The Battle of Midway 🇯🇵 Nagumo's Dilemma, the Mistake that Lost the Battle? (Japanese History)

[Music] [Music] well hello there welcome to the pacific war channel the channel where we cover the asia-pacific war of 1937-1945 and all the major events that led up to it now because of over 250 comments and rising over a mildly popular video i put out on the battle of midway i really wanted to come back and talk about this battle more specifically i wanted to talk about a major issue that occurred during this battle that is notoriously known as the nagumo dilemma so things went wrong for both the ign and the u.s navy during this battle and it's actually quite incredible how the turn of fate spun back and forth for them but one thing is for sure whether you ask a japanese or american war scholar today they will always bring up nagumo's dilemma as one of the most crucial blunders that lost the battle of midway now if you have not already seen my well poorly narrated but arguably well animated video on the battle of midway you could click on the card above it you know went into a very detailed minute by minute look at the battle and i do argue you should watch it it's kind of a precursor to this one and for those who commented on my terrible narration skills when i made that video and the hilarious dyslexic mistake i made when i called b 25 mitchell bombers b-52s i'm very sorry it was even written on the script b-25 and i've done this already three times as we're filming and made that error again and again again and i guess i have some dyslexic problem also the other errors i made in my my narration i will go through them at the end of this video so you can get your just dessert after uh so let's dive right in shall we after the pacific war the japanese were trying to understand why their admirals acted in the way they did during the disaster that was the battle of midway one of the many conclusions they came up with was what they called victory disease they described this as being an overconfidence the japanese military felt after so many successful victories which led the military to make an arrogant and rather foolish decision in the future the attitude of the ign led them to complicate the midway battle plan rather needlessly by splitting up their forces the battle of midway was a plan devised primarily by admiral isuruku yamamoto and the core of the plan was to seek out and crush the remaining u.s pacific fleet this was going to be done by a surprise attack on midway in order to draw out the u.s pacific fleet specifically the aircraft carriers for a decisive battle during the simulations of yamamoto's midway invasion plan vice admiral chichi nagumo and his staff foresaw a dilemma what if the american carriers should enter the battle while the japanese carrier aircrafts were engaged in bombing midway oh the foreshadowing of this pure shakespearean moment if you look at the list of warships on either side even disregarding what the japanese did not know would be there such as the uss yorktown strictly by the numbers this was going to be a landslide victory for the ign on top of the massive numerical advantage the ign also knew that their aircrafts were technologically superior and the us did not at this time possess great aircrafts not to say that they weren't good but up against the zero fighter it wasn't looking good for america now so many mistakes were made on both sides during this battle but it was the us who stole this miraculous victory straight from the hands of the ign this battle remains as one of the most studied naval battles in history so what were these major mistakes and what do we mean when we say nagumo dilemma ah poor nagumo his name is gonna live in infamy whenever you talk about midway so like i was saying about victory disease yamamoto decided to split off two out of his eight fleet carriers he had to support a rather unimportant and silly side mission during the battle of midway and that was the aleutian island invasion uh to invade the islands of atu and kisca while this of course would have provided a greater range of operation for the japanese empire against the united states in all honesty it was not worth the effort especially because it hindered the most important goal of the ign and that was to force a decisive battle in the pacific if it was successful japan would have been the first nation to occupy u.s soil since the war of 1812. this side mission was also a faint attack trying to draw some of the american forces away from the large battle that would occur at midway this proved to be a disastrous blunder as u.s cryptanalysis had partially broken up the ign jn 25b code and have been decoding messages related to the midway operation commander joseph roshvar and his team at the station hypo were able to figure out using these codes that the midway atoll was the target of the mission known as af roshfar did what would be considered a genius move he sent an undersea cable message to midway base telling them to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that the midway water purification system had broken down within 24 hours the code breakers picked up the japanese mission af was short on water thus confirming midway was in fact the target so the u.s military knew where the ign would be more or less and that the aleutian mission was a faint attack so no u.s forces were going to fall for it the victory disease led an overconfident ign to push yamamoto to allow for the splitting of the carrier forces to make this faint attack on the aleutian islands it was unnecessary operation and when the entire purpose of the midway battle plan was to force the us navy into a decisive battle splitting up the forces like this was a huge mistake unfortunately it was not going to be the only large mistake made that would fall onto our poor friend nagumo vice admiral chuichi nagumo was not as innovative as yamamoto up to the battle of midway nagumo had a near perfect record and he was a very competent by the books officer when you had superior numbers and a sound strategy he performed perfectly a problem with the by the book mentality however was when something went wrong you needed to make a vital decision rather quickly something our poor friend nagumo utterly failed to do at midway admiral yamamoto gave all of his carrier commanders detailed orders on specifically what to do in a range of different situations during the battle of midway nagumo was a by the book doctrine abiding officer and he could easily be counted upon to do exactly what he was told this was important because during the entire battle the ijn commanders would be hundreds of miles away under strict radio silence nagumo was going to be in command of the kido bhutai the best carrier fleet in the ign the initial invasion of the midway island would be carried out and led by the quito but carrier force group this would neutralize any land-based airfields and sink all the u.s ships near midway in a surprise attack even if the first wave of bombers and fighters did not knock it out a second wave could come and finish it off quite easily nagumo had over 225 aircraft on his four carriers with an additional 21 zero fighters earmarked to become the garrison squadron for mid midway once it was taken it was assumed that the u.s would need a minimum of over two days to get to midway from pearl harbor once they had figured out that it was under attack that gave the kirubutai two full days to launch two waves of massive coordinated attacks upon the island by the time the us navy would arrive the island would be in japanese hands and the full force of the entire ign including their battleships would be there to surprise attack and crush them at 4 30 am on june the 4th dagumo's first wave of aichi type 99 bombers vals and nakajima type 97 kate with 36 mitsubishi a6m zero fighter escorts went on towards midway they were outfitted with 1 760 pound bombs designed to just lay out the island and destroy its defenses nagumo was strictly ordered by yamamoto to hold back half his aircrafts to protect the carrier task force at all times and if necessary send a second wave to neutralize midway after the first wave had launched nagumo ordered all the remaining aircraft to be outfitted with bombs in preparation for a second wave attack if it was to be needed now alongside the first wave nagumo also sent out he e13a scout planes to do a perimeter search unbeknownst to the ign the us navy was out there actively looking for the kidokutai at 5 34 am lieutenant howard addy piloting a pby northwest of midway found the kidoputai and reported in at 603 am the aircraft on midway began scrambling at a frenzy some of them on their way to bomb the keto bathai carriers and the others were preparing to fight nagumo's first wave that was approaching thanks to the code breakers the u.s knew the kiddo battali had at least four carriers with them and when they found out nagumo's first wave was flying towards midway they had a rough idea of a timetable for when the second wave would be sent the u.s navy calculated the best time to hit the kiroba thai would be right as the kiddo battalion was recovering the low on fuel first wave that had been sent to midway this would be the critical moment to strike at the carriers between 7 to 8 am the u.s task force 16 launched its aircraft to hit the kido but meanwhile the first wave began to hammer midway the japanese pilots expected to catch the island completely by surprise but instead were met with a very awake heavy ground fire coming at them they noticed immediately the airfields and midway were completely empty the aircrafts had already launched so the bombers destroyed power plants aircraft buildings oil storage tanks and other targets that they could an air unit commander joici tomo naga broke the radio silence briefly to send a code to nagumo indicating they did immense damage to the island but a second wave was needed for the land evasion to occur and this he sent at 7 05 am now nagumo expected this message to come he did not believe the first wave could neutralize the island enough for an amphibious assault to occur as he received the message the kirubutai was suddenly attacked by the forces that had launched from midway just hours earlier tbf avengers made a brave attempt to torpedo the ign carriers but zero's fighters pounced on them the zeros made quick work of the us aircraft and the kiddo batai was left unscratched during this intense scramble an american b-26 bomber piloted by lieutenant james murray was damaged and he tried to crash it right into akagi's bridge barely missing and instead he cartwheeled into the sea this experience most likely weighed heavily on nagumo's determination to launch the second wave on midway which would have been in a direct violation of yamamoto's orders if he did not keep half his aircraft in reserve armed for anti-ship combat at 7 15 a.m nogumo ordered his four carriers to arm the reserve aircraft for a second wave with bombs designed to hit ground targets from nagumo's point of view he was being forced to keep one of his hands tied behind his back while attacking midway with just the other hand why wait for the first wave to come back when he could prepare in advance now here is where we get the famous nagumo dilemma that he began with his poor decision to rearm the reserved aircraft for attacking midway instead of leaving them armed for ship to ship operations the scalp planes that had been sent out before had actually been delayed half an hour behind schedule petty officer first class amari yoji piloting one of these scouts reported sight what appears to be 10 enemy surface units in position bearing 10 degrees distant 240 miles from midway now exactly when nagumo got this report is disputed in his action report he wrote that he got it around 8 am the japanese radio message log indicates it was actually at 7 45 am regardless one thing is important is that even though amari did not say he saw a carrier nagumo rightfully assumed that there was a carrier present with these 10 surface ships nogumo realized immediately that within a striking distance of 200 miles for his own carrier force there was a u.s carrier out there now nagumo immediately consulted his staff in a crowded public space nagumo without a doubt would have preferred to be you know retreat somewhere on deck more private to consult his officers this high pressure and stressful situation forced him to immediately call an order to suspend the current arming of aircraft that did not already have bombs on them yet to be armed with torpedoes instead this would leave about half of the cates in the hangar of the akagi and the kaga equipped with torpedoes while the rest had fragmentation bombs prepared still for the second wave that would hit midway nagumo panicked he was well aware of what can happen if you sent your fleet out to attack a target and missed the enemy carrier you would be counter-attacked while defenseless nagumo needed to know exactly what ships were out there and he ordered amari at 7 47 am to assert exactly what ship types were out there and maintain contact for a few pressure for few precious minutes the entire keto but i was frozen waiting for this answer at 7 48 am another attack wave coming from midway consisting of dauntless sbds they bravely tried to dive bomb but the zero fighters of the kiddo bhuta easily destroyed and scattered them amari reported back at 809 am enemy ship are five cruisers and five destroyers nagumo was perplexed it made no sense for such a force to not have at least one carrier present nogumo knew the distance was too far for the us to launch their aircraft so he did not scramble his reserve planes to strike out at the same time at 8 14 am b-17 heavy bombers had come from midway again to attack the kidopatai the zero fighters still up in the air again frantically defending the ketokutai for a third time while the u.s failed again to hit any of the carriers now between 7 55 and 8 35 a.m the kiributai were attacked three separate times by more than 40 american aircraft and the zero fighters were running out of fuel at 8 20 am amari reported to nagumo that he had finally cited a u.s carrier nagumo had already suspected this the entire time but nonetheless this was critical news nagumo immediately ordered the arming of all bombers with torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs the decks of all the carriers became crammed with torpedoes bombs and aircraft fuel forming the perfect powder keg nagumo had no more zero fighters in reserve all of them were already up in the air and low on fuel and he would need them to escort the bombers now nagumo was faced with a great dilemma i.e nagumo's dilemma this was the moment to launch the ship killing attack planes he had been hoarding on his hanger decks the problem was the new first wave that attacked midway had returned and was low on fuel desperately needing to land nagumo used all four of his carriers to launch planes for the midway attack he required all four decks open to recover them he could not recover the planes and launch simultaneously during all of this rear admiral yamaguchi taman who was paying attention all these reports said to nagumo an unsolicited advice with a blinker signal consider it advisable to launch attack force immediately now nagumo had two choices number one order the first wave and the zero fighters to circle the task force risking them running out of fuel and send out the ship attacking planes he had on reserve without any fighter escorts or choice number two recovered the first wave and zero fighters re-arm and refuel them and dispatch a fully coordinated strike which was japanese doctrine they preferred not to use piecemeal attacks this would take roughly 45 minutes to recover the aircraft and react to any u.s counter-attacks of course nagumo could have taken this advice and made a piecemeal strike using yamaguchi's 36 valve dive bombers but this was against japanese war doctrine japanese doctrine like i said preferred to launch fully constituted strikes nagumo only received confirmation of the u.s carrier at around 8 20 a.m with the major attacks coming from midway island um nagumo went by the books on his choice so at 8 35 a.m nogumo made his decision to recover the first strike wave and zero fighters and prepare for an all-out coordinated attack on the u.s carrier a by the books decision based on japanese doctrine in reality this all uh didn't make much of a difference because by 8 35 am the uss hornet and enterprise had already sent out their aircraft about half an hour earlier and the keto but i had no idea by 9 20 the kidobutai would have been capable of sending out its attack but um they were interrupted at 925 by 15 torpedo bombers from the hornet followed by 14 more by enterprise at 9 30 and 12 more from yorktown at 10 am followed upon what we all know was the devastation of midway which changed the course of history as we know it in essence nagumo's dilemma was two choices in a horrible scenario send an immediate attack with the wrong kind of armament and risk most of your planes running out of fuel and crashing or wait for your forces to land and ready to fight the enemy as a complete force the doctrine won the day but the ign certainly did not so here's a huge recommendation if you're really interested in the battle of midway and something that you know goes along the lines of describing every single moment that was crucial to this battle i have to recommend this book it is called the shattered sword the untold story of the battle of midway by jonathan partial anthony talley and john lundstrom this is honestly one of the best books ever written on this battle and i can't stress enough that it is a must read if you're interested you know i find it really ironic it was the japanese doctrine of not using piecemeals which hindered them during this battle but it was also the american use of piecemeals which won them this battle it's you know it's like a shakespearean tragedy in a lot of ways and here i will say it it was spruence who was the man who decided to throw the piecemeals in question and win this battle and yes i said spruance i did not say sprouts which was a narration error on my part in the last episode and i do apologize and i will now go through all the errors i made to appease those of you who had commented and might be watching this episode because i did listen i had mispronounced port moresbury it's port moresby and i'm i'm very sorry australia that was really idiotic on my part and also um when i described the yorktown being repaired in three days the way that i said in the video was actually it was in transit from the battle of coral sea going to pearl harbor and then it was repaired but the way i said it was as if it was repaired in two weeks i met the entire transit time and i understand that uh listening back to it it sounded like i said the yorktown was repaired in two weeks of course it was repaired in three days and you can argue 48 hours whatever you want to argue but i of course know that was a very important crucial moment for this war other than that um obviously i mispronounced japanese names and i must apologize for doing so i am currently trying to learn the language and i find it rather challenging but i am doing my best so again as i said the very beginning um if you rather want a funny tour you can go through the comment sections from the last video if the card is still up at the battle of midway where i'd say the majority of comments all say the exact same thing and i already acknowledged it in this episode and that is when i called b25 mitchell bombers b-52s during the doolittle raid i feel so horrible about this i had written down b25 but and even filming this episode i did it three times in a row for whatever reason i must have some kind of dyslexic issue i kept saying p20 b52s trying my best and i'm really i do apologize but i hope i will not do it in the future um i like to acknowledge that you might find this actually all very confusing looking at my channel because my channel is called the pacific war of 1937 to 1945 but i seem to be covering a lot of stuff before so if you actually go on my channel now and i'll show you probably here you'll see that i'm covering uh the 1800s particularly chinese history so we're looking at the first opium war second opium war taiping rebellion we go over to japan later the meiji restoration the boxer rebellion you know the sino japanese war the first russo japanese war and a lot of cool things that will be covered before we get to the actual pacific war because i am honestly treating this uh more or less like a university course and i really want to get all the major events and the grievances that led up to the asia-pacific war to really educate the audience on all the small details that particularly us in the western world we don't know about i really hope you'll join me and if you haven't already done so could you please smash that like button leave a comment even if it's telling me i mispronounced stuff in this episode also and subscribe if you could because i'm a small channel and i make history on youtube and if you don't know how impossible that is i can't stress enough it is like the worst subject to try and cover you get demonetized like there's no tomorrow that whip just goes every single time and this has been the pacific war channel over and out you

Channel: The Pacific War Channel

Views: 15,187

Keywords: nagummo's dilemma, nagumo's dilemma, the battle of midway nagumo, nagumo, why did the japanese lose the battle of midway, how did the japanese lose the battle of midway, the battle of midway, midway, midway battle, battle of midway documentary, midway battle explained, midway battle footage, pacific war, pacific war channel, history channel, japanese history, the battle of midway explained, Battle of midway, Battle of midway in-depth, how did america win the battle of midway

Id: 20JqGZva2is

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020