100 Mistakes That Changed History (38 page)

The Japanese also had more than twice as many fleet aircraft carriers in the Pacific, with eight IJN to just three U.S. carriers. Worse yet, there were three only by including the badly damaged
Yorktown
. After the Battle of the Coral Sea, this carrier was in such poor condition that when she sailed out of Pearl Harbor toward Midway, a number of frantically working repairmen were still on board.

The U.S. Navy had one very real advantage. The surprise attack on Midway was not a surprise. The cryptography division on Hawaii, under Commander Joseph Rochefort, had managed to break the IJN’s code. While the United States could not read all of every message, they were able to determine, and then use a ruse to confirm, that Midway Atoll was the target and when it would be attacked. This allowed what remained of the Pacific fleet to sail days sooner than a just-reacting fleet would have left Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy also could ignore a real but unimportant attack on two islands off the Alaskan coast, Attu and Kiska. Even so, the odds remained four highly experienced fleet carriers and a light carrier to the U.S. Navy’s three carriers. And there was the Japanese massive dominance in surface combat ships.

After the war, the Japanese attempted to understand why their admirals acted as they did in the attack during the battle for Midway Atoll. The eventual conclusion was what they called “victory disease.” By this they meant overconfidence and disdain for your opponent based on past victories. This was a concept that might well have been studied almost thirty years later by the U.S. military leaders who confidently expected to overwhelm the Vietcong in weeks. What directly resulted from this attitude was an overly complicated battle plan that split the IJN into several parts. Then, even though he wanted a decisive victory, the Japanese admiral chose this time to split off two of his eight fleet carriers to support the unimportant Alaskan invasion whose sole purpose was to—unsuccessfully, thanks to Rochefort—distract parts of the U.S. fleet. Then he sent away two more carriers to Japan for needed, but not vital, repair and refurbishing. So by plan and before a bomb fell, half the IJN’s aircraft carriers were not where the planned decisive battle was to take place.

But that overly ornate battle plan—the splitting of forces and the overconfidence shown by the Japanese navy at every level—was not the mistake that made all of the difference. The error that ended the IJN’s dominance of the Pacific and halted the Japanese empire’s expansion was made not by Admiral Yamamoto, but by the commander of the Kido Butai carrier force itself, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo.

Now, the character of the carrier fleet’s commander was a major factor. Unlike the innovative Yamamoto, Nagumo was a competent but by-the-book officer. When your strategy is working and you have serious superiority in numbers, this is not a problem. But what you don’t learn when you command by the book is how to make vital decisions quickly when disaster looms. But Yamamoto had given his carrier commander detailed orders on what to do in a range of situations. That made Nagumo’s consistent obedience to his orders a positive thing because Yamamoto could count on him to do what he was told. But his elaborate plan meant that the brilliant and decisive IJN commander was hundreds of miles away and under radio silence during the entire Battle of Midway.

The Japanese invasion plan followed a proven pattern that had been successful many times. The carrier force, the Kido Butai, would lead the attack, neutralizing any land-based airfields and sinking any ships in the atoll. If the first wave of bombers and fighters didn’t do the job, there was plenty of time for a second wave to finish it. This plan assumed that it would take the U.S. Navy at least two days to steam to Midway from Pearl Harbor once they heard about the attack. That would leave plenty of time for Nagumo to thoroughly pummel the atoll before help could arrive. With Midway’s airfield and major defenses bombed into ruin, the battleships would arrive and further bombard the island into submission. By the time the elite assault force landed, resistance would be minor and uncoordinated. By the time the U.S. Navy arrived, the island would be in Japanese hands.

So the first wave of Japanese attack planes went in, but thanks to the broken code they were not able to surprise the island. Every plane at the air base was already in the air when they hit and every weapon was manned and waiting. The air base was damaged, but heavy ground fire prevented the Japanese bombers from completely wrecking the atoll’s defenses. At about the same time the IJN aircraft had brushed past the obsolete U.S. fighters to attack Midway, the heavy bombers, dive bombers, and torpedo planes from Midway had attacked the four carriers of the Kido Butai. While bravely delivered, not a bomb or torpedo struck, and most of the American attackers were shot down.

The need for a carrier aircraft second attack on Midway was one of the contingencies in the fleet commander’s orders. Nagumo prepared to recover the first attack wave’s aircraft and got a second attack ready to bomb the island. Everything was going according to the plan. Then a radio message arrived that changed everything. One of the IJN scout planes had spotted the
Yorktown
. This was not part of the plan; there weren’t supposed to be any American carriers in the area for days yet. He had been assured just hours before, by a line of scout submarines, that no major ships had been spotted leaving Pearl Harbor. Thanks to Rochefort, the American ships were already gone when the Japanese subs got into place to watch for them.

The Battle of Midway

The information that a U.S. Navy carrier was nearby meant that Chuichi Nagumo was torn between two conflicting orders. One order was to follow the plan and finish off Midway. To do this he had to launch his aircraft at the island again. But he also knew that the intent of the whole plan was to draw out the American carriers, and now one was within attack range. But it was days early, and the IJN battleships were not yet even close. His aircraft would have to take care of the carrier. To go for the
Yorktown
, Admiral Nagumo had to order the removal of the explosive and shrapnel bombs, which were almost finished being attached to the second wave of aircraft, and the loading of armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes. Only that type of weaponry was capable of damaging an armored carrier and its escorts. But the change would take at least an hour. This was not part of the plan he had been given by Admiral Yamamoto. Nagumo’s orders did not tell him what to do in this situation because the confident Japanese had never considered that the U.S. Navy would not react how and when they expected. And with radio silence, Nagumo could not even radio Yamanoto and ask him what to do.

So Admiral Nagumo, whose strength was carrying out the plans of his brilliant superior, had to take the unusual step of deciding for himself. Did he disobey the orders for the invasion to go for the carrier and risk allowing the Midway air base to be repaired and perhaps new defending aircraft flown in from Hawaii? Or did he ignore the carrier and obey his original orders as written? And here is the mistake that changed the war forever: For a number of minutes, Nagumo did nothing. This hesitation, his inability to decisively disobey an order, even when the situation he was in was unforeseen, changed the entire war in the Pacific.

Doing nothing in war is often a mistake, and in this case the loss of all four carriers and the initiative resulted. If Nagumo had launched the aircraft against the atoll or had gotten them rearmed in time and launched against the
Hornet
, the war’s history would be very different today.

While only one had been spotted, there were actually three American carriers in range to attack the Kido Butai. So eventually Admiral Nagumo made what was likely the best decision for the new circumstances and ordered a rapid change of the armaments on all of his aircraft to antiship weapons. But the time spent deciding what to do and the chaos of the weapons change meant that not only were the aircraft almost all still on the decks of all four carriers fueled and armed when the American aircraft attacked, but that the land attack bombs, which had been removed, were also still stacked near them. As a result, when the IJN fighters were off chasing the few survivors of two American torpedo groups, aircraft from two groups of U.S. Navy dive bombers were able to hit three of the highly vulnerable Japanese aircraft carriers. The bombs and fuel in the aircraft on the decks of the three ships exploded and greatly increased the damage. Within minutes all three carriers were beyond repair and covered in flames.

Nagumo continued to fight with the remaining carrier, sinking the
Yorktown
just as his last carrier too was lost. Then his last carrier was sunk, and the entire IJN force had to retreat. The powerful battleship fleet and Admiral Yamamoto never even got close to the island. Midway was saved. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s hesitation and a lot of luck on the American side meant that the massive IJN superiority in carriers in the Pacific was lost in a matter of hours.

81

NO RETREAT

The Stalingrad Disaster
1943

W
inter of 1942 had belonged to the Russians. In the snow and freezing weather, they had held the Germans and, in places, had even driven them back. But by spring 1943, a bruised but still unbeaten Nazi army prepared for another series of war-winning attacks. While pressure was kept on Moscow and Leningrad, the real German effort would be in the south.

There were a number of good reasons for the shift. The open steppes and dry plains of southern Russia were more conducive to the Blitzkrieg and massive pincher movements that had served the Wehrmacht well in 1941. The area was much less well fortified and more thinly populated. So southern Russia offered a much better opportunity to break through or capture major elements of the resurrected Soviet armed forces. But perhaps the most compelling reason for the move against southern Russia was that the Reich desperately needed the oil that was on the other side of the Caucasus Mountains.

Two vast attacks were planned. One was to sweep south and grab the oil. The other was to move east and capture the most important city on the Volga River. The Volga was the key route for the Russian north and south transport. It also had to have appealed to Hitler that to control the vital Russian supply line of the Volga River, the city Stalin had named for himself, Stalingrad, had to be occupied.

The original plan to capture Stalingrad was not a mistake. The city was the key to controlling the southern Volga River. It was also one of Russia’s premier weapons manufacturing centers. Perhaps even more than this was the propaganda value of capturing the former Tsaritsyn, named now after the Soviet dictator and Hitler’s greatest nemesis, Stalin. Even the strategic plan started well. Army Group A, under Paul von Kleist, broke through line after line of Russian defenders, crossing Russian defense lines set up on river after river. Army Group B, commanded by Hitler’s favorite general, Friedrich von Paulus, also punched its way through several Russian armies until, by August 23, 1942, the two panzer armies in it had reached the banks of the Volga and were approaching their objective, the city of Stalingrad.

It’s at this point that a series of mistakes doomed half a million German soldiers and changed the momentum of World War II irrevocably. All of these mistakes were made worse by Hitler’s choice of commander for the Sixth Panzer Army, von Paulus. The general had been chosen not because of his battlefield experience but because he got along with the testy Adolf Hitler. And in Nazi Germany that qualified you for anything, even command of one of the few elite panzer armies. In 1941, Friedrich von Paulus had shown himself to be an excellent administrator and planner. He was the chief architect of Operation Barbarossa and was known for his skill at staff work. The problem was that von Paulus as a field commander . . . well, he was a very good staff officer. He did a competent but unimaginative job and obeyed orders, Hitler’s orders, to the letter.

As Army Group B approached Stalingrad, Hitler personally ordered half of its armored strength, Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army, to hurry south and join up with Army Group A. It was to assist in the final lunge for the Caucasian oil fields. The decision was a mistake that cost both army groups the use of that armored formation for weeks while it changed direction and moved south. Still, even with his Sixth Panzer Army alone, von Paulus began to successfully attack Stalingrad.

The city of Stalingrad in 1942 had grown in a long strip along the Volga River, ten miles long and from a few to five or six miles deep. Most of the large buildings and factories were located near the river. Even at half strength, the power of a panzer division was great, and soon the Sixth Panzer was grinding into the city from north, west, and south. To the east was the Volga River, and herein was a continuing mistake the unimaginative von Paulus made. He never attempted to cross the Volga, and so he was never able to completely surround or cut off Stalingrad.