As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Again revisiting John Keegan's examination of the second world war, there is a lesson to be learned in the best intentions of treaties to hamstring a nation, instead opens a window for that nation to develop a worse doomsday weapon, as Russia has advanced with against the United States in hypersonic conventional and nuclear weapons, for which there is not any defense.
For the American in racism seeking with the British to make the Japanese a 3/5ths Navy, they would soon discover a treaty which the dinosaur minds were concerned about battleships, that the following carriers would be the nemesis of the Anglo American creation of treaty.
Red Castle - Akagi
Flying Dragon - Hiryu
Increased Joy - Kaga
Green Dragon - Soryu
Soaring Crane - Shokaku
Happy Crane - Zuikaku
Washington Naval Conference of 1921 forced the Japanese to accept restrictions on battleship deployments.
The focus was on the fear of nations launching carriers and converting them battleships. Instead Japan understood the future of warfare, and began launching carriers, and while the British were still fixated on carriers would launch planes to loccate flotillas and then turn the destruction over to concentrated battleships, the Americans and Japanese had transformed the theater of warfare to by passing the battleships, and utilizing instead dive and torpedo bombers.
The Japanese launched a further land advance at Port Moresby, New Guinea in order to harass Australia more efficiently and thee Americans. American intelligence though intercepted the battle plans for the attack and steamed two of it's precious carriers, the Lexington built on a battleship frame and the Yorktown, the first of the super carriers of the era.
The Americans engaged the Shokaku, Zukaku and the smaller Shoho, which was sunk on May 7th, in the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Yorktown was damaged and on fire, but not sunk. This was the first challenge to Japanese supremacy which convinced the American carrier groups that they were at least as good as the superb Japanese naval wings.
In one of the most fantastic refits, Yorktown reached Pearl Harbor on May 27th for an estimated 3 month refit. The American engineers though had the ship put out to sea in 45 hours, less than two days. This factor was most important as the Japanese knew the limited number of American carriers in number 5, and at the coming battle of Midway, three times the lay confused the Japanese, as this 3rd carrier appeared. She was immediately attacked and set on fire again, and reported sunk by the Japanese pilots. Instead the American fire control put out the fire, and got steam up again, and she was under way as the Japanese again reported this new carrier on the seas, in the Japanese kept questioning where these carriers were coming from.
Yorktown was later sunk in the latter part of the battle, but she had provided America the greatest ghost of the seas, for the Japanese kept reporting her, hitting her, thinking she was finished and she would reappear to divert their attention and attacks.
The Red Castle, Increased Joy, Flying Dragon and Green Dragon were sent to Midway as this massive flotilla remained intact to pretect itself. Midway was interesting as the Japanese had two miltary directions being discussed. One was to acquire more land to threaten the allies in the New Guinnea campaign and the other was to strike Midway, to end that threatening arm of the Americans and place Hawaii in jeopardy. The interesting part in this was the ruse of Jimmy Doolittle launching B 25s off the American carrier Lexington to strike Tokyo, which put the Emperor in jeopardy, as the Japanese had no idea what the isolated explosions were, is what set in motion the Battle of Midway the preeminent strike against America, as the Japanese knew that they could force the Americans to fight at Midway, and in that the three remaining American super carriers would be sunk, which would signal the establishment of the New Asian Order led by Japan, as America would be driven back to San Diego.
It would be task forces 16 and 17 of the Americans in the Yorktown and the Enterprise and Hornet who would stand between the Japanese and the American shores in taking up position northeast of Midway to intercept the Japanese who were soon enough located.
The Japanese launched Zero, Kate (torpedo) and Val (dive bombers) in successful wave against the American base at Midway, which in turn had launched land based attacks in using B 17's which were ineffective, but conviced the Japanese to strike a second time at Midway in order to prepare the way for the coming invasion and conquest of Midway.
The entire Pacific war turned though in the minutes of rearming the Kates and Val from fragment bombs to anti ship bombs for the discovered American carriers. As the Japanese rearmed, the Americans began appearing on scene, but their first attacking waves were obliterated.
From 10:25 to 10:30, in the last naval wing of the dive bombers who had overshot the Japanese fleet and by intuition and luck, maneuvered back to where they thought the Japanese fleet would be, is what changed history, because all the American planes had been destroyed in previous attacks. The Japanese were completing rearming their attacking waves, but these Zero air cover was on the deck after being brought down by the American torpedo bombers which had no effect. It was in this window that Lt. Commander Wade McCluskey dove 37 Dauntless bombers into the Japanese fleet, sinking 3 of the 4 carriers. The Flying Dragon had escaped but was found at 5 PM racing away from the attack area, at which point the Enterprise's remaining dive bombers destroyed the remaining capital ship.
The Japanese are an adept race, and there is a reality in this, if the Americans and British in not trying to leverage Japan out of battleships, that Japan would not have taken the opening and built the largest carrier force in world history at that time. There never would have been a Pearl Harbor, because the Japanese would have instead built battleships, which would have been vulnerable to Pearl Harbor land based bombers.
That is the fact in this, the treaties to end the first world war and the armament conference of 1921 against battleships created Pearl Harbor, just as the treaties against weapons have created the super weapons of the next world war.
agtG
