Yamato was also sunk by aircraft near the end of the war. It was to be the biggest Kamikaze mission ever. It and a small escort fleet left Japan for Okinawa with only enough fuel for a one way trip. They were to attack the invasion fleet and beach the ships on the island if they survived long enough.
Unfortunately for them, they were detected by reconnaissance planes long before they reached the landing beaches, and nearly the every ship was sunk in within a couple of hours.
“shattered sword” they say is the best account on midway. i grew up with walter lord’s “incredible victory” which was an excellent read but they say had a lot of inaccuracies.
precisely because they targeted midway island instead of looking for the carriers, that’s what doomed them.
it’s so tempting to compare midway with leyte gulf because of the similar scale and complexity.
on your scenario of focusing all forces on midway, it would have been a lot like leyte gulf-american strategy. here, the invasion/covering fleet (ala 7th) would have consisted of the transport and kondo’s 2nd fleet but with a significant carrier defense force (2-4 escort carriers instead of just 1.) the main force (ala 3rd) would be yamamoto’s battleship force plus nagumo’s fleet carriers. the main force would shadow the second force and dash at the americam carriers once they tried to interdict kondo. the weakness here is not being able to get in the first strike.
midway was a mid-ocean battle while leyte was a dance around an entire archipelago. carriers for midway and battleships for leyte. at leyte, halsey made a scientific decision to use battleships because even with overwhleming superiority in carrier strength, his 1,200-plane carrier force might not stop 7 japanese battleships rushing in at once.
at midway, the americans got the first strike in. they won. at leyte, ozawa’s decoy carriers got in the first strike and were able to sink a US escort carrier --to no avail.
at midway, yamamoto wanted to use battleships to destroy nimitz’s remaining forces. he failed. at leyte, halsey wanted the missouri and new jersey to smash kurita. he also failed.
at midway, the japanese split up and employed their favorite decoy force strategem. it failed because the americans knew the real target. at leyte, they used two decoy forces and succeeded. but it wasn’t enough to win the battle.
overall, i think the japanese strategy at midway, though overmatching themselves to much, was still feasible. THEY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN IN THE FIRST STRIKE ON THOSE US CARRIERS.
They did not know the American carriers were there. They didn’t expect them to be there. By the time they found them, it was too late, and the American strike force was already in the air and on it’s way to the Japanese fleet.
So yes, they should have, but it’s a virtual impossibility that they could have.
well, it points the forces’ primary objectives. having to do two tasks is always a bummer. nagumo/yamamoto should have been carrier-hunting exclusively. they knew the destruction of the american carriers was the key element for victory. leave kondo to pulverize midway. nagumo let the american carriers get to him.
the japanese strategy of laying out a decoy force to know just where the enemy’s main carrier force is gives them a 50-50 chance of laying first strike (but you tend to lose some of your own.) coral sea was successful in that respect. midway was a wash. they did it again successfully at guadalcanal at sta. cruz. they busted the enterprise (after previously torpedoing wasp,) leaving the americans with the hornet as the only working carrier west of hawaii.