The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)

by Craig L. Symonds

  27. Knox to ALNAV (all Navy personnel), Dec. 7, 1941, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1, 5; Joel Ira Holwitt, “Execute against Japan”: The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009).

  28. Buford Rowland and William B. Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II (Washington, DC: Bureau of Ordnance, 1953), 90; Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar, Ship Killer: A History of the American Torpedo (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 102 ff. See also Robert Gannon, Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 75–76, 89.

  29. Nimitz to Mrs. Nimitz, Dec. 28, 1941, and Jan. 29, 1942, both in Nimitz Diary #1 (serial letters from Nimitz to his wife), NHHC.

  Chapter 2

  1. The number of planes carried by the Kidō Butai is from Mark R. Peattie, Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909–1941 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 152. John B. Lundstrom offers the slightly lower figure of 387 airplanes for the Kidō Butai in Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 151. A total of 360 aircraft were assigned to the Pearl Harbor strike, but there were ten aborts; in addition, the Japanese launched two “Jake” floatplanes, though they did not participate in the attack. I am grateful to Richard Frank, Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, and Lee Pennington for their help with this chapter.

  2. The “feminine delicacy” observation is from Matsunaga Keisuke, who is quoted by Hiroyuki Agawa in The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979), 131, 139. The “recent scholar” is Sadao Adasa, in From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 275. The American officer was Edwin T. Layton, from his oral history (May 30, 1970), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA. Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully discuss Yamamoto’s personality in Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 22–23, Yamamoto’s involvement with carrier aircraft is from Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor, 182–84.

  3. Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 139.

  4. Ibid., 124.

  5. Ibid., 95–96, 118; Ronald H. Spector, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 36–37; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 3, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 13.

  6. The text of the “Fundamental Principles”: is available at http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/144app01.html. See also Spector, Eagle against the Sun, 42.

  7. Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor, 164–66, 194–97.

  8. Yamamoto is quoted in Peattie, Sunburst, 83. See also Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 46–52.

  9. Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 13.

  10. Yamamoto to Admiral Shimada, Sept. 4, 1939, quoted in Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, eds., The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1993), 114; Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 13, 124, 186; Matome Ugaki, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941–1945, ed. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, trans. Masataka Chihaya (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 6. To some extent, the Imperial Japanese Navy acquiesced to the pact with Germany in exchange for assurances that it would get an increase in steel allocation in the budget. In effect, therefore, national policy was subordinated to service ambitions. See Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor, 243.

  11. Yamamoto to Navy Minister Oikawa, Jan. 7, 1941, quoted in Goldstein and Dillon, Pearl Harbor Papers, 115; Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor, 238; Peattie, Sunburst, 83; Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 192.

  12. H. P. Willmott, The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), 28–30.

  13. Atsushi Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” in The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II, ed. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2004), 16; Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 127, 195.

  14. Peattie, Sunburst, 76.

  15. Jisaburo Ozawa, “Outline Development of Tactics and Organization of the Japanese Carrier Air Force,” in Goldstein and Dillon, Pacific War Papers, 78–79; Peattie, Sunburst, 149, 151.

  16. Agawa, Reluctant Admiral, 264; Gordon Prange interview of Genda (Sept. 5, 1966), Prange Papers, UMD, box 17; Ugaki, Fading Victory, 13 (diary entry of Oct. 22, 1941).

  17. The quotation is from Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa and is quoted by Hiroyuki Agawa in The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979), 191.

  18. Yamamoto to Navy Minister Oikawa, Jan. 7, 1941, quoted in Goldstein and Dillon, Pearl Harbor Papers, 116; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 14–15.

  19. Masataka Chihaya, “Concerning the Construction of Japanese Warships,” in Goldstein and Dillon, Pacific War Papers, 86.

  20. The “modern expert” is Mark Peattie, in Sunburst, 100. See also Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” 22–23.

  21. Peattie, Sunburst, 166; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 89; Agawa, Yamamoto, 202; Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,”12.

  22. Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 130; John Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War Two (London: Conway Maritime, 1985); Peattie, Sunburst, 95. The Kate was also used as a level bomber against land targets when it carried a heavy (1,760–pound) explosive (fragmentation) bomb whose purpose was to suppress antiaircraft fire from a surface target. Such bombs wrecked the superstructure of the USS Arizona in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

  23. Peattie, Sunburst, 91–92; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 78; and Spector, Eagle against the Sun, 46–47.

  24. Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 256; Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” 25.

  25. John B. Lundstrom, The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 455 (Appendix 1).

  26. Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” 23; Peattie, Sunburst, 133–34; Lundstrom, First Team, 455–56.

  27. Ugaki, Fading Victory, 48 (diary entry of Dec. 9, 1941). The notion that Nagumo ought to have attacked the U.S. oil-tank farm on Oahu is mostly hindsight. The tank farm was not part of the initial target list, and even if Nagumo had launched a third strike, its purpose would most likely have been to mop up elements of the fleet that remained afloat.

  28. Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney, Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse (London: Lane, 1977).

  Chapter 3

  1. Steve Wiper, Yorktown Class Carriers (Tucson, AZ: Classic Warships, 2000); Robert Cressman et al., “A Glorious Page in Our History”: The Battle of Midway, 4–6 June 1942 (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 1990), 202. I am grateful to Bert Kinzey and to Ronald W. Russell for their help with this chapter.

  2. John B. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 100.

  3. Thomas Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory: Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves and the Origins of Carrier Airpower (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), 155.

  4. William F. Halsey and J. Bryan III, Admiral Halsey’s Story (New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), 50–55. The quotation is from 52.

  5. Ibid., 14.

  6. The “modern scholar” is John B. Lundstrom in Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 21; 1902 Lucky Bag, USNA; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 3, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 211n.

  7. Noel Gayler oral history (Feb. 15, 2002), 4, Naval Historical Foundation.

  8. Stephen D. Regan, In Bitter Tempest: The Biography of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), viii; 1906 L
ucky Bag, USNA. The critic was Lieutenant Richard Best, in an interview (Aug. 11, 1995), 30, NMPW.

  9. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 53.

  10. J.J. Clark, with Clark G. Reynolds, Carrier Admiral (New York: McKay, 1967), 78; Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 55.

  11. John B. Lundstrom, The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 51.

  12. Harold L. Buell, Dauntless Helldivers: A Dive-Bomber Pilot’s Epic Story of the Carrier Battles (New York: Orion Books, 1991); Barrett Tillman, The Dauntless Dive Bomber of World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1976); Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 206.

  13. The quotations are from ENS Clayton Fisher, who flew in VB-8, “The SBD in Combat,” BOMRT, available at http://www.midway42.org/fisher-sbd.htm, See also Buell, Dauntless Helldivers, 61.

  14. The pilot was Max Leslie, skipper of VB-3 on Yorktown, in Leslie to Smith, Dec. 15, 1964, Prange Papers, UMD, box 17. Bill Burch made the same analogy. See Stuart D. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway: Going to War with Yorktowns Air Group Five (Bennington, VT: Merriam, 2000), 86.

  15. N. J. “Dusty” Kleiss, “Remembrance of a Rear-Seater,” BOMRT, posted April 27, 2007, http://www.midway42.org/vets-kleiss.html; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 16; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 209.

  16. Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 25; Frederick Mears, Carrier Combat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1944), 22; Clayton E. Fisher, “Officer and Enlisted Airmen,” BOMRT, The Roundtable Forum, issue 2010–15, April 10, 2010.

  17. John S. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 1:231; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 18.

  18. John Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War Two (London: Conway Maritime, 1985), 206; Mears, Carrier Combat, xv.

  19. Captain P. R. White, USN, June 6, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3.

  20. Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi, with Martin Caidin, Zero! The Story of the Japanese Navy Air Force, 1937–1945 (London: Cassell, 1957).

  21. Barrett Tillman, Wildcat:The F4F in WWII, 2nd ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990); William Wolf, Victory Roll! The American Fighter Pilot and Aircraft in World War II (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Books, 2001), 38; John S. Thach oral history (Aug. 26, 1942); Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 209.

  22. Edward P. Stafford, The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 46, 54; Lundstrom, First Team, 63.

  23. Lundstrom, First Team, 55–56.

  24. Mears, Carrier Combat, 18.

  25. The statistics are from Lundstrom, First Team, Appendix 6, “List of U.S. Navy Fighter Pilots,” 490–95; Stephen Jurika oral history (Dec. 3, 1975), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 1:171. Buell, in Dauntless Helldivers (28–29) tells the story of one American flight instructor who was chastised for being too tough in his standards.

  26. Buell, Dauntless Helldivers, 27.

  27. Mears, Carrier Combat, 20; Clayton E. Fisher, Hooked: Tales and Adventures of a Tailhook Warrior (Denver: Outskirts, 2009), 27.

  28. Wolf, Victory Roll, 21–24.

  29. Mears, Carrier Combat, 25. See also Lundstrom, First Team, 490–95.

  30. Paolo E. Coletta, Bald Eagle: Admiral Marc A. Mitscher and U.S. Naval Aviation (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1997), 107; Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 10; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 31.

  Chapter 4

  1. The quotation is from King to Frank Knox, Feb. 8, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 1. Curtin’s concerns are reflected in a memo from Casey to King, Jan. 26, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 1. See also Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (New York: Norton, 1952), 373; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 3, Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 259–60; John B. Lundstrom, The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 56–57; and Stephen D. Regan, In Bitter Tempest: The Biography of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 85.

  2. Nimitz to King, and King to Nimitz, both dated Jan. 5, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:139–40.

  3. King to Nimitz, Jan. 20, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:179; Running Summary, Jan. 21 and 23, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:158, 183. See John B. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 59–62.

  4. Edward P. Stafford, The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise (Annapolis, MD: Naval institute Press, 2002), 44; William F. Halsey and J. Bryan III, Admiral Halsey’s Story (New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), 89.

  5. Fletcher’s op order, dated Jan. 25, 1942, is in Action Reports, reel 2. See also Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 65–67.

  6. Lundstrom, First Team, 78; Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 65–67; Stuart D. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway: Going to War with Yorktowns Air Group Five (Bennington, VT: Merriam, 2000), 25–26.

  7. Pederson to Buckmaster, Feb. 5, 1942, Action Reports, reel 2; Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 27.

  8. Lundstrom, First Team, 79; Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 27. Jocko Clark later criticized Fletcher for not spending more time to search for the downed pilots. J. J. Clark, with Clark G. Reynolds, Carrier Admiral (New York: David McKay, 1967), 85.

  9. Lundstrom, First Team, 78–80; Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 29.

  10. Lundstrom, First Team, 65–66; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 13.

  11. Stafford, Big E, 49.

  12. Lundstrom, First Team, 66.

  13. Halsey to Nimitz, Feb. 7, 1942, Action Reports, reel 1.

  14. Stafford, Big E, 47–50; Lundstrom, First Team, 67–69.

  15. Stafford, Big E, 50.

  16. Stafford, Big E, 51; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 27.

  17. Stafford, Big E, 51–52.

  18. McCluskey to CEAG, and Massey to CEAG, both Feb. 2, 1942, and Halsey to Nimitz, Feb. 9, 1942, all in Action Reports, reel 1; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 92; Stafford, The Big E, 51–54; Morison, Rising Sun, 262–63.

  19. Best to CEAG, Feb. 2, 1942, Action Reports, reel 1; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 28.

  20. Stafford, The Big E, 56–57; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 93.

  21. Stafford, The Big E, 56–57.

  22. Murray to Halsey, Feb. 2, 1942, Action Reports, reel 1; Halsey to Brown, Feb. 7, 1942, Map room files, FDRL, box 41; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 94; Stafford, Big E, 58; Lundstrom, First Team, 74. Gaido tried to keep his identity a secret, but Halsey found out who he was and promoted him on the spot to aviation machinist’s mate first class. Gaido was subsequently captured by the Japanese during the Battle of Midway and executed. See chapter 15.

  23. Lundstrom, First Team, 75.

  24. Halsey to Nimitz, Feb. 9, 1942, Action Reports, reel 1; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 96; Stafford, Big E, 58–59.

  25. Fletcher to Nimitz, Feb. 9, 1942, Action Reports, reel 1.

  26. King to Nimitz, Jan. 27, 1942, Nimitz to King, Jan. 29 and 31, 1942, and King to Nimitz, Feb. 15, 1942, all in Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:204–6.

  27. Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy, eds., FDR’s Fireside Chats (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 209; King to FDR, March 5, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2; Running Summary, Feb. 9 and Feb. 11, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:211, 213.

  28. Brown’s operation order for the Rabaul raid is in the Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:541–42; Brown’s report to Nimitz that he was withdrawing due to an “acute fuel shortage” is COMTASKFOR 11 (Brown) to CINCPAC (Nimitz), Feb. 20, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:250. See also H. P. Willmott, The Barrier and the Javelin:
Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), 56.

  29. Brown to Nimitz, Feb. 20, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:250; Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 21.

  30. Louis Brown, A Radar History of World War II: Technical and Military Imperatives (Bristol, UK: Institute of Physics, 1999).

  31. Steve Ewing and John B. Lundstom, Fateful Rendezvous: The Life of Butch O’Hare (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 127.

  32. Ewing and Lundstrom, Fateful Rendezvous, 130–31;Lundstrom, First Team, 101–4, 106, 107.

  33. Lundstrom, First Team, 104–5.

  34. John S. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 1:284.

  35. Brown to Nimitz, Feb. 20 and 23, 1942; Nimitz to Task Force Commanders, Feb. 25, 1942; Brown to Nimitz, Feb. 26, 27, and 28, 1942; and Nimitz to King, Feb. 28, 1942, all in Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:253, 255, 256, 257; Morison, Rising Sun, 267.

  36. Running Summary, Feb. 12, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:214; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 97–98.

  37. Nimitz to Halsey, Feb. 25, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:543; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 98; Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NWPW, 30; Lundstrom, First Team, 117–19.

  38. On March 18, FDR wrote Churchill: “Australia must be held and, as I telegraphed you, we are willing to do that. India must be held and you must do that.” FDR to Churchill, March 18, 1942, in Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence, ed. Francis Loewenheim et al. (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1975), 268–69.

  39. King to Leary, Feb. 12, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 1; King to FDR, Feb. 12, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 1. See also John Costello, The Pacific War, 1941–1945 (New York: Rawson, Wade, 1981; reprint New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 203. Nimitz had suggested Pye for the job, but FDR vetoed the idea.

  40. King to Leary and Leary to King, Feb. 17, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 1.

  41. Nimitz’s remarks about securing Australia are in a “Briefed Estimate of the Situation,” Feb. 5, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:233; Nimitz’s reply to King’s proposal to maintain two carriers in the south is Nimitz to King, Feb. 25, 1942, and King’s reply dated Feb. 26, both in Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8:256, 545.