the Battle of Midway was a legendary and
surprising victory for the Americans in
World War two we often did songs about
naval warfare so here's another one
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on May 27th 1942 at the large Anchorage
of hashira Jima in Hiroshima Bay the
mighty ACOG II of the Japanese carrier
division the proud flagship of Vice
Admiral Nagumo - Ichi of the first air
fleet moving out into the Pacific even
though the Japanese Navy produced the
mightiest battleships the world had ever
seen many of the officers believed that
the real modern power on the sea lay
with the carrier force the Kido butai it
would decide winning and losing control
of the sea and so far the Japanese
carrier fleet had proven it's worth by
mid 1942 the Japanese had humiliated the
Western nations at Malaya and the Indies
had moved towards Guam Java the
Philippines Singapore the British bases
on Ceylon and even raided the north of
Australia they had successfully
surprised the US Navy at Hawaii sinking
and crippling many of the warships
anchored there and they had just scored
a tactical victory at the Battle of the
Coral Sea though the Allies had
prevented an invasion of Port Moresby
but now it was just a hiccup right that
battle merely confirmed the
carrier-based operations would be
successful against the inferior America
but what would be the next step to go
further into the Indian Ocean to attempt
to invade Australia or move again
against the now awakened giant in the
East Marshal Admiral Yamamoto
commander-in-chief of the Japanese
combined fleet knew that the United
States had to be crushed before they
could bring their industrial night to
bear he ordered eastern operation to
continue and an invasion of Hawaii
before they could attempt that however
the Japanese had to lure the American
Navy away from the strongly defended
target and towards another one that was
easy enough to attack but important
enough to trigger an American response
Midway a tiny two island at all in the
middle of the Pacific seemed perfect for
that by June 4th Admiral Nagumo's Kido
butai and his four carriers the acog e
acaba the here you and the soryu was
closing in on Midway but he was without
two carriers after the Battle of the
Coral Sea the Seas had been foggy for
days and the Japanese plan was already
in disarray their submarines were
nowhere to be seen and the main fleet
was up to two days away but that gu no
didn't worry since the mighty
battleships were only needed in Phase
two after the bombardment of Midway once
the American fleet had been alerted and
after all surprise was on their side
yeah except that it wasn't American
cryptographers had revealed Yamamoto is
rough intentions a few days ago the
code-breaking station at Hawaii had
intercepted the traffic between the
Akagi and the other carriers realizing
that something big was up though they
weren't sure of the destination
codenamed AF so they came up with a ruse
an uncoded message about Midway's
desalination system breaking down was
sent and was picked up by the Japanese
who interpreted the message that they
should bring a water tanker with them to
AF so Midway it was
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Oh
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let's be clear here at this point the
Americans were indeed losing the war the
u.s. Asiatic squadron was a shadow of
its former self and the Japanese had
both the numbers and the initiative to
dictate the course of the war it would
take time for the superior American
industry to kick into high gear and
change the balance what if it was too
late by then commander in chief of the
American Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester
Nimitz took over command after Pearl
Harbor and was trying to reassert
confidence in the American Navy and just
now when the Japanese had lost strategic
surprise without even realizing it
Nimitz was quick to transfer his three
available carriers the Yorktown
enterprise and Hornet to the command of
Rear Admiral Raymond a Spruance the
carrier task forces would wait an ambush
300 miles north of the anticipated axis
of advance of the Japanese till the
attack on Midway began
which it did at six o'clock in the
morning in large numbers each carrier
had an array of aircraft to carry out a
well-balanced strike the Mitsubishi
fighter type zero the dive bomber HD
type 99 with armor-piercing and
high-explosive bombs and a Nakajima type
97 armed with torpedoes they were to
overwhelm the enemy in one coordinated
mass display of firepower
now then a side note here the key to
carrier warfare is to bring in the right
planes at the right moment if there are
enemy bombers on the horizon start the
fighters in response if destroyers come
along answer with torpedo bombers and if
they sight carriers get the dive bombers
on deck this is why accurate
intelligence is so important being
caught wrong-footed is a death sentence
and heck even for well-trained Japanese
crews it took hours to rearm and prepare
different flight decks 7 a.m. the first
wave of bombers was returning from
Midway at 8:00 a.m. Admiral Nagumo had
given the order to prepare for a second
bombing run when a message reached him
from his reconnaissance planes enemy's
surface ships detected Spruance 'as
forest was moving south Nagumo's report
spoke of ten enemy units but it wasn't
clear what kind of ships they were
concluding that 10 ships were not much
of a threat to the mighty Kido butai he
chose to continue the attack on Midway
well soon the first American bombers
were above them tracer bullets lit up
the skies as the Bombers aimed for a
cocky and soryu
sharp evasive maneuvers saved the
carriers until the zero has made short
work of the inexperienced
American pilots however the Japanese
anti-aircraft guns had not hit a single
target something was clearly off as they
were far too slow to react to multi
vector and multi altitude attacks at
9:00 a.m. the reports reaching Nagumo
still spoke of cruisers and destroyers
but clearly there were American planes
in the air they had to come from
somewhere
the saw Ryu was repeatedly fighting off
enemy torpedo planes but Nagumo had no
idea
where they came from for his
reconnaissance was insufficient none of
the Japanese carriers were equipped with
radar and the radio technology and the
scouting planes was fairly primitive and
because of the lack of concrete
information Nagumo still chose to
continue his strike against Midway
by 10:20 his for flight decks were
bustling with energy as planes were
armed and fueled okay in history some
battles are decided in a day and some
battles are decided in hours the fate of
this battle was decided in 10 crucial
minutes at 10:22 as the entire Japanese
carrier force was refuelling and
rearming their machines the American
dive bombers attack this time it was the
veteran dive bombers from the Yorktown
they engaged the kaga first pushing
their planes into a dive through a hail
of ineffective 5-inch batteries
releasing their 500 and thousand-pound
bombs the first three landed in the
water but the fourth hit the flight deck
half detonating in the crew compartments
the seventh bomb hit the forward
elevator detonating in the fighter
stowage rooms the bombs blew the
interior of the kaga apart another blew
up the bridge killing all the officers
now the Dauntless dive bombers were
descending on the soryu
multiple bombs simply tore the ship
apart Nagumo watched in horror as both
carriers were engulfed in flames and
smoke everything was blown to pieces
their engines were dead their boilers
were ruptured aircraft parts body parts
littered the flight deck suddenly the
alarm sounded on the acog II as well and
it's a a guns opened up then came a
massive explosion of a 1,000 pound bomb
detonating after bursting through the
middle elevator it tore everything
inside the hangar apart in just a few
minutes the American bombers had come
and gone and had left 3 the mightiest
Japanese aircraft carriers burning and
even though not sinking burning is bad
for those carriers were full of
high-octane gasoline oil and lubricants
ammunition and bombs paper and wood in
minutes they were arranging Inferno
surviving Japanese firefighters were
frantically trying to save the ships
hundreds had died in moments many more
were now exposed to fire heat and smoke
many of the mechanics on the lower
and boiler rooms they were trapped
further explosions ripped through the
ships as ammunition and vaporized
gasoline caught fire men were literally
boiling inside the compartments with no
chance to get out
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only the here you escaped untouched as
it was still protected by zeros and only
attacked by ineffective torpedo bombers
but this was a major disaster a disaster
which would have made most commanders
turn and flee but Nagumo was not most
commanders the main body of the fleet
though 600 miles away could still make a
difference the Americans had lost a
large amount of torpedo bombers in the
attack and and if they could be forced
to a decisive surface battle Japan might
just come out on top
since the hair.you was still intact he
ordered its two dozen planes to
retaliate immediately soon after 1:30 in
the afternoon Nagumo's best dive bombers
douve towards the Yorktown American flak
Gunners took a heavy toll on the
attackers but at least two bombs hit
their target a 500-pound bomb hit
amidships and another detonated in the
forward elevator the Yorktown was now
burning but by 2:30 it became clear not
only the kaga and the saury you were
lost the akaki was as well the Yorktown
though was still moving fending off
repeated Japanese attacks sending its
planes out to attack the last Japanese
carrier at 5 p.m. joined by bombers from
the enterprise they broke through the
cover of zeroes and planted 4 bombs on
the bow of the hair you cheering its
flight deck off and engulfing it in
flames
Kido butai was no more so as night fell
the battle was decided Spruance had no
intention of going toe-to-toe with the
japanese surface fleet before badly
wounded Japanese carriers would be
scuttled rather than falling into enemy
hands for the Americans it seemed like
the Yorktown could still be saved but
the undetected Japanese submarine I 168
took its chance and torpedoed and sunk
the Yorktown that and a destroyer for
the American ships lost against four
fleet aircraft carriers to this day the
importance of the Battle of Midway is
discussed among historians was it the
decisive turning point of the Pacific
War was this the end of Jack
expansion the Japanese had suffered
dearly by losing four carriers and the
loss of hundreds of skill mechanics and
experienced sailors was a further
crippling wound well we know that the
war had over three more years to go in
the Pacific but it had just entered
another round around where the sides
were suddenly a lot more even
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going back to well we said at the very
beginning that you often do songs about
naval warfare this is true now why is
that personally I do enjoy warships I
mean if we're touring and I find out
that there's a port in town and they
have some naval ships or something like
that that you can visit for a museum for
example yeah I love to go and see that I
think one of the most impressive which
probably helped us aspire to write this
song about Bismarck later was when we
visited the USS New Jersey alright okay
and it's a very impressive ship and we
actually thought about using it for some
of the scenes in the Bismarck music
video okay but later we decided to
basically render them and I mean it was
pretty pretty exciting this stuff you
used anyway yeah yeah now having been on
the battleship New Jersey is it ever
been in your mind to write a song about
that specific ship or is it more naval
warfare that you're no we were very
inspired because actually the USS New
Jersey has a lot of interesting stories
to it yeah I mean in San Diego there's
the USS Midway which is named after the
Battle of Midway although I did not see
action at Midway no it did not it was
just launched right after there we've
been kind of funny if they happen to
name it Midway and then ah three weeks
later happen yes you're not gonna
believe it what are the odds
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is this like even when you were kid were
you interested in like me yeah yeah I
was definitely and I've always had a
fascination on boats basically and it's
pretty cool that you have a job that you
get to write about something here
fascinated by yeah I mean my my father
used to say that if I would be in the
Swedish military I probably be serving
on a submarine not also being so tall it
would fit oh yeah and and I'm not afraid
of small like being inside of Lochte
even if it would go under the water hi
it's Carrie just 30 okay for me that
would be seem like a realistic solution
now did you do lumping the that's this
they used to have Swedish mandatory
military service did you do that no I
didn't do they pretty much that year
they stopped doing mandatory I'm pretty
much done and it became a moral
voluntarily basis thing so I went down
to do their tests and stuff and then
afterwards I said I I really don't want
to do it because I wanna play heavy
metal until I die so and they said it's
not a it's not a reason to quit this and
I said well yeah just give me a gun and
I kill everybody in sight and then they
said well it's better that you play
music then all right well ladies and
gentlemen that is it for today for
sabaton history thank you
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