Midway Campaign - The Midway Operation

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Shortly after the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April of 1942, the Japanese began planning for a decisive battle in the vicinity of Midway, to take place in June. The Coral Sea operation in May was actually an integral part of the overall strategic plan which was to bring about this battle. The intention was to smash the remnants of American naval power in the Pacific, and advance Japan's outer defensive perimeter more than a thousand miles further by seizing the western Aleutians, Midway Island, and, ultimately, Fiji Samoa and New Caledonia simultaneously severing the Allied life line between the U.S. West Coast and Australia. Like the Pearl Harbor operation, the Midway operation was the brain-child of Isoroku Yamamoto But it was neither as well planned nor as well executed.

Yamamoto�s plan for the Midway operation was complex. The principal striking force would be Chuichi Nagumo's First Air Fleet (the Pearl Harbor Strike Force), down to four fleet carriers (due to losses at Coral Sea ), plus two fast battleships, two heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, and a dozen destroyers. This would be supported by an Advanced Force of 16 submarines The actual capture of the objective would be the responsibility of the Midway Occupation Force of 5,000 troops in a dozen transports, supported by two battleships, a light carrier, two seaplane carriers, eight heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and twenty destroyers, plus a dozen smaller warships, organized into seven task groups. Giving deep support was the Main Body, three battleships, a light carrier, two seaplane carriers, a light cruiser, and seventeen destroyers. Then there was the Northern Area Force, comprising a support group of four battleships and two light cruisers, plus two light carriers, three heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, a dozen destroyers, three submarines and about a dozen miscellaneous small warships, grouped in no less than six task groups, including two troop transports. All of these task groups, of course, had supply ships and oilers assigned. The plan was for the Northern Area Force to make a demonstration against the Aleutians grabbing a couple of islands in an effort to divert American attention from the principal objective. While the U.S. Navy raced northwards to cope with the threat to the Aleutians meanwhile, perhaps suffering losses to the Advanced Force, the Midway Occupation Force would take its objective under the protection of the First Air Fleet. Presumably then, the Americans would race south to relieve Midway, once more running the gantlet of the Advanced Force, and right into an aerial ambush by the First Air Fleet. Should the Americans try for a surface action, the Main Body would be ready to come up from its supporting position, several hundred miles behind the First Air Fleet.

This plan may have looked fine on paper, but was seriously flawed. Not only was Japanese organization very complex, scattering task forces across half of the western Pacific, but the Aleutians operation consumed too many resources for a proper diversion (90 carrier aircraft, a quarter of the approximately 350 available). Moreover, by early May, American Pacific commander Chester W. Nimitz had a pretty good notion as to the identity of the principal Japanese objective, partially as a result of good guessing and partially as a result of fortuitous code breaking. Nimitz intended to counter Yamamoto�s offensive by a careful concentration of everything he had, which admittedly was not much. He had three carriers (233 aircraft, only about a dozen fewer than those on Nagumo's four carriers), including Yorktown mostly repaired from her Coral Sea damage, seven heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and seventeen destroyers. These were organized into two task forces under RAdm Frank J. Fletcher and supported by nineteen submarines plus as much shore based air power as could be jammed onto Midway's tiny surface (60 Navy and Marine combat aircraft plus 23 Army B-26s and B-17s plus about 32 Catalina patrol bombers), plus the 6th Marine Defense Battalion, for a total of some 3,000 men. There were also three destroyers, some PT-boats and some miscellaneous smaller warships assigned to patrol portions of the long chain of islets and atolls linking Midway with Hawaii (where the Japanese had once, and planned again, to establish a temporary flying boat base using submarines ).

Aware of the "threat" to the Aleutians Nimitz grudgingly assigned five cruisers, thirteen destroyers, six submarines and some seaplane tenders, patrol boats, and minesweepers. He also ordered carrier Saratoga , completing repairs from a torpedo hit, up from San Diego with her escorts, and the battle fleet, composed of the more lightly damaged Pearl Harbor survivors plus reinforcements from the Atlantic, with an escort carrier, to sortie from San Francisco Bay, where it was temporarily housed.

With Nimitz ' approval, Fletcher deployed his carriers northeast of Midway, reasoning that the Japanese would most likely come from the northwest, the west, or the southwest. This conceded the initiative to the Japanese. Normally, giving away the initiative is a bad idea in war. But in this case it was perfectly reasonable, since in order to hit the Japanese one had to find them. Locating the enemy could be done by patrol planes reaching out from Midway or, failing that by letting them hit something first. In this case, the "something" was Midway. And that is precisely what took place.

The Japanese hit the Aleutians on 3 June 1942 and by the 7th had occupied Attu and Kiska there being no one there to oppose them. But Frank Fletcher had not, in the interim "raced north." On 3 June a Catalina patrol bomber had spotted the Midway Occupation Force. Early the next morning another PBY spotted the Japanese carriers. So Fletcher knew where the enemy was, while they were still in ignorance of his location. At 6:30 a.m. Fletcher ordered Raymond Spruance commander of TF 16, to prepare to launch a strike against the Japanese carriers from Enterprise and Hornet, holding back his own Yorktown for a follow-up strike. Even as this strike was getting into the air, Nagumo hit Midway with 108 aircraft. Spotted by radar, the Japanese air strike met resistance from Midway based fighters.

Now came the critical moment of the battle. When dispatching his strike against Midway, Nagumo had ordered a second strike readied in the event American carriers had to be attacked. Meanwhile the leader of the Midway strike returned, ahead of his colleagues, and urged that a second strike be made against Midway, in order to destroy the island as a useful base. As Nagumo mulled over this suggestion, Midway-based bombers hit the fleet. Although the air strike was a failure, inflicting no loss on the Japanese carriers and suffering heavily itself, it seems to have helped convince Nagumo to have another go at Midway (he may also have recalled that his failure to authorize a third strike at Pearl Harbor had had unfortunate results). Confident that the American carriers were nowhere in the vicinity, Nagumo ordered the 93 fueled and armed aircraft to be rearmed for another go at Midway. Fifteen minutes into this operation, a reconnaissance plane reported spotting American ships to the northwest. Nagumo dithered for another fifteen minutes, then ordered the rearmament reversed, so that the 93 aircraft could be dispatched to attack these American vessels. Soon the hangar decks of the Japanese carriers were littered with ammunition, as general purpose bombs were being removed from the aircraft while torpedoes and armor piercing bombs were being loaded. And on their flight decks the four carriers were recovering the aircraft returning from the Midway strike.

Meanwhile, Spruance�s TF 16 airstrikes had lifted off at about 7:00 a.m., 116 fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers.

About two hours later, Fletcher put 35 of his own Yorktown planes into the air as well. Spruance had calculated the odds closely. Aware of the Japanese air raid on Midway, he had estimated the time it would take for the attackers to return to their carriers, and launched his strike with the intention of catching the Japanese aircraft as they were rearming on deck. But he had a run of bad luck. Nagumo ordered a course change at 0905, just as the last of the Midway strike planes were returning. This caused the Hornet's fighters and dive bombers to miss the Japanese task force entirely. As a result, Torpedo Squadron 8, 15 TBD1 Devastators went in unsupported, with the loss of all the airplanes and all but one of the 45 crewmen to Zeros or anti-aircraft fire. A similar fate awaited the Enterprise and Yorktown TBDs. Of 41 TBDs involved in attacks on the Japanese carriers only eight survived, and none scored a hit. By the time the Yorktown TBD strike had been beaten off, 10:24, the Japanese thought they had won the battle.

But then, within about 90 seconds the whole outcome of the battle was reversed. arrived over Nagumo's carriers with 37 Enterprise dive bombers just as the last TBD was downed. With Nagumo's CAP "on the deck" (at low altitude) from having annihilated the TBDs, McClusky's SBD Dauntless ' attacks were largely unopposed and thus accurate. The SBD attack proved deadly. Within seconds Kaga and Akagi took bombs to their hangar decks which touched off ammunition and fueled aircraft, starting uncontrollable fires. Then, within seconds, Yorktown �s 17 SBD Dauntless� showed up and put three 1000 pound bombs neatly into the center of fueled and armed aircraft on Soryu's deck, turning her into an inferno as well. By 10:30 Nagumo had lost three carriers, all burning uncontrollably. He ordered his last carrier, Hiryu to launch a strike on Yorktown while bringing up all available escorts to cover the ship.

Hiryu's strike, 50 fighters and bombers, followed the American aircraft home, arriving over Yorktown at about 14:40 hours. A furious action ensued, as Yorktown �s CAP and escorts accounted for most of the Japanese attackers. But some got through, and the carrier took three bombs and two torpedoes Not completely recovered from the damage she had taken at Coral Sea Yorktown began to list dramatically, and soon had to be abandoned. Admiral Fletcher shifted his flag to a cruiser and basically turned direction of the battle over to Spruance

Having spotted Hiryu at 15:30 Enterprise launched fourteen of her own and ten of Yorktown �s SBDs, which jumped Hiryu at 17:00. Nagumo's last carrier went down quickly after taking four hits. Apprised of the outcome of Midway within minutes of the loss of his carriers, Yamamoto reacted by ordering the Main Body and the light carriers in the Aleutians to the support of the now carrier-less First Air Fleet, a classic instance of "too little, too late." Save for some mopping up, the battle of Midway was over, the Imperial Navy having lost four of its finest carriers and any chance to annihilate the U.S. Navy in the Pacific.

Midway, the second carrier battle of 1942, was the most decisive of the war. But not for the reasons the Japanese thought it would be, even if they had captured the place. In fact, the Battle of Midway would have turned into the "Siege of Midway" if the Americans had not known what the Japanese were up to or did not have forces available with which to ambush the Japanese.

The Japanese plan was to seize Midway Island quickly and then advance down the chain of islands the thousand or so miles to Hawaii sinking any U.S. naval forces rushing out to the defense of Midway. But that was the Japanese way of thinking.

The U.S. Navy had other ideas. If the Japanese had seized Midway, the U.S. would have put it under siege with long range aircraft and submarines Midway was over two thousand miles from the Japanese home islands and quite isolated. It would have to be supplied by sea and the Japanese never fully grasped the problems of logistics in the Pacific war. A Japanese held Midway island would have turned into another of many Japanese logistics disasters. While the Japanese played down logistics, they played up the importance of "military honor." They felt the Americans would come out to defend Midway no matter what. The Americans felt otherwise.

Without the advantage of reading the coded Japanese messages, the U.S. would not have risked their three carriers against the Japanese. Midway would have fallen to the Japanese, but the effect of this success on the course of the war may actually have been relatively minimal.

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