When considering the events leading up to and during the Midway campaign, one is awed by the impact of individual lives, decisions, and moments upon the destiny of nations. Indeed, some historians believe that such momentous outcomes hinged upon three hundred seconds, five minutes of time on June 4, 1942.
Japanese Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto moved on Midway in an effort to draw out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet's aircraft carrier striking forces, which had embarrassed the Japanese Navy in the mid-April Doolittle Raid on Japan's home islands and at the Battle of Coral Sea in early May. He planned to quickly knock down Midway's defenses, follow up with an invasion of the atoll's two small islands and establish a Japanese air base there. He expected the U.S. carriers to come out and fight, but to arrive too late to save Midway and in insufficient strength to avoid defeat by his own well-tested carrier air power.
The American island base at Midway was also an attractive target, and the Doolittle Raid on Japan prompted a decision to attack there as the next major offensive goal. Midway was a vital "sentry for Hawaii", and a serious assault on it would almost certainly produce a major naval battle, a battle that the Japanese confidently expected to win.
The Japanese planned a three-pronged attack to capture Midway in early June, plus a simultaneous operation in the North Pacific's Aleutian Islands that might provide a useful strategic diversion. In the van of the assault would be Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's aircraft carrier force, which would approach from the northwest, suppress Midway's defenses and provide long-range striking power for dealing with American warships. A few hundred miles behind Nagumo would come a battleship force under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto that would contain most of the operation's heavy gun power. Coming in from the West and Southwest, forces under Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo would actually capture Midway. Kondo's battleships and cruisers represented additional capabilities for fighting a surface action.
Unfortunately for the Japanese, two things went wrong even before the Midway operation began. Two of Nagumo's six carriers were sent on a mission that resulted in the Battle of Coral Sea. One was badly damaged, and the other suffered heavy casualties to her air group. Neither would be available for Midway.
Even more importantly, thanks to an historic feat of radio communications interception and code breaking, the United States knew its enemy's plans in detail: his target, his order of battle and his schedule.
In the few weeks before the battle, the US Navy's Combat Intelligence Office, in charge of analyzing and deciphering Japanese naval radio
In order to obtain it, he called Midway via the underwater
Soon after, Rochefort's staff deciphered a Japanese radio message stating that target AF was suffering a water shortage problem. This was the proof he needed, indeed an extremely important piece of intelligence. It was achieved by a simple ruse, but only thanks to the endless prior work of American radio listeners and code breakers.
With this information in hand, Admiral
At 0430 on the morning of 4 June 1942, while 240 miles northwest of Midway, Vice Admiral Nagumo's four carriers began launching 108 planes to attack the U.S. base there. Unknown to the Japanese, the three U.S. carriers were steaming 215 miles to the east. The two opposing fleets sent out search planes, the Americans to locate an enemy they knew was there and the Japanese as a matter of operational prudence. Seaplanes from Midway were also patrolling along the expected enemy course. One of these spotted, and reported, the Japanese carrier striking force at about 0530.
The Japanese planes hit Midway's two inhabited islands at 0630. Twenty minutes of bombing and strafing knocked out some facilities on Eastern Island, but did not disable the airfield there. Sand Island's oil tanks, seaplane hangar and other buildings were set afire or otherwise damaged. As the Japanese flew back toward their carriers the attack commander, Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga, radioed ahead that another air strike was required to adequately soften up Midway's defenses for invasion.
While their aviators flew back from Midway, the Japanese carriers received several counter strikes from Midway's own planes. Faced with overwhelming fighter opposition, these uncoordinated American efforts suffered severe losses and hit nothing but sea water. Shortly after 0700, torpedo attacks were made by six Navy TBF-1s and four Army Air Force B-26s. Between 0755 and 0820, two groups of Marine Corps bombers and a formation of Army B-17s came in. The only positive results were photographs of three Japanese carriers taken by the high-flying B-17s, the sole surviving photos of the day's attacks on the Japanese carriers.
Meanwhile, a Japanese scout plane had spotted the U.S. fleet and, just as Midway's counterattacks were ending, reported the presence of a carrier. Japanese commander Vice Admiral Nagumo had begun rearming his second group of planes for another strike on Midway. He now had to reload the aircraft with anti-ship weapons, recover the planes returning from Midway and reorganize his flight decks to launch an attack on the U.S. ships. Nagumo's force barely missed having enough time.
In the hour after about 0930, U.S. Navy planes from the carriers Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown made a series of attacks, initially by three squadrons of TBD torpedo planes that, despite nearly total losses, made no hits. Crucially, the sacrifice of the TBDs did slow Japanese preparations for their own strike and disorganized the defending fighters, bringing them down to sea level and removing the air cover for the Japanese carriers.
At 1020, elements of the carrier Hornet's Torpedo Squadron Eight, led by Lt. Commander John C. Waldron, received the agonizing order to attack despite the fact that they were precariously low on fuel. Waldron and his squadron, flying obsolete and slow flying Douglas Devastators, immediately attacked the Japanese carriers and were blown from the sky not having scored a single hit. Commander Waldron himself, on his torpedo run, was last seen standing in his cockpit, plane ablaze, like an mythic warrior riding a fiery chariot. The only survivor of the Squadron Eight attack was Ensign George Gay, who while also being shot from the sky, survived his plunge into the Pacific and watched the destruction of the Japanese carriers while floating upon the wreckage of his plane. Ensign Gay was subsequently rescued and honored by Admiral Nimitz himself.
Then, at about 1025, the entire course of the war changed. Three squadrons of SBD dive bombers, two from Enterprise and one from Yorktown, almost simultaneously screamed downward, hell diving on three of the four Japanese carriers, whose decks were crowded with fully armed and fueled planes that were just beginning to launch toward the American carriers. In three hundred seconds, five minutes, Akagi, Kaga and Soryu were ablaze and out of action forever.
After the 4 June mid-morning U.S. Navy attacks on the Japanese carrier force, only the Hiryu remained operational. Shortly before 1100 she launched eighteen dive bombers, escorted by six fighters, to strike a retaliatory blow. At about noon, as these planes approached USS Yorktown (CV-5), the most exposed of the three American aircraft carriers, they were intercepted by the U.S. combat air patrol, which shot down most of the bombers. Seven, however, survived to attack, hitting Yorktown with three bombs, seriously damaging her and stopping her dead in the water.
While Yorktown's crew worked to repair damage and get their ship underway, a second force left Hiryu, this one consisting of ten torpedo planes and six fighters. Though the U.S. carrier was moving again by 1430, back in the fight launching more fighters, the Japanese aircraft penetrated heavy air and gunfire opposition to hit Yorktown with two torpedoes, opening a huge hole on her midships port side. The stricken ship again went dead in the water and took on a severe list. Concerned that she was about to roll over, her Captain ordered his crew to abandon ship. The Yorktown was placed in tow, but was attacked and sunk by Japanese submarine action on June 6.
By late afternoon on June 4, U.S. carrier planes found and bombed Hiryu. This last carrier in the Japanese attack force was badly damaged, fires raging from bow to stern and throughout her decks. Deprived of useful air cover, and after several hours of shocked indecision, Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto called off the Midway operation and retreated. The Admiral promised to personally apologize to the Emperor for the defeat and the Japanese people were never told of the humiliation.
Six months after they played an integral role in the attack on Pearl Harbor,four Japanese carriers were at the ocean bottom, along with all of her planes and most of her battle hardened aviators. The Empire of the Rising Sun lost it's first naval engagement in three hundred years and her great Pacific offensive was over. From this point forward, American forces would maintain and drive home offensive operations until absolute victory had been achieved.
As the reader of our history turns each page, he finds upon the parchment a continuous thread - a common theme that binds heart to heart and past with posterity. The effort that has been expended to establish, preserve, defend, and advance freedom, wonderfully exemplified by the warriors of Midway, fills every chapter with inspiration and inspires those who read to understand that the blank pages ahead are theirs to fill so that others might be inspired to learn and live bravely. In this way, we advance, in light of freedom's power, so that those who follow might fuel it's flame and raise it high for all to see.On the morning of June 4, 1942, the fifteen planes which comprised Torpedo Squadron Eight took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in an attempt to locate enemy ships and carriers off the island of Midway in the central Pacific. It is their sacrifice that stands out, to this humble correspondent, above all others that day. Ultimately, this battle, the turning point of the war in the Pacific, would result in the loss by the Japanese of four aircraft carriers and many aircraft and gifted aviators. Never again would the naval forces of Imperial Japan be on the offensive - Japan's ultimate fate was sealed. Torpedo Eight, however, did not take part in the destruction of Japanese forces; instead, the entire squadron was itself annihilated, shot from the sky during their unescorted attack. Ensign George Gay was the only member of the squadron to survive the attack - he was rescued by American forces after spending thirty hours in the open sea. Ens. Gay survived the war, dying of a heart attack in 1994 - following his death, Gay was cremated and his ashes were spread over the Pacific in the same place from which his squadron had launched its attack and from where he had witnessed the subsequent successful attacks of American dive bombers and the destruction of three of the four Japanese carriers. His ill fated squadron is credited with helping bring Japanese fighter cover down to sea level, thus opening the way for the follow up attacks to succeed. The squadron received the Presidential Unit Citation for their heroic action at Midway. Ensign William R. Evans, twenty three years of age, a fellow pilot in Torpedo Eight, was an extraordinary young man as well, very thoughtful and contemplative as he trained for war and engaged the enemy. Ens. Evans was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions. The citation reads:
The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to William Robinson Evans, Jr. (0-098626), Ensign, U.S. Navy (Reserve), for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Torpedo Plane of Torpedo Squadron EIGHT (VT-8), embarked from the U.S.S. HORNET (CV-8), during the "Air Battle of Midway," against enemy Japanese forces on 4 June 1942. Grimly aware of the hazardous consequences of flying without fighter protection, and with insufficient fuel to return to his carrier, Ensign Evans resolutely, and with no thought of his own life, delivered an effective torpedo attack against violent assaults of enemy Japanese aircraft fire. His courageous action, carried out with a gallant spirit of self-sacrifice and a conscientious devotion to the fulfillment of his mission, was a determining factor in the defeat of the enemy forces and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
Shortly before he flew off toward an unknown horizon on June 4, 1942, Ens. Evans wrote to a former professor of his, a mentor whom he greatly admired. He wanted this man to know that American youth was up to the challenge and would make the nation proud. When I read his words, the page is always stained with tears of pain and joy - pain at a cost so great and joy at so noble a cause. May America always treasure such heroes and remember their selfless example always - and thank God for a blessing so rich:
Dear Friend:
...The fates have been kind to me. In war, where any semblance of pleasure is, to say the least, bad taste, I find many things that please me as I know they would please you. When you hear others saying harsh things about American youth, you will know how wrong they all are. So many times that now they have become commonplace, I've seen incidents that make me know that we were not soft, nor bitter, perhaps stupid at first, but never weak.
Many of my friends are now dead. To a man, each died with a nonchalance that each would have denied was courage but simply called a lack of fear and forgot the triumph. If anything great or good has been born of this war, it should not be valued in the colonies we may win, nor in the pages that historians will attempt to write, but rather in the youth of our country who were never trained for war, and who almost never believed in war, but who have, from some hidden source, brought forth a gallantry which is homespun, it is so real.
I say these things because I know you liked and understood boys, and because I wanted you to know that they have not let you down -- that out here, between the spaceless sea and sky, American' youth has found itself, and given of itself, so that at home a spark may catch, burst into flame, and burn high. If our country takes these sacrifices with indifference, it will be the cruelest ingratitude the world has ever known.
There is much I cannot say which should be said before it is too late. It is my fear that national inertia will cancel the gains won at such a price. You will, I know, do all in your power to help others to keep the faith... Remembering the countless happy hours I spent with all of you has been a constant source of contentment.... My luck can't last much longer. But the flame goes on and on - only that is important
Bill
'Only that is important,' indeed. May every generation of American youth fan into flame the gift of freedom that God has given this nation, and may lady liberty eternally extend it, in hope, to all the world's enslaved. 'The flame goes on and on...'
sources:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/midway/midway.htmhttp://www.2worldwar2.com/battle-of-midway.htm
The Story of World War Two, Donald Miller, pg. 119-126
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