Was just reading on the battle of Ceylon and was surprised how very close it came to being an earlier Midway, with elements of Cape Mattapan, though a more likely outcome would have been the annihilation of the British Eastern Fleet. The Japanese assumed they would catch the British completely by surprise, Fleet in harbor and defenders at Sunday morning church services, while the British had pre-deployed from Ceylon and were aiming for a night engagement, assuming that:
a) they would only be facing a smaller task group not size fleet Japan actually deployed,
b) the Japanese were as inexperienced at night fighting as the Italians and USN were at the time and
c) the Japanese would attack on April 1 with the full moon.
There was a brief window confusion on the Japanese carriers as they quickly rearmed for a follow up attack on Ceylon, but then had to change back to anti shipping strike as the two British cruisers, they believed were the vanguard of the Eastern Fleet, were detected. This was similar to the situation that caused such calamity at Midway, luckily they didn't learn from the experience. Then that night the Japanese fleet sailed south to refuel as the British looked north and east, a night strike lead by ASV equipped Albacores could have caused significant damage had they position of the Japanese been identified.
What was interesting was the Hurricanes did not do as badly as would be expected considering they had to climb to engage the Japanese and were so badly outnumbered. I suppose the fact these were veteran squadrons from the Mediterranean Theatre made some difference, but they were also let down by poor positioning of the available radars, failure of coms, and failure of allied units to report (or even correctly identify in some cases) sighting of the attacking fleet and aircraft. Being at altitude would have helped but considering the disparity in numbers, they couldn't have made a huge difference.
