|
Despite the Americans reading his signals they still did not know where the Japanese fleet was just what its aims were and further to this the American aircraft (especially the bombers) were not up to the job of penetrating the defensive fighter screen even had they known precisely where it was you only have to look at the fate of the previous attack to see how they would have faired.
Further to this had the carriers managed to stay afloat the Americans were going to be down 1 carrier by the end of the day themselves.
The Japanese failure at Midway was a very brief moment where both returning bombers and defensive fighters were on deck refuelling and rearming and this was not a tribute to American airman-ship it was a failure of the Japanese command to follow procedure.
Basically at Midway the Yanks got lucky.
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation. ~Francois De La Rochefoucauld |