Talk:Battle of Midway

Wiki Parsing Error?

In the section Yamamoto's Plan it says "suggesting USS Enterprise and Hornet." That should be "suggesting USS Enterprise and USS Hornet," with a second "USS." When I open to edit, that is in fact what seems to be coded, but Wiki doesn't present it that way. I'm not smart enough to know why not.JMOprof (talk) 20:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It's that sneaky optional last parameter in Template:USS. 2 displays just the ship name. But I don't agree that a second "USS" is necessary. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:11, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Clarityfiend that the second instance of USS is not needed. Binksternet (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

'ole Navy man here. "USS" means United State Ship. Singular. Never United States Ships. Both need it or neither need it. Its absence is glaring. ;-0 JMOprof (talk) 12:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree of course that Wiki does not have to follow DoN standards, but here is how the Navy refers to the same facts: "Midway was a dramatic victory - facing Japan’s 11 battleships and four carriers, the U.S. Navy fought with no battleships and just three carriers: USS Enterprise (CV 6), USS Hornet (CV 8) and USS Yorktown (CV 5)." From http://www.navy.mil/midway/resources.html in Battle of Midway Rhumb Lines. JMOprof (talk) 12:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Meh, nothing to fight over. Added USS, subtracted link. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:32, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't care which way, but don't see the point in arguing over it. I reverted Clarityfiend to keep macro; changed 2 to 6 to get USS. Consensus goes other way, so I won't be bummed if I'm reverted. Glrx (talk) 23:11, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Hornet is already linked in the previous section. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Page layout broken ?

Viewing this page in Google Chrome 11 and one part of the article is oddly placed. See the picture: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/773166/midway.png --SkyHiRider (talk) 20:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I just added a refend template to the end of the refs. See if that helps. I use Mozilla Firefox 3.5; I don't know how it looks in Chrome. Binksternet (talk) 20:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

That helped a little bit, now the only thing I see on the right side is this text: Willmott, H.P. (1983). The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Strategies, February to June 1942. United States Naval Institute Press. p. 616. ISBN 1-59114-949-5. Broad-scale history of the naval war with detailed accounts of order of battle and dispositions. --SkyHiRider (talk) 09:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Number of Japanese ships only showing Nagumo's fleet, what about the rest of the Japanese naval forces?

The section showing the Japanese naval forces describes there being 4 carriers, 2 battleships, etc. This only describes Nagumo's fleet. There were two more small aircraft carriers, Hosho and Junyo, and other battleships including Yamato, Mutsu, and Nagato.--R-41 (talk) 21:48, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Simple, the only Japanese ships that participated in the actual battle were Nagumo's fleet and part of the erstwhile invasion force - the rest of the Japanese fleet, including Yamato, Mutsu etc, was hanging around hundreds of miles to the west, hoping that Fletcher would be dopey enough to blunder into range of their guns. As P & T put it they might as well have been on the moon for all the good they did for Nagumo's fleet - for all intents and purposes they did not contribute one iota to the battle and, quite rightly, have been listed as "Did not participate in battle" further down the column. Minorhistorian (talk) 01:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Word count

In ref this:

"Historically, Nagumo's decision to delay launching a strike on the US carriers (thus purportedly allowing the Americans to launch unopposed) was believed to be one of the most critical blunders of the battle (and correspondingly, the war). However, recent access to more accurate records has changed this perception, revealing that it actually made no difference; Fletcher's carriers had launched beginning at 07:00, so the aircraft which would deliver the crushing blow were already on their way. Furthermore, once engaged, Nagumo's carriers would be forced to undertake evasive maneuvers and would be unable to launch or recover aircraft until all attacks had ceased (a reality which effectively paralyzed Kido Butai for several crucial hours). There was nothing Nagumo could do about it. This was the fatal flaw of Yamamoto's dispositions: they followed strictly traditional battleship doctrine and failed to appreciate the complexities and time-sensitivity inherent to Kido Butai's coordinated multi-carrier strike operations, especially when faced with the competing strike doctrine employed by US carriers during the battle (which favored independent, ad-hoc attacks as conditions developed)."

That it has been considered a blunder, I think, is clear already, & Nagumo's decisions to switch back & forth are at the core of that, not the timing of his launch. "Recent access" has nothing to do with it; a simple examination of the launch times & time of flight is enough. The need for evasion is already established as making Nagumo's early launch impossible. Saying Yamamoto "failed to appreciate the complexities and time-sensitivity inherent" is nonsense, & so is "strike doctrine employed by US carriers". What is at issue at bottom is, none of it made any difference. Nagumo had to hit Fletcher before Fletcher ever launched. The only way he could do that was to know Fletcher was there beforehand. He could only do that with more VSs than he had. He didn't have them because Yamamoto's dispositions were screwed up. This is the point. This was clear in 1983, when Willmott wrote Barrier and the Javelin (& around the time I first read it). Adding so much needless verbiage & outright error is a very bad idea. If clarification is needed on the need for better recce, perhaps it should be added; I thought it was pretty clear in the description of events. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Public domain photos - US Navy?

I don't wish to challenge the public domain status of certain photos, but I would like something clarified. My concern is with photos taken by Japanese photographers in the course of their duties with the Imperial Japanese Navy during hostilities with the US. For example, the copyright/public domain statement for the photo used in this article of the Hiryu just before sinking says, "This file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain."

Clearly this photo was taken by a Japanese naval photographer, not a sailor or employee of the US Navy. It says so in the photo's description. As this photo is a work of a Japanese naval photographer, how can we claim that it is a work of a sailor or employee of the US Navy? Maybe because the US won the war by unconditional surrender the copyright became property of the US, but if that's the case, and if that's the reason for it being in the public domain, shouldn't that be said on the photo description page's copyright/public domain statement? I wish I knew more about copyright law, but intuitively this seems wrong - crediting the US Navy for a photo taken by the (then enemy) Imperial Japanese Navy. Does that need to be changed, and if not, can someone offer an explanation? Thanks all. Dcs002 (talk) 23:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Which images specifically are you referring to? NW (Talk) 21:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The Author credit reads:

U.S. Navy (Donation of Kazutoshi Hando, 1970)" so this photo falls under U.S copyright, even though it was taken by a member of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which no longer exists: this same photo is shown in Parshall and Tully's Shattered Sword (p. 356.) and is credited to the U.S Naval Historical Center. ◆Min✪rhist✪rian◆MTalk 21:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Henderson Squadron : SBDs or SB2Us ?

The article says that Henderson's squadron was flying a SB2U, but [1] reports SBD... can anyone confirm which plane it was ? Rob1bureau (talk) 12:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, should read SBD...◆Min✪rhist✪rian◆MTalk 19:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)