The Battle of Midway

After they attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the Japanese began a series of strikes against Allied territories in the Pacific. The back-to-back victories made the Japanese seem almost invincible as they expanded their empire and took control of island after island. The Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and the Dutch East Indies all fell to the Empire of Japan within the first six months. But in April 1942, American cryptanalysts, working tirelessly on intercepted Japanese radio transmissions, made a breakthrough in the JN-25 code. This breakthrough would not only help stop the enemy’s advance across the ocean but provided valuable intelligence that enabled the Americans to intercept the Japanese fleet and turn the tide of war at one of the most critical battles of the Pacific War: the battle of Midway.

Most of the Allies were caught up in the war in Europe, and the attack on Pearl Harbor had taken the Americans by surprise. Their sudden entry into the war made it difficult to organize an effective defense against the wave of Japanese naval forces sweeping across the Pacific. In early 1942, Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO in Hawaii managed to break the Japanese naval code JN-25b. The intercepted code gave them intelligence about a planned attack on Port Moresby, which the Americans hurried to intercept. The ensuing Battle of Coral Sea was a tactical victory for the Japanese, who sunk the carrier USS Lexington, but it was the first time in the war the Americans had managed to halt a major Japanese offensive. The Japanese remained unaware that their code had been broken, and the Americans continued to use this intelligence to their advantage.

Commander Rochefort and Lieutenant Commander Edwin Layton, Pacific Fleet staff intelligence officer, identified Midway as a likely target for the Japanese fleet. When Station HYPO began intercepting messages relating to an attack on “AF,” they were sure it meant Midway. To confirm this, Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered Midway to send out an uncoded transmission saying they were running low on fresh water. Soon after, the Americans intercepted a Japanese message saying that “AF” was short on fresh water. With the target confirmed and the Japanese still unaware that their code was no longer secure, Nimitz began devising the defense strategy for Midway. The USS Hornet and Enterprise, fresh from the Doolittle Raid in April, were sent in late May to intercept the Japanese fleet. The USS Yorktown, severely damaged from the Battle of Coral Sea, underwent hasty repairs at Pearl Harbor before being dispatched to join them.

Intercepted transmissions also confirmed that the Imperial Japanese Navy would launch an attack against the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Nimitz believed this to be a ploy to distract the Americans from the Midway assault, but sent a defense of cruisers and destroyers, the Northern Pacific Force, to protect the island chain. It was a small force, but the Japanese had eleven carriers while the U.S. Navy had only two fully operational carriers in the Pacific. Nimitz chose to consolidate his main force for the protection of Midway.

The Midway Island group is seated almost exactly at the midpoint between the Hawaiian island chain and the Japanese islands. Before the war, the American base at Midway had very little military importance, but it suddenly became the westernmost American outpost after Wake Island fell to the Japanese in December 1941. Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto wanted to use the attack against Midway to draw out the American aircraft carriers they had missed at Peal Harbor. Yamamoto felt so strongly about the Midway plan that he threatened to resign if Imperial Japanese Headquarters didn’t accept it. The Japanese military felt that they could also establish a base on Midway to launch attacks against Hawaii, so the plan was approved. The Japanese attack force, the Kido Butai, would sail under the command of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo to eliminate the American carriers and take the island of Midway.

The first Japanese attacks occurred on 4 June 1942, with planes from the carriers Akagi, Soryu, Kaga, and Hiryu bombing the base on Midway. Land-based radar at Midway spotted the inbound planes long before they reached the islands. Marine Corps fighters were dispatched to defend the island, but the slower American F2A-3 “Buffalos” were no match for the Japanese Zeroes. They were quickly shot down, and the Japanese continued on towards their objective. Because the Americans had advance warning of the attack from both intelligence and radar, they were able to launch all of their planes from the base, and the Japanese found an empty airfield for a target. They damaged the base, but the American planes were safe. The Japanese planes returned to their carriers to refuel and rearm for the next wave of attack.

A flight commander radioed Admiral Nagumo to inform him that a second attack was required to sufficiently eliminate Midway as a threat. Nagumo ordered the carrier planes, already equipped to strike against American ships, to change their ordnance for another land attack. The Japanese rushed to get the planes reequipped and often laid aside the bombs and torpedoes removed from the planes rather than take extra time to stow them belowdecks. The decision to change the ordnance also delayed deployment of the aircraft, which not only delayed departing aircraft but also cluttered the runways and prevented incoming aircraft from landing. Because the Japanese ships were not equipped with radar, they relied on their scout planes for information on the U.S. force’s whereabouts. An earlier delay in launching scouts meant that the Japanese were unaware of how close the Americans were until it was too late. While Nagumo was having his planes rearmed for another Midway attack, the American planes were closing in.

American radar enabled the carriers to locate the Kido Butai and launch multiple waves of torpedo and dive bombers. The U.S. Army also sent B-17s to bomb the Japanese ships. When Admiral Nagumo heard of the incoming American planes, he once again reversed his decision and ordered his planes rearmed for antiship attacks. The American attacks were largely ineffective; many of the unescorted carrier planes were shot out of the sky, and the explosives they did manage to release missed their targets. But Japanese ships had to maneuver to avoid the repeated attacks, evading the American torpedoes but moving further apart as a result.

Carrier strikes continued throughout the morning of 4 June, still ineffective due to the lack of American coordination and the superior Japanese aircraft. Yet the Japanese ships were scattered and their fighters had been battling American bombers all morning. The rearming of the Japanese strike force was finally completed, but before the planes could launch, bombers from Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown spotted the Japanese carriers and closed in. These strikes found their targets, and with the discarded explosives laying on the flight deck, the first three carriers were set ablaze in minutes. Bombs and torpedoes detonated, fuel lines ignited, and the waiting carrier aircraft set off secondary explosions that turned the carriers into a “flaming inferno.”

The Hiryu, the sole surviving Japanese carrier, managed to deploy its bombers, which soon found the USS Yorktown. American radar once again informed them of the incoming enemy planes, but although they managed to dispatch fighters to intercept, several Japanese bombers made it to the Yorktown. They unleashed their payload, critically damaging the carrier. Just hours later, Enterprise-based bombers arrived over the Hiryu and delivered several devastating blows. The order to abandon ship was finally given early in the morning of 5 June, and Admiral Yamamoto, watching at a distance from his flagship Yamato, finally cancelled the operation.

Soryu and Kaga sank on the evening of the 4^th, while Akagi hung on until just before sunrise on 5 June. Hiryu, the final Japanese carrier of Midway, went to the bottom just a few hours later. Salvage crews went to work on the Yorktown, attempting to correct its twenty-six degree list, but on 6 June, Japanese submarine I-168 launched torpedoes that struck the carrier and sliced the accompanying destroyer USS Hammann in half. Hammann sank immediately, but Yorktown, almost impossibly, survived for several more hours until she finally capsized and sank on the morning of 7 June. The battle of Midway had finally come to an end.

The Japanese had just lost nearly half of their carrier force in the battle and were forced to turn back from their objective. The balance of power in the Pacific began to shift, and the Americans started launching their own offensives against Japan. The Imperial Japanese Navy lost four of its carriers and hundreds of experienced pilots, neither of which they would be able to replace. It was becoming increasingly obvious to both sides that carrier battles would dominate this theater, and the United States continued to improve its carriers and aircraft in order to gain air superiority in later battles. American intelligence, radar, and no small amount of luck had won them the battle of Midway, which has gone down in history as the turning point of the Pacific War.