The Japanese Thought They Won—They Didn't Expect What Happened Next (Real WW2 Footage)

After the Coral Sea in May 1942, Japan announced it had sunk two American carriers, a "Saratoga type" and a "Yorktown type". Yorktown was still afloat. She limped into Pearl Harbor with a 551-pound bomb hole through her decks, about 1,400 yard workers repaired her in 72 hours instead of three months, and on 4 June she was off Midway without the Japanese carriers knowing. Battlewatch Documentaries also runs as a podcast on Spotify, for the drive or the night shift: https://open.spotify.com/show/2nnWOCN... Told largely through Japanese eyes, the video follows the claims that counted her sunk, the plan that assumed the American carriers were finished, the prisoner who named her, and Hiryu's pilots attacking what they took for a second, undamaged carrier. It was Yorktown again. Joseph Rochefort's codebreakers and the false water-shortage message, Torpedo Squadron Eight and Ensign George Gay, and the Doolittle Raid that made Japan's admirals determined to finish the carriers fill in the rest. If he served on Yorktown, Hornet or Enterprise, or flew at Midway, put his name and ship or squadron in the comments. Chapters: 0:00 The Carrier Japan Sank Twice 4:23 Seventy-Two Hours 14:35 The Second Carrier 28:00 AF Is Short of Water 40:54 The Water 49:33 Five Minutes 55:19 The Last Squadron In 1:01:51 The Other Half of Torpedo Eight 1:15:53 What Did They Achieve? 1:21:40 Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo 1:29:41 The Warning Nobody Believed 1:43:23 Finishing the Carriers Sources: Naval History and Heritage Command, USS Yorktown (CV-5): https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-b... Office of Naval Intelligence, The Japanese Story of the Battle of Midway (Nagumo's report, 1947): https://www.history.navy.mil/research... Combinedfleet.com, IJN Submarine I-168: Tabular Record of Movement: https://www.combinedfleet.com/I-168.htm National Security Agency, The Battle of Midway (Center for Cryptologic History): https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/docume... Naval History and Heritage Command, Rochefort and Station HYPO: https://history.navy.mil/browse-by-to... E. B. Potter, Admiral Nimitz and the Battle of Midway, Proceedings (1976): https://www.usni.org/magazines/procee... Naval History and Heritage Command, Recollections of Lieutenant George Gay: https://www.history.navy.mil/research... U.S. Naval Institute, Torpedo Eight's Celebrated Survivor, Naval History (2017): https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-... Jonathan Parshall, letter, Naval History (2012): https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-... Naval History and Heritage Command, H-Gram 004: The Doolittle Raid: https://history.navy.mil/about-us/lea... U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Interrogation of Captain Yasuji Watanabe (1945): https://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSB... National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, The Eight Who Were Captured: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Vis... The film and photographs come from the archives, and the names and terms of the time are kept, all for history and teaching. Where no footage exists, a few moments may be shown as reconstructions, labelled on screen. The video does not set out to glorify war or to offend any person, nation or group. #Midway #USSYorktown FOOTAGE AND IMAGE SOURCES Archival film, most screen time first: The Battle of Midway, 1942 (80-MN-1433), via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Battle of Midway (342-USAF-16985): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/65422 Task Force in Pacific, May 1942 (428-NPC-16320): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/80370 B-25s Take Off USS Hornet for First Tokyo Raid (428-NPC-12472): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/79333 Battle of Midway and Pearl Harbor Damage (428-NPC-11585): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/79080 USS Yorktown, Ships Underway, Flight Deck Activity (428-NPC-1696): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/76148