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This epic – the most crucial in the Japanese invasion of the Pacific, is based on fact drawn from Theodore Taylor’s ‘The Battle Off Midway Island’.
If anyone has ever had doubts about Australia being The Lucky Country, they have only to familiarise themselves with the battle between the American and Japanese Naval and Air Forces at Midway Island, to dispel their doubts for all times.
The losses of lives, ships and planes on both America’s and Japan’s side were tremendous, and the number of occasions the battle could have gone one way or the other, but for a genius American naval officer, and a stroke of luck, is truly amazing.
The loss of courageous American pilots’ lives is staggering, men who fought for the love of their country, resolute not to let ‘the little yellow men’ take over the USA. Australia would not have the freedom it enjoys today, had it not been for American servicemen, many of whom who gave their lives in the Battle for Midway Island. Yet not one Australian took part in the battle, and few of us know anything about it.
Midway Island, as its name implies, lies roughly half way between Japan and Hawaii, not far north of Pearl Harbour, and a little nearer to Japan. It consists of two small low lying coral atolls, Sand Island and Eastern Island, both covered with sand. Together they extend barely six miles long by two miles wide. They held no attraction to any living thing, except a flock of nesting albatross. Until the war Midway Island was occupied by a handful of very bored American Marines.
Germany and Italy were fully occupied with their conquests in Europe, and by siding with them, Japan had a free hand to pursue her quest for her Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Scheme, and her aspirations to be Lord of the Pacific, of which Australia was a part.
As the threat of war became real, Midway Island acquired strategic importance and was appropriately armed, and runways were developed for the US planes. After the Japanese catastrophic invasion of Pearl Harbour, Midway became a vital stronghold. Being caught unawares and her fleet devastated, America’s one lucky break was that her two aircraft carriers, the USS Yorktown and the USS Enterprise, were on manoeuvres at sea and escaped the bombing.
Shortly after Pearl Harbour, Midway Island was attacked with salvos of shellfire from Japanese destroyers. Little damage was done, but the attack by the Japanese served to alert the Marines that Japan had them well within their sights.
After Pearl Harbour, the Japanese had planned to follow up quickly with an attack on the Midway Islands with aircraft carriers, but due to bad weather, the fleet was diverted to Guam and Wake Island, which they successfully captured in their stead.
The Japanese had every good reason to be confident. In addition to demolishing the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbour, they had captured Britain’s strongholds in the Pacific- Hong Kong and Singapore- and in addition succeeded in sinking Britain’s two most prized battleships, the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, with the greatest of ease.
To add to the humiliation of the United States, the Japanese overcame MacArthur’s forces in the Philippine and took over their air and military bases. In addition they had captured most of the islands in the Pacific, the Dutch islands of Java and Sumatra, and the islands of Borneo and New Guinea. Closer to home, they successfully bombed Darwin, our northernmost city, a forerunner of things to come for us.
Japan’s confidence and spirits were sky high. They were besotted with victory fever, convinced that all they had to do now was to draw the remainder of America’s fleet out to sea and destroy it. They believed that without their Navy and Airforce to defend them, America would quickly throw in the towel. With the American Navy down and out, they could then move on and take Australia at will.
Admiral Yamamoto, Commander of the Pacific Ocean Operations, believed he could draw the American fleet out by attacking Midway Island. This would give his superior carrier force the opportunity to eliminate America’s inferior ships and few weak carriers. Yamamoto had ten first class carriers while America had only seven, some of which were deployed in the Atlantic. Japan had far more efficient aircraft and more experienced pilots. The odds were highly stacked in Japan’s favour. They had an arrogance, born of conviction of invincibility.
Yamamoto’s plan for the invasion of Midway was, at first, poorly received by Japan’s Naval Staff, until the day General Tojo took an observation flight around Japan. His plane was strafed by one of the US bombers launched from the carriers USS Hornet and USS Enterprise, operating under the command of Admiral Bull Halsey. The plane was on reconnaissance for Colonel James Doolittle’s squadron on its mission to bomb Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kobe and other big cities.
That the Americans were so near came as a tremendous shock to the Japanese. It was unthinkable that their hallowed homeland could ever be attacked by foreigners; her soil was sacrosanct, her forces invincible.
Next time Yamamoto presented his plan to attack Midway to Admiral Nagano, it was enthusiastically accepted. The Japanese overflowed with victory fever.
Another activity destined to have great impact on Australia’s luck, had been steadily unfurling at Station Hypo on Pearl Harbour Naval Base. A brilliant professional cryptographer, Lieutenant Commander Joe Rochefort and his team had been laboriously working on the complex Japanese code their Navy had developed to communicate their highly secret war manoeuvres.
With their difficult and complicated language and graphic presentation, the Navy was extremely confident it was impossible to break their code.
Miraculously Commander Rochefort succeeded in cracking it. It was referred to as ‘Hypo’ and knowledge that the Americans had broken it was kept top secret. Commander Rochefort was now able to intercept all messages sent by the Japanese Navy, and so could ascertain their every move as it was planned.
From the thousands of messages intercepted, Commander Rochefort relayed those relating to the Japanese fleet’s plans and manoeuvres, to his colleague Lieutenant Commander Layton, who passed them on to his chief, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet.
From these intercepted messages Admiral Nimitz learnt that the Japanese Navy planned to be in the Coral Sea on May 7th, and strategically positioned his ships in readiness for Admiral Yamamoto’s force. The Coral Sea is off the north- east coast of Australia, washing the shores of Cooktown and Cairns.
The Coral Sea battle opened with the planes from the Japanese carriers sinking an American tanker and destroyer. Planes from the American carriers Lexington and Yorktown retaliated by sinking a Japanese light carrier- the Shoho - which was escorting the Port Moresby invasion transports. The transports were forced to turn back.
Early the following morning, the aircraft carriers from both fleets launched their planes and headed for the enemy, the carriers being the prime target. The pilots knew that if they passed near each other, they would not attack. Their mission was to destroy each other’s carriers. Sink the carriers, prevent the planes from flying and the battle is won.
It was the first time in history that a naval battle had been fought solely in the air, with enemy ships not in sight of each other. In all, the Japanese carriers launched sixty- nine planes. The USS Yorktown and USS Lexington launched seventy- three.
From Commander Rochefort’s intercepts of Admiral Takagi’s battle plans relayed to his fleet commanders, Admiral Fletcher was aware of his every move, and able to take a strategic advantage.
Planes from the American carriers found the Japanese fleet through a lucky break in the clouds, and her dive- bombers scored three quick direct hits on a large Japanese carrier the Shokoku, badly damaging her, but she was able to regain control and get back under way. The rest of the Americans’ bombs and torpedoes missed miserably. The Zeros kept the American pilots on the defensive and inflicted heavy losses.
Pilots from the Japanese carriers sighted the Lexington and attacked her with torpedoes and bombs. Dive- bombers attacked the Yorktown striking her with armour piercing bombs. The ship survived, but over sixty of her crew were killed. American bombers then attacked and sank two Japanese destroyers escorting the carriers.
Fire on the USS Lexington set off a series of fatal explosions and she was abandoned and traumatically destroyed by an American torpedo.
In all, the battle lasted a little over half an hour. Japan lost some seventy- seven planes and their pilots. The Americans lost thirty-eight.
Though the battle honours of the Coral Sea Battle had been somewhat even, losses were heavy and the outcome was enough to prevent the Japanese fleet from invading Port Moresby or our northern coast, and forced it to turn back to join its home fleet.
A close shave for Australia, but we were free for the time being, though the deciding battle of Midway Island was yet to come.
Through eavesdropping intercepts, Commander Rochefort learnt that the Japanese Admiralty was in the throes of planning a major offensive. It was imperative to determine the battle plans for the forthcoming campaign, and particularly where in the Pacific the Japanese planned to carry the offensive out.
Commander Rochefort was aware that the Japanese prefixed their code for locations in the Pacific with the letter A. For instance AH represented Pearl Harbour. The Japanese Admiralty had indicated that the offensive would be at AF, but it was not known where AF might be. Commander Rochefort surmised it might well be Midway Island, but this was no time to take chances. This battle was obviously going to involve the whole of their surviving Pacific fleet and it was vital that details of the Japanese plans be positively and absolutely correct.
Commander Rochefort cleverly set his trap. In plain uncoded language he sent out a general message, indicating that Midway was presently experiencing an acute shortage of fresh water and waited for his message to be intercepted by the Japanese and relayed on to their Navy.
In due course, the Japanese Admiralty passed the message on to Commander Yamamoto, ‘AF was experiencing fresh water problems.’ Commander Rocheforte now had positive evidence that the Japanese offensive was headed for Midway. The Americans could now take full advantage of their intercepts and ready themselves for the confrontation.
Intercepting messages through Hypo, Commander Rochefort accurately ascertained how the Japanese fleet was to be deployed. One fleet, under Admiral Kondo, would head toward the Aleutian Islands as a diversion. The other under Admiral Yamamoto on his flagship Yamato, would have an enormous force of four carriers, four battleships, eight heavy cruisers, fifteen destroyers and two submarine squadrons, and would attack the Midway Islands.
Commander Nimitz realised that while Japan had as many as ten flat tops, he had only the Enterprise, the Hornet and the damaged Yorktown and was greatly disadvantaged.
Having announced the disposition of their fleet, Commander Rochefort then spent sleepless nights sifting through intercepts piecing together the details of the attack. He produced a brilliant report of the entire Japanese battle plan for the invasion of Midway.
Yamamoto’s fleet, under the command of Admiral Nagumo, ‘would strike on June 4th, they would come into attack from the north west on bearing 325 degrees and would be first sighted 175 miles from Midway on June 4th at about 6 00 am’.
The most crucial day of the war in the Pacific could well be June 4th. It was just two weeks away.
When the American carriers, USS Enterprise and USS Hornet raced home to Pearl Harbour, Admiral Nimitz set out to deceive the Japanese. Having made sure his carriers had been sighted by the Japanese at the Solomon Islands, he ordered the cruiser USS Salt Lake to be stationed there and continue to send messages to the two ‘phantom’ carriers.
Rear Admiral Spruance was appointed Commander of the American force. Now aware of every detail of Japan’s strategy to attack Midway, the American commanders had time to determine their counter strategies and decided their best approach would be to attack Nagumo’s carriers from the flank and take them by surprise.
As soon as the USS Yorktown returned to Pearl Harbour, Admiral Nimitz, having inspected her damage in dry dock, ordered all repairs to be carried out post haste, and that she be shipshape and ready for action within three days. In the meantime Admiral Nimitz determined his strategy and provided each of his commanders with their detailed battle orders.
Yamamoto’s Force headed south. Two of his submarines set course for Pearl, to attack any ships leaving the harbour. The submarines waited off islands near Hawaii to refuel their long distance planes, so they could fly on to Pearl Harbour to observe and report on the American fleet’s movements.
Aware of their plan, Admiral Nimitz thwarted their action by placing two of his seaplane tenders at anchor, only a short distance from where the submarines were waiting to refuel the planes. Thus he stifled the refuelling of planes and their ability to observe and transmit movements of the American fleet in and out of Pearl Harbour to Yamamoto.
The Yorktown, successfully repaired on time, and armed with seventy six aircraft, headed for her secret rendezvous north east of Midway, to join the Hornet and Enterprise, to await Admiral Nagumo and his armada.
Meanwhile a frenzy of activity had been taking place on Midway Island. Shore batteries, tanks, mines and reinforcements of marines were landed. Dive bombers, fighter aircraft and torpedo planes brought up the air strength up to 120 planes. In that short time, the island had been converted into a powerful offensive fortress.
The Japanese were aware of all this activity but were unconcerned. They looked forward to the opportunity to draw out the American forces so they could destroy them.
The Japanese believed the Hornet and Enterprise were still operating in the Solomons and that the Yorktown was in Pearl Harbour undergoing repairs and out of action. They awaited word from their observers to inform them the moment the American fleet left Pearl Harbour and headed toward Midway.
Admiral Nagumo was frustrated and angry. He had high hopes of drawing out the American Navy and demolishing it. The attack on Midway was planned for tomorrow and at this point, he had not received any report from his observers on the movements of the US fleet at Pearl Harbour.
On Midway Island at dawn next morning, twenty Catalina bombers took off in search of Admiral Nagumo and his carriers. By mid morning they reported sighting the transport group. The Catalinas attacked the convoy but succeeded in hitting only one of their oil tankers. It was the first strike in the battle of Midway Island.
At Pearl Harbour Admiral Nimitz monitored the progress. In command of the American task force, Rear Admirals Fletcher and Spruance anxiously awaited word on the sightings of Nagumo and his flattops as his fleet steamed toward his planned launch point.
Admiral Nagumo was supremely confident that the enemy was unaware of his plan to attack Midway and he was quite oblivious to the presence of the Americans.
On the morning of June 4, Admiral Nagumo’s four carriers, Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga reached their launch point and 108 planes took off on their way to attack Midway. Nagumo held back 93 planes armed with armour piercing bombs in the event American ships might be lurking nearby.
Aware of the whereabouts of Nagumo’s fleet, Admiral Fletcher launched his bomber squadron to search the seas for the exact position of his flattops. As the clock ticked away, tension mounted. After some forty minutes one of the pilots of the Catalina search planes, radioed back to Midway, the electrifying message, ‘ Enemy Carriers’. They were on the precise course Commander Rochefort had indicated from his intercepts.
This was followed with a report that squadrons of Japanese planes were headed toward Midway Island. The report eliminated any possibility of a surprise attack, and for the defence forces at Midway already on red alert, the adrenalin began to speed up.
The USS Hornet’s Torpedo 8 boss John Waldon, never called a torpedo by its proper name, preferring to call them a ‘weenie’ or a ‘pickle. He gave this message to his pilots:
“Just a word to let you know we are all ready. We have had a very short time to train and we have worked under the most severe difficulties. But we have truly done the best possible. I actually believe that under these circumstances we are the best in the world. My greatest hope is that we encounter a favourable tactical situation, but if we don’t and worst comes to worst, I want each of you to do his utmost to destroy our enemies.
If there is only one plane left to make the final run, I want that man to go in and get a hit. May God be with us all. Good luck, happy landing and give ‘em hell.”
Admirals Fletcher and Nuance, aware that the enemy carriers had launched their planes, decided the best time to strike them would be when their planes returned to their carriers to refuel and rearm. Fuel lines would be open and bombs and torpedoes would be on deck. The carriers would be at their most vulnerable.
As the Japanese planes approached Midway they were greeted with heavy and accurate anti aircraft fire. The defending planes were however no match for the Zeros and, while three Zeros were shot down in the first few minutes, the American defenders were badly mauled. The raiders pounded Midway with their bombs, demolishing the power plant, hangars and fuel storage. Both islands were pitted with craters, but the anti-aircraft batteries and runways on Eastern Island remained intact.
A Marine Squadron of Brewster Buffaloes, ‘Flying Coffins’, that took off to defend the islands was virtually decimated. Only two of the original twenty- five planes and ten pilots survived.
The attack over, the leader of the Midway strike force, radioed Admiral Nagumo telling him that another bombing run was necessary to destroy the runways and the remainder of Midway’s defences.
Nagumo had ninety- three planes armed with armour piercing bombs and torpedoes, still on deck. At this point the search planes from their cruisers had not detected American ships in the area nor had there been any warning that the American fleet had left Pearl Harbour.
As Admiral Nagumo deliberated, six Grumman Avengers from Midway Island, carrying torpedoes, attacked his fleet. Anti-aircraft fire and the protective cover of Zeros fought them off, but taken by surprise, Nagumo was shaken, realising that his fleet would be open to attack as long as the runways and defences on Midway remained intact. He ordered the planes on deck to be rearmed with bombs for land targets. It would take at least an hour to make the changeover.
Shortly after making his decision, a pilot of a search plane launched from one of the Japanese cruisers, reported sighting ten enemy ships 240 miles from Midway.
Up to this moment there had been no indication that the American fleet had left Pearl Harbour. The observer reported that the enemy fleet consisted of five cruisers and five destroyers. Admiral Nagumo was elated there was no carrier with them. He had the American Fleet where he wanted them-out in the open sea.
Nagumo calculated the American ships were within striking distance, and ordered his crew to stop rearming planes with land bombs and leave those torpedoes that had not yet been changed, on the planes. He then signalled his accompanying carriers to arm their planes in readiness to attack the enemy fleet.
At that moment sixteen Marine dive- bombers from Midway Island attacked his strike force, eight planes were shot down and the remainder repulsed. Up to this stage, sixty planes from Midway Island had attacked the Japanese carriers, but not one of their ships had been hit.
The total American losses had been enormous, without one hit on an enemy carrier. Round one went conclusively to Admiral Nagumo. Nagumo was ecstatic, he was confident, he could cope easily with the American cruisers and destroyers.
As the Japanese attackers of Midway headed back for refuelling, planes from the American carriers were on their way to attack Nagumo’s carriers as soon as his planes had landed and begun rearming and refuelling.
Work of changing the bombs continued at a furious pace. There wasn’t time to store the bombs safely, they were simply stored on the hangar decks. Nugumo radioed Admiral Yamamoto that as soon as his planes were armed with armour piercing bombs and torpedoes he would head north to attack and destroy the American fleet. This was exactly what Yamamoto had been waiting for. It was his main reason for the whole operation, to draw out the American ships and sink them.
His ecstasy did not last long before the pilot from the search plane reported ‘The enemy is accompanied by a carrier’. The pilot had sighted the Yorktown, but had not seen the Hornet and Enterprise.
When the American carriers were within striking distance of Nagumo’s force, the first wave of planes was launched at the carriers. The carriers Agaki, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu, were all steaming safely in box formation, with the protective cover of the fleet’s anti aircraft fire and the covering air protection of Zeros. The American pilots headed for the carriers, but the protective fire was so overpowering, it succeeded in blasting the American planes out of the sky.
Their losses were not in vain however. The American’s concerted attack had caused the flattops to take evasive action, zig, zag and circle, breaking up their protective box formation. They also caused the covering protection of Zeros to return to their attacking height, well above the carriers, leaving the carriers momentarily vulnerable.
The carriers were now steaming in loose formation and the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu were about to launch their planes against the American fleet, when at that very moment, 16 planes from the Yorktown dived down in attack.
The Zeros were angling upwards to gain attacking height and were not in sight. The attack was a complete surprise to Nagumo and for several minutes his cruisers put up no defence at all. The first bomb dropped directly hitting the Kaga. Following in quick succession other bombs tumbled down hitting the Soryu. Four of the eight bombs dropped were direct hits.
Both carriers were ablaze, bombs exploded on deck, violent explosions erupted in the bowels of the ships, men were blown to bits, and pandemonium reigned.
Just as the planes on the Akagi were about to be launched, six of the American bombers unopposed dived directly down on her, dropping their thousand pound bombs with deadly accuracy - three direct hits. One detonated the bombs stored loosely on deck, lifting the Akagi out of the water. Another hit the planes lined up on the flight deck, loaded with gasoline, bombs and torpedoes ready to take off. The flight deck instantly erupted into an inferno of destruction.
The Americans turned to the third carrier the Soryu and with direct hits on her, it burst into another blazing inferno. In just two minutes, Nagumo lost three carriers. It took just twenty- two minutes from the time the first bomb was dropped to all but destroy the pride of Yamamato’s invincible carrier force.
When he received the news, Yamamoto was completely shattered. He had been so sure of his invincibility. For this to happen in such a flash was unbelievable.
However he decided to rush to Nagumo’s battered task force and rely on his remaining carrier Hiryu to defeat the enemy. He was determined to continue his attack on Midway and summoned Admiral Kondo, commanding the Aleutian fleet to bring down his battleships and cruisers to join him in wiping out the Americans. More than a hundred Imperial battleships steamed down to engage Admirals Spruance and Fletcher.
Meanwhile dive- bombers from the remaining carrier Hiryu were on their way to attack the USS Yorktown. The Yorktown was expecting them and twisted and turned, but bombs punctured the deck and exploded in the engine room. None of the hits were fatal and damage control crews went straight to work in the hope of saving her. Her engines stopped and she began to drift.
A little later, the surviving pilots of the Hiryu made another attack on the Yorktown. They attacked with torpedo bombers, hitting her twice, causing her to capsize perilously. The Yorktown had to be abandoned, later to suffer the indignity of being torpedoed, the last shots fired in the Battle for Midway.
The entire Japanese Carrier striking force was now down to fifteen aircraft, all from the untouched Hiryu. She was sighted and attacked by pilots of the Enterprise and Yorktown, four of their one thousand- pound bombs finding their mark. The flight deck of the Hiryu was completely destroyed, and she blazed furiously. The surviving Zeros had nowhere to land. The four Japanese carriers were all hopelessly ablaze, lighting up the ocean.
RearAdmiral Yamuguchi returned to his cabin on the Akagi and committed suicide.
Admiral Yamamoto persisted with his attack. He was relying on a night encounter by the heavy guns of Admiral Kondo’s fleet, which was steaming to the battlefront. His four battleships and six cruisers outnumbered and outgunned the Americans and were capable of blowing them to bits.
A night attack would leave Admiral Spruance’s planes powerless. However Admiral Spruance wisely decided to turn his force eastward away from Admiral Kondo’s oncoming fleet. Yamamoto, learning that Admiral Kondo’s force would now arrive in the attack zone in daylight, leaving him vulnerable to America’s carrier planes, coupled with conflicting reports on the number of American carriers operating in the area, eventually decided to abandon the operation.
Admiral Yamamoto headed for home to apologise to his emperor for his ineptness.
Four of Japan’s prime aircraft carriers and 330 planes were lost in the day’s battle. America lost the carrier Yorktown and 150 planes.
Australians will never know how lucky we were to have had the American navy at our shores to stave off the threat of possible invasion. We owe a debt of eternal gratitude to the American servicemen who contributed to the victory of the Midway Island battle. In particular to the brilliant cryptographer Commander Joe Rocheforte, without whose genius and dogged persistence, the Battle of Midway could not possibly have been won.
We owe our gratitude to the American Admirals who so cleverly orchestrated the tactics of the battle.
For all these devoted and courageous men, we can thank our lucky stars.
Had the battle honours for Midway Island been reversed and gone to Admiral Nagumo, it would indeed have been a sorry day for Australia.
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