The Battle of Midway - Animated

The Battle of Midway, 4th-7th June 1942 - The Navy of the Empire of Japan strikes the island of Midway in the Pacific, in an attempt to draw out the US Pacific Fleet from Pearl Harbor for a final battle.

Note - there are conflicting claims for the successful bomb hits on the Japanese carriers by Dauntless squadrons. What is shown during that particular sequence is intentionally simplified.

[surfingtothestars]

If you did a 6+ hr documentary on all of WW2, I would still watch it all.

[nikolakaravida]

It's crazy how random war is sometimes. When McCluskey's group found the carriers, McCluskey actually went for the wrong one, Kaga, instead of Akagi. The pilot Richard Best recognized the mistake and broke off for the Akagi, followed by only 2 of his wingmen while the rest went after McCluskey for Kaga.
His wingmen missed, but Dick Best's bomb landed directly inside the hangar and Akagi went up like a Roman candle. Simultaneously Kaga blew up too from the other planes. One man diving onto an entire carrier like a madman scored the most perfect hit possible and doomed the ship.
Arguably the most decisive 5 minutes in history of warfare.

[ShiftingDrifter]

Jeez... the loss of those Devastator crews by a nearly 100% mortality rate is just unimaginable.

[SolracNexus]

"Yorktown is damaged! But you can speed up its repairs by spending gems"

[orderofrecluse]

My grandfather was in the final wave of SBD's as a rear gunner. He was hit in the leg, but survived the battle along with his pilot. He was awarded the purple heart.

[Desertrat]

The repair of Yorktown is to me one of the most heroic actions by civilians in the entire war, and it often gets glossed over in the retelling of the Battle of Midway. That ship pulled into port needing a minimum of two weeks repairs, but the engineers actually said she needed 4 months in Seattle to be fully repaired. But Nimitz needed her for the battle, and so civilians pulled together to pull of a miracle. As I've read it, many many civilians were involved. Those not actually working on board were either running supplies and parts back and forth or bringing food and water to the workers. And in 72 hours, that ship was ready to fight.

[ubw]

I am from China, from our textbook, it is hard to see how much sacrifice American made in Midway. Everybody thought it was an easy win, a great victory. But look at how many pilots bravely attacked but never come back...

[ethanw]

Imagine being a Zero pilot and finally thinking you can start the counter attack when, out of nowhere, a bunch of confused and angry American pilots in their dive bombers materialize out of nowhere and blow your carriers to shreds.

[blampfno]

72 hours to flip an aircraft carrier from OOC to battle-ready.

That's about how long it took me to do my first oil change.

[mysteryman]

10:40 My great grandfather was part of that raid. He was the piolet of one of the planes and didn't make it back. RIP grandpa thank you for your sacrifice.

[aronnov]

I aint gonna lie.. they had us in the first half

[andrewwillard]

The fact our boys got that carrier back up in 72 hours is just completely amazing especially for how messed up it really was

[FRDOMFGTHR]

The attempted suicide attack on the akagi, although ineffective, startled vice admiral Nagumo because “the Americans weren’t supposed to show such bravery”

[dnd_beyond_is_bad]

The work done on the Yorktown by those repairman was amazing. She had workers still onboard even as she was towed back out into the harbor, preparing to set sail for Midway. I hope those guys all got the credit they deserved, especially after they heard the results of the battle.

[jasonl]

Those first waves of US pilots flying obsolete planes, in what amounted to a suicide mission to delay the Japanese and disrupt the re-fueling/re-arming of the Zeroes, were true heroes. I'm sure they knew there was little chance of a safe return, but they did their duty. This type of sacrifice was a clear illustration how desperate the times were.

[boingobadger]

Imagine a DIY Documentary from a YouTube channel is better then those million dollar ones
Edit: To those telling me The Operations room isn’t as good as other youtubers in the same genre, I prefer The Operations room. It’s my opinion, and your opinion is yours. Also don’t battle in the reply section, or keep it minimum. (Which has actually been done, just saying this ahead of time.)

[randomlyentertaining]

Fun fact: The Japanese had war gamed the battle out and one of those war games resulted in pretty much exactly what happened at Midway. It wasn't taken seriously because the American team didn't do what the Japanese team expected and so the result was considered "impossible".

[peter-radiantpipes]

One cool part left out often was the code breakers. They knew about a strike but didn’t know which island or area. In order to find out, a code breaker sent false info out that midway was short on water and another set re other targets. When the Japanese sent codes out that their target was short on water supplies, then the US knew it would be Midway. A massive achievement and brilliant.

[ChrischiTutorialLPs]

Yamamoto famously said "Give me 6 months. In the first 6 months of the war, i can run amok. If however we dont win after 6 months, we will not win at all." Ironic how the battle of Midway occured pretty much exactly 6 months later, the battle of Midway ends in total disaster for the japanese. Yamamoto called it to the day.

[terencew]

“Keep sending in planes and eventually your enemy will run out of bullets” - some wise Admiral