13 November 2009
Issue Number: 2009-44
Our 13th Year
~ AROUND THE TABLE ~
MEMBERS’
TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Burning Paint on Carriers
2. B-17s at Midway
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1. BURNING PAINT ON CARRIERS
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10 November
2009
From: LCDR Otis G. Kight, USN-Ret
Virginia
BOM vet, Sea1/c, VF-42, USS Yorktown (CV-5)
A subject brought up before, concerning paint
thickness on a ship’s bulkheads and decks:
at Midway, during the early part of the morning bombing when we got a
“foreign object” down the stack that put out our boilers—on the inboard side of
the stack, flight deck level, I dang near got put to bed with a sheet of paint
about 10 feet by 15 feet that fell off the side of the stack. It was the entire history of Stack Painting
on CV-5. When it hit the flight deck it
was still flexible (hot), and all I wanted to do was get somewhere else. The sheet was about half an inch thick.
I was a spectator when the Lex burned at Coral Sea. The basic reason she went that way was the domino action—when one
compartment was burning from gas or whatever, the paint on the other side would
finally ignite, leapfrogging the effect.
There are few damage control procedures that can counter or cancel that
effect.
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2. B-17s at MIDWAY
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4 November
2009
From: James Sontag
Texas
I was wondering about the significance of the B-17s at Midway. While they didn't hit any ships, they did force the Japanese ships to scatter from their formation around the carriers and zigzag to avoid their bombs. My question, then, is why is it that the B-17s’ role in the battle is often ignored?
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Ed. note: for a good look at what the AAF thought
it did at Midway, click
here or go to our web site’s home page
and click “The Army Air Forces at the Battle of Midway” under “Special
Features.” Beyond that, who would like
to offer a response to James’ question?
That is, why don’t the B-17s and B-26s get a lot of exposure on the
Roundtable?
~ NOW HEAR THIS! ~
NEWS
& INFO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Finding Kido Butai
- Link of the Week
- Editor’s Notes
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FINDING KIDO BUTAI
Two weeks ago I said we’d address this subject in the
November 6th issue, but the news concerning Bert Earnest caused a change of
plans. So here we go again with one of
the Roundtable’s most enduring topics.
In the October 30th issue, Shattered Sword coauthor
Jon Parshall offered a well-reasoned suggestion that “negative data” provided
strong evidence that the Hornet air group did not fly the same base
course toward the southwest (approx. 240 degrees true) as the squadrons from Enterprise
and Yorktown, which would give additional credence to Bowen
Weisheit’s contrarian theory (265 degrees true, nearly due west). In essence, Jon said that the Japanese
carrier fleet, Kido Butai, should have easily been visible to the HAG if
they’d flown “240,” based on the following:
(a) Previous attacks had scattered the enemy
formation to a diameter of about 30 miles.
(b) The successful Enterprise and Yorktown
squadrons spotted their targets from about 25 miles.
(c) That resulted in a circle of visibility
totaling about 80 miles in diameter.
(d) On course 240, the HAG should have seen
ships within an 80-mile circle.
(e) Since the HAG never spotted any Japanese
ships (except VT-8 which deviated from the base course), that negative data
suggests that they were not on or near course 240.
(f) Additionally, the HAG (less VT-8) was never
seen by anyone aboard the widely-scattered Japanese ships.
There’s more to Jon’s thesis, and you may want to review
his entire article in issue
#41, but that’s the heart of it.
His new offering intrigued me a great deal, as I’m always interested in
anything that may shed more light on this resilient topic, with its conflicting
evidence and veteran testimony.
In trying to balance the pros and cons of Jon’s idea, I
came up with the following points. On
the pro side, the math appears convincing.
On course 240 at 12,000 to 20,000 feet, Stanhope Ring or one of his
pilots should have seen something to his right if a large task force was spread
out as much as Jon suggests. But as a
practical matter, I believe the theory has a couple of weaknesses. Number one, it doesn’t take cloud cover into
consideration. Clay Fisher has told us
that visibility was unlimited at his altitude (same as Ring’s) but scattered
low clouds were noticed at various times, maybe around 2000 ft. or so. The familiar photo
of VT-8’s departure from the Hornet gives us an example of those low
clouds. Then there’s the fact that
Howard Ady only saw two of the Japanese carriers, the others masked by cloud
cover. So it seems fair to suggest that
low clouds could have hidden the few Japanese ships in a widely scattered
formation that Ring might otherwise have seen.
But the second and larger weakness is the fact that none of
the VB/VS/VF squadrons in the Enterprise and Yorktown air groups
actually spotted any Japanese ships while flying the southwesterly base course,
approximately 231 to 240 degrees true.
McClusky found his target long after abandoning his base course, and
VB-3/VF-3 did so only because they noticed VT-3 deviate from the base course
after Lloyd Childers (down low in VT-3) had spotted the enemy’s smoke off his
starboard wing.
Therefore, since none of the VB/VS/VF pilots and aircrewmen
flying southwest actually saw Kido Butai until they had left their base
course, it’s fair to conclude that the Hornet’s airmen would have had
the same experience had they gone the same way—nothing found barring some
fortuitous stroke of luck similar to McClusky’s. They certainly wouldn’t have had the guidance of their own
torpedo squadron, as did Yorktown’s VB-3.
None of this means that Jon’s theory is absolutely wrong;
it certainly has merit and could actually be quite true—we’ll never know for
sure. But, to me at least, factors not
included in the theory make it less than a compelling answer to the unresolved question
as to which way the HAG went that day.
Your comments are welcome. —RR
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LINK OF THE WEEK
Here’s another of those
dramatic shots of the Marine SBDs over Midway from the Life Magazine
collection. Note “FILSY” stenciled on
plane number 5 near the pilot’s windscreen.
Also, on the same plane, what is that at the leading edge of the right
horizontal stabilizer? At first glance
it looks like battle damage, but enlarging the picture makes it appear more
like a flaw in the photo. Anyone have a
better guess? And can you find seven
aircraft in this scene?
Click
here for the link of the week.
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EDITOR’S NOTES
~ With regard to the statement above that none of the VB/VS/VF
squadrons flying southwest saw Kido Butai while they were still on the base
course of 231 to 240 degrees true, someone is bound to remember that VF-6 did
find the enemy carriers—doesn’t that render the statement wrong? I don’t think so. Remember that VF-6 had tracked VT-8 after launch, and VT-8 found
the enemy by departing from the base course.
It would seem likely, then, that VF-6 had the same result for the same
reason.
For a glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The
Roundtable Forum, click here
or go to our home page and click "The Roundtable Glossary" link.
Unless otherwise noted, all
original content in this issue of The Roundtable Forum, the Official
Newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable is copyright 2009 by Ronald
W. Russell (see the “About
the BOMRT” page). Permission to
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