Decision at Sea

by Symonds, Craig L.

  Separate from both these substantial armadas, two more groups were devoted to the invasion of Midway itself. Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo commanded the invasion force, which consisted of two more battleships and seven heavy cruisers. That force was to cover the transport group, carrying the five-thousand-man landing force, and its support group. Finally, there was a tenth element, consisting of the Japanese submarines whose job it would be to track the sortie of the Americans from Pearl Harbor and, after reporting their location, inflict as much damage on them as possible before the Japanese carriers and battleships closed in to finish them off. It was an elegant plan, rather like a complicated piece of origami. But such elegance was superfluous given Japan’s overwhelming numerical and operational superiority.

  This should have become evident during the war games held in early May aboard Yamamoto’s flagship, the giant Yamato. On one occasion during those exercises, as officers gamed the forthcoming attack on a giant tabletop, the umpire ruled that attacking American bombers made nine hits on the Japanese carriers and sank two of them. But Rear Admiral Matome Ukagi, who was overseeing the games, overruled the umpire and declared that the carriers had been only slightly damaged. The games resumed, and the outcome “proved” the viability of the war plan. In part Ukagi’s decision was a measure of the disdain the Japanese had for American military prowess. In part, too, it was a classic example of “victory disease”: the kind of overconfidence that follows remarkable success. That overconfidence led the Japanese to make a series of assumptions about the coming battle that proved far too optimistic. They assumed that the Americans would be caught by surprise; that the American carriers would not sortie out of Pearl Harbor until after the attack on Midway had begun; that the Japanese submarines would find them and track them; that the torpedo bombers of the Kido Butai would attack and sink them; and that if there were any survivors, the ships of Yamamoto’s main body would close in and finish them off with gunfire. In the event, every one of these assumptions proved false.30

  It began to go wrong almost at once. The first glitch was the failure of the Japanese to confirm that the American carriers were, in fact, still in Pearl Harbor. To obtain this intelligence, they had planned to send long-range patrol planes over the American base for a visual sighting on May 30. In a coordinated plan code-named Operation K, two Emily seaplanes from Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands would fly 1,700 miles eastward to make a landing in the protected lagoon of French Frigate Shoals, an unoccupied outpost 450 miles west of Oahu. There they would rendezvous with Japanese submarines, which would refuel them for the round trip to Oahu. After confirming that the American flattops were still in port, they would land again at French Frigate Shoals to refuel for the return trip back to Jaluit. But when the Japanese subs poked their periscopes up at French Frigate Shoals on May 29, they found three American warships already anchored there and evidence that the Americans were using the lagoon for their own seaplane base. So the reconnaissance mission was scrapped.31 Had it been completed, the Japanese would have discovered that all three American carriers had already left Pearl Harbor.*

  The next thing to go wrong was that the Japanese submarines that were supposed to be in place between Oahu and Midway to monitor the departure of the American carriers from Pearl Harbor did not get into position until June 2, by which time the American carriers had already passed northward to Point Luck. As a result of these failures, the surface forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy steamed eastward in nine battle groups, unaware that their principal quarry had already flown the coop. During their approach to Midway, Japanese eyes would be focused southward toward Pearl Harbor, from which direction they expected the U.S. carriers to appear. Instead the U.S. carriers were already in position 325 miles north of Midway in the last place—quite literally, as it turned out—that the Japanese would look for them.

  The battle of Midway began at 8:00 A.M. on June 3, when planes from the Japanese carrier Junyo and the light carrier Ryujo struck at Dutch Harbor, the American naval base in Alaska. It was not a heavy blow. Many of the attacking airplanes failed to find the target, and in the event only nine bombers and three fighters got through the cloud cover to pound the naval base there. A follow-up attack focused on several of the American destroyers offshore, though the attackers made no hits. The American surface force, which Nimitz had posted nearby under Rear Admiral R. A. Theobald, was hampered by heavy fog and unable to locate the Japanese strike force, which retired westward at noon. The damage it had inflicted on Dutch Harbor was significant but not permanent, and although the Japanese did subsequently occupy both Attu and Kiska, those islands offered no particular strategic advantage and mainly created a hardship duty for the Japanese occupying force. All in all, it was a pretty understated beginning to one of the greatest naval battles in history. The most significant aspect of this action was that it kept the Junyo, the Ryujo, and their ninety aircraft away from the battle that was about to begin for Midway itself.

  That same June 3, the four carriers of the Kido Butai were steaming eastward through a heavy fog that was so thick, the ships of the Japanese task force could not see one another. Nagumo’s carriers had to sound their foghorns at regular intervals to avoid collision. On one hand, this was a stroke of luck, for it hid the Japanese ships from the prying eyes of American search planes, but on the other hand it also prevented Nagumo from sending out his own scout planes. Steaming through a literal “fog of war,” Nagumo maintained radio silence, sounded his foghorns, and continued eastward, confident that the Americans had no idea of his approach.

  But if the Americans had not yet spotted any of the Japanese forces converging on them, they were very much aware of them. Armed with Rochefort’s estimates, Nimitz had not only sent his carriers north of Midway to Point Luck, he had dramatically reinforced Midway itself. By June 3, the atoll was host to 115 planes of all types—more than on any carrier— though many of those planes were not front-line combat aircraft. Indeed, even as Japanese planes struck at Dutch Harbor and Nagumo’s fleet plowed eastward through the fog, long-range search planes from Midway were already in the air conducting patrols to the north and west. Nagumo’s force remained fog-enshrouded and undiscovered, but at 9:00 in the morning on that June 3, a long-range PBY Catalina seaplane nearly seven hundred miles west of Midway was about to make its turn toward home when the pilot, Ensign Jewell “Jack” Reid, spotted “some specks on the horizon.” At first he thought it might be dirt on the windshield, but as he squinted forward and the range closed, he saw that they were, indeed, ships—many ships. At 9:25 he sent a message back to Midway: “Sighted main body.” He then circled around behind the ships, staying low to avoid detection, and slipped up behind them before sending a more complete report: eleven ships, including one small carrier, two battleships, and several cruisers, were headed due east at nineteen knots. Then he got the hell out of there.32

  It was not, in fact, the main body that Reid had sighted, but Kondo’s invasion force of two battleships, seven cruisers, and a score of transport ships—Reid was simply mistaken about the carrier. The actual main body, consisting of Yamamoto’s battleships, was at least three hundred miles further north, and Nagumo’s carriers—the real target—were more than six hundred miles to the northeast, still fog-enshrouded. Still, the news electrified the Americans on Midway, for it proved that whatever the source of Nimitz’s intelligence information, it was remarkably accurate, for here, indeed, was an enemy fleet approaching the atoll, exactly as forecast. Nimitz, too, heard the report. He monitored the entire battle from his headquarters by listening in on the radio net. He did not want to interfere in the decision making of his operational commanders, but neither did he want them to go off half cocked. Aware of the whole picture provided him by Rochefort, he knew that what Ensign Reid had spotted was not the main body. He therefore sent a message of his own to Midway: “That is not, repeat not, the enemy striking force.”33 The unstated subtext of the message was: Have patience. This is not our principal target.r />
  Ensign Jack Reid (sitting on the wheel strut) and his crew pose alongside their PBY long-range reconnaissance aircraft. It was Reid who first spotted the approaching Japanese armada on June 3, 1942. (U.S. Navy)

  Perhaps not. But it was still a target. Among the reinforcements that Nimitz had sent out to Midway during the buildup was a squadron of Army B-17s, the four-engine, high-level bomber that would soon gain fame in Europe as the “Flying Fortress.” The Army commander on Oahu had been reluctant to send them off to remote Midway, but Nimitz had worked his charm—and a bit of dissimulation—to get his way. Now with Reid’s sighting, nine of those B-17s took off from Midway and flew westward toward the reported coordinates. They found Kondo’s force that afternoon, and each plane dropped four six-hundred-pound bombs from high altitude. The Japanese ships twisted and turned under the rain of bombs, which exploded when they hit the water. The flash of the explosions, followed by the giant plumes of water they generated and the black smoke from the Japanese ships as they made high-speed turns, all looked pretty spectacular from ten thousand feet. Making accurate assessments of damage under such conditions is difficult enough, and it was especially difficult for Army pilots unaccustomed to bombing ships at sea. The pilots reported that they had made five hits and five near misses; a Japanese battleship, they reported, was on fire and sinking.34

  In fact, the Army bombers had made no hits at all. Still, the reports encouraged Rear Admiral P. N. L. Bellinger, who commanded the patrol craft on Midway, to try his hand. The only plane in his arsenal that could reach so distant a target was the Catalina PBY, a large, fat-bodied, twin-engine seaplane generally used for long-range reconnaissance. Bellinger had four of them equipped with jury-rigged torpedo racks and torpedoes, and he dispatched them toward Kondo’s force for a night attack. As one authority has suggested, this was an idea “straight out of a comic strip,” but it illustrated the can-do attitude of the American defenders and their willingness to improvise. Remarkably, the American PBYs not only found the enemy at 1:30 A.M., they launched their torpedoes by moonlight and actually scored a hit on the Japanese transport Akebono Maru, which suffered twenty-four mortal casualties and significant damage, though effective damage control by her crew not only managed to keep her afloat but enabled her to maintain her place in the convoy.35

  The long-range attacks by Army B-17s and Navy PBYs on June 3 did nothing to slow down the approach of the various elements of the Japanese armada. But they proved that the Americans were on the alert and aware that an enemy force was approaching. There seemed to be no reason any longer for the Japanese to maintain radio silence. Kondo reported the attack on his force to Yamamoto by radio, but the Japanese commander in chief did not forward the news to Nagumo. Perhaps he assumed that Nagumo had heard the reports himself, but as it happens, the vice admiral did not. So despite these early forays by Midway-based aircraft against the invasion force, Nagumo continued to steam toward Midway with the Kido Butai, convinced that the Americans were unaware of his approach.

  Meanwhile, more than two hundred miles to the east, at the coordinates the Americans had designated as Point Luck, the three American carriers steamed quietly in circles, maintaining radio silence but listening intently to the radio net in hopes of hearing a report that would reveal the location of the Kido Butai from one of the American scout planes out of Midway.

  In the full darkness that still covered the Pacific an hour before dawn on the fourth of June, more than a hundred airplane engines sputtered and then roared into life on the elevated flight decks of Chuichi Nagumo’s four carriers. Altogether, Nagumo had some 249 combat aircraft at his disposal, divided evenly among bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters. Plane for plane, his aircraft were better than those of the Americans—in particular, the Mitsubishi Type o (Zero) fighter was both faster and more maneuverable than the American F4F-4 Wildcat. Nagumo’s torpedo bombers, too, were not only faster than their American counterparts, they carried a vastly superior torpedo. The greatest difference, however, was that because Japanese planes carried much less armor than the American planes, they had a significantly longer range. Of course, this benefit came with a price: without armor, not only were the planes more vulnerable, but when the Japanese lost a plane, they often lost the pilot as well.36

  Nagumo’s plan was to send roughly half of his force of bombers and fighters to assault Midway to soften it up for the invasion, while he retained the other half (and his best pilots) in reserve in case his scouts sighted any American surface ships. Once Midway itself was neutralized, the invasion force could close on the atoll and take possession of it while Nagumo searched for the American carriers. The first wave of 108 airplanes (thirty-six fighters, thirty-six bombers, and thirty-six torpedo planes) would take off at 4:30, a half hour before dawn.

  Simultaneously, Nagumo planned to launch seven search planes to scour the area for surface ships. This was merely precautionary, since he was pretty sure he knew where the American carriers were: in their base at Pearl Harbor. That assumption was one reason his plan called for only a single-phase search—that is, one airplane to each quadrant—rather than a double-phase search in which two planes, departing twenty minutes or so apart, scoured the same area. Moreover, only two of the seven scout planes he committed to this mission came from his carriers. Nagumo disliked using combat planes for scouting missions; to him it was like using a warrior as a spy. He preferred to use the floatplanes off his accompanying cruisers. Each of the Japanese heavy cruisers carried one or two long-range floatplanes (that is, seaplanes) that could be launched by catapult off the cruiser’s fantail, then recovered after they landed in the water by winching them back aboard with a crane.37

  The easiest way to envision the various search areas that Nagumo’s staff assigned to these reconnaissance planes is to imagine the Kido Butai at the center of a clock face. Nagumo wanted his planes to search all the quadrants east of the Kido Butai from 12:00 (due north) to 6:00 (due south). Each plane was assigned a search area that was a pie-shaped wedge three hundred miles long and sixty miles wide, roughly corresponding to an “hour” on this imaginary clock face. The search planes would fly out along one edge of that wedge, fly sixty miles counterclockwise along its circumference, then fly the three hundred miles back. The two carrier-based planes would cover the critical area to the south where Nagumo thought the Americans were most likely to be discovered (at roughly 5:00 and 6:00 on the clock face), a single short-range plane of the cruiser Haruna would cover the least promising area to the north (at 1:00), and two planes each from the heavy cruisers Chikuma and Tone would cover the area due east of the Kido Butai corresponding to the quadrants from 2:00 to 4:00.

  The American carriers were at approximately 3:00—due east.

  At 4:30 A.M. floodlights on all four carriers illuminated the flight decks of the Japanese carriers as the air officer waved a white flag, and Nagumo’s bombers and fighters rolled off the deck and into the air on schedule, their wing lights tracing their liftoff in the predawn darkness. Instead of sending full deckloads from two carriers, Nagumo sent half loads from all four. Even as they formed up into one enormous formation and flew south-ward—an awesome sight in the growing light—the crews were already bringing up the rest of the fighters and torpedo planes from the hangar deck to stand by. Meanwhile, the scout planes were also ready to launch— or nearly so.38

  By far the strangest aspect of the Battle of Midway is the story of the Japanese scout planes—particularly scout plane number 4 from the cruiser Tone. According to plan, the Tone’s two floatplanes were to be shot off her catapult at 4:30, at the same time that the Midway attack force was being launched. But that didn’t happen. Various reasons have been advanced for the delay—problems with the catapult, engine trouble on the floatplanes, perhaps both—but whatever the cause, the second of Tone’s floatplanes did not depart on its mission until 5:00. As Mitsuo Fuchida wrote in his memoir of the battle, “The delay in launching Tone’s planes sowed a seed which bore fatal fruit for
the Japanese in the ensuing naval action.”39

  Timing is crucial in war. In 1781 de Grasse’s arrival at the Chesapeake Bay just a day after Lord Hood sped off to the north was decisive in deciding the outcome of the Yorktown campaign; Barclay’s untimely arrival off Put-in-Bay in 1813 when Perry’s brigs were over the bar but still unarmed was nearly disastrous; the Monitor’s arrival in Hampton Roads in 1862 literally in the nick of time to thwart the Virginia seemed providential. All of those examples highlight the significance of timing in war, much of it entirely fortuitous. But none of them matches the extraordinary coincidence that the one airplane that suffered a critical half-hour delay in its departure was the one assigned to search the precise quadrant due east of the Japanese strike force where the American carriers lay in wait.

  There, at Point Luck, the men on board the twenty-six American ships of Task Forces 16 and 17 were keyed up and waiting impatiently for news of the enemy carriers. None waited more impatiently than Frank Jack Fletcher and Raymond Spruance. They had agreed in advance that their best chance was to strike at the Kido Butai with everything they had as soon as they discovered its location, for they knew that whichever side got in the first blow would have a huge advantage. The two American task forces operated under strict radio silence, but they communicated with each other by blinker signal. They also listened in on the radio traffic from Midway and Pearl Harbor to keep up with unfolding events—they heard, for example, the reported results of the B-17 attack on the Japanese invasion force the day before—but so far there was no news of Nagumo’s carriers.

  At 4:20 that morning, ten minutes ahead of the Japanese, Fletcher launched a “security search” to patrol the area north of Point Luck out to one hundred miles. The planes had been gone about an hour when the Yorktown intercepted a report from Lieutenant Howard P. Ady, who was flying a PBY out of Midway and sent out the galvanizing report: “Carrier bearing three two zero [from Midway], distance one eight zero.” Staff officers on the Yorktown quickly leaned over the chart: at a point 320 degrees from Midway (just west of due north) and 180 miles out from that atoll, they made a small X on the chart. It was just over two hundred miles west of their own position—almost, but not quite, within striking range.40