Why The Battle of Midway Was COMPLETELY Avoidable

Why The Battle of Midway Was COMPLETELY Avoidable At 10:22 a.m. on June 4, 1942, American dive bombers fell on the Japanese carrier Kaga. Within about six minutes, three of the carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor were burning. For decades this was told as five minutes of bad luck. It wasn't. In this animated documentary we follow both fleets along one ocean road and count every exit they sailed past: a plan pushed through by a resignation threat, a Doolittle Raid that ended the debate, a plan split into too many pieces, a war game where a sunk carrier came back to life, a code change delayed until it was too late, a Yorktown "sunk" on Japanese books and patched in three days at Pearl Harbor, a reconnaissance flight cancelled at French Frigate Shoals, a submarine line that arrived late, and a thin morning search. The Americans had exits of their own: uncoordinated attacks, the Hornet air group's disputed "flight to nowhere", Mark 13 torpedoes nobody had properly tested, and the sacrifice of Torpedo Squadron Eight. Then Wade McClusky followed one Japanese destroyer's wake — and the battle turned. We also take apart Mitsuo Fuchida's famous "five minutes from launch" story — including a version of it we used in one of our own earlier videos. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Why Midway Was Avoidable 1:09 Victory Disease 3:51 Bombs Over Tokyo 6:04 Too Many Pieces 9:20 The Game They Rigged 11:41 AF Is Short of Water 14:44 Seventy-Two Hours 16:42 Blind Spots 19:23 Nagumo's Dilemma 23:41 The Sacrifice 26:43 The Five-Minute Myth 30:20 The Bill At 8:30 a.m., Rear Admiral Yamaguchi signalled Nagumo: launch the attack immediately. Nagumo waited. If he had listened, could he have saved his carriers — or would an unescorted strike have been destroyed like the American torpedo planes? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe for more history where both sides had a choice. Sources include Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully (Shattered Sword, 2005), Craig L. Symonds (The Battle of Midway, 2011), John B. Lundstrom (The First Team, 1984), Gordon W. Prange (Miracle at Midway, 1982), Robert J. Mrazek (A Dawn Like Thunder), Elliot Carlson (Joe Rochefort's War), Edwin T. Layton ("And I Was There"), the Naval History and Heritage Command's H-Gram 006, and Nimitz's Letter of Instruction of May 28, 1942. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya's "Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan" is discussed as the source of the five-minute legend and the war-game story. Disputed points — the Yamato war game, the Hornet's course, the number of carriers Japan could have sent, Chinese civilian deaths after the Doolittle Raid — are presented as debated. #history #midway #ww2