Summary of Craig L. Symonds's The Battle of Midway

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 On Christmas morning in 1941, Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was in charge of the American fleet in Hawaii, surveyed the devastation below. The seaplane flew over the fleet anchorage, and the smell of fuel oil, charred wood, and rotting flesh hit him like a fist.
#2 Nimitz was known for his calmness and coolness under pressure. He was not demonstrative, and rarely showed his emotions to others. His most confrontational response was usually Now see here.
#3 Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was extremely angry about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He had been a critic of President Roosevelt and the New Deal, but he had been appointed to the cabinet after Germany invaded Poland and war broke out.
#4 FDR and Knox wanted to replace Admiral Husband Kimmel with Admiral Ernest J. King, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet. King had a well-earned reputation as a heavy drinker and womanizer.

Sujets

• Naval
• Military

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669369233
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Craig L. Symonds's The Battle of Midway
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On Christmas morning in 1941, Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was in charge of the American fleet in Hawaii, surveyed the devastation below. The seaplane flew over the fleet anchorage, and the smell of fuel oil, charred wood, and rotting flesh hit him like a fist.

#2

Nimitz was known for his calmness and coolness under pressure. He was not demonstrative, and rarely showed his emotions to others. His most confrontational response was usually Now see here.

#3

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was extremely angry about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He had been a critic of President Roosevelt and the New Deal, but he had been appointed to the cabinet after Germany invaded Poland and war broke out.

#4

FDR and Knox wanted to replace Admiral Husband Kimmel with Admiral Ernest J. King, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet. King had a well-earned reputation as a heavy drinker and womanizer.

#5

The offer was made that afternoon. King was willing to accept, but he had three conditions: first, he wanted his abbreviated title changed from CinCUS to CominCh; second, he wanted a promise that he would not have to hold press conferences or testify before Congress unless absolutely necessary; and third, he wanted authority over the various navy bureaus.

#6

The U. S. Navy was divided into different warfare communities in 1941. The most visible and cohesive was composed of those who served in destroyers, cruisers, and especially battleships. The men who signed up for pilot training developed a swaggering elan.

#7

Nimitz was not from a military family, but he had spent much of his early career in submarines, which was what the carrier aviation service became in the 1920s: a cutting-edge career that attracted ambitious and daring young officers.

#8

The Wake Island expedition was led by Pye, and it was he who had to decide whether or not to evacuate the island. He was not willing to risk the Saratoga task force against two enemy carriers, even if that meant leaving the Marines on Wake to their fate.

#9

The decision to abandon the beleaguered Wake garrison was a body blow to American morale. It was a bitter disappointment for a country still reeling from the shock of Pearl Harbor.

#10

The death of the crewmen on the battleships was tragic, but the temporary loss of the ships was not all that strategically important. The success of the Japanese attack showed that battleships had been replaced by aircraft carriers as the dominant weapon of naval warfare.

#11

The onset of a two-ocean war necessitated a reconsideration of American strategic plans. The Vinson-Trammel Act of 1934 began this metamorphosis, and by the time of Pearl Harbor, the United States had an enormous armada under construction. None of these new-construction warships would be ready for deployment until late in 1942 or early 1943.

#12

The November 1940 Plan Dog memo by Admiral Harold Betty Stark was instrumental in reorienting American strategy from the Pacific to Europe. It stated that in case of war with both Germany and Japan, the United States should remain on the defensive in the Pacific and devote its full national offensive strength to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

#13

In 1941, the American government decided to focus on Germany first, as the Atlantic and European area was the decisive theater. The principal American effort was to be exerted in that theater, and operations of American forces in other theatres were conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that effort.

#14

When he took over command of the American Pacific Fleet, Nimitz was given a handful of outdated tools to use in his fight against the Japanese. He had to decide how to use these tools to contest Japanese domination of the Pacific, while not giving up what he had easily.

#15

The island of Wake was captured by the Japanese in 1942. In 1943, it looked like the island might be recaptured by the Americans, so the Japanese shot all the prisoners.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The Japanese term Kidō Butai, which was translated as Mobile Force, actually meant Attack Force. It was the most powerful concentration of naval air power in the world. The man who had conceived that attack was the commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku.

#2

Yamamoto was a showman, and he often acted as if he were deliberately tempting fate. He was also very open about his opinions, which sometimes offended powerful elements within the government.

#3

The Japanese Army was extremely patriotic, and many of its members wanted to strengthen the military and increase its role in national politics. The Tōseiha, the dominant Army faction, wanted to work within the existing framework of government. But an extremist faction called the Kōdōha wanted to lead the nation to glory by championing an idealized, mythological past.

#4

The rivalry between the Tōseiha and the Kōdōha was mirrored in the Navy by competition between the so-called treaty faction and the fleet faction. Members of the latter embraced two ideas almost as articles of faith: that the United States was Japan’s logical, even inevitable, enemy, and that because war with America was inevitable, it was essential for Japan to maintain a battle force that was at least 70 percent as large as the American battle force.

#5

The American and British navies were not built up to the limits imposed by the 1922 treaty, so Japan was able to maintain her fleet at a level that was roughly 70 percent that of the United States Navy. However, if the Americans did suddenly decide to expand their Navy, it would bankrupt Japan.

#6

Yamamoto was in charge of the Japanese navy during World War II, and he was against allying with Germany. He was realistic enough to know that war was inevitable, and he prepared for it by building a fleet of submarines and land-based aircraft.

#7

The Japanese had two carriers in the 1920s, and they grew from small to large in the 1930s. They were grouped into carrier divisions of two carriers each. The terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty allowed Japan to convert two of her big ships into carriers.

#8

The Japanese had ten carriers by the end of 1941, which were collectively capable of carrying over six hundred airplanes. The idea that Japan’s six biggest carriers should operate as a single task group may have originated with Genda Minoru, a precocious and outspoken advocate of air power.

#9

The war in China proved both a blessing and a curse for Japanese aircraft design. It gave Japanese designers and engineers a testing ground for their combat aircraft, but they underestimated the importance of armor protection.

#10

The Japanese aircraft industry was capable of producing 162 airplanes a month in 1941, while the American industry was able to produce 4,000 planes a month in 1942.

#11

The Japanese carrier triad consisted of the Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 bomber, the Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 00 fighter, and the Mitsubishi G4M Type 1 bomber. The Kate was the best torpedo plane in the world in 1942, and its iconic airplane, the Zero, came about because of Japan’s desire to provide bombers in China with long-range fighter support.

#12

The Japanese Navy had a higher percentage of officers than the American Navy, but until 1938, the number of graduates from the Japanese naval academy who chose aviation was small.

#13

The Japanese had a total of about 3,500 superbly trained and experienced naval aviators, about 90 percent of them enlisted men, by the time the war began. The Japanese bet on quality triumphing over quantity, but they also gambled that the war would be a short one.