Midway

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National Archives #80-G-451086

Midway Island (177.360W 28.21N) is an atoll in the western reaches of the Hawaiian Island chain. It consists of two small islands, which were just large enough for airfields, and had a shallow, foul anchorage with room for perhaps two or three merchant vessels. It was ideally located for patrol aircraft and light naval forces, and was an important submarine base later in the war.

The island was bombarded by a small Japanese destroyer force the night after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese operational plan for the Pearl Harbor attack called for the seaplane base at Midway to be neutralized to cover the withdrawal of the Japanese carrier force. Destroyers Sazaname and Ushio fired a few shells that did light damage but failed to put the seaplane base out of commission. It didn't matter; the Americans had no forces in the area that could have seriously challenged Nagumo's carrier force.

National Archives #80-G-17054

Battle of Midway

One of the most decisive naval battles in history was fought off Midway in early June of 1942. Yamamoto personally led most of Combined Fleet to invade the island, hoping to draw out and destroy the American carrier forces based in Hawaii, reasoning that Nimitz could not ignore an attack on this inmportant outpost. The operation was spearheaded by Nagumo's carrier force, with Yamamoto and the Japanese battleship force well to the rear.

Yamamoto's plan had not met with universal approval among the leaders of the Japanese Navy. The Navy General Staff, led by Nagano, were skeptical that the atoll was worth the effort: It was too tiny to serve as an effective assembly point for any invasion of Hawaii, it would be subject to constant air bombardment by the Americans, and it was so far from Japan that its logistics would be badly strained. However, following the Doolittle raid in April 1942, opposition to Yamamoto's plan evaporated, since Midway could serve as a base for patrols to warn against any future incursion by American carriers into Japanese home waters.

However, the American code breakers were reading much of the Japanese naval traffic and correctly deduced Yamamoto’s objective. In fact, Nimitz had the necessary intelligence to order a state of "Fleet Opposed Invasion" as early as 14 May 1942. He ordered the Yorktown, which had been damaged at Coral Sea and returned to Pearl Harbor on 27 May 1942, to expedite repairs and join Enterprise and Hornet northeast of the island. The latter two carriers departed with their escorts the next day. Raymond Spruance commanded the Enterprise force but would come under command of Jack Fletcher in Yorktown once she reached the area. The carrier force would be supported by aircraft from Midway itself, including long-range Catalina patrol aircraft. On 1 June Saratoga, which had been training new air crew following repairs from torpedo damage, completed preparations to get under way from the West Coast and began racing to Midway, but she would not reach the area in time to influence the outcome of the battle.

Spruance had relieved Halsey as commander of the Enterprise task force after Halsey came down with a disabling skin disorder. Nimitz had asked Halsey to recommend his own replacement, and Halsey had made the surprising recommendation of his task force's cruiser commander, who had no aviation experience. However, Spruance had a reputation as as a cool, adaptable, intellectual officer, and he was slated to become Nimitz' chief of staff following the battle. Spruance would be assisted by the brilliant but erratic Captain Miles Browning, Halsey's chief of staff.

Nimitz chose not to commit the battleships of the Pacific Fleet to the Midway battle, a highly unconventional strategy at the time. The battleships were too slow to keep up with the carriers, and Nimitz had no air cover to spare for them. He also lacked sufficient destroyers to simultaneously screen the battleships and continue running convoys between the West Coast and Australia. Nimitz' decision to leave the battle line at San Francisco was a gutsy move given that the Japanese had committed their own battleships to the operation.

Midway itself was defended by 6 Marine Defense Battalion, which had been reinforced by elements of 2 Marine Raider Battalion and a detachment of five light tanks and was well dug in. Coastal defenses included guns of up to 7" caliber. Morison notes that the Marine organization closely resembled that of the Japanese at Tarawa later in the war, and suggests that the Japanese would have had a very tough time taking the atoll with the forces they had allocated. Since the Japanese counted on taking Midway before the American fleet arrived, which they estimated would take place on 7 or 8 June, it seems clear the Japanese greatly underestimated the difficulty of their objective. Since the Americans were already off Midway on 4 June and would decisively defeat the Japanese at sea, the amphibious invasion was never attempted.

Both sides deployed submarines in the area. Most of the American submarines were mostly clustered around Midway itself, with the remainder held back as pickets around Oahu in case the Japanese tried to slip around to attack Pearl Harbor. The Japanese submarines were primarily deployed around Oahu on the assumption that the Americans would not sortie from Pearl  Harbor until word came of the attack on Dutch Harbor. In fact, the Americans had already sortied before these submarines could get into position.

The Americans planned to scout the approaching Japanese using the long-range Catalinas from Midway. The Japanese in turn scouted the area southwest of Midway with Mavis flying boats from Kwajalein, but the Americans were careful to stay out of range of Japanese land bases and these searches accomplished nothing. Another important part of the Japanese search plan was Operation "K", which was to be a reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor conducted by flying boats refueled by tanker submarine at French Frigate Shoals. Had this operation been successfully carried out and the Japanese discovered that the American carriers were not at Pearl Harbor, the battle might have turned out very differently; but the American code breakers had discovered this part of the Japanese plan, and several American ships were stationed at French Frigate Shoals. The Japanese were forced to cancel Operation "K", but failed to get the word to Nagumo, who assumed that the American carriers were still at Pearl Harbor.

On 2 June 1942 Kakuta's carriers attack Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. Though usually characterized as a diversionary operation in support of the Midway campaign, there is evidence that the Aleutians strike was viewed by the Japanese as an independent campaign. In any case, the Americans declined to redeploy their forces.

On 3 June the Midway Invasion Group (Kondo) was spotted by Catalinas from Midway. Kondo's force was unsuccessfully attacked later in the afternoon by B-17s from Midway, which would chalk up zero successes in high-altitude bombing in this campaign. Enterprising ground crews improvised torpedo racks for the Catalinas, which which actually succeeded in putting a torpedo into a Japanese tanker in a night attack. However, the tanker was only lightly damaged.

Nagumo launched his first strike against Midway, as planned, early on the morning of 4 June. A force of 108 aircraft annihilated Midway's Marine fighter squadron (equipped largely with obsolete Buffaloes) and inflicted heavy damage on the facilities, but failed to put the airfield out of action. Nagumo, who still did not suspect that American carriers were nearby, began preparing a second strike against the island.

Meanwhile, Catalinas from Midway had located the Japanese carrier force, and Midway and the American carriers launched strikes. The Japanese search sweeps somehow missed the Americans, except for a single seaplane from Tone whose late launch put its path on top of the Yorktown task force. The initial report from the seaplane was ambiguous, and by the time it was confirmed that the American force included a carrier, the returning Japanese strike from Midway was circling Nagumo's carriers, low on fuel.

Nagumo's options were very constrained at this point. However, the first American air attacks had been ineffective, so Nagumo chose to risk landing the Midway strike force and rearming his aircraft for a full antishipping strike. But this took a great deal of time, and a recent examination of Japanese records shows that Nagumo still had at least an hour to go before he would be ready to launch aircraft when the American carrier dive bombers arrived overhead.

Another confounding factor for Nagumo was a series of uncoordinated American strikes that arrived from widely separated threat axes prior to the arrival of the dive bombers. These included B-17, Avenger, and Vindicator strikes from Midway and Devastator strikes from the American carriers. The B-17s and Vindicators withdrew with small loss after unsuccessful attacks; but the torpedo planes, which had become separated from their fighter escorts, were massacred by the Japanese combat air patrol. However, Japanese fighter direction was primitive at this point in the war, and the fighter umbrella became scattered and disorganized.

It was at this point that the American Dauntlesses arrived, after a frustrating and nearly fruitless search for the Japanese force. (Several would run out of fuel before they could return to their own carriers.) Encountering no Japanese fighters, and with enough cloud cover to hide their approach until the last moment, they were able to execute nearly perfect dives against the surprised Japanese antiaircraft gunners. Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu were all fatally hit within a few minutes. The bombs penetrated the flight decks and set off gasoline and munitions in the strike aircraft being readied in the hangars below. The explosions destroyed water mains and fire curtains and ensured that the fires could not be brought under control.

With the American strikes expended and the American carriers recovering their aircraft, it was the Japanese turn. Hiryu launched a strike that suffered terrible losses from the American Wildcats, but not before putting two bombs into Yorktown that put the carrier briefly out of action. Enterprise replied with a strike that caught Hiryu rearming its aircraft and set the Japanese carrier blazing from bow to stern, but not before Hiryu launched another strike that put two torpedoes into Yorktown and put her permanently out of action

Yamamoto tried to salvage something from the disaster by ordering his heavy surface units to race east to seek a night engagement. However, Spruance, who was in tactical command since Fletcher's carrier had been rendered hors de combat, also turned east, planning to turn back west in time to be able to give Midway air cover at dawn if necessary. By 0255 on 5 June, Yamamoto realized that he would not get his night battle, and he ordered a general retirement rather than risk a dawn air attack.

By this time the heavy cruisers of Kurita's Cruiser Division 7 had closed to within a hundred miles of Midway. At 0342, as the Japanese cruisers turned away to retire, submarine Tambor was sighted by lookouts. Kurita ordered an emergency turn, but Mogami was slow to get the order and rammed Mikuma. Carrier aircraft and Marine dive bombers from Midway attacked the damaged cruisers later in the day, sinking Mikuma and damaging Mogami so badly that she would take over a year to repair.

The Japanese got in some final blows as they retreated. On the night of 6 June, General Clarence Tinker personally led a flight of B-24 Liberators to knock out the Japanese air base on Wake. It was an overcast night, preventing navigation by star sightings, and the aircraft never found the island. Tinker's aircraft disappeared early in the flight and was never seen again.

More grievious was the loss of Yorktown. On The crippled American carrier was sighted by Japanese cruiser floatplanes on 5 June and I-168 was ordered to close and attack. Early in the afternoon of 6 June, I-168 succeeded in penetrating the American destroyer screen and putting two more torpedoes into Yorktown.  Another torpedo sank destroyer Hammann, which was alongside to assist with the salvage operation.

Nimitz briefly considered sending the American carrier forces north to the Aleutians, where the situation was still unclear. However, with their air groups badly depleted, and fearing a trap, Nimitz ordered the carriers back to Pearl Harbor on 11 June.

The battle was a crushing tactical and strategic American victory. The Japanese lost four of their best fleet carriers, a heavy cruiser, and three hundred of their most experienced air crew, along with hundreds of irreplaceable ground crew. The Americans lost the Yorktown, a destroyer, and about one hundred air crew. Instead of destroying the remnants of the Pacific Fleet and threatening Hawaii, the Japanese had lost the strategic initiative. The battle restored the balance of power in the Pacific and prepared the way for the American counteroffensive at Guadalcanal.

Japanese order of battle

U.S. order of battle