Remembering World War II: The Battle of Midway 75 Years Later

Seventy five years ago, from June 4-7, 1942, the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy battled for the island of Midway and control of the central Pacific. The Japanese  hoped to lure the American fleet that had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor into a major confrontation, thus crippling U.S. naval power and taking control of a strategic island in the Pacific. Since Pearl Harbor the Japanese had inflicted stinging defeats on Allied forces and overrun the Philippines, Southeast Asia and Indonesia. To secure their conquests, they aspired to destroy the American fleet and seize Pacific outposts such as the western Aleutians, Midway, Fiji, New Caledonia and perhaps Hawaii itself. Positioned behind such a formidable perimeter, the Japanese then could inflict costly defeats on whatever counteroffensives the Allies mustered.

The Japanese seized Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians on June 3, while a task force built around four carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu – steamed towards Midway. This carrier task force planned to attack the American naval base on the island, demolish the land-based aircraft, and then wear down the U.S. fleet as it traveled more than 1,200 miles from Pearl Harbor to intervene. Meanwhile a battleship-heavy main force trailed the carriers by several hundred miles, ready to pounce on the American fleet and complete its destruction. By initially only showing their carrier task force, the Japanese hoped to further entice the Americans to enter their trap.

Already two steps ahead, the Americans had painstakingly broken their relevant naval code and understood the broad outline of the Japanese plans. Adm. Chester W. Nimitz sent a task force built around the carriers Hornet and Enterprise into the waters east of Midway. He sent another task force led by the carrier Yorktown to a nearby position.  Both formations were at the ready as the Japanese carriers came within range of Midway.

Midway sat between the two American task forces and the approaching Japanese. This allowed American aircraft based on the island to initially engage the Japanese, while the Hornet, Enterprise, and Yorktown remained undiscovered. When the Japanese attacked, planes from the American carriers could surprise them. The Americans had about 130 aircraft on Midway and about 230 aboard their three carriers. The Japanese had about 250 aboard their four carriers.

After preliminary American air attacks from Midway began the morning of June 3, Japanese carrier Adm. Chuichi Nagumo launched 108 planes against Midway at 4:30 a.m. on June 4. This force inflicted significant damage on intercepting American aircraft and on Midway itself, but suffered 25 destroyed or heavily damaged planes and 29 damaged to a lesser degree. The returning pilots reported heavy anti-aircraft fire over Midway. The island would need to be hit again if it was to be neutralized prior to the pending naval battle. Instead of immediately sending out his available aircraft, Nagumo held back and made preparations for a second strike with his reserves while retrieving his returning planes. This would prove to be a costly error.

Roiled by the continuous activity necessary to keep a combat air patrol aloft, the decks of the Japanese carriers were littered with returning aircraft, refueling operations, strike aircraft under preparation, and unprotected torpedoes and bombs. Speeding in at a low altitude, American torpedo planes were the first to arrive, attempting to inflict damage on these carriers. In response, Japanese combat air patrols overhead dived down to engage the Americans. This left the sky directly over the Japanese carriers virtually empty. When the American dive bombers arrived, they were positioned for an unimpeded attack.

Within minutes the plunging Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers turned the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu into flaming wrecks. The Hiryu survived this assault and got off two waves of planes that heavily damaged the Yorktown. Despite this attack the Yorktown remained stubbornly afloat, assisted by a stout defense, effective damage controls, and luck. American planes found their way back to the Hiryu, and mortally wounded it as well. The Kaga and Soryu sank on the evening of June 4, and the Akagi and Hiryu went under the following morning. The disabled Yorktown, under tow, was sunk by a Japanese submarine on June 6, but the crew and surviving planes had long since been evacuated.

Late on June 4, with darkness and the Japanese battleship fleet approaching, the Americans recovered their planes and moved east. Considerably outnumbered and totally outgunned, they warily avoided a night engagement. The following morning they sent their planes aloft again, trying to regain contact from the air while avoiding it on the surface. Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the overall Japanese commander, had already decided to withdraw rather than operate in the face of American air supremacy. Although the Americans had lost about a third of their planes, the Japanese air forces – which was entirely carrier-based – had been totally annihilated. In the course of the withdrawal a Japanese cruiser went down and another was heavily damaged.

Midway proved to be the critical turning point in the Pacific War. The Japanese never fully recovered from their loss of skilled pilots, and had lost their superiority with respect to carriers at sea. Tough fighting across the Pacific remained ahead, but the initiative had shifted to the Americans. As American economic might came into play, the struggle became ever more lop-sided. Only a decisive victory at Midway could have preserved the Japanese from a grinding war of attrition.

For those Americans who lost their lives in the Battle of Midway and whose remains could not be recovered, their names were inscribed upon the Courts of the Missing in the Honolulu Memorial.

Recommended Reading

Morison, Samuel E., Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions: May 1942 – August 1942 (Boston: Little Brown, 1949)

Prange, Gordon W., Miracle at Midway (New York: McGraw Hill, 1982)

Spector, Ronald H., Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: MacMillan, 1985)