All Hell Let Loose

by Hastings, Max

  Nimitz made a wonderfully bold call: to stake everything upon the accuracy of Rochefort’s interpretation. Japanese intelligence, always weak, believed that Yorktown had been sunk at the Coral Sea, and that the other two US carriers, Hornet and Enterprise, were far away in the Solomons. But heroic efforts by 1,400 dockyard workers at Pearl Harbor made Yorktown fit for sea, albeit with a makeshift air component. Nimitz was therefore able to deploy two task groups to cover Midway, one led by Fletcher – in overall command – and the other by Raymond Spruance. This would be a carrier action, with Nagumo’s flat-tops its objectives; the slow old American battleships were left in Californian harbours. The navy’s planes were recognised as the critical weapons.

  Almost a century earlier, Herman Melville, America’s greatest novelist of the sea, wrote: ‘There is something in a naval engagement which radically distinguishes it from one on land. The ocean … has neither rivers, woods, banks, towns, nor mountains. In mild weather, it is one hammered plain. Stratagems, like those of disciplined armies, ambuscades – like those of Indians – are impossible. All is clear, open, fluent. The very element which sustains the combatants yields at the stroke of a feather … This simplicity renders a battle between two men-of-war … more akin to the Miltonic contests of archangels than to the comparatively squalid tussles of earth.’

  In 1942, Melville’s lyrical vision of the sea remained recognisable to another century’s sailors, but two factors had transformed his image of naval battle. First, communication and interception made possible ‘ambuscades and stratagems’, such as that which took place at Midway – the location and pre-emption of the enemy before his figurative sails were sighted. Superior American radar conferred another important advantage over the Japanese. Meanwhile, the advent of air power meant that all was no longer ‘clear, open, fluent’: rival fleets became vulnerable to surprise while hundreds of miles apart. But exactitude of knowledge was still lacking. In a vast ocean, it remained hard to pinpoint ships, or even fleets. Rear-Admiral Frank Fletcher said: ‘After a battle is over, people talk a lot about how the decisions were methodically reached, but actually there’s always a hell of a lot of groping around.’ This had been vividly demonstrated by the Coral Sea engagement; despite Commander Rochefort’s magnificent achievement, uncertainty and chance also characterised Midway.

  The engagement was fought only six months after Pearl Harbor, when the US Navy still had fewer carriers than the British, though they carried many more planes. The two American task groups were deployed too far apart to provide mutual support, or effectively to coordinate their air operations. On 3 June, the first skirmish took place: at 1400, nine land-based B-17 Flying Fortresses delivered an ineffectual attack on the Japanese amphibious force. Early that morning also, Japanese aircraft launched a heavy attack on the Aleutians. For tens of thousands of men on both sides, a tense night followed. The garrison of Midway prepared to sell their lives dearly, knowing the fate that had already befallen many other island defenders at Japanese hands. On the US carriers three hundred miles to the north-east, aircrew readied themselves to fight what they knew would be a critical action. One of them, Lt. Dick Crowell, said soberly as they broke up a late-night craps game on Yorktown: ‘The fate of the United States now rests in the hands of 240 pilots.’ Nimitz was satisfied that the scenario was unfolding exactly as he had anticipated. Yamamoto was troubled that the US Pacific fleet remained unlocated, but he remained oblivious that any carriers might close within range of Nagumo.

  Before dawn next morning, ‘a warm, damp, rather hazy day’, American and Japanese pilots breakfasted. Yorktown’s men favoured ‘one-eyed sandwiches’ – an egg fried in a hole in toast. Nagumo’s fliers enjoyed rice, soybean soup, pickles and dried chestnuts before drinking a battle toast in hot sake. At 0430 seventy-two Japanese bombers and thirty-six fighters took off to attack Midway island. At 0545, a patrolling Catalina signalled the incoming attack, then spotted Nagumo’s carriers. Fletcher needed three hours’ steaming to close within attack range. Meanwhile, Midway-based Marine and army torpedo-bombers and bombers took off immediately, as did Wildcat and Buffalo fighters. The latter suffered terribly at the hands of Zeroes: all but three of twenty-seven were either shot down or so badly damaged that they never flew again. But the Japanese attackers, in their turn, lost 30 per cent of their strength.

  The Battle of Midway

  Nagumo’s bomber attack, at 0635, inflicted widespread damage but failed to knock out Midway’s airfields. Its leader signalled the fleet: ‘Second strike necessary.’ Thereafter, nothing went right for the Japanese admiral. His first mistake of the day had been to dispatch only a handful of reconnaissance aircraft to search for American warships; one seaplane, from the heavy cruiser Tone, was delayed taking off – and it was vectored to search the sector where Fletcher’s carriers were steaming. Thus, Nagumo was still ignorant of any naval air threat when he received the signal from his Midway planes. At 0715 he ordered ninety-three ‘Kate’ strike aircraft, ready with torpedoes on his decks, to be struck below and re-armed with high-explosive bombs to renew the attack on the island, meanwhile clearing the way for the returning Midway planes to land on.

  Even as they did so, ships’ buglers sounded another air-raid alarm. Between 0755 and 0820, successive small waves of Midway-based US aircraft attacked Nagumo’s fleet. They had no fighter cover, and were ruthlessly destroyed by AA fire and Zeroes without achieving a single hit. The gunfire died away, the drone of the surviving attackers’ engines faded. Meanwhile, the first of Spruance’s torpedo planes and dive-bombers were already airborne, heading for the Japanese fleet from extreme range. Although Tone’s scout plane belatedly spotted the American ships, only at 0810 did its pilot report that they seemed to include a carrier. Among Nagumo’s staff, this news prompted a fierce argument about how to respond, which continued even as the last of the US land-based attacks was repulsed.

  The only achievement of the strikes from Midway, purchased at shocking cost, was to impede flight operations aboard the Japanese carriers. Nagumo was hamstrung by the need to recover his attack force, short of fuel, before he could launch a strike against Fletcher’s fleet; meanwhile, he ordered the ‘Kates’ in the hangars once more to be armed with torpedoes. By far his wisest course, at this stage, would have been to turn away and open the range with the enemy, until he had reorganised his air groups and was ready to fight. As it was, however, with characteristic lack of initiative he held course. At 0918, the Japanese flight decks were still in chaos as aircraft completed refuelling, when picket destroyers signalled another warning, and began to make protective smoke. The first of Fletcher’s planes were closing fast, and Zeroes scrambled to meet them.

  Before the American fly-off, Lt. Cmdr. John Waldron, a rough, tough, much-respected South Dakotan who led Torpedo Eight from Hornet, told his pilots that the coming battle ‘will be a historic and, I hope, a glorious event’. Wildcat squadron commander Jimmy Gray wrote: ‘All of us knew we were “on” in the world’s center ring.’ Lt. Cmdr. Eugene Lindsey, commanding Torpedo Six, had been badly injured only a few days earlier when he ditched his plane after making a botched landing; his face was so bruised that it was painful for him to wear goggles. But on the morning of the Midway strike he insisted on flying: ‘This is what I have been trained to do,’ he said stubbornly, before taking off to his death.

  The American attackers approached the Japanese in successive waves. Jimmy Gray wrote: ‘Seeing the white feathers of ships’ wakes at high speed at the far edge of the overcast, and realising that there for the first time in plain sight were the Japanese who had been knocking hell out of us for seven months was a sensation not many men know in a lifetime.’ The twenty escorting Wildcats flew high, while the Devastators necessarily attacked low. Over the radio, crackling dispute about tactics between fighters and torpedo-carriers persisted even as they approached the enemy. The Wildcats maintained altitude, and anyway lacked endurance to linger over the enemy fleet. The consequence was that when fi
fty Japanese Zeroes fell on the Devastators, these suffered a massacre. The twelve planes of Torpedo 3 were flying in formation at 2,600 feet and still fifteen miles from their targets when they met the first Japanese. Slashing attacks persisted throughout their run-in. One of the few surviving American pilots, Wilhelm ‘Doc’ Esders, wrote: ‘When approximately one mile from the carrier our leader apparently expected to attack, his plane was hit and it crashed into the sea in flames … I saw only five planes drop their torpedoes.’ Esders’ own Devastator was hit, his radioman fatally wounded; the CO2 fire-bottle in the cockpit exploded; flak shells burst below them, while the Zeroes kept firing. The crew was extraordinarily lucky that the enemy planes turned away after following them homewards for twenty miles.

  The Devastators ploughed doggedly towards their targets at their best speed of a hundred knots, until each wave in turn was shot to pieces and plunged into the sea. A bomber gunner heard Waldron talking over the radio as he led his planes in: ‘Johnny One to Johnny Two … How’m I doing Dobbs? … Attack immediately … There’s two fighters in the water … My two wingmen are going in the water.’ Waldron himself was last seen attempting to escape from his flaming plane. After the first wave had attacked, the Zeroes’ group leader reported laconically: ‘All fifteen enemy torpedo-bombers shot down.’ Many of the next wave were destroyed while manoeuvring to achieve an attack angle as the Japanese carriers swung wildly to avoid them. A despairing American gunner whose weapon jammed fired his .45 automatic pistol at a pursuing Zero.

  George Gay, who flew from the Hornet at the controls of a Devastator, had a reputation in his squadron as a Texas loudmouth, but proved its only survivor. Shot down in the sea with a bullet wound and two dead crewmen, he trod water all day, having heard many stories about the Japanese shooting downed aircrew. At nightfall, he cautiously inflated his dinghy and had the fantastic good fortune to be picked up next morning by a patrolling American amphibian.

  On the flight decks of Nagumo’s carriers, the Japanese experienced an hour of acute tension as the Devastators approached through a storm of anti-aircraft fire. But most of the torpedoes were dropped beyond effective range, and Mk 13s ran so slowly that the Japanese ships had ample time to comb their tracks. ‘I was not aware or did not feel the torpedo drop,’ said a Devastator gunner afterwards, adding that this was probably because his pilot was trying to jink. ‘A few days later I asked him when he dropped. He said when he realized that we seemed to be the only TBD still flying and that we didn’t have a chance of carrying the torpedo to normal drop range. I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to do and the flak was really bad, so I yelled into the intercom, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” It is possible that my yell helped him make his decision.’

  Just after 1000, the attackers had shot their bolt, having achieved no hits. Of forty-one American torpedo-bombers which took off that day, only six returned, and fourteen of eighty-two aircrew survived. Most of the survivors’ planes were shot full of holes. Lloyd Childers, a wounded gunner, heard his pilot say, ‘We’re not going to make it.’ The Devastator reached the fleet, but was prevented from landing back on Yorktown by a gaping bomb crater in its flight deck. The pilot ditched safely in the sea alongside, and Childers patted his plane’s tail as it sank, in gratitude for getting him back. Many survivors, however, were enraged by the futility of their sacrifice, and embittered by the lack of protection from their own fighters. A Devastator gunner who landed back on Enterprise had to be forcibly restrained as he threw himself at a Wildcat pilot.

  American fighters had few successes that day. One of them was achieved by Jimmy Thach, who went on to become one of the foremost naval aviation tacticians of the war. Thach said he lost his temper when he saw Japanese aircraft boring into his neighbour: ‘I was mad because here was this poor little wingman who’d never been in combat before, had had very little gunnery training, the first time aboard a carrier and a Zero was about to chew him to pieces … I decided to keep my fire going into him and he’s going to pull out, which he did, and he just missed me by a few feet; I saw flames coming out of the bottom of his airplane. This is like playing “chicken” with two automobiles on the highway headed for each other except we were both shooting as well.’

  The Americans had suffered a shocking succession of disasters, which could easily have been fatal to the battle’s outcome. Instead, however, fortune changed with startling abruptness. Nagumo paid the price for his enforced failure to strike at Spruance’s task force even when he learned it was near at hand. Moreover, his Zeroes were at low level and running out of fuel when more American aircraft appeared high overhead, a few minutes after the last torpedo-bombers attacked.

  The Dauntless dive-bomber was the only effective 1942 US naval aircraft; what followed changed the course of the Pacific war in the space of minutes. Dauntlesses fell on Nagumo’s carriers, wreaking havoc. ‘I saw this glint in the sun,’ said Jimmy Thach, ‘and it just looked like a beautiful silver waterfall, these dive-bombers coming down. It looked to me like almost every bomb hit.’ In reality, the first three bombs aimed at Kaga missed, but the fourth achieved a direct hit, setting off sympathetic detonations among munitions scattered across the carrier’s decks and in its hangars. Soryu and Akagi suffered similar fates. Wildcat pilot Tom Cheek was another fascinated spectator as the dive-bombers pulled out. ‘As I looked back to Akagi hell literally broke loose. First the orange-colored flash of a bomb burst appeared on the flight deck midway between the island structure and the stern. Then in rapid succession followed a bomb burst amidships, and the water founts of near-misses plumed up near the stern. Almost in unison Kaga’s flight deck erupted with bomb bursts and flames. My gaze remained on Akagi as an explosion at the midship water-line seemed to open the bowels of the ship in a rolling, greenish-yellow ball of flame … Soryu … too was being heavily hit. All three ships had lost their foaming white bow waves and appeared to be losing way. I circled slowly to the right, awe-struck.’

  Equally fascinated – and appalled – was Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, Japanese hero of the Pearl Harbor strike, now an impotent spectator on the deck of Akagi: ‘I was horrified at the destruction that had been wrought in a matter of seconds. There was a huge hole in the flight deck just behind the midship elevator … Deck plates buckled in grotesque configurations. Planes stood tail up belching livid flames and jet-black smoke. Reluctant tears streamed down my cheeks.’

  The dive-bomber attack sank two Japanese carriers immediately, and the third flaming hulk was scuttled that evening. It was an extraordinary achievement, not least because two squadrons of dive-bombers and their Wildcat escort were sent on the wrong course and failed to engage. All ten pilots in Hornet’s Wildcat squadron Fighting Eight ran out of fuel and splashed into the sea without sighting an enemy; the ship’s thirty-five Dauntlesses landed on Midway, having missed the battle.

  The Japanese were enraged by the loss of their carriers, and vented their spleen on every American within reach. Wesley Osmus, a twenty-three-year-old torpedo-bomber pilot from Chicago, was spotted in the sea by a destroyer lookout, retrieved from the water and interrogated on the bridge by an emotional officer waving a sword. Towards sunset the Japanese, losing interest in their captive, took Osmus to the fantail of the ship and set about him with a fire-axe. He was slow to die, clinging to the rail until his fingers were smashed and he fell away into the sea. The Imperial Japanese Navy was as profoundly and institutionally brutalised as Hirohito’s army.

  At mid-morning Nagumo’s sole surviving carrier, Hiryu, at last launched its own attack, which fell on Fletcher’s Yorktown. American radar detected the incoming dive-bombers fifty miles out, and fighters began to scramble. Eleven ‘Val’ bombers and three Zeros were shot down by Wildcats, two more ‘Vals’ by anti-aircraft fire; three Japanese bombs hit Yorktown, but energetic damage control enabled the carrier to continue landing its dive-bombers, even as the crew fought huge fires. Admiral Fletcher transferred his flag to the cruiser Astoria, and surrender
ed overall command to Spruance.

  At 1430, a wave of Japanese torpedo-bombers from Hiryu closed on Yorktown, which again flew off fighters. Ensign Milton Tootle had just cleared the deck of the carrier in his Wildcat when the attackers closed in. Tootle turned through the American anti-aircraft barrage, shot down an enemy plane, then was himself downed by a Zero after a flight lasting barely sixty seconds; he was lucky enough to be rescued from the water. Several attackers were shot down, but four launched their torpedoes, two of which struck the carrier. The ocean flooded in, and the ship took on a heavy list. Just before 1500, the captain ordered Yorktown abandoned. The decision was possibly premature, and the ship might have been saved, but in 1942 less was known about damage control than the US Navy had learned two years later. Destroyers rescued the entire crew, save those who had perished during the attacks.

  At 1530, Spruance launched another strike of his own, by twenty-seven dive-bombers, including ten Yorktown planes which had landed on his flat-tops while their own ship was being attacked. Just before 1700, these reached Hiryu while its crew were eating riceballs in their messdecks. The ship had sixteen aircraft left, ten of them fighters, but only a reconnaissance plane was airborne, and the Japanese now lacked radar to warn of the Americans’ coming. Four bombs struck the carrier, starting huge fires. Little Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, the senior officer aboard, mounted a biscuit box to deliver a farewell address to the crew. Then he and the captain disappeared to their cabins to commit ritual suicide, while the remaining seamen were taken off. The stricken ship was scuttled with torpedoes: four of the six carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor were now at the bottom of the Pacific. On the American side, Hornet’s ill-fortune persisted when a pilot, returning wounded, accidentally nudged his gun button as he bumped down heavily onto the flight deck. A burst of fire killed five men on the superstructure. The returning aircrew were shocked by their losses, but in Jimmy Gray’s words, ‘We were too tired and too busy to do more than feel the pain of an aching heart.’