soc.history.war.world-war-ii

WaltBJ wrote:

> On Mar 9, 2:12 pm, "Blackadder XVI" wrote:
>
>>In Shattered Sword, the authors argue that the attack of the USN torpedo
>>planes did not prevent the IJN CAP from intercepting the USN divebombers
>>from the Yorktown and Enterprise- but their attack did distract the IJN and
>>cause their fighters to come down. If the torpedo planes didn't attack
>>before the divebombers - would the IJN CAP have been in position to molest
>>the USN carrier divebombing team?

> I won't take time to look it up but I believe the SBDs came in at
> something like 15,000 feet. 5,000 is awfully low for searching for a
> group of ships whose actual location is very shaky, besides being too
> close to the flak while positioning for the dive.

Japanese reports have the broken cloud cover at about 3000 meters and
claim the clouds hid the approaching SBDs until they commenced their
dives. Which would place the dive bombers' approach at something over
10,000 feet at the lowest.

I can't find any US reports confirming the SBDs' approach altitute but,
as you note, something around 15,000 feet would make the most sense and
the Japanese reports clearly place them higher than 10,000 feet. 5,000
feet seems most unlikely.

Cheers,