"Should Mitscher have Been Sidelined After Midway?" Topic

Mark A. Mitscher took six years to graduate from Annapolis, and author Richard D. Frank has written (in Naval History magazine, June 2011):

By rights, Mitscher should have spent the rest of the way in obscurity after the abysmal performance of his ship, the carrier Hornet (CV-8), at Midway.

Yet Mitscher continued to serve in the Pacific, and went on to serve as superintendent of the Naval Academy.

Did he deserve to be sidelined after Midway?

I can see how he would have been sidelined for his Midway performance, but I think it is a good thing that he wasn't. I think that he was very competent in his position of commander of TF 58 later in the war. He also was exceptionally popular with his pilots and his deck crews.

Mike

What was wrong with his performance at Midway?
It seems to me that ALL carrier warfare victors are the ones who GUESSED at the exact split second the right decision. Spruance did it right 100% at Midway. The Jaopanese, not so much.

Wargamers and armchair historians always want to punish the guys who get it right 50%. They forget that the guy actually knew what he was doing and proved it later.
"Turn on the lights."

JTOFM:

Fletcher was in overall command at Midway, and probably deserves most of the credit for successful tactical decisions. Spruance also did well when Fletcher gave him tactical command after Yorktown was disabled. Lundstrom mentions a number of issues with Hornet's air department from commissioning through Midway, which may have been partially due to Mitscher (the captain). When you compare how Mitscher fared in comparison with the captain of the Yorktown (super efficient ship), this seems a bit unfair.

This appears to be the the view of more recent historians, such as Lundstrom.

MH

hindsTMP, should we not take some account of the
CAGs' performances in making their air groups efficient,
the performance of the strike leaders in making the
'right decisions' as to where/when the enemy might
be found, and so on ?

The CAPTAIN of a ship has a much broader range of
responsibilities than the CAG – so much so that, as
you point out, if the deficiencies of AG8 at Midway
were a distinct blot on the performance of Naval
Aviation as a whole, it was not necessarily a
direction reflection upon Mitscher's performance as
Hornet's captain.

But, concerning AG8 – no one can doubt the courage and
professional dedication of the aircrews of VT8.

Naval Aviation of that period was very much a distinct
community within the USN as a whole (remember the
whole 'black shoe/brown shoe' stuff ?), and the aviators
didn't regard themselves as part of the 'crew', a view
encouraged by the way BuAir/DoN et al treated them.

Mitscher had his faults, I'm sure, but the single action
('light 'em up') he took to save the strike capability
of his TF meant it could stay in action, rather than
returning with its primary 'weapon' depleted by
losses 'at sea, out of fuel'.

Ed,

I am only a military history enthusiast, and not a professional WWII-era naval person. Also, I was not commenting on the performances of the subordinate commanders, whose performance obviously had a critical influence on the outcome. When I referred to captain's and admirial's influence on "tactics", I meant to the degree appropriate and conventional to their positions in the hierarchy.

Still, from what I've read, the captain of a ship had quite a bit of opportunity to influence the tactical application of his ship's air group. Many specific examples are given in the Lundstrom books, for example in "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral". It seems to me that based on those accounts, Buckmaster was a more skilled and effective carrier captain, and yet Mitscher's career prospered and Buckmaster's career stagnated due to what appears to be "politics".

MH

No.
Mitscher was adequate.
-Kle.