Good evening,
In the last few weeks, I have listened to a few books about the battle of Midway. Primarily, the Battle of Midway by Symonds and also Shattered Sword by Tully and Parshall.
In both books, the authors describe a similar theme about the three US carriers in the battle: the Yorktown and her air group were well organized and effective; the Hornet and her air group were largely ineffective, primarily because they had massive organizational problems (like flying the wrong direction); and Enterprise was somewhere in the middle.
I am confused about how the performance of these three vessels could be so different. Presumably they received similar training and were operating under the same doctrine. And if I understand the battle correctly, this seems beyond random chance.
Was this kind of wide range in effectiveness the norm or was a Midway an outlier?
Over the course of the war, were some ships that were consistently more effective than others? If there were, what made them more effective?
Thanks in advance for your perspective!
The works you want to read on this are John Lundstrom's "The First Team" and "The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign." It is pretty much the definitive work on the USN Carrier Air Groups in the the early part of the war. It's also a great read in my opinion although it's been awhile and I need to re-read it. My takeaway from the work is that the combat experience, technical skill and leadership ability of the senior aviators in the air group was a really important component in fighting qualities. However, there is also a lot of luck involved in the outcome of the early carrier battles.