The Battle of Midway

Prelude to Battle
Yamamoto is uncertain if American forces are taking the bait as he and his naval forces make way for Midway. This would change following Operation K. A night reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor by Kawanishi flying boats from Kwajalein on March 31, 1942 find no American carriers, confirming for the Yamamoto that the American Admiral Chester Nimitz was trying to counter his moves as the Japanese closed on Midway.

The Opening Phase of Midway
Yamamoto set a submarine picket line between Hawaii and Midway. These forces would catch a glimpse of Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance’s carriers moving towards the battle area on April 2 providing early warning of the American approach. Admiral Nagumo responds by having all his escort craft float planes in the air before dawn searching determinedly for the enemy; his air groups would be primed on deck, ready to strike at the first opportunity.

Alerted to America’s readiness to meet him at the outset, Nagumo is poised to unleash his veteran flight leaders to seek out the enemy fleet and destroy it. Not long after dawn on April 4, a contact report comes in: The Americans were sighted-one carrier and escorts. With full concurrence of his air staff, although at extreme range, Nagumo immediately gave the order to launch against the Americans, identified as the Enterprise. Balanced attack groups of Val bombers and Kate torpedo bombers, flown by magnificent air crews, and escorted all the way to their targets by half of Nagumo’s Zero fighters, bear down on Spruance. The Japanese carriers, ready for an American counterattack, spot their fighters on deck, as the armoires prepare Nagumo’s planes for a second strike.

A report locating Nagumo’s force from a Midway-based PBY Catalina flying boat comes in just as Task Force 16’s radar picks up what may be incoming Japanese planes. Spruance, himself expecting and seeking contact, launches his own strike at this target. Ray Spruance does this despite the position of the enemy fleet being beyond the round-trip range of many American aircraft; he will attempt to close the distance on their return trip, he tells them, knowing that many will have no chance to make it back. The fighters of TF-16’s Combat Air Patrol, those not sent as escorts on the attack, meet the incoming enemy courageously, but they are knocked aside as Japanese Zeroes engage them aggressively, downing many using their superior maneuverability to screen the Americans from the slower bombers. Few of the attacking bombers are turned aside before they reach the frantically turning American flattops. Within ten minutes, despite the desperate efforts of every antiaircraft gunner in the fleet, torpedoes have rammed home on both beams of the Enterprise. The carrier is ablaze from several large holes on her flight deck. TF-16 is out of action; losses among the attackers are moderate. Heroic attacks and frantic actions still lie ahead.
Even as Ray Spruance transfers his flag from Enterprise while her captain tries desperately to save his ship, the planes of TF-16 are intercepted by a swarm of Japanese fighters as they approach Nagumo’s carrier force. With great courage, most attempt to press home their attacks, but the slow-moving torpedo bombers are slaughtered; the dive-bombers are picked up by more Zeroes, waiting for them on high, which pursue them down their less-than-perfect bombing paths with murderous persistence; all this occurs while the ships of Nagumo’s force are throwing up a curtain of ack-ack, maneuvering skillfully to avoid their attackers. As at Coral Sea, American bombers inflict severe damage on a Japanese carrier, Kaga, but fail to finish her. With their own mother ships devastated, these pilots won’t get a second chance.

The Second Phase
Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher and the Yorktown, core of TF-17, learn of the sighting of Japanese carriers and want to join the action, but he is not yet close enough to participate. His planes ready to go, and making flank speed to the west, he then gets the terrible news from Spruance of his ship’s condition.

Jack Fletcher knows that Vice Admiral “Bull” Halsey would have hurled himself into battle, but he is not “Bull” Halsey, likely to act before considering all the ramifications; nor can he easily abandon Spruance to an unanswered second strike from Nagumo. It is still midmorning. Fletcher believes he has escaped detection and can get a blow in before the enemy finds him, evening up the score. Fletcher makes the decision to sail west, rather than turn back for Pearl, hoping to narrow the range on Nagumo. A scout plane from the Japanese cruiser Tone, on its homeward leg, detects him. Fletcher launches Yorktown’s planes when he gets reports of “enemy carriers,” perhaps to catch Nagumo recovering his aircraft. America’s last hope make their way to Mobile Force’s previous location, but can only find a crippled Kaga limping westward, escorted by two destroyers. Despite searching frantically for Nagumo’s ships, which have made a sharp turn to the north to recover, they can find no fresh targets. The flight groups from Yorktown overwhelm the damaged Japanese carrier, dispatching her and one of her escorts in frustration.
While the American aircrews are pounding Kaga, Fletcher’s flagship becomes the target of a ferocious attack in turn. Nagumo’s other three carriers, having recovered their planes at the prearranged rendezvous to the north, launch their second strike against Yorktown, stalked by several floatplanes; she is a smoldering hulk by nightfall. Fletcher’s planes are lost when they return to the site, though some of the aircrews who can make it back to all that remains of TF-17 are able to splash nearby. In a single day, Yorktown has been wrecked and scuttled by the same crew who had seen her saved just a few days before, while Enterprise, trying to make it home, the fires put out but her flight deck ruined, becomes an easy target for one of Japan’s submarines, just as Lexington had been at Coral Sea; torpedoed, she sinks near dawn the next day, the fifth of April. The Japanese navy’s surface units close in for night action to pick off any damaged vessels and American survivors of lost ships and ditched planes bobbing about in the water. Over the next few days, Japanese destroyers find many survivors, Americans and Japanese, though there is little joy for the prisoners, who find their rescuers interested only in what information they can provide about the defenses of Midway and Hawaii before they are killed. The loss has stripped America’s naval air corps of its core of fine pilots and experienced aircrews, while possession of this “ocean battlefield” means many downed Japanese airmen will fly again.

Midway Island in range, Nagumo’s planes from the Mobile Fleet reduce the island’s airbase to rubble, its aircraft burned or expended in futile efforts to sink fast ships at sea. Midway is then pummeled by the big guns of the Support Group’s cruisers and then even the Main Force battleships under Admiral Yamamoto himself, hurling 16 and 18.1 inch shells against coral. The American garrison, even reinforced as it is, can hardly resist for long unsupported, once Japanese troops are ashore. It proves a bloody affair and a formidable warning for Japan of the dangers inherent in making opposed landings against the U.S. Marines in base-defense mode; the garrison adds “Midway” to the name of “The Alamo,” “Wake,” and “Bataan” in America’s hagiography of last stands.

Admiral Chester Nimitz finds himself with just a single carrier in the Pacific: Saratoga, just in from San Diego. Halsey wants to steam off directly toward the enemy, “catch ‘em gloating,” as he puts it, but Nimitz is aware that the strategic defense he had planned has been ruined by his own impetuosity. He had gone on a hunch, but it was a very thin strand that had held it all together. There never seemed to be any consideration of whether the Japanese might have guessed his plans. Most of the fleet had been risked and now it was gone. How could expert strategic intelligence have produced such a catastrophic defeat? How could he have guessed right and still be defeated?

SOURCE: Dietrich, Robert Point Luck: The American Tragedy of Midway