united states to decide where the battle would go and in less than a month afterward the united states decided it would go to guadalcanal and then to rabao and then to the marshall islands and the gilbert islands and on to iwo jima and okinawa so what it did was put the decision-making

16:15 in the hands of the american strategists and took it away from the japanese who are now and remain back on their heels they’re not toothless they’re still a strong navy and a ferocious enemy but they had to react to the americans instead of the americans reacting to the

16:36 japanese it tilted the battle in the pacific from one in which the japanese were in charge to one in which the americans were in charge all right great craig simons uh thank you so much for joining us uh to discuss your your book the battle of midway it’s a remarkable book i i really commend it to students

16:58 and teachers and and our general uh audience as well uh and i can’t wait to read your your forthcoming book on nimitz at war uh which is uh going to be published in the spring of 2022. good luck with that thank you tony i appreciate it great thank you again uh and thank you all again uh for joining us on this episode of scholar talks and

17:19 please check out our other series on the cold war and the presidency and black intellectuals and the african-american experience thank you you