Battle of Midway

Simultaneously, Yorktowns VB-3, commanded by Lieutenant Max Leslie, went for Sōryū, scoring at least three hits and causing extensive damage. Gasoline ignited, creating an inferno, while stacked bombs and ammunition detonated. VT-3 targeted Hiryū, which was hemmed in by Sōryū, Kaga, and Akagi, but achieved no hits.

Within six minutes, Sōryū and Kaga were ablaze from stem to stern. Akagi, having been struck by only one bomb, took longer to burn, but the resulting fires quickly expanded and proved impossible to extinguish; she too was eventually consumed by flames and had to be abandoned. Although Nagumo was reluctant to leave Akagi, Kusaka was able to persuade him. At 10:46, Nagumo transferred his flag to the light cruiser . All three carriers remained temporarily afloat, as none had suffered damage below the waterline, other than the rudder damage to Akagi caused by the near miss close astern. Despite initial hopes that Akagi could be saved or at least towed back to Japan, all three carriers were eventually abandoned and scuttled.

Japanese counterattacks

thumb|Yorktown shortly after being hit by three Japanese bombs

Hiryū, the sole surviving Japanese aircraft carrier, wasted little time in counterattacking. Hiryūs first attack wave, consisting of 18 D3As and 6 Zeros, followed the retreating American aircraft and attacked the first carrier they encountered, Yorktown, hitting her with three bombs, which blew a hole in the deck, snuffed out all but one of her boilers, and destroyed one anti-aircraft mount. The damage forced Fletcher to move his command staff to the heavy cruiser . Damage control parties were able to temporarily patch the flight deck and restore power to several boilers within an hour, giving her a speed of and enabling her to resume air operations. Yorktown hoisted a flag signal to indicate a speed of 5 knots. Captain Buckmaster had his signalmen hoist a new 10-by-15-foot American flag from the foremast. Thirteen D3As and three Zeros were lost in this attack (two Zeros turned back early after they were damaged attacking some of Enterprises SBDs returning from their attack on the Japanese carriers).

Approximately one hour later, Hiryūs second attack wave, consisting of ten B5Ns and six escorting Zeros, arrived over Yorktown; the repair efforts had been so effective that the Japanese pilots assumed that Yorktown must be a different, undamaged carrier. They attacked, crippling Yorktown with two torpedoes; she lost all power and developed a 23-degree list to port. Five B5Ns and two Zeros were shot down in this attack.

News of the two strikes, with the mistaken reports that each had sunk an American carrier, greatly improved Japanese morale. The few surviving aircraft were all recovered aboard Hiryū. Despite the heavy losses, the Japanese believed that they could scrape together enough aircraft for one more strike against what they believed to be the only remaining American carrier.

American counterattack

thumb|Hiryū, shortly before sinking, photo taken by a [[Yokosuka B4Y off the carrier Hōshō]]

Late in the afternoon, a Yorktown scout aircraft located Hiryū, prompting Enterprise to launch a final strike of 24 dive bombers (six SBDs from VS-6, four SBDs from VB-6, and 14 SBDs from Yorktowns VB-3). Despite Hiryū being defended by more than a dozen Zero fighters, the attack by Enterprise and orphaned Yorktown aircraft launched from Enterprise was successful: four bombs (possibly five) hit Hiryū, leaving her ablaze and unable to operate aircraft. Hornets strike, launched late because of a communications error, concentrated on the remaining escort ships but failed to score any hits. A bomb from the Enterprise dive bomber piloted by Dusty Kleiss struck Hiryū on the bow, essentially crippling her.

After futile attempts at controlling the blaze, most of the crew on Hiryū were evacuated, and the remainder of the fleet continued sailing northeast in an attempt to intercept the American carriers. Despite a scuttling attempt by a Japanese destroyer that hit her with a torpedo and then departed quickly, Hiryū stayed afloat for several more hours. She was discovered early the next morning by an aircraft from the escort carrier , prompting hopes she could be saved or towed back to Japan. Soon after being spotted, Hiryū sank. Yamaguchi, along with ship's captain, , chose to go down with the ship, costing Japan perhaps its best carrier officer. One young sailor reportedly tried to stay with the officers but was denied.

Finally, fearing a possible night encounter with Japanese surface forces Spruance changed course and withdrew to the east, turning back west towards the Japanese at midnight. For his part, Yamamoto initially decided to continue the engagement and sent his remaining surface forces searching eastward for the American carriers. Simultaneously, he detached a cruiser raiding force to bombard the island. The Japanese surface forces failed to make contact with the Americans because Spruance had briefly withdrawn eastward, and Yamamoto ordered a general withdrawal to the west. It was fortunate for the U.S. that Spruance did not pursue: had he come in contact with Yamamoto's heavy ships, including , in the dark, considering the Japanese Navy's superiority in night-attack tactics at the time, there is a very high probability his cruisers would have been overwhelmed and his carriers sunk.

Spruance failed to reestablish contact with Yamamoto's forces on 5 June, despite extensive searches. Towards the end of the day, he launched a search-and-destroy mission to seek out any remnants of Nagumo's carrier force. This late afternoon strike narrowly missed detecting Yamamoto's main body and failed to score hits on a straggling Japanese destroyer. The strike planes returned to the carriers after nightfall, prompting Spruance to order Enterprise and Hornet to turn on their lights to aid the landings.

At 02:15 on 5 June Commander John Murphy's Tambor, lying west of Midway, made the second of the submarine force's two major contributions to the battle's outcome, although its impact was heavily blunted by Murphy. Sighting several ships, neither Murphy nor his executive officer, Edward Spruance (son of Admiral Spruance), could identify them. Uncertain of whether they were friendly and unwilling to approach any closer to verify their heading or type, Murphy decided to send a vague report of "four large ships" to Admiral Robert English, Commander, Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet. This report was passed on by English to Nimitz, who then sent it to Spruance. Spruance, a former submarine commander, was "understandably furious" at the vagueness of Murphy's report, as it provided him with little more than suspicion and no concrete information on which to make his preparations. Unaware of the exact location of Yamamoto's "Main Body" (a persistent problem since the time PBYs had first sighted the Japanese), Spruance was forced to assume the "four large ships" reported by Tambor represented the main invasion force and so he moved to block it, while staying northeast of Midway.

In reality, the ships sighted by Tambor were the detachment of four cruisers and two destroyers Yamamoto had sent to bombard Midway. At 02:55 these ships received Yamamoto's order to retire and changed course to comply. Only at 04:12 did the sky brighten enough for Murphy to be certain the ships were Japanese, by which time staying surfaced was hazardous and he dived to approach for an attack. The attack was unsuccessful, and around 06:00 he finally reported two westbound s before diving again and playing no further role in the battle. while Mogami survived further severe damage to return home for repairs. The destroyers and were also bombed and strafed during the last of these attacks. Captain Richard E. Fleming, a U.S. Marine Corps aviator, was killed while executing a glide bomb run on Mikuma and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Meanwhile, salvage efforts on Yorktown were encouraging, and she was taken in tow by fleet tug . In the late afternoon of 6 June the , which had managed to slip through the cordon of destroyers (possibly because of the large amount of debris in the water), fired a salvo of torpedoes, two of which struck Yorktown. There were few casualties aboard since most of the crew had already been evacuated, but a third torpedo from this salvo struck the destroyer , which had been providing auxiliary power to Yorktown. Hammann broke in two and sank with the loss of 80 lives, mostly because her own depth charges exploded. With further salvage efforts deemed hopeless, the remaining repair crews were evacuated from Yorktown. Throughout the night of 6 June and into the morning of 7 June, Yorktown remained afloat, but by 05:30 on 7 June, her list rapidly increased to port. Shortly afterward, the ship turned onto her port side. At 07:01, Yorktown capsized and sank.

Japanese and U.S. casualties

thumb| shortly before sinking

SBD pilot Norman "Dusty" Kleiss, who scored three hits on Japanese ships during the Battle of Midway (aircraft carriers Kaga and Hiryū and heavy cruiser Mikuma), wrote: "From the experience in the Marshalls, at Wake and at Marcus, I thought our fleet learned its lessons. We could not send TBDs into action unless they had adequate smoke protection and torpedoes that exploded more than 10 percent of the time."

By the time the battle ended, 3,057 Japanese had died. Casualties aboard the four carriers were: Akagi: 267; Kaga: 811; Hiryū: 392 (including Yamaguchi who chose to go down with his ship); Soryū: 711 (including Captain Yanagimoto, who chose to remain on board); a total of 2,181. The heavy cruisers Mikuma (sunk; 700 casualties) and Mogami (badly damaged; 92) accounted for another 792 deaths.

In addition, the destroyers Arashio (bombed; 35) and Asashio (strafed by aircraft; 21) were both damaged during the air attacks which sank Mikuma and caused further damage to Mogami. Floatplanes were lost from the cruisers Chikuma (3) and Tone (2). Dead aboard the destroyers Tanikaze (11), Arashi (1), Kazagumo (1) and the fleet oiler Akebono Maru (10) made up the remaining 23 casualties.

At the end of the battle, the U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann. 307 Americans had been killed, including Major General Clarence L. Tinker, Commander, 7th Air Force, who personally led a bomber strike from Hawaii against the retreating Japanese forces on 7 June. He was killed when his aircraft crashed near Midway Island.

Aftermath

thumb|A rescued U.S. aviator named Frank on Midway after 13 days in the water.

After securing a clear victory, and as pursuit became too hazardous near Wake Island, American forces retired. Spruance again withdrew to the east to refuel his destroyers and rendezvous with the carrier Saratoga, which was ferrying much-needed replacement aircraft. Fletcher transferred his flag to Saratoga on the afternoon of 8 June and resumed command of the carrier force. For the remainder of that day and the next, Fletcher continued to launch search missions from the three carriers to ensure the Japanese were no longer advancing on Midway. Late on 10 June a decision was ultimately made to leave the area, and the American carriers returned to Pearl Harbor.

Historian Samuel E. Morison noted in 1949 that Spruance was criticized for not pursuing the retreating Japanese, allowing their surface fleet to escape. Clay Blair argued in 1975 that had Spruance pressed on, he would have been unable to launch his aircraft after nightfall, and his cruisers would have been overwhelmed by Yamamoto's powerful surface units, including Yamato. Also, Spruance's destroyers were critically low on fuel.

On 10 June the Imperial Japanese Navy conveyed to the military liaison conference an incomplete picture of the results of the battle. Nagumo's detailed battle report was submitted to the high command on 15 June. It was intended only for the highest echelons in the Japanese Navy and government and was guarded closely throughout the war. In it, one of the more striking revelations is the comment on Mobile Force Commander Nagumo's estimates: "The enemy is not aware of our plans (we were not discovered until early in the morning of the 5th at the earliest)." In reality, the whole operation had been compromised from the beginning by American code-breaking efforts.

The Japanese public and much of the military command structure were kept in the dark about the extent of the defeat: Japanese news announced a great victory. Only Emperor Hirohito and the highest Navy command staff were accurately informed of the carrier and personnel losses. Consequently, even the Imperial Japanese Army continued to believe, for at least a short time, that the fleet was in good condition.

On the return of the Japanese fleet to Hashirajima on 14 June the wounded were immediately transferred to naval hospitals; most were classified as "secret patients", placed in isolation wards and quarantined from other patients and their own families to keep this major defeat secret. The remaining officers and men were quickly dispersed to other units of the fleet and, facing similar bans from visiting family or friends, were shipped to units in the South Pacific, where the majority died in battle. None of the flag officers or staff of the Combined Fleet were penalized, and Nagumo was later placed in command of the rebuilt carrier force. A possible reason Nagumo was not relieved of command was that he reported two American carriers had been sunk; not one actually sank.

thumb|In this still from the 1942 U.S. Navy film [[The Battle of Midway (film)|The Battle of Midway, shot by John Ford, soldiers and civilians inspect the wreckage of a plane while black smoke billows in the distance]]

As a result of the defeat, new procedures were adopted whereby more Japanese aircraft were refueled and re-armed on the flight deck rather than in the hangars, and the practice of draining all unused fuel lines was adopted. The new carriers being built were redesigned to incorporate only two flight deck elevators and new firefighting equipment. More carrier crew members were trained in damage-control and firefighting techniques, although the losses of the Shōkaku, ', and especially ' later in the war suggest that problems in this area nonetheless remained.

Japanese replacement pilots were pushed through an abbreviated training regimen to meet the short-term needs of the fleet, leading to a sharp decline in the quality of the aviators produced. These inexperienced airmen were fed into front-line units, while the veterans who remained after Midway and the Solomons campaign were forced to share an increased workload as conditions grew more desperate, with few being given a chance to rest in rear areas or in the home islands. As a result, Japanese naval air groups as a whole progressively deteriorated during the war while their American adversaries continued to improve.

===American prisoners===

Three U.S. aviators were captured during the battle: Ensign Wesley Osmus, a pilot from Yorktown; Ensign Frank O'Flaherty, a pilot from Enterprise; and Aviation Machinist's Mate Bruno Peter Gaido, O'Flaherty's gunner. Osmus was held on Arashi; O'Flaherty and Gaido on the cruiser Nagara (or destroyer Makigumo, sources vary); O'Flaherty and Gaido were interrogated and then tied to water-filled kerosene cans and thrown overboard to drown. Osmus was murdered on the Arashi. O'Flaherty and Gaido's fates were not mentioned. The execution of Osmus was apparently ordered by Arashis captain, Watanabe Yasumasa. Yasumasa died when the destroyer sank in December 1943; had he survived the war he would have likely been tried as a war criminal.

Japanese prisoners

Two enlisted men from Mikuma were rescued from a life raft on 9 June by and taken to Pearl Harbor. After receiving medical care, at least one of these sailors cooperated during interrogation and provided intelligence. Another 35 crewmen from Hiryū were taken from a lifeboat by on 19 June after being spotted by an American search plane. They were taken to Midway and then transferred to Pearl Harbor on .

Impact

thumb|This [[Douglas SBD Dauntless|SBD-2 was one of sixteen dive bombers of VMSB-241 launched from Midway on the morning of 4 June. Holed 219 times in the attack on the carrier Hiryū, it survives today at the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, Florida.]]

The Battle of Midway has often been called "the turning point of the Pacific". It was the Allies' first major naval victory against the Japanese. Had Japan won the battle as thoroughly as the U.S. did, it might have been able to capture Midway Island. Saratoga would have been the only American carrier in the Pacific, as no new ones were completed before the end of 1942. While the U.S. would probably not have sought peace with Japan as Yamamoto hoped, his country might have revived Operation FS to invade and occupy Fiji and Samoa; attacked Australia, Alaska, and Ceylon; or even attempted to occupy Hawaii.

Although the Japanese continued to try to secure more territory, and the U.S. did not move from a state of naval parity to one of supremacy until after several more months of hard combat, Midway allowed the Allies to switch to the strategic initiative, paving the way for the landings on Guadalcanal and the prolonged attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign. Midway allowed this to occur before the first of the new fleet carriers became available at the end of 1942. The Guadalcanal campaign is regarded by some as a turning point in the Pacific War.

Some authors have stated that heavy losses in carriers and veteran aircrews at Midway permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy. Parshall and Tully have stated that the heavy losses in veteran aircrew (110, just under 25% of the aircrew embarked on the four carriers) were not crippling to the Japanese naval air corps as a whole; the Japanese navy had 2,000 carrier-qualified aircrews at the start of the Pacific War. The loss of four large fleet carriers and over 40% of the carriers' highly trained aircraft mechanics and technicians, plus the essential flight-deck crews and armorers, and the loss of organizational knowledge embodied in such highly trained crews, were still heavy blows to the Japanese carrier fleet.

After the battle, Shōkaku and Zuikaku were the only large carriers of the original Pearl Harbor strike force still afloat. Of Japan's other carriers, Taihō, which was not commissioned until early 1944, would be the only fleet carrier worth teaming with Shōkaku and Zuikaku; and were light carriers, while and , although technically classified as fleet carriers, were second-rate ships of comparatively limited effectiveness. In the time it took Japan to build three carriers, the U.S. Navy commissioned more than two dozen fleet and light fleet carriers, and numerous escort carriers. By 1942 the U.S. was already three years into a shipbuilding program mandated by the 1938 Second Vinson Act.

Both the U.S. and Japan accelerated the training of aircrew, but the U.S. had a more effective pilot rotation system, which meant that more veterans survived and went on to training or command billets, where they were able to pass on lessons they had learned in combat to trainees, instead of remaining in combat, where errors were more likely to be fatal. By the time of the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, the Japanese had nearly rebuilt their carrier forces in terms of numbers, but their planes, many of which were obsolete, were largely flown by inexperienced and poorly trained pilots.

Midway showed the worth of pre-war naval cryptanalysis and intelligence-gathering. These efforts continued and were expanded throughout the war in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters. Successes were numerous and significant. For instance, cryptanalysis made possible the shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto's airplane in 1943.

The Battle of Midway also caused the plan of Japan and Nazi Germany to meet up in the Indian subcontinent to be abandoned.

The Battle of Midway redefined the central importance of air superiority for the remainder of the war when the Japanese suddenly lost their four main aircraft carriers and were forced to return home. Without any form of air superiority, the Japanese never again launched a major offensive in the Pacific.

Discovery of sunken vessels

Because of the extreme depth of the ocean in the area of the battle (more than ), researching the battlefield has presented extraordinary difficulties. On 19 May 1998, Robert Ballard and a team of scientists and Midway veterans from both sides located and photographed Yorktown, which was located deep. The ship was remarkably intact for a vessel that had sunk in 1942; much of the original equipment and even the original paint scheme were still visible. Ballard's subsequent search for the Japanese carriers was unsuccessful.

In September 1999, a joint expedition between Nauticos Corp. and the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office searched for the Japanese aircraft carriers. Using advanced renavigation techniques in conjunction with the ship's log of the submarine USS Nautilus, the expedition located a large piece of wreckage, subsequently identified as having come from the upper hangar deck of Kaga.

The crew of the research vessel RV Petrel, in conjunction with the U.S. Navy, announced on 18 October 2019 that it had found the Japanese carrier Kaga at . The crew confirmed the discovery of another Japanese carrier, the Akagi, on 21 October 2019. The Akagi was found in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in nearly of water.

Remembrances

thumb|The Midway Memorial

Chicago Municipal Airport, important to the war effort in World War II, was renamed Chicago Midway International Airport (or simply Midway Airport) in 1949 in honor of the battle. Henderson Field in Guadalcanal was named in honor of U.S. Marine Corps Major Lofton Henderson, the first Marine aviator to perish during the battle.

Escort carrier USS Midway (CVE-63) was commissioned on 17 August 1943. She was renamed St. Lo on 10 October 1944 to clear the name Midway for a large fleet aircraft carrier, , which was commissioned on 10 September 1945, eight days after the Japanese surrender, and is now docked in San Diego, California, as the USS Midway Museum.

On 13 September 2000 Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt designated the lands and waters of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge as the Battle of Midway National Memorial. Tinker Air Force Base outside Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is named in honor of Major General Clarence L. Tinker, Commander 7th Air Force, who personally led a bomber strike from Hawaii against the retreating Japanese forces on 7 June.

John Ford directed the 18-minute 1942 Movietone News documentary (released by the War Activities Committee) The Battle of Midway, which received the 1942 Academy Award for Best Documentary; and the eight-minute documentary Torpedo Squadron 8, which describes the heroism of Torpedo Squadron 8 of the . Ford, who was a Navy Reserve commander at the time, was present at Midway Atoll's power plant on Sand Island during the Japanese attack and filmed it. He was wounded by enemy fire in his arm during the filming.

Footnotes

Notes

References

External links

Battle of Midway main topic page at the Naval History and Heritage Command
The Battle of Midway (1942)U.S. Navy propaganda film directed by John Ford
Victory at Sea: "Midway Is East" (1952)Episode 4 from a 26-episode series about naval combat during World War II
Destination Point Luck: Voices from Midway (2008)U.S. Navy Interviews of Battle of Midway Veterans
Larry Holzwarth: How the Battle of Midway changed the Pacific War, historycollection.com, 28 February 2020