THACH, Coral Sea, and Midway: The Brown Shoe Lessons That Changed Naval Warfare
May is Brown Shoe Blend month at Old Salt Coffee, and that fits perfectly considering the historical events that occurred this month in history. For reference, "Brown Shoe Blend" refers to the brown shoes that Naval Aviators were authorized to wear with their khaki uniforms (as opposed to the standard issue black shoes). May is also the month of the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, one of the most important naval battles in history. This month we honor Service and Sacrifice, the Naval Aviation community, and the kind of Sailors who helped turn the tide in the Pacific when the outcome of the war was still very much in doubt.
But this month, we are going to tell that story through one Sailor in particular: Admiral John S. “Jimmy” Thach.
For me, this one is a bit more personal. I certainly didn't know Admiral Thach, but I had the honor of commanding USS THACH (FFG 43), a ship named for Admiral "Jimmy" Thach. When you command a ship with a namesake like that, the name is not just painted on the stern. It follows you onto the bridge. It rides with you during flight quarters, special evolutions, watch turnover, engineering drills, long transits, and all those quiet hours when a ship is doing what ships do best: standing the watch while the rest of the world sleeps. I also know I am a former SWO writing a blog about Aviation, so if I screw something up, please have mercy on me!
My time on THACH was busy, and it made the namesake feel current instead of distant. We deployed twice to CENTCOM and the Arabian Gulf/Persian Gulf, transiting both deployments across the Pacific and through the South China Sea. At that time, PRC expansion was not just an occasional part of 7th Fleet operations — it was one of the fleet’s significant strategic focuses. Then, in the Gulf, we dealt with the IRGCN doing what the IRGCN tends to do: testing lines, probing reactions, and making sure nobody on watch got too comfortable. We protected Iraqi oil platforms, operated in and around some of the most contested waters in the world, and also chipped in on counter-piracy operations farther south toward the Red Sea. It was a demanding time to command a warship, and it made me appreciate THACH’s namesake even more.
At the time, the FFG-7 class frigates were being phased out across the Navy. THACH was part of Destroyer Squadron SEVEN (DESRON 7) and, as we understood it, the last frigate assigned to a Carrier Strike Group. We felt honored by that. We were an FFG operating in a strike group surrounded by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers — AEGIS ships with a lot more displacement, a lot more modern firepower, and absolutely no reason to think the frigate was going to let them have all the fun. THACH may not have been the biggest combatant in the formation, but we were determined to live up to the assignment and prove that the old frigate still belonged in the fight.
And because the sea has a sense of humor, our second deployment gave us one of those stories every crew remembers. USS RONALD REAGAN, (CVN 76), the center of the strike group, was delayed getting underway for deployment due to a mechanical issue, which meant the cruiser and the DESRON staff embarked in the carrier stayed behind as well. Since I was the senior Commanding Officer in the DESRON at the time, THACH became the Surface Action Group Commander (SAGC) for the transit across the Pacific. You can bet the Mighty FFG 43 was “guide” of the formation, with the DDGs arrayed around us properly protecting the best frigate in the fleet. Was that entirely how the destroyer COs saw it? Maybe not. But on THACH, we knew the truth — and we drank our coffee accordingly.
Jimmy Thach was not just a fighter pilot. He was a tactician, combat leader, innovator, and later one of the Navy’s major Cold War anti-submarine warfare thinkers. He was, in every sense of the word, a thinking warrior. For this Old Salt, you can bet your asses that the "thinking warrior" side of Jimmy had an impact on me as we had to relearn small boat attack tactics and be able to go from "shouting to shooting" in the Persian Gulf (sorry I date myself "Arabian Gulf") or closely monitoring PRC naval activities above, on, and below the waters of the South China Sea. It's also why we honor him in every bag of Brown Shoe Blend. On the Old Salt compass featured on the bag is Jimmy Thach’s F4F Wildcat launching at Midway. That is not just artwork. That is heritage. But let's get back to the blog.
The Month That Changed the Pacific War
Coral Sea and Midway belong together. They were not isolated battles; they were connected chapters in one of the most remarkable strategic reversals in naval history. And that is not an overstatement made for dramatic impact. At the beginning of May 1942, a mere five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan still held the initiative across much of the Pacific. The Japanese had swept across the western Pacific, threatened Australia’s supply lines, and sought to capture Port Moresby in New Guinea as part of a broader effort to strengthen their defensive perimeter and project power farther south.
Then came Coral Sea. For the first time in history, opposing naval forces fought a major naval battle in which the opposing surface fleets never directly sighted or fired on one another. Aircraft became the striking arm. Carrier decks became the battle line. Naval warfare had changed, and nobody had a perfect playbook yet.
Coral Sea was costly for the Americans. The carrier USS LEXINGTON was lost, USS YORKTOWN was damaged, and many Sailors and aircrew paid the price for lessons that were still being written in real time. But Japan’s advance toward Port Moresby was stopped, and the Japanese carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku were kept from participating at Midway in the way Japan had intended. Less than a month later, the U.S. Navy fought at Midway and destroyed four Japanese fleet carriers. The war was not over — not even close — but the strategic initiative had shifted. Japan went from driving the fight across the Pacific to increasingly defending what it had already seized.
That is the strategic backbone of this story: Coral Sea brought the hard lessons. YORKTOWN carried the scars. Thach brought the doctrine. Midway became the test.
YORKTOWN: The Scarred Bridge Between Coral Sea and Midway
The bridge between Coral Sea and Midway was not just strategic. It was physical. It was USS YORKTOWN.
YORKTOWN had fought at Coral Sea, taken damage, and returned to Pearl Harbor. The ship was considered unfit for combat operations, and by any normal yardstick she should have months of major repair work. But there was no time. The Japanese were coming for Midway, and without YORKTOWN the U.S. carrier force would be even more badly outnumbered. Pearl Harbor shipyard workers labored around the clock, and in roughly 72 hours they returned YORKTOWN to somewhat battle-ready condition. She then sailed for Midway with repair work in progress as she went.
That alone deserves a mug hoisted in respect.
On 30 May 1942, Jimmy Thach landed aboard YORKTOWN. That detail matters. The record does not support putting Thach personally in the cockpit at Coral Sea, and we do not need to force him there. The real story is better. Thach came aboard a carrier that had just survived Coral Sea, joined an air group shaped by Coral Sea’s lessons, and prepared to fight in a battle where the Navy had almost no margin for error.
The Coral Sea-to-Midway connection was not myth or exaggeration. It was battle reports, surviving pilots, damaged steel, a rebuilt air group, and tactical decisions being made under extreme pressure. Coral Sea showed what carrier warfare had become. Midway would show whether the U.S. Navy could absorb those lessons fast enough to survive.
Jimmy Thach and the Zero Problem
Thach’s genius was not that he believed American pilots were invincible. He knew better. Japan's Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighter aircraft was a serious problem. A lightweight, highly maneuverable, long-range fighter. It could outclimb and outperform the U.S. Navy's F4F Wildcat, and if American pilots fought the Zero on the Zero’s terms, too many of them would die.
So Thach thought his way through the problem. He developed what became known as the Thach Weave, a defensive fighter tactic built around mutual support. It was not a trick and it was not magic. It was developed months earlier in Coronado, California using matchsticks on a dining room table. What he originally called the "Beam Defense Position" quickly became known as the "Thach Weave." It was teamwork, timing, discipline, and trust. If an enemy fighter latched onto one aircraft, the threatened pilot and his wingman would turn toward each other, forcing the attacker into the guns of the supporting aircraft. The concept worked because it refused to let American pilots fight as isolated targets. It made the section a team, and it made teamwork a weapon.
That is the lesson worth carrying forward. Thach did not wish or assume away the enemy’s advantages. He studied them, respected them, and built a method to survive them. That is what real warriors do.
Into the Beehive
On the morning of 4 June 1942, Thach led six F4F Wildcats from Fighter Squadron THREE (VF-3) off USS YORKTOWN. Those six fighters were assigned to protect YORKTOWN’s twelve torpedo planes and seventeen dive bombers as they attacked the Japanese carrier force. Other American strike aircraft reached the Japanese carriers that morning, but Thach’s Wildcats held a unique and brutal distinction: they were the only U.S. fighters to get into combat over the Japanese fleet. An article by the United States Naval Institute (USNI) states it plainly: “The six Yorktown Wildcats were the only fighters that got any combat over the Japanese fleet—no other fighters.”
So in practical terms, this was six Wildcats against the Japanese combat air patrol while trying to protect the slow, vulnerable TBD Devastators below them. The National Naval Aviation Museum describes Thach leading those six F4F-4 Wildcats into a fight against roughly 15 to 20 Zero fighters, with VF-3 credited with shooting down six Japanese fighters and two probables. Thach personally accounted for three.
This was not a clean fight. It was not a duel. It was a swarm. Thach later described the air over the Japanese carriers as being “like a beehive,” which is about as good a description as anyone could ask for: fighters crossing, torpedo planes burning, Zeros attacking from above and the side, anti-aircraft fire coming up from below, and American pilots trying to keep enough formation discipline to stay alive. VF-3 used the weave in combat, and Thach’s Navy Cross citation for Midway credits him with leading his division against overwhelming numbers of enemy fighters, shooting down three enemy fighters during the morning action, and later shooting down an attacking torpedo plane during the defense of YORKTOWN.
But the best Thach story from Midway is not just about the score. It is about the kneepad.
“This Was Sort of Foolish”
In the middle of one of the most important air battles in naval history, Jimmy Thach was trying to keep track of kills. That is such a beautifully Naval Aviation detail. The sky was full of Zeros, torpedo planes were getting hammered, Wildcats were weaving for survival, Japanese carriers were launching aircraft, and Thach was making marks on a kneepad.
In his own recollection, Thach said he kept counting the airplanes he knew were going down in flames. He explained that you could not wait for them to splash, but if the flames were red and the aircraft was clearly finished, you knew. He had a little kneepad and marked down each one he was sure was gone. Then, with classic dry understatement, he admitted: “This was sort of foolish.”
That line is pure salt. It is not funny because the fight was lighthearted. It is funny because it is real. There is no polished Hollywood speech, no chest-thumping, no grandstanding. Just a combat leader in a Wildcat, surrounded by Zeros, realizing that maybe administrative kill tracking was not the top priority when he was convinced nobody was coming home.
That moment tells you almost everything you need to know about him. He was disciplined enough to count, busy enough to know counting was ridiculous, honest enough to admit it later, and calm enough to keep fighting. Then the weave began to work. The attacks started to slacken, and Thach came up with a line that belongs in every ready room ever built: “Hell, they don’t like it as well as they used to. Stick together and we’ll get home yet.”
That is not arrogance. That is a tactician recognizing a shift in the fight. The enemy still had the better-performing aircraft, the odds were still ugly, and the torpedo planes were still in terrible danger. But the Zeros were no longer having things entirely their way. The Wildcats were fighting as a team, and that made all the difference.
The Brown Shoe Lesson
There is a reason this story fits Brown Shoe Blend. Brown Shoe Blend is our tribute to the Naval Aviation community: the pilots, maintainers, aircrew, flight deck teams, LSOs, troubleshooters, and every Sailor who has ever understood that flying from the sea is not a hobby. It is a profession built on precision, courage, repetition, teamwork, and the ability to stay calm when the deck is moving and the weather is not cooperating.
Brown Shoe Blend is a medium roast sourced from family-owned farms in Huila, Colombia, with chocolate and fruit flavor notes, built around the spirit of Naval Aviation and the men and women who keep that community flying. Old Salt Coffee also partners with the Tailhook Educational Foundation through Brown Shoe Blend, donating $1 for every bag sold online.
That is why Jimmy Thach belongs on the bag. His Wildcat launching at Midway on the Old Salt compass is more than a design element. It is a reminder that Naval Aviation’s legacy is not only about speed, machinery, or individual bravery. It is about thinking clearly under pressure, trusting your wingman, knowing when the enemy has the advantage, and refusing to let that be the final answer.
More Than Midway
Thach’s Midway story would be enough for most careers, but it was not the whole story. That is another reason I respect him. Jimmy Thach was not just a World War II fighter pilot who developed a famous tactic and shot down Zeros. He kept serving, kept thinking, and kept adapting as naval warfare changed.
Later in the war, Thach helped shape aerial tactics in the carrier fight. After World War II and Korea, he became one of the Navy’s key thinkers in the Cold War undersea fight. By 1958, aircraft carrier USS VALLEY FORGE (CV 45) had become the flagship of anti-submarine warfare Task Group Alpha, commanded by Rear Admiral John S. Thach. The carrier, her air group, destroyers, submarines, and land-based patrol aircraft spent the next two years developing tactics to counter fast, deep-diving nuclear-powered submarines.
That matters because the threat had changed. The enemy had gone from Zeros in the sky to submarines under the sea. The battlefield had shifted from visible dogfights to the cold, silent geometry of ASW. Thach adapted. That is why I call him a true warrior — not because he fought one fight, but because he kept learning after it.
Why THACH Mattered to Me
Commanding USS THACH made that legacy personal. A ship’s namesake matters. It gives the crew a story to live up to. It gives the wardroom, Chiefs Mess, and crew something bigger than a hull number. It gives the ship a soul.
My THACH deployments were not museum-piece history. They were modern naval operations in busy, contested, strategically important waters. We moved through the Pacific and South China Sea for PACOM, operated in CENTCOM, dealt with the Gulf, protected Iraqi oil platforms, watched the IRGCN, and supported counter-piracy work farther south. We also carried the pride of being, as we understood it, the last frigate assigned to a Carrier Strike Group — a little smaller than the DDGs and CGs around us, maybe, but absolutely convinced we belonged in the formation. There was something almost perfectly fitting about that: the last frigate assigned to a Carrier Strike Group carrying the name of one of Naval Aviation’s greatest tacticians. Jimmy Thach had built his reputation by proving that the right tactics, teamwork, and fighting spirit could overcome bigger and faster opponents. That felt like a pretty good standard for a frigate surrounded by AEGIS ships. Different era, different threat, different technology — same requirement to think, adapt, train hard, trust the team, and never let the bigger ships forget who was the guide.
Jimmy Thach represented the best kind of naval officer: brave in combat, serious about his craft, humble enough to learn, salty enough to laugh at himself, and smart enough to change the way the Navy fought. He did it at Midway with Wildcats, and he did it again in the Cold War with ASW. That kind of career does not happen by accident. It comes from a mind that never stops working and a heart that never forgets the Sailors depending on the answer.
That is what I liked about commanding THACH. Her name reminded us that the job was not just to operate a warship. The job was to think, train, adapt, fight as a team, and be "ready and able" when the next problem showed up over the horizon — or beneath the surface.
Coral Sea, Midway, and the Long Wake of Courage
Coral Sea and Midway were separated by less than a month. In that short span, the Pacific War changed. Coral Sea showed that carrier aviation had become the decisive arm of naval warfare. Midway proved that intelligence, courage, shipyard grit, tactical discipline, and a handful of determined aviators could turn the enemy’s momentum into ruin.
YORKTOWN carried the scars of Coral Sea into the fight at Midway. Jimmy Thach carried the doctrine. His pilots carried the trust. And the Navy carried the day.
That is why this story belongs with Brown Shoe Blend. Every bag honors the Naval Aviation community. Every bag supports the Tailhook Educational Foundation. Every bag carries, in its compass, the image of Thach’s Wildcat launching into one of the most consequential battles in American naval history.
So this May, hoist a mug to Coral Sea, Midway, YORKTOWN, LEXINGTON, and all the Sailors and aircrew who paid for those lessons in steel, fire, and blood. Hoist a mug to Jimmy Thach — the warrior who taught Wildcats to fight, helped teach the Navy to hunt submarines, and proved that the best leaders do not just charge into danger.
They think their way through it.
Fair winds and following seas.
References and Further Reading
For readers who want to dig deeper into the history behind this post:
- National WWII Museum — “The Battle of Coral Sea: A Retrospective.” A strong overview of Coral Sea’s strategic context, the threat to Australia’s lines of communication, the Port Moresby objective, and Coral Sea’s role as the world’s first carrier-vs-carrier battle.
Read more - Naval Sea Systems Command — “Battle of Midway.” Useful detail on Yorktown’s emergency Pearl Harbor repairs, her return to battle after Coral Sea, and the broader shift from U.S. defensive operations to the offensive after Midway.
Read more - U.S. Naval Institute — “Flying into a Beehive: Fighting Three at Midway.” The key source for Thach’s own Midway recollections, including the kneepad story, the “This was sort of foolish” line, and the “Hell, they don’t like it as well as they used to” quote.
Read more - Military Times Hall of Valor — John S. Thach. Provides Thach’s award record, including the Navy Cross citation for Midway, his credited aerial victories, and later service as Commander, Anti-Submarine Warfare Force, Pacific Fleet.
Read more - Naval Historical Center / HyperWar — USS Valley Forge and Task Group Alpha. Documents Rear Admiral Thach’s command of ASW Task Group Alpha and the group’s work developing tactics against fast, deep-diving nuclear submarines.
Read more
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