Thank you for such an interesting and thoughtful essay.
I am interested in Midway, but I find the history-of-the-history most interesting. It's amazing to me that even in 2022, we are still re-interpreting the events.
I also need to understand how this flight to nowhere is came from.
How does the book reconcile the aircraft production numbers in http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm (8861 for Japan in 1942) with the factoid you mentioned in part 2?
>[A]s modest as the demands on it had been thus far, Japanese industry *couldn’t even handle these losses*. Between major manufacturing companies Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi, only the first had a production line that ran well. The other two had neglected their own production in anticipation of newer aircraft.
> In 1942, the US built 46,000 aircraft, with no category of plane having less than a thousand built save for very heavy bombers.
"I don’t want think the WW2 US military was led by thoroughly incompetent fools."
Missing "to" between "want" and "think".
Also:
"It was Fuchida was essentially blaming Nagumo and Genda for not doing that which they could never be expected to do!"
Duplicated "was".
Also:
"Midway was still an active US base that planes would once more have strike."
This sentence doesn't seem right to me but I'm not 100% sure.
Thank you for such an interesting and thoughtful essay.
I am interested in Midway, but I find the history-of-the-history most interesting. It's amazing to me that even in 2022, we are still re-interpreting the events.
I also need to understand how this flight to nowhere is came from.
How does the book reconcile the aircraft production numbers in http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm (8861 for Japan in 1942) with the factoid you mentioned in part 2?
>[A]s modest as the demands on it had been thus far, Japanese industry *couldn’t even handle these losses*. Between major manufacturing companies Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi, only the first had a production line that ran well. The other two had neglected their own production in anticipation of newer aircraft.
> In 1942, the US built 46,000 aircraft, with no category of plane having less than a thousand built save for very heavy bombers.
> The Japanese built 56 carrier-based aircraft.