Fletcher and Spruance - Who Won Midway?

Today we take a look at some of the questions arising from the most recent video about the life of Admiral Spruance and his involvement in the Battle of Midway

00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:55 - Midway and Credit where it is due...

[ROBERTNABORNEY-jxil]

On flag officers' orders and reality. On my first visit to the Pentagon as a lowly major, there was a sign in front of an elevator reading, "Closed for major repairs". Taped beneath was a neatly typed sign that read "Tell Major Repairs that General Public wants this fixed immediately".

[LuckyFlanker]

Midway was a massive team effort

Nimitz's leadership and intel created the general battle plan, kept the carriers ready for battle, his subordinates aware of the Japanese Midway invasion.

The pearl harbor shipyard workers made Yorktown ready for battle ridiculously quickly and effectively.

Fletcher and Spruance positioned the ambush and coordinated the recon efforts.

Henderson and all the Midway aircraft conducted the initial recon that allowed the Americans to hit first.

Waldron (VT-8), Lindsey/Ely (VT-6), Massey (VT-3), and Thach (VF-3) pestered the Kido Butai and kept them too busy dodging their hits, which prevented the launch of the counterstrike and distracted the IJN CAP from going after the dive-bombers.

Best(VB-6), Mcluskey(VS/B-6), Leslie (VB-3), and Shumway (VB-3) delivered the final hammer blows that broke Nagumo's back.

If any of these people had done anything different, Midway may have turned out very differently.

[coldwarrior]

As a career Army officer, you cannot over emphasize the importance of Fletcher's decision to allow Spruance to take over control of the battle. It was absolutely the right tbing to do and yet I doubt many other admirals would have had the integrity to do so. Put yourself there. This is the biggest fleet fight to date in the Pacific. Win big and you'll be remembered forever. Reining in his ego to allow a subordinate to fight what might be the biggest action of the war (not knowing what is coming) ranks Fletcher above most admirals and generals I can think of. MacArthur would never have done that. Doubt if Halsey would have done that. Yet that decision was critical for the win. Drach, well done. Very well done . Most historians don't understand the intricacies and politics of command.

[Vito_Tuxedo]

Jon Parshall has observed that Fletcher was an eminently unselfish commander, and that it is a testament to his skill as a true leader that he was able to recognize that Spruance was sufficiently competent, capable, and on top of the course of the battle to let him take the lead following the strike on Yorktown. I agree. Sometimes the best thing a good leader can do is stay out of the way and let his fully capable subordinates do their jobs. Ego doesn't win wars; success does.

[kennethdeanmiller]

YES!
I just recently saw an interview with Richard "Dick" Best. This man was a pilot that was in charge of himself & two other pilots. He pulled his planes out of the dive on the Kaga in order to go after Akagi. Which he nailed while his other two planes missed. And then on the follow up strike on the Hiryu he also nailed that carrier as well.
In his interview, he said that credit for winning that battle should go to the intelligence officers that broke the Japanese code & let us know what the Japanese plans were. Never did he boast about being the pilot that basically sank two Japanese fleet carriers. He viewed the entire thing as a team effort and he was just one man in this very LARGE team. A very humble man, or at least the interview that he gave made him appear very humble. When speaking about the torpedo squadrons, he got choked up & almost went into tears. You could tell that their sacrifice bothered him greatly. And I think he even claimed that although they scored no hits that they were the true heroes of the Battle of Midway. It was the only time I had ever seen him or heard him speak. But it made me think & feel that THAT ALTHOUGH THE USA won a great victory that day, that the victory came with a very high cost. And I could tell that by the way he talked about it. To me, it seemed that he accomplished what needed to be done. And that now, knowing how many died as a result of his bombing accuracy, that it wasn't something that he was very proud of doing. And as a human being it is very understandable. Although it is war, knowing I had killed over a five hundred people in one day would weigh fairly heavy on my mind. And it seemed to me Richard "Dick" Best felt that way too. Yes, he did it. But don't really want to talk about it. Not just a very good pilot but a good & decent human being.

[charlesrataj]

What NO ONE ever talks about is how Elliot Buckmaster was screwed over. Yorktown struck hard at Coral Sea. Her crew performed a miracle at Pearl Harbor with a hasty repairs and rearming. She was the only ship that put the DBs TBs and fighters over the enemy at the same time. He evaded a slew of attacks with superior ship handling and his damage control parties had the damaged ship looking like she was never hit. That guy should have been given greater commands.

[sk]

At Midway, Fletcher was the most experienced carrier admiral on either side when it came to carrier v. carrier battles. A key lesson that both he and Hara had learned at Coral Sea was that SEARCH is everything. At Coral Sea Fletcher had thought that the fleet carriers would be with the transports but they were not, and his 1st search had missed them. At Midway he thought that the carriers might again be in two groups, and he did not rely on the PBYs to be his only eyes but ran his own search patterns. The first cleared the area to the North, and the second discovered Hiryu, which enabled Spruance to launch the afternoon attack that sank it. Fletcher also had to make the tough call on how many fighters to send in the 1st attack, leaving the rest for his CAP. (He only sent 6, must to Thach's disgust.) That decision paid off in part when Yorktown was attacked by the dive bombers (most were shot down). By the time Fletcher turned over command to Spruance the battle was basically over.

[ronfisher]

The “intro” to this, let alone the video itself or the series it’s part of, are what keep me coming back to your wonderful channel. This ex-squid says:Thank you.

[michielwerring]

If I had to summarise this video, it's: "Who deserves credit for the overall Strategy, who gets credit for the Tactical aspects, and who gets credit for dropping the bombs."
Overall a lovely video to listen to Drach, thanks a bunch.

[michaellorusso]

Admiral Fletcher probably one of the most underrated and under appreciated admirals of WWII

[garycameron]

I was administrator for the Marshall County (Iowa) historical museum about 20 years ago, located in Marshalltown, IA - Fletcher's birthplace. There was a small display about him there, but I understand the museum is (semi?) closed.
I find it amusing that both Fletcher and Nimitz were born in landlocked towns (central Iowa and central Texas) but became famous admirals.

[Theearthtraveler]

People are starting to question the Fletcher bashing of earlier accounts and give him more of his due credit. Thanks for posting this.

[elcastorgrande]

"Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is always an orphan."

[richardmayes]

Good point, we'll made. There's a difference between being the boss and being a leader, Fletcher is clearly a leader who rightly trusted his team to perform.

[jamesbrown]

Napoleon is credited with saying, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." A corollary to this would be, "Never interrupt your ally when he's winning the battle."
The latter is something which Fletcher seemed to understand very well.

[slightlyshabby]

Drach,

Loved the video! I think what happened at midway was (mostly) a great example of how U.S. Navy command philosophy is supposed to work. Fletcher was SOPA (senior officer present afloat) and as such was *responsible* for all forces. He was also OPCON (operational control) of both task forces (ie, responsible for overall concept of operations), and TACON (tactical control, responsible for localized execution) of the Yorktown Force. Spruance was TACON for the Hornet and Enterprise task force. When Fletcher's ability to exercise OPCON was impeded, he passed OPCON to the officer most able to exercise operational control of the forces- i.e., Spruance. I'm not clear on how TACON of the Yorktown group devolved, if at all, but I doubt Spruance was exercising TACON remotely. It likely devolved to the screen commander for the Yorktown force, but I don't know that for certain.

That bit of mastery of the obvious aside, things that occurred to me as I watched the vid:
1- Fletcher never relinquished *responsibility* (he was still SOPA) for the battle, despite relinquishing operational *authority* (OPCON). If everything had gone wrong while under Spruance's operational control, Fletcher would have still been responsible. His decision to devolve OPCON was not only clear headed and doctrinally correct, but also selfless in that regard.
2- I believe Spruance, as TACON of Enterprise and Hornet, *should be held accountable for Hornet not obeying tactical direction.* Even though he could not of course read Mitscher's mind and countermand the flight plan, Hornet was under Spruance's TACON and as such its actions reflect a loss of command and control on Spruance as OTC (officer in tactical control.) Mind you I say this as a huge Spruance fan, but the question of, "What the hell, Ray, can't you control your carriers?" would have been valid from either Fletcher or Nimitz.
3- As far as "credit" goes, I don't think there's much point on dividing the credit amongst the officers present. Technically it was Fletcher's battle, in that he was responsible no matter what, but the decentralized TACON and shifting OPCON meant that everybody had to do their bit or it would come apart- witness what happened when Mitscher decided not to play along. Fletcher and Spruance were remarkably in-sync in their handling of their task groups and the overall operational concept, which just points to them both being true professionals who were doctrinally savvy and inter-personally trusting.


Anyhow, I apologize for all the jargon- and I realize that this is modern jargon, not period. But the jargon defines the thought behind what happened- to wit, The SOPA was impeded in his OPCON and devolved it upon the officer most able to exercise it, while retaining overall responsibility. That is exactly what is supposed to happen, and you have to laud Fletcher for the selfless but correct call, and Spruance for showing absolutely no gaps or seams in control when the time came. Consummate professionals both, and both deserve credit for that.

[ph]

If you really want to nitpick. You can argue that Wade McClusky, Earl Gallagher, Dick Best and Max Leslie won the Battle of Midway. As it was their Dauntlesses that planted the bombs that blew up Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and later Hiryu and Mikuma.

[JamesThomas-ggil]

A good commander knows when to just get out of the way and let the subordinates do the job. Fletcher had other things to organize, fighting the fires, transferring men, reassigning his planes, looking after Yorktown and of course finding a safe haven for himself and staff. Bold move and deserve praise.

[dannypgrizzle]

Command cohesiveness and the willingness to put personal glory and self-assertion aside according to the unfolding dynamics of battle - this is a greatly underappreciated quality.

[Briandnlo]

MIdway has been my jam since being rewarded for good grades by being allowed to choose "The Battle of Midway' by Ira Peck from the scholastic reader catalog.

For me, the battle is less about who is due the credit, but the blame that's due to Mitscher. As I age into my curmudgeonhood, I find myself talking about MItscher that same way Jon Parshall talks about Richmond Kelly "Terrible" Turner. Admiral Fletcher had just come off having Admiral King's former flagship (Lexington) sunk while under his command at Coral Sea. He then had the hastily-repaired Yorktown sunk out from under him here.

I find myself agreeing with Jon Parshall's view that Mitscher sank Yorktown. Had Hornet contributed ANYTHING; apart form the sacrifice of her torpedo squadron; to the morning strike, the entire Kido Butai is permanently assigned to reef duty by lunchtime, and Yorktown survives. Enterprise's Dauntlesses sank Akagi and Kaga, Yorktown's got Soryu, and Hornet's were off reconnoitering the Aleutian Islands, or some such.

Like Turner, MItchser gets a lot of credit for being indispensible to the US Navy's efforts in 1944, Turner for developing & implementing the amphibious doctrine, and MItscher for carrier doctrine. Parshall has stated that the system that was the US Navy must have produced several; if not many; officers who could've done Turner's job, without Turner's problems. I say the same thing about MItcher. There had to be any number of Admirals who could've led that flotilla of Essexes and Indepences against what was left of the IJN in 1944, and who hadn't disobeyed orders, then lied about it, contributing to one of the black marks against Fletcher, which caused his reputation to be ruined in his lifetime.