Near Midway Atoll, American Admiral Nimitz set up a classic ambush for the Japanese. Three aircraft carriers, under the cover of everything that could be gathered, lay in wait near the island, anticipating the enemy landing accompanied by the majority of the enemy fleet. They lay in wait – and descended upon the Japanese with an armada of three and a half hundred aircraft.
They did descend, but there was little benefit from this assault because the torpedoes didn’t explode, and the pilots were not trained in coordination between the commanders not a bit. One after another, American squadrons descended upon the Japanese fleet and perished under the fire of the famous “Zero” fighters and the anti-aircraft artillery of the carrier escort. First, second, third, eighth… the pilots were not lacking in perseverance, but the result remained the same.
In the end, the Japanese discovered the American fleet and, rightly deciding that Midway wasn’t going anywhere, but the ships might, prepared to settle the score with them. To do this, they removed the bombs intended for attacking the ground airfield from the planes and started loading torpedoes – to sink the pesky aircraft carriers. And then a miracle happened that no one expected. Captain McClusky with his squadron got lost in the ocean. And instead of being shot down among the first, he wandered in the warm June sky for an extra hour. Blaming him for this would be reckless: in an era when planes had neither GPS nor any navigation systems at all, getting lost in the open sea was not difficult. But the miracle is not even that McClusky got lost and wasn’t shot down like the previous eight attack waves, nor that he eventually found the Japanese fleet, but in the form in which he found it. The fighter cover far below was finishing off the survivors from the previous attacks. On the decks, hundreds of planes: mechanics were switching torpedoes and bombs back and forth. The anti-aircraft gunners, deciding the banquet was over, were resting. And only forty-four American dive bombers were looking for where to place their bombs, which, unlike the torpedoes, explode48.
The capture of Midway did not take place. Having lost four aircraft carriers, the Japanese fleet would head home for the first time in the war without achieving its goal. Now we know that it was from Midway that the Axis’s49 victorious march began to slow down and eventually rolled back. At that moment, it was simply a significant victory followed by bitter defeats, not just one or two50. But the victory at Midway meant that America, at the very least, would not have to defend its own land, and as such, it would continue to feed, supply, and arm its allies.
And they had their own miracles beginning. And if the American miracle had a name – Captain McClusky, then the British one had a name: “Ohio”.
The main concern of the English was Malta, and things were very bad there. Because getting anything through to the tiny island in the middle of a sea filled with enemy planes and ships is almost like for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The Admiralty sent convoy after convoy, and the Germans and Italians repeatedly sent them to the bottom. Fuel for the Maltese fighters was running out, and without fighters, the island would instantly become defenseless against bombings and then an invasion similar to the Cretan one51, only easier. Finally, as a last attempt, the English assembled the “Pedestal” convoy, which had perhaps the most powerful escort in history: four aircraft carriers, two battleships, and a whole crowd of cruisers and destroyers. An entire fleet, significantly stronger than, for example, all Soviet fleets combined, was sent to accompany the cargo ships.
As soon as the convoy started moving, torpedo boats, planes, and submarines habitually began to sink it. They were successful, and by the end of the crossing, little was left of the transports. They sank, burned, and exploded, resulting in an outcome as disastrous as that of the infamously known PQ-17.
The last surviving tanker in the convoy was the American “Ohio.” Tankers generally burned and exploded more readily than any other ships and bringing them to their destination port was a rare act of heroism. However, the “Ohio” attracted trouble even more than usual. On the very first day, it was hit by a torpedo from a submarine. For most ships, that would have been enough, but the tanker continued to move with the convoy. Then dive bombers dropped several bombs on it, and one, shot down by anti-aircraft gunners, crashed into it. Finally, after a day, the tanker received another torpedo, lost its propulsion, and turned into a wreck.
Then the stubborn English harnessed three destroyers to it like horses and, under enemy fire, dragged it further. And in its last breath, they dragged it to the destination. After which, they pumped out the aviation fuel and used it as intended.
The Germans and their allies had no more successes in the Mediterranean52.
The Russian miracle went without a name. Perhaps it could have been called “globe” or “geopolitics,” and as is customary with the Russians, it was the least miraculous of all.
Almost immediately after the defeat of the Red Army near Kharkov, murmurs began among the German generals. They believed that in the current situation, it was advisable to turn the army north to Moscow, while Hitler stubbornly drove the troops eastward – to the Volga and southward – to the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. There, they eventually got bogged down, stretching their communications and getting stuck in dense defenses in difficult terrain.
The military can be understood – their goal is to win the battle, to defeat the enemy. But the German leadership reasoned like politicians, like strategists; its goal was not to capture the enemy’s capital but to achieve the objectives of the war53. And for this purpose, the campaign to Moscow seemed practically useless. Primarily because even if it were assumed that it could be taken at all, Moscow would be of little use. In the autumn of forty-one, it could be assumed that with the capture of the capital, the Red Army would completely lose its combat capability, or the Soviet people would rise against the “Jewish Bolshevik power,” or Stalin would surrender and flee beyond the Urals. In forty-two, illusions about the possibility of completely occupying Russia or creating a puppet government like the Vichy regime were no longer particularly entertained. A more or less loyal leadership with which an agreement could be reached and good territorial acquisitions would have fully satisfied Hitler, for whom, it should be noted, unlike the USSR, the war was not seen as a war of annihilation. Good fertile lands with a moderate amount of indigenous population that is easy to manage and colonize, reserves of natural resources – Donbass coal and Transcaucasian oil, a mild climate familiar to the average European… German politicians certainly did not dream of dense forests, harsh frosts, and millions of grim men always ready to harm the true Aryan. Capturing Moscow at any cost seemed like a bad idea in these conditions.
Besides, although the main battles were unfolding on the Eastern Front54, the Führer also had a world map. And in light of the seemingly inevitable defeat of the British in the Mediterranean and the precarious position of Turkey55, which was almost ready to unite with the Axis powers, the priority capture of the Black Sea region, the Caucasus, and Transcaucasia seemed more than logical. This would allow Eurasia to be split in two, isolating the remnants of the Soviet Union in barren northern lands without access to European seas, separating Britain from its Asian colonies, and disrupting all Allied communications in the Eastern Hemisphere, except for the endlessly long route around Africa. Weren’t the German people enduring the hardships of war for this very reason for three years?
In reality, however, this seemingly logical decision from all sides turned into a complete