In the summer of nineteen forty one, a soft spoken Arkansas naval aviator named John Smith Thach sat down at his kitchen table in Coronado, California, with nothing but a box of matchsticks and an intelligence report describing the Mitsubishi Zero, the most feared carrier fighter in the Pacific. What he worked out on that table over the next several weeks would, within a year, take the elite pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy and turn them into men who came home from missions over Guadalcanal unable to explain what had just happened to them. This is the story of the Thach Weave, the simple two pair maneuver that allowed slower, less agile Grumman F4F Wildcats to defeat the faster and more maneuverable Mitsubishi A6M Zero, and the story of the men who first flew it into combat at the Battle of Midway on June fourth, nineteen forty two. We follow Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Thach and his second section leader Edward Butch O'Hare through the secret pre war flight tests over San Diego Bay, into the chaos of the Yorktown's torpedo escort mission at Midway, and out across the Solomons, where Marine pilots of the Cactus Air Force at Henderson Field used the weave to break the Tainan Air Group's grip on the skies over Guadalcanal. We hear from the other side as well, through the memoirs of Saburo Sakai, the Japanese ace who flew his crippled Zero five hundred and sixty nautical miles back to Rabaul with a head wound after one of the most legendary feats of flying in aviation history. This is a careful, fact checked account of one of the most consequential tactical innovations of the Second World War, drawing on the United States Naval Institute oral histories, Steve Ewing's biography of Thach, John Lundstrom's First Team, and Henry Sakaida's work on Japanese naval aviators. If you are interested in World War Two Pacific air combat, the Battle of Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign, naval aviation history, the F4F Wildcat versus A6M Zero, or the men who shaped how fighter pilots fight to this day, this is the chapter you have been waiting for. Subscribe for more long form World War Two history told with the names, the dates, and the small specific details intact.

Sources for this video:

Thach, John S., "Reminiscences of Admiral John S. Thach," United States Naval Institute Oral History Program — https://www.usni.org/press/oral-histories

Ewing, Steve, "Reaper Leader: The Life of Jimmy Flatley," Naval Institute Press, two thousand two

Ewing, Steve, "Thach Weave: The Life of Jimmie Thach," Naval Institute Press, two thousand four

Lundstrom, John B., "The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway," Naval Institute Press

"Flying into a Beehive: Fighting Three at Midway," Naval History Magazine, June two thousand seven, U.S. Naval Institute — https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2007/june/flying-beehive-fighting-three-midway

Sakaida, Henry, "Winged Samurai: Saburo Sakai and the Zero Fighter Pilots"

Sakai, Saburo, with Martin Caidin and Fred Saito, "Samurai!"

Tillman, Barrett, "Saburo Sakai: Samurai of the Air," HistoryNet — https://www.historynet.com/samurai-of-the-air/

Naval History and Heritage Command, biographical files on Admiral John S. Thach, Lieutenant Commander Edward H. O'Hare, and the F6F Hellcat — https://www.history.navy.mil

National Naval Aviation Museum — https://www.navalaviationmuseum.org

U.S. Naval Academy Memorial Hall, citations for Lieutenant Commander Edward H. O'Hare and Commander James J. Southerland — https://usnamemorialhall.org

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia, entries on aircraft pilots and IJN training — http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com

Battle of Midway Roundtable — http://www.midway42.org