soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Rich Rostrom wrote:

> Given such limited experience, is it any
> surprise that the attacks were poorly
> coordinated?

I may not have made myself sufficiently clear, but I was *not*
surprised with the attacks being poorly coordinated, for having read
about other carrier battles after Midway.

What I question is the role of the admiral in this. As far as I can
tell, coordination problems were due to technology, inadequate
doctrine and training. Not something that a CO could fix easily.

The "limited experience" doesn't change anything. If the USN as an
institution had identified the problem, training would have
incorporated the correctives. As things were, the USN - as an
institution - didn't realize that the problem would be so bad. Maybe
this counts as institutional failure, maybe not (did other navies do
better?) but at any rate it doesn't look to me like the kind of things
a commanding admiral could change.


LC