Battle of Midway
Following the May 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea, which preceded the Battle of Midway by only a few weeks, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Japanese Fleet, believed that USS Enterprise and Hornet were the only American carriers still active in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese were convinced they had sunk two US carriers, but in fact the badly damaged USS Yorktown managed to limp home.
Midway Atoll, so named because it’s midway between North America and Asia, consists of Eastern Island and the larger Sand Island, a total area of only 2.4 square miles. However, its strategic value was recognised by both sides. America built a submarine base and an airfield on Eastern Island for its USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, and a squadron of PBY Catalina flying boats on Sand Island. Midway’s garrison consisted of 3,000 Marines and 115 US Navy planes.
The capture of Midway, together with the occupation of the Aleutian Islands 1,900 miles distant, would extend Japan’s early warning system of any seaborn attack on the homeland. Named Operation MI, Yamamoto’s plan was to seek a naval showdown with the numerically inferior US Pacific Fleet. The atoll’s invasion would be a challenge that America could not ignore, but Plan MI was overly complex. The individual force components were as follows: 2nd Carrier Strike Force of two light carriers, Ryujo and Junyo, two cruisers and three destroyers, would attack the Aleutian Islands on 3 June 1942, hoping to induce Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-inChief, Pacific Ocean Areas based in Hawaii, to send part of his force racing north. These would would blunder into Japan's Northern Force of four battleships, two cruisers and 12 destroyers waiting to intercept it. In the event Nimitz did no such thing.
Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s 1st Carrier Strike Force of four big carriers: Akagi and Kaga in 1st Carrier Division, directly under Nagumo and Hiryu and Soryu of the 2nd Carrier Division, commanded by Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, would use their bombers on 4 June to destroy Midway’s defences and try to catch its aircraft on the ground. 48 hours later 5,000 troops of the 7th Division carried in the Transport Force, supported by four heavy cruisers, would land on Midway. The original plan called for the inclusion of the fleet carriers Zuikaku and
Shokaku in Nagumo’s force, but they had lost so many experienced aircrews in the Coral Sea battle that replacements simply didn’t exist. Nagumo’s carriers were to be defended by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo’s 2nd Fleet Support Force of two battleships, four heavy cruisers and attendant destroyers, which was ordered to head to a position south-west of Midway instead of keeping close company with the carriers. Consequently it took no part in the forthcoming engagement, its combined anti-aircraft defence screen sorely missed by Nagumo. The Main Body consisted of Yamamoto’s splendid new flagship Yamato, the biggest ever built, mounting eight 18in guns, two other battleships and the light
United States of America
Commanders
Admiral Chester Nimitz, C-in-C US Pacific Ocean Areas • Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher, Commander Task Force 16 • Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, Commander Task Force 17
Forces
3 fleet carriers • 7 heavy cruisers • 15 destroyers 16 submarines • 233 carrier-based aircraft
119 land-based aircraft
Casualties
1 fleet carrier sunk • 1 destroyer sunk
150 aircraft lost • 304 killed • 3 PoW (executed)
prevail over the enemy’s two; thus once having gained air supremacy, the landings on Midway would be a pushover. On 2 June Spruance and Fletcher made rendezvous.
Admiral Nagumo’s dilemma
Over 900 miles away on the other side of Midway, Nagumo, with Yamamoto’s back-up forces 600 miles behind, pressed on blindly through rain and fog. A Catalina PBY searching 470 miles to the south-west of Midway spotted the Transport Force of the Midway invasion ships at 9am on 3 June. Quick action resulted in the convoy being bombed at high altitude by B-17s, but they failed to inflict any damage. At 6.30am on 4 June, Admiral Nagumo, miles ahead of any of the supporting battle groups, turned his four carriers into the wind and at 280 miles from his objective, launched 72 bombers and 36 fighters at the island base, destroying 24 USN ground-based fighters for the loss of only six aircraft. A second bombing raid by B-17s on the carriers once again missed any Japanese ships, whilst the Japanese bombers made direct hits on power-plants, seaplane hangars and oil storage tanks. Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga, who led the first wave, recommended a second attack, because not all of Midway’s defensive air power was yet silenced; consequently Nagumo ordered that the 108 Nakajima Kate B5N torpedo-bombers on the carriers be made available for a second wave (previously so armed to attack any enemy ships that might appear) and that they should now have their torpedoes replaced by bombs and the armour-piercing bombs of the Aichi D3A-1 Val dive-bombers replaced with high-explosive ones.
This decision was seemingly justified because no long-range aerial sightings had been received of enemy surface ships, but it was not a quick operation.
All aircraft had to be removed from the decks singularly by elevator down to the hangers below. Here mechanics set to work to make the exchange as quickly as circumstances would allow, but it had only been half completed when, at 7.28am, a sighting report came in from a reconnaissance seaplane belonging to the heavy cruiser Tone: ‘Have sighted 10 ships bearing 010 degrees, 240 miles distant, course 150 degrees, speed 20 knots’. Nagumo desperately needed its composition, because it posed no danger that far away if there was no aircraft carrier present. At 7.45am Nagumo ordered all re-arming to be suspended whilst signalling to the search plane: ‘Ascertain ship types and maintain contact’. The response at 8.10am signalled: ‘Enemy ships are five cruisers and five destroyers’. This was a great relief to Nagumo, because his fleet was still fighting-off Midway based air attacks; but if the second wave was to be launched now, it would lack escort fighters until the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters had been recovered, refuelled and rearmed. Then, at 8.20am, Nagumo received the message he dreaded to hear: ‘Enemy force accompanied by what appears to be a carrier.’ This was Yorktown, the flagship of TF17.
Earlier, on 4 June at 7am, Fletcher ordered all three US carriers to attack Nagumo’s carrier force, a distance of 230 miles away and closing. Enterprise and Hornet (TF16) sent up 116 planes, whilst Yorktown (TF17) waited until 8.30am before launching her 35. At exactly the same time Lieutenant Tomonaga’s first wave arrived back, some damaged and all short of fuel, their recovery urgent. Nagumo’s next decision was critical. Against the advice of the commander of his 2nd Carrier Division, Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi in the Hiryu, to launch his strike force at once, Nagumo decided to land the returning Midway attack aircraft first, remove them from the flight decks and change the waiting second wave’s munitions back to torpedoes and armourpiercing bombs again.
Refuelling and rearming in all four carriers began at once, the aircraft ready in the carrier’s hangers by 9.18am; the total strike-force consisting of 36 Vals and 54 Kates, plus their Zero escorts. Thus all four carriers were at their most vulnerable when Nagumo received a report from his screening ships to the south (Admiral Kondo's redundant 2nd Fleet Support
Force) of an approaching swarm of enemy aircraft. These were sent from TF16 at maximum range with no guarantee of a safe return, but Spruance decided it was worth the risk to catch the Japanese offguard recovering their aircraft. At 7.02am, 67 Dauntlesses, 29 Devastators and 20 Wildcats flew off both carriers in four separate groups, but Nagumo had altered course resulting in only two Devastator torpedo squadrons making initial contact, while the Wildcat’s ran out of fuel and either ditched, or diverted to Midway. Without fighter cover the Devastators were doomed when set upon by over 50 Zeros, leaving only one survivor who successfully baled and inflated his life-raft after dark. 10 minutes later Yorktown’s strike group of 17 Dauntless dive-bombers (Lieutenant Commander Maxwell Leslie), 12 Devastators and six Wildcat’s arrived on the scene, which had all taken off 75 minutes
later than TF16’s aircraft.
At this time, purely by chance, Enterprise’s 18 Dauntless SPD-2 divebombers (Lieutenant Commander Clarence McClusky) finally located the enemy carriers. Leslie and McClusky patently circled overhead concealed in cloud whilst the Zero squadrons were preoccupied at sea level attacking the Devastators. The antiaircraft defence of the cruiser and destroyer screen, plus the Zeros, was too strong, shooting down all the Wildcats and all but two of the Devastators without one torpedo reaching its target, so that by 10.15am the Japanese had destroyed 83 US planes for the loss of only six Zeros. Nagumo’s 1st Carrier Strike Force was on the cusp of a great victory as he now prepared to unleash a total of 102 Val dive-bombers and Kate torpedo-bombers on the three American carriers, but a sudden turn of events changed everything.
The lethal five minutes!
At 10.25am McClusky’s and Leslie’s combined 35 Dauntlesses dive-bombed through cloud from 14,500ft, releasing their bombs too late to be caught. Three of the Japanese carriers had completed refuelling and rearming, their waiting aircraft still in the hanger decks, whilst Hiryu quickly sailed well away out of the attack zone. On Akagi everywhere was cluttered with hoses, trolleys, high-octane fuel and high-explosive bombs hastily removed from the planes. Commander Fuchida Mitsuo on the flagship witnessed the catastrophe, “At 10.20 I was given the order to bring the aircraft up on deck and launch, which for the first batch should only take five minutes. A lookout screamed ‘Hell-Divers!’ The black objects floated eerily from the plane’s wings. One blew a gigantic hole in the flight deck. Another smashed the elevator. A third set-off the torpedo store. Petrol detonated across the deck. Within 20 minutes Akagi was a blazing wreck.”
Admiral Nagumo quickly transferred his flag to the light cruiser Nagara. By now McClusky’s squadron had also bombed Kaga, which set alight its store of aviation fuel, the ship becoming ablaze, whilst Leslie’s dive-bombers pounced on the Soryu, where bombs landed amongst the massed aircraft and fuel-lines causing the whole ship to be engulfed in flames. None of the burning Japanese carriers were salvageable, subsequently all three were abandoned and later scuttled.
Thus in five brief minutes, Japan’s
1st Carrier Strike Force had been devastated, except for Hiryu, some miles away, with its strike capability still intact and with Nagumo’s deputy, Rear Admiral Yamaguchi, on board.
However, it was then the Japanese turn to attack. At 12 noon Hiryu’s Val divebombers struck Yorktown, causing her to stop dead in the water, her boiler room aflame. His flagship immobilised and abandoned, Admiral Fletcher transferred his flag to the cruiser Astoria. Two hours later Hiryu’s second strike of Kate’s dropped their torpedoes at point-blank range, causing Yorktown to list at 26 degrees. Three days later, whilst under tow by the destroyer USS Hammann, they came within sight of the Japanese submarine I-168, which sank both ships. Meanwhile, on that fatal day of 4
June at 11.58pm, dive-bombers from Spruance’s TF16, including 10 transferred from Yorktown, wreaked vengeance on the Hiryu, causing fires and a massive explosion. By 2.30am the next morning Hiryu was abandoned and torpedoed by her attendant destroyers, except for Admiral Yamaguchi, who refused to leave, tying himself to the bridge. It took Yamamoto two more days to realise the battle was over, but when he eventually ordered his battle groups to return home, the heavy cruiser Mikuma collided with her sister Mogami, which reduced Mikuma’s speed to 12 knots.
On the 6 June, when news of this attractive target reached Spruance (one of the better US Admirals during the war) he sent his dive-bombers to finish her off. The once powerful battleship was no longer the most important fleet asset. Coral Sea and Midway began the irreparable attrition of Japan’s veteran carrier aircrews, leaving only two fleet carriers and four smaller versions remaining and their plans to advance on New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa derailed. The balance of sea power in the Pacific had now begun to shift.