Dolittle caused Midway
l...@msb1.com
It is possible that the battle of Midway occured as a result of the Dolittle
Raid.
The Dolittle Raid grew out of a simple desire by Pres. Roosevelt to bomb Japan
in answer to Pearl Harbor.
Roosevelt talks to Adm. King who talks to Hap Arnold, and soon Lt. Colonel
Dolittle finds himself in Hap Arnold's office. He was asked which army medium
bomber would be compatible with carrier take offs and a specific range and
bomb load (he was not told the target). By process of elimination he decided
on the B-25.
Dolittle was sent to Florida to train the volunteers.
In the meantime Adm Yamamoto was introducing his plans for a Midway invasion
to the Navy General Staff. But the staff was not interested. They wanted to
continue operations in the South Pacific, first taking Port Morseby and
eventually New Caledonia. Yamamoto persisted, however, saying that the
American carriers must be destroyed. This was the situation when Dolittle's
Raiders struck at Japan. The psychological effect on the general staff was
enough for them to approve Yamamoto's Midway plan and thus began the chain
reaction.
Roosevelt, King, Arnold and Dolittle did not know that the Dolittle Raid -
dropping bombs directly on Tokyo - would catipult the IJN into approving the
Yamamoto plan to draw the 3 American carriers into a major sea battle off
Midway against their vastly superior force.
But certainly Roosevelt, King and Arnold must have known that the IJN would
make some major retaliation as a result of our major insult to the empire.
The Pac Fleet was very fortunate to win at Midway. We won because of
providential malfunction in one of the Japanese scout plans. Until the
fateful five minutes of the dive bombers the Americans were losing
badly.
The U. S. Navy had good intelligence, good tactics, and a heck of alot of
luck.
If we had lost at Midway we could have blamed Roosevelt for a serious mis-
calculation - The Dolittle Raid.
Martin E. Lee
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Alan Allport
> If we had lost at Midway we could have blamed Roosevelt for a serious mis-
> calculation - The Dolittle Raid.
Erm, yes... but so what? The fact is that the US Navy -did- win the Battle
of Midway, and trying to apportion blame for something that never happened
seems a rather pointless project to me. Assigning simple value labels to
historical decisions (one man's "serious miscalculation" is another man's
"ingenious ruse") is just a matter of spin-control anyway.
You could equally argue that, by provoking a badly planned Japanese
assault on what turned out to be a well-defended position, Roosevelt was
the craftiest fox in the den for ordering the raid on Tokyo.
Alan.
--
***********************************
Alan Allport
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~allport/
***********************************
GlennShiv
> It is possible that the battle of Midway occured as a result
> of the Dolittle Raid.
> The Dolittle Raid grew out of a simple desire by Pres.
> Roosevelt to bomb Japan in answer to Pearl Harbor.
There was more to the Dolittle Raid than simple revenge for the attack on Pearl
Harbor. Until April 1942, the newspapers were filled with headlines about
American armed forces taking a beating. The invasion of the Phillipines, the
loss of Wake Island, ships sunk in the Java Sea and etc. The Dolittle Raid
could be seen as attempt to seize the initiative from Japan and refocusing the
war in the Pacific Theater. It so happened that the Dolittle Raid provided a
boast of moral to American armed forces personnel, and the to American public.
> If we had lost at Midway we could have blamed Roosevelt
> for a serious miscalculation - The Dolittle Raid.
Sir Issac Newton once said regarding physics, "For every action there is an
opposite and equal reaction." It is a maxim of war that for every stroke,
there is an inevitable counter stroke. That is the way war is conducted.
Should the US have expected a reaction from the Japanese regarding the Dolittle
Raid? Yes, most certainly! Should the US have shrunk back from mounting the
attack due to the possibility of counterattack? Certainly not!
It should also be noted that the Invasion of Midway was one of Admiral
Yamamoto's pet projects and pipe dreams. The General Staff had previously
rejected the idea of attacking Midway because it was considered unnecessary
(the Japanese already held many islands to act as a screen to the homeland),
and a logistical nightmare. After the Dolittle Raid, however, the General
Staff approved a modified plan to attack Midway, which they hoped would drawout
the American aircraft carriers for their distruction. The Japanese homeland
and the Empiror was not safe as long as the US carriers remained afloat, so the
objective for the Imperial Navy became the destruction of the US carriers.
> The U. S. Navy had good intelligence, good tactics, and
> a heck of alot of luck.
Indeed, the US Navy had plenty of good intelligence through the code breakers,
a sound battle plan and tactics, and some amount of luck. On the other hand,
the Japanese suffered from very poor intelligence, a fleet battle plan that
proved to be a nightmare, and some amount of bad luck worked against them
during the Battle of Midway.
Best wishes.
Glenn Shiveler
cl...@xld.com
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The main effect that the Doolittle Raid had on WWII was that it proved that
the home islands were vulnerable to attack. This resulted in Japan rethinking
expansion strategy. Forces that could have been used elsewhere were relegated
to defense of the home islands.
There was little physical effect, but it did serve as a harbringer of things
to come.
While the Japanese forces at Midway were large I suspect they would have been
larger had it not been for the Doolittle Raid.
The Doolittle Raid was a stroke of genius. Despite the losses to the U.S. it
was a great battle victory.
Regards,
Clark Simmons, WB
In article <6jidmn$1ukk$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>,
l...@msb1.com
>It should also be noted that the Invasion of Midway was one of Admiral
>Yamamoto's pet projects and pipe dreams.
Yamamoto had been obesessed the the American carriers since Nagumo had missed
them at Peal Harbor on December 7th. It didn't help when Nimitz sent is
precious few flattops out to make hit and run raids on Japanses held islands -
Marcus Is. the Marshalls, Wake, and even Rabual and New Guinea.
Obesessions tend to lead to mistakes and this obsession lead to Yamamoto's
biggest mistake of the war.
In a small sense these hit and run raids, Doolittle's included, were
psychological operations as 1942 versions of "...From the Sea." More
important though was the combat experience gained by American fliers.
>Indeed, the US Navy had ... some amount of luck. The Japanese suffered from >some amount of bad luck...
Was it luck or divine providence? I believe the latter.
Martin E. Lee
l...@msb1.com
Brad Meyer
In message <6jhtdi$q...@dgs.dgsys.com> - l...@msb1.com writes:
>
>It is possible that the battle of Midway occured as a result of the Dolittle
>Raid.
>
>The Dolittle Raid grew out of a simple desire by Pres. Roosevelt to bomb Japan
>in answer to Pearl Harbor.
Yes. The Japanese themselves said as much after the war. Were it not for the
bombing of Japan Yamamoto would not have gotten the Midway plans approved.
They had already been turned down and were only revived after the bombing.
Brad Meyer
"It is history that teaches us to hope."
-- R E Lee
LoneEa...@webtv.net
As someone who lived thru those times, I remember the low morale due to
the Japanese victories after Pearl Harbor. I was getting ready to go
into the USAAF, and the newspaper headlines constantly blazed the
American losses in the South Pacific, then one day, the headlines blazed
that we had bombed the Japanese home islands, and the nation was infused
with a new vigor. It said that we could retaliate, and hope sprung anew.
Was the Doolittle raid a good move.
You better believe it was.
l...@msb1.com
From: LoneEa...@webtv.net
Was the Doolittle raid a good move.
You better believe it was.
I accept your history and your feelings - BUT if it was such a good move why
didn't we do it over and over again?
Douglas McNaught
l...@msb1.com writes:
> Was the Doolittle raid a good move.
> You better believe it was.
>
> I accept your history and your feelings - BUT if it was such a good move why
> didn't we do it over and over again?
We did, in 1944 and '45, with B-29's. Bombing Japan with B-25's from
carriers on an ongoing basis would have been a useless risk of those
carriers (especially given the Japanese fleet superiority at that time
and the short range of the '25). The returns on the Doolittle raid
were in terms of US morale and strategic initiative (provoking the
attack on Midway), not in damage to Tokyo, which was small.
-Doug
--
Doug McNaught do...@tc.net
Senior Network Engineer dmcn...@premtec.com
Premiere Communications http://www.premtec.com
Bob Caissie
l...@msb1.com wrote:
>
> From: LoneEa...@webtv.net
>
> Was the Doolittle raid a good move.
>
> You better believe it was.
>
> I accept your history and your feelings - BUT if it was such a good move why
> didn't we do it over and over again?
The Doolittle raid was essentially a sneak attack, even though the
Japanese may have not been expecting a carrier launched raid on
the home islands, they still had picket ships out at sea. It was
one of these picket ships that our carrier came upon, on the way
during the mission. I believe the Hornet detected a radion trans-
mission from the Japanese ship before one of our ships sank it.
It was decided to launch the attack some 400 miles further away than
originally planned, because they feared the missions secrecy had been
compromised. This is probably why some of our B-25s never made it to
China. You can bet the Japanese would surely be on the lookout for
another attack, and I don't believe the US would risk any of our
carriers/planes/pilots on a mission that would at best, cause minimal
damage. The Doolittle raid gave us a much needed boost for moral, and
probably caused the Japanese to pull some military strength from other
areas back closer to home, which may have helped us a bit.
BC
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