Finally pulling away, Best was surprised to see a torpedo plane formation heading in on an opposite course. They were apparently some “tail-end Charlies” from the earlier TBD attack. Then he caught sight of that third carrier, farther to the east, that he had noticed just before diving. It was now taking a dreadful beating—any number of bomb bursts flaring through a wall of smoke. Somebody was doing a thorough job of gutting it.
COMMANDER Max Leslie banged on the side of his SBD, attracting the attention of Bill Gallagher in the rear seat. Gallagher looked down to where the skipper was pointing, and 15,000 feet below he spotted an aircraft carrier. The Yorktown’s planes had now been approaching the Japanese fleet for 15 minutes, but this was Gallagher’s first glimpse of the actual target Leslie had picked out for Bombing 3. She was the most easterly of three carriers he could see in the area.
Nothing ever looked bigger, especially the huge red circle painted on the deck up front. Until this moment Gallagher had been sitting facing forward—an informal arrangement the skipper often tolerated—but now he swung around to handle his gun.
Leslie was still trying to get Lem Massey on the radio to coordinate the attack. But he could no longer hear Torpedo 3 at all. There was just static and silence.
At 10:23 Gallagher, keeping an eye on the carrier, signaled that she was starting to launch planes. This was bad news, for until now the upper sky had been free of fighters. Leslie tried once again to reach Massey—still only silence. There was no more time to lose; he must attack alone.
It was just 10:25 when he patted his head—the standard signal for “follow me“—and pushed over from 14,500 feet. He picked up the target right away, and as he roared down there was no doubt in his mind: this was the best dive he had ever made. It seemed more ironic than ever that he had already dropped his bomb on the way out.
Well, he still had his guns. At 10,000 feet he opened fire with his fixed mount, raking the carrier’s bridge. Then at 4,000 feet his guns jammed. With his bomb already gone, he now had nothing at all to throw at the enemy. He kept diving anyhow.
Commander Max Leslie took his men down all the way. Only when completely satisfied that he could do no more, did he pull out and leave the squadron to deliver their bombs.
Lieutenant Lefty Holmberg, flying No. 2, now took over. Studying the carrier, he decided the red circle painted on her flight deck made a good aiming point, and he set his sights on it.
She was still holding course, but he began to see little lights sparkling around the periphery of her flight deck. They reminded him of candles on a birthday cake back home. Then shrapnel began rattling off his plane. No doubt about it: they were shooting at him and getting close.
At 2,500 feet he pressed the electrical bomb release button, then pulled the hand release just to make sure. As he flattened out from his dive, his rear-seat man G. A. LaPlant practically blew his earphones off, yelling with joy, shouting that it was a hit, urging him to see for himself. Holmberg made a shallow turn to the left, and did take a look. A huge column of orange, black and dirty gray smoke was billowing up from the center of the ship.
One after another, the members of Bombing 3 pushed over, dived, released, pulled out. And one after another they caught their own little vignettes of the scene below. So alike yet so different, depending on the exact instant when each man’s eye stopped the action long enough to record his picture.
For Joseph Godfrey, rear-seat man in No. 5 plane, there was the Zero that belatedly turned up just as the squadron pushed over: “So close I felt I could have spit in the pilot’s eye.” For Lieutenant Dave Shumway there was the fighter plane blown over the carrier’s side by the blast from Holmberg’s bomb. For Ensign Charles Lane it was the pullout after the dive—yanking on the stick with both hands and thinking he would never make it. For Ensign Philip Cobb there were the chunks of flight deck and planes thrown into the air. If he ever got back to the Yorktown, he knew this was one Japanese ship he wouldn’t have to worry about for the rest of the battle.
The last four men to dive thought so too. The carrier was now a mass of flames, and it seemed a waste to drop any more bombs on her. So Ensigns Elder and Cooner picked out a nearby “cruiser” (actually a destroyer), while Lieutenant Wiseman and Ensign Butler went after a battleship. All had the satisfaction of seeing smoke and flames around the stern of their new targets.
Max Leslie was clearing out now. Going to the squadron rendezvous just over to the southeast, he circled for five or ten minutes waiting for other planes to show up. Only Ensign Alden Hanson appeared; the rest were probably going home on their own. But while he waited, Leslie watched with satisfaction as explosions continued to rock the carrier attacked by Bombing 8. Then he saw other huge explosions erupting from two ships some 10-12 miles to the west. They looked like carriers too and somebody was thoroughly wrecking them.
The dive bomber pilots from the Enterprise and the Yorktown would long argue who struck the first blow at Midway. Coming in from different directions—unaware that anyone else was there—each group told very much the same story. Each found Nagumo’s carriers untouched. Each attacked in the same six-minute span. Pulling out, each suddenly noticed the other at work. And, it might be added, there were enough unprovable claims to remove any fears that the debate might end. No one would ever really know.
TAKAYOSHI MORINAOA could see it coming. The first three bombs were near-misses just off the Kaga’s port bow, but there was no doubt about this fourth one. It was heading right at the flight deck … in fact, right at him.
He threw himself down on the deck, closed his eyes, held his hands over his ears. It landed with a splintering crash by the after elevator. Raising his head, Morinaga looked around: only three of the large group standing with him were still alive.
Captain Jisaku Okada probably never even knew about it At almost the same instant he was killed by another bomb landing just forward of the bridge. It happened to hit a fuel cart, temporarily parked there to service the planes back from Midway. The whole thing exploded in a ball of fire, drenching the bridge with flaming gasoline. Nobody up there escaped.
Standing a little aft in the air command post, Commander Amagai ducked the torrent of fire. He didn’t know about the fuel cart and assumed the whole inferno came from an “awful new kind of Yankee bomb.”
More hits were coming. As Petty Officer Yokochi tried to reach his plane; one blast stunned him, then another hurled him over the side of the ship like a ball. He came to seconds later, bobbing about in the water.
Commander Yamasaki, the Koga’s chief maintenance officer, wasn’t so lucky. As he raced for cover across, the flight deck, a bomb seemed to land right on top of him. He simply disappeared in the flash—not a trace of him left. Watching from the air command post, Commander Amagai had a curiously philosophical reaction: “Those who vanish like the dew will surely be quite happy.”
There was such an element of fate about it all, Amagai no longer felt frightened. With resignation he now looked unconcernedly at the falling bombs, even thought he could distinguish colors painted on them.
To some it seemed forever, but actually it was all over in a couple of minutes. As the last of those dark blue planes pulled out, the Kaga had been squarely hit by at least four bombs, and probably more, for in the chaos of exploding planes and ammunition nobody could really make a careful count.
On the Akagi Teiichi Makishima ground away with his movie camera. As the only newsreel man brought along, he had the run of the flagship, and now he was out on the air command post catching every dreadful detail of the Koga’s agony. The censors would have something to say about it later, but at the moment he was taking everything.
At first he thought the Kaga might somehow survive. The towering columns of water from those early near-misses looked hopeful. But then came the terrible moment when the whole front of her bridge turned yellow with flame, and he found himself muttering aloud, “She is beaten at last.”
It was at this dramatic point tha
t he ran out of film. Ducking into the chart room, he spent the next two or three minutes frantically threading a new cartridge. Then back on deck just in time to hear the Akagi’s own lookout scream, “Dive bombers!”
Incredibly, they were all caught by surprise. Admiral Kusaka was watching the Akagi’s first fighter take off for the coming attack on the U.S. fleet—that was still his chief concern. Captain Aoki was concentrating on the last of the American torpedo planes—a few were still hovering about. On the battleship Kirishima, some 5,000 yards away, they even saw the planes above the Akagi. The executive officer grabbed the radiophone, but by the time he got through it was too late.
Teiichi Makishima gamely swung his camera on the planes he saw hurtling down. He could make out three of them, getting bigger every second. Then he had enough—he was a landlubber cameraman, not a sailor—and he hit the deck.
Commander Fuchida watched a little longer. Suddenly he saw some black objects fall from the bombers’ wings. Then he too had enough and scrambled behind a protective mattress.
A blinding flash—the whole ship shuddered—as a bomb ripped through the radio aerial and exploded only five yards off the port side forward. A mighty column of filthy black water rose twice as high as the bridge, cascaded down on the officers huddled there. For a brief, terrifying second Nagumo’s navigation officer, Commander Sasabe, gazed at this water column and thought he saw his mother’s face.
Right afterward—some say just before—a second bomb landed on the flight deck opposite the bridge. This time the shock wasn’t so bad—but only because it cut so easily through the elevator amid ships and exploded on the hangar deck below. There it set everything off—planes, gas tanks, bombs, torpedoes. Flames gushed up, spreading to the planes spotted on the flight deck.
Then a third bomb smashed the very stern of the ship, hurling the planes parked there into a jumbled heap. Worse, it jammed the ship’s rudder so she could no longer steer.
That was all. Seconds later the planes were gone, and for a brief moment, anyhow, there was no sound but the crackling flames. Looking down at the blazing wreckage, Mitsuo Fuchida began to cry.
At about the same time Teiichi Makishima was taking his movies, Commander Hisashi Ohara stood on the navigation bridge of the Soryu, also watching the Kaga under attack. Bombs were hitting her, and he could see the fires breaking out. Then a sudden yell from the lookout on his own ship: “Enemy dive bombers—hole in the clouds!”
He looked up in time to see about a dozen planes screaming down on the Soryu. Next instant the first bomb hit the port side of the flight deck by the forward elevator … then another right in front of the bridge. The blast blew Ohara backward about five yards. It didn’t particularly hurt—felt rather like being tossed in a steam bath. It wasn’t until he returned to his post and everyone began throwing towels over his face that he realized how badly burned he must be.
By now a third bomb had landed aft, and the whole flight deck was blazing. There may have been other hits too, but it was hard to tell—planes and ammunition were exploding all over the ship. Within three minutes she was obviously gone, and some of the U.S. dive bombers shifted to the screening vessels. The destroyer Isokaze took a near miss off her stern.
It all happened so quickly many on the Soryu had no warning at all. Juzo Mori was down in the ready room with the other pilots from the Midway strike. They couldn’t get anybody to hear their report, and now they were lounging in the big leather chairs, munching rice balls and griping about the mysterious ways of the bridge. Then the battle bugle blew, and a voice came over the loudspeaker saying the Kaga was under attack.
Some of the younger pilots rushed out to watch, but the debonair Mori preferred to take it easy. They’d call when they needed him. He was still relaxing with about a dozen others when, without warning, there was a frightful jar. The ship heeled violently to starboard, apparently in an emergency turn to port. Next instant the whole wall of the ready room split with a crash, and flames poured in.
The pilots made a mad dash for the single door. Mori happened to be last, but he remembered his Rugby—a game he enjoyed—and by the time they emerged, he was first.
Tatsuya Otawa, another of the pilots in the group, stumbled onto the flight deck to find it already a mass of flames. Everything was blowing up—planes, bombs, gas tanks. He had time for only the briefest glance. Then a roaring explosion blasted him over the side of the ship. Still perfectly conscious, he had the presence of mind to tuck his legs up under him and clasp his hands under his knees. He sailed into the water “cannonball-style.”
On the Hiryu Lieutenants Tomonaga and Hashimoto had spent a busy hour getting ready for the coming strike against the U.S. fleet. Now everything seemed under control, and Hashimoto was catching a breather in the torpedo squadron ready room. A few minutes later Lieutenant Yasuhiro Shigematsu, leader of the Hiryu’s fighters, came bursting in: “Hey, the Akagi’s damaged; the Kaga and Soryu are burning—we’re the only ship that hasn’t been hit!”
Hashimoto could hardly believe it. He hurried to the flight deck and looked around. It was hard to see much: during the morning’s maneuvering the Hiryu had somehow drawn steadily ahead of the other three carriers. Now they were perhaps 10,000 yards astern. But they weren’t so far off that Lieutenant Hashimoto missed the towering smoke and three separate fires on the horizon.
The Hiryu’s executive officer, Commander Kanoe, saw it all from the bridge. It was awful the way everything seemed to happen at once. As he watched those mounting columns of smoke, he was completely heartsick. He could only whisper to himself, “What will become of us?”
LEFTY HOLMBERG didn’t care what happened now. Even if they never got back to the Yorktown, they had accomplished their mission. So when oil began to spatter all over his cockpit, it didn’t make too much difference. He assumed the AA fire had cut his oil line, and he’d soon crash. Never mind. He still had gotten that hit. At worst, he felt like a football player who breaks his leg scoring the winning touchdown.
He waited for the engine to sputter and stop, but it kept running smoothly, the gauges all normal. Finally he realized there was nothing wrong with his engine after all; it was only hydraulic fluid from the system that worked his landing gear and flaps.
He flew on, safely dodging the Japanese destroyer screen. Soon he fell in with other planes from Bombing 3, and together they headed back for the Yorktown. The whole time he kept his eyes peeled for Zeros, but never saw a single one. Others found them all too easily. Down low, working over the torpedo planes, the Zeros couldn’t break up the dive-bombing attack, but they were in a perfect position to strike the bombers pulling out. Goaded by the three blazing carriers, they tried hard for revenge.
A stream of tracer bullets chopped the water around Wade McClusky’s plane. Two Zeros began taking turns, diving on him. They were so much faster, McClusky could think of only one thing to do. Every time one dived, he’d turn sharply toward it. This at least gave the Jap a tougher target and his own gunner Chochalousek a chance to try out the skills he had recently picked up at gunnery school.
Back and forth the three planes went for maybe five minutes. Then a Japanese burst caught McClusky’s plane. The left side of the cockpit was shattered, and he felt as though his left shoulder had been hit with a sledge hammer. He was sure it was the end; he was a goner.
The gunfire died away. Did they get Chochalousek too? McClusky called out over the intercom, but there was no answer. His shoulder was killing him, but he managed to turn around. Chochalousek was still there—unharmed, facing aft, guns at the ready. He had finally picked off one Zero, and the other called it quits.
The SBD flew on, boasting numerous souvenirs of the duel. The plane had been hit 55 times, not counting a few extras contributed by Chochalousek. Noting that the twin barrels on his gun were about eight inches apart, he saw no reason why he couldn’t shoot straight back on both sides of the rudder at the same time. Fortunately, there was enough of the rudder left to get
them home.
Machinist’s Mate F. D. Adkins, the rear-seat man in Ensign Pittman’s plane, had a different kind of adventure with his twin gun mount. It broke loose from its rack during Pittman’s dive, but Adkins managed to grab and hang on to it. Then, as they pulled out, a Zero attacked. Steadying the gun on the fuselage, Adkins opened fire and somehow shot down the fighter. No one ever knew how he did it: the gun weighed 175 pounds, and he was a very slight young man who couldn’t even lift the gun when they later got back to the Enterprise.
And, of course, there were those who couldn’t get clear at all. A Zero riddled Lieutenant Penland’s tanks, forcing him down 30 uncomfortable miles from the Japanese. Others simply vanished—sometimes without a word, sometimes with a brief radio call to say they were going down. But for those who did get clear—who dodged the flaming guns of the carriers, who broke through the hail of fire from the screen, who escaped the last snarling Zero—there was a new lift to life as they headed safely home. Men like John Snowden, gunner in Dusty Kleiss’s plane, felt a sudden glow of gratitude — “a good feeling that it was warm and sunny; that the airplane was apparently all in one piece and we had come through it alive.”
FOR Stan Ring, leader of the Hornet’s Air Group, there was only dark disappointment. His fruitless search to the south had yielded nothing; now he was heading back to the ship, all bombs still neatly tucked under the wings of his planes.
To make matters worse, most of Bombing 8 couldn’t pick up the Hornet’s homing signal and were groping around using up what little gas they had left. Fortunately Midway itself was only 60-70 miles away; so the skipper, Lieutenant Commander Ruff Johnson, decided to gas up there before flying on.
Even this was too late for three of the planes. Ensign Guillory’s tank went dry 40 miles out … then Ensign Wood went down 10 miles out … and finally Ensign Auman in the lagoon itself. The remaining eleven planes came gingerly in, rightly suspecting that Midway’s garrison was more than trigger-happy.
The World War II Collection Page 80