The Moscow Option

by David Downing

  Though most of the US naval chiefs were obviously aware that these ‘little yellow men’ were travelling around in some very large warships it is hard to avoid the conclusion that at some level they shared the public under-estimation of Japanese capabilities. The admirals were worried, but they were not as worried as they should have been. Nimitz’s instructions to his carrier admirals on the eve of battle were cautious enough:

  “. . . you will be governed by the principles of calculated risk, which you shall interpret to mean avoidance of exposure of your forces to attack by superior enemy forces without good prospect of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, greater damage on the enemy.”

  - but the mere fact of sending four carriers against an enemy force probably comprising twice that number made a mockery of such caution, and suggested a gross American optimism as regards the quality of the Japanese ships and crews, and the brains that directed them. Nimitz should have known better.

  There was one mitigating circumstance. In August 1940, after eighteen months of solid work, Colonel William Friedman had broken the Japanese naval code. The codebook at the bottom of Darwin harbour, which Yorinaga had assumed to be the source of this illicit knowledge, had merely confirmed Friedman’s findings. The belief that they ‘had the drop’ on the Japanese provided Nimitz and his colleagues with an enormous fund of false confidence.

  The Japanese did not disabuse them, and no suspicions were aroused when messages advancing Operation ‘AF’ by seven days were deciphered by the Black Chamber Intelligence Unit at Pearl Harbor.

  But this change of date did necessitate a change in American plans. Task Force 16, centred round the carriers Hornet and Enterprise, had not yet returned to Pearl Harbor from its abortive mission to the Coral Sea. Now it would not have time to do so, and for one person this was indeed good news. Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey, the senior American carrier admiral, had a debilitating skin disease and was due for hospitalisation when the Task Force reached home. But now the bed and lotions would have to wait, and Halsey would have the chance to do what he had been itching to do since the attack on Pearl Harbor, to ‘chew Yamamoto’s ass’.

  Similar sentiments, and a similar over-confidence, were also much in evidence as Rear-Admiral Frank Fletcher led the other Task Force (17, comprising the carriers Lexington and Yorktown with cruiser and destroyer support) out to sea on 23 May. Sailors and fliers were buoyant, eager to get a crack at the despised enemy. Only their commander seemed subdued, and after the war he would explain why:

  “There seemed to be a general consensus throughout the fleet that we were some kind of St George sallying forth to slay a particularly nasty dragon. I couldn’t escape the feeling that if St George had been half as confident as most of my staff and crews then the dragon would probably have won.”

  The dragon was already at sea. On 20 May Vice-Admiral Takagi had sailed from Truk in the Carolines with his four carriers - Shokaku, Zuikaku, Junyo and Ryujo - and a strong battleship, cruiser and destroyer escort. The same day the Midway assault force had left Saipan, accompanied by four heavy cruisers. On 21 May Yamamoto’s Main Fleet had upped anchor in Hiroshima Bay and threaded its way in single file down the Bungo Channel to the ocean. The Commander-in-Chief, as addicted to the I Ching as he was to poker, had thrown the yarrow stalks on the eve of departure. The hexagram had been Hsieh, ‘deliverance’. ‘Deliverance means release from tension ... his return brings good fortune because he wins the central position.’

  II

  Some six days later, at 4.15am on 28 May, Yamamoto’s fleet sailed out from under the clouds two hundred miles west-north-west of Midway Island. Light was already seeping across the horizon, the stars fading in the sky above. The commander himself, gazing out from the bridge of the Yamato, saw the new day uncover his vast armada of ships. Behind the Yamato, their guns bristling, rode the battleships Nagato and Mutsu; two miles or so to the north another four battleships sailed on a parallel course. Between these two lines of firepower the four carriers under Admiral Nagumo - Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu - formed a wide rectangle. Across the water their gongs could be heard vibrating, signalling the order to bring the first wave of planes up on to the flight deck. Soon the green lights would be glowing, and the first Zero fighters would take to the sky, there to hover protectively over the launching of the bombers. All around the capital ships a screen of destroyers, augmented to the van and rear by cruisers, kept a wary eye out for enemy submarines. This was the day of reckoning, Japan’s chance to win control of the Pacific, to prolong the war beyond the limits of American patience or resolve.

  By 05.15 the torpedo-bombers (‘Kates’) and dive- bombers (‘Vals’) had formed up in the sky overhead and, surrounded by their Zero escort, disappeared in the direction of Midway. Having launched his bait Yamamoto set out to find his prey. Search planes from the cruisers and carriers were sent out to cover a three hundred-mile arc to the east. In the meantime more fighters were sent aloft to shield the fleet, and Yamamoto settled down to wait for news of the enemy.

  240 miles due north-east of Midway the two American Task Forces waited under a clear blue sky. Halsey, with nothing as yet to attack, had only launched his search planes, some two hours earlier, at first light. The Admiral, according to one of Enterprise’s few survivors, was as tense as ever on the eve of action, pacing up and down the bridge, cracking nervous jokes about Japanese incompetence. He knew Yamamoto was out there somewhere; he just wanted a precise fix, and then the world would see how the Japanese would fare in a straight fight. Certainly they were past masters at backstabbing, but, he insisted to his staff, once confronted by a resolute enemy they would find they had met their match. One is irresistibly reminded of the late George Armstrong Custer, riding contemptuously into a Sioux and Cheyenne camp whose warriors outnumbered his own by twenty to one. On seeing the huge encampment Custer is said to have exclaimed: ‘Custer’s luck! We’ve got them this time!’

  Halsey might well have echoed the sentiment at 06.05, as a message came through from Midway Island. The radar there had picked up the incoming Japanese strike force some thirty miles out. Five minutes later Halsey got his precise fix. One of the Yorktown dive-bombers launched on search duty had found the Japanese Fleet, 135 miles west-north-west of Midway, pursuing a south-easterly course. The Admiral signalled to his own fleet: south- south-west at full speed. Within three hours he should be close enough to launch a strike.

  On Midway Island the American offensive air-strength - Dauntless and Vindicator bombers, Marauders and Avenger torpedo-bombers, high-level B-17 ‘Fortresses’ - had scrambled off the island airstrips and into the sky, setting course for the probable location of the Japanese Fleet. They went without fighter protection; the obsolete Buffalo Brewsters neither possessed the necessary range nor could be spared from the duty of defending the island.

  At 06.40 the Japanese planes appeared out of the west, a dark mass of bombers crowned by a misty halo of Zeros. The Buffaloes attempted to intercept the bombers but were cut to ribbons by the fighters; of sixteen flown up only two returned to crash-land in the lagoon. Fuchida led his planes down against the island’s installations, into the teeth of spirited American anti-aircraft fire. The fuel installations went up in a sheet of flames, blockhouses disintegrated under a hail of bombs. Most successful from the Japanese point of view, the runways were cratered from end to end. No American planes would be launched from Midway in the near future. The cost was five Kates, three Vals, and a solitary Zero.

  150 miles away the motley armada of American planes from the island was approaching Yamamoto’s ships. Unfortunately the little cohesion it had once possessed was already a thing of the past, the attack arriving in driblets that the Japanese could fend off without undue exertion. First the torpedo-bombers, coming in low, were subjected to a vicious enfilade from the ships screening the precious carriers and the close attentions of the Zero standing patrol. Only two limped back to Midway, where the lack of a functional airstrip necessitated mo
re crash-landings in the lagoon. Next the dive-bombers arrived, and these too found the defences hard to penetrate, only three piercing through the flak and fighters to unleash their bombs. All three, by accident or design, chose Soryu as their target, but drenched decks from three near-misses was the only outcome. The B-17s fared no better, dropping their bombs with great enthusiasm but little accuracy on the twisting ships 20,000 feet below. Optimistic American eyes counted many hits; there were none. The Japanese Fleet had absorbed all that Midway could throw at it, without so much as a scratch.

  It was 07.25. From the Yamato’s bridge Yamamoto watched his fleet repairing the damage done to its formation. Fuchida had just radioed news of the Midway attack, advising that there was no need for a second attack. The airstrip was out of operation, the Japanese could concentrate on the American carriers they hoped were some 300 miles away to the north-east. Accordingly Yamamoto ordered Nagumo to send the second wave of bombers back below. Barring a calamity there would be time to bring in the returning first strike while the Americans were still out of range. Reinforcements were sent up to join the Zero patrols above the fleet. And then, again, a period of waiting.

  By 08.20 Fuchida’s planes were setting down on the flight decks, and being rushed below for re-arming and refuelling. Simultaneously the second wave was brought up from the hangar decks, already primed for action against the American Fleet. By 09.00 the process had been completed without any ominous sighting of approaching American planes. There was still no word of the enemy carriers. The search planes should be on the return leg of their sweeps by this time. If the Americans were where they should be, then they would soon be sighted. Either that or things were not working out according to plan. And that would entail some radical rethinking on the Yamato bridge.

  It did not prove necessary. At 09.24 a report came in from the Akagi scout plane - ‘a large enemy force’. Ten minutes later came the composition. The force included four carriers, and was steaming south-westward some 120 miles north-east of Midway.

  This was it! Kido Butai’s planes swept down the flight decks and into the air. This second wave was mostly composed of Pearl Harbor veterans who had been deliberately held back by Nagumo and Genda for this moment. It was the cream of the Navy air arm. Soon over a hundred planes - roughly equal numbers of Vals, Kates and Zeroes - were forming up overhead, and soon after 10.00 the order was given by flight-leader Egusa to proceed north-east against the enemy. Twenty of the Zeros remained behind, hovering above the Japanese carriers. Yamamoto did not want Nagumo to take any unnecessary risks, especially with four other carriers moving in from the south. The wisdom of this policy was soon proven. With the Japanese strike force barely out of sight the destroyer Hatsuyuki reported a large enemy force approaching from the north. Halsey’s planes had arrived.

  Since 06.00 Halsey had been hurrying his carriers southwards to get within range of the Japanese Fleet, and by 09.20 his planes were lifting off from the four carriers. The air crews were all as eager to come to grips with the enemy as their Admiral, and flying over the smoking remains of Midway did nothing to lower their blood-pressure.

  More than eagerness would be needed. Within minutes of sighting the Japanese armada the American pilots found themselves ploughing through the same dense flak as had greeted their comrades from Midway. The dive-bombers, arriving just ahead of the slower torpedo-bombers, bore the brunt of the nimble Zeros’ defensive fire. Only a few broke through to deliver their bombs, and all missed the scurrying Japanese carriers. But their sacrifice had not been in vain. They had drawn the Zeros up, and close to the surface the torpedo-bombers had only to contend with the ships’ anti-aircraft fire and the walls of water thrown up by the fleet’s heavy guns. As a result three Avengers cut through to launch their torpedoes at the huge bulk of the Kaga. One passed narrowly astern, the other two struck close together amidships. The carrier, holed beneath the water-line, shuddered to a halt, listing violently to port. She would take no further part in the battle, and would finally sink that evening.

  It was now 10.55, and three flights of planes were airborne: the first American strike returning to its carriers, the first Japanese strike which was nearing those carriers, and the second American strike which had just taken to the air. If this had been all, then Halsey’s confidence might have been justified. But it wasn’t. Within minutes, some 250 miles to the south, Vice-Admiral Takagi would be launching a first strike from his still undiscovered fleet. His planes would have twice as far to fly as those from the other two rapidly converging fleets. They would be making their appearance in about two hours’ time.

  In the interlude between the launching of their first and second strikes Halsey and his subordinate Fletcher had been exchanging animated signals as to the second group’s composition. Halsey, true to his nature and the Japanese expectations, was inclined to throw everything he had at the enemy. Fletcher, showing greater reverence for the cautious aspect of Nimitz’s ambivalent instructions, wished to keep most of the fighter strength back for defence against the inevitable Japanese attack. Better to weaken the American attack, he argued, than to lose the carriers. Halsey, uncharacteristically - there is evidence that he was feeling the strain of his illness on this day - agreed to a fatal compromise. Neither enough fighters were sent with the attack to make it count, nor enough kept behind to ensure adequate protection. When Egusa’s eighty-odd planes were picked up by the radar receivers a bare eighteen fighters were waiting to engage them.

  For the moment the luck went with the Americans. Yamamoto’s decision to hold back most of his fighters tended to offset the American decision. Secondly, Fletcher’s Task Force, seven miles astern of Halsey’s, was shrouded by clouds during the vital minutes and escaped the notice of the Japanese pilots. Furthermore the Japanese failed to divide their force equally against Hornet and Enterprise, and the latter escaped relatively unscathed. Two bombs hit the edge of her flight deck, two torpedoes passed narrowly by. The fires were extinguished without difficulty.

  A half a mile away across the water Hornet had not escaped so lightly, having received no less than five bomb and two torpedo hits. The command post had been annihilated, killing the captain and his staff; the elevator had been blown in a twisted heap across the face of the island superstructure. Two other bombs had lanced through the flight deck and on to the hangar deck before exploding. Secondary detonations continued as the ammunition stacks caught in the raging fires. The order was given to abandon the burning, listing ship at 11.45. Over four hundred men trapped below- decks were unable to comply and went down with the carrier twenty-five minutes later.

  The score was one carrier apiece.

  By this time Yamamoto and Nagumo had launched a second strike from their three functional carriers, and were preparing to receive the enemy’s second blow. News of the Hornet’s demise was compensation for the loss of the Kaga. The odds, in fact, had shortened. Now it was seven against three, and planes from all seven carriers were now en route for the three Americans. It only remained to beat off the last air attack.

  The sky above Yamamoto’s fleet was clear, and the American pilots had no trouble identifying the three carriers amidst the ring of warships. This advantage was offset, though, by the warning it allowed the radar-less Japanese of the approaching attack. Every available Zero was soon airborne and the scenes of the previous hour were re-enacted. The ponderous torpedo-bombers, this time arriving ahead of the dive-bombers, went down in flames one by one to the combined firepower of the fighters and warships. The dive-bombers, which had strayed off-course, arrived ten minutes later, and the Zeros could not gain altitude quickly enough to prevent several screeching down against Hiryu and Soryu. The latter managed to escape any serious damage, but three 500lb bombs hit the Hiryu’s flight deck, starting blazing fires. These were extinguished without too much difficulty, but the carrier’s ability to launch or receive planes was at an end as far as this operation was concerned. By 12.55 the fleet was once more in formation, the surviving
American planes disappearing in the direction of their own carriers. They were not to find them. A hundred miles to the north-east the final act was beginning.

  At 12.40 the last of the aircraft returning from the first American strike were touching down on the decks of Yorktown, Enterprise and Lexington. The flight-leaders confirmed their earlier report that an Akagi-class carrier had been rendered non-operational, and probably sunk. Halsey informed them that the second strike had reported destroying another carrier. He intended to get the other two.

  Fletcher did not agree, and advised a tactical withdrawal. He was not as convinced as his superior - or not so determined to assume - that these four carriers were the only Japanese carriers in the area. Where was the rest of the known Japanese carrier strength? The score at this point was two to one in the Americans’ favour; surely this was the prudent moment to withdraw. Midway would be lost, but in the long run the three surviving carriers were more vital to the defence of Hawaii, and America itself, than one island outpost.

  Unknown to either him or Halsey it was too late to avert the incoming attacks. But the fact remains that had Halsey listened to his second-in-command the catastrophe might have proved less complete. He did not listen, preferring to order a third strike on to the flight decks, thereby packing them with planes full of fuel and high explosives. It was an invitation to disaster.

  At 13.09 Yorktown’s radar - Enterprise’s, had been put out of action in the previous attack - picked up the Japanese planes closing in from the south-west. The American fighters scrambled into the air, but there was no time to launch the full-loaded bombers.