65 years ago today, the war in the Pacific reached its turning point.
Less than seven months after Pearl Harbor, the Empire of Japan was planning another attack. This time, it was our outpost on tiny Midway Atoll. The plan was to take this foothold and threaten an invasion of Hawaii. Further, they hoped to lure the remnants of the US Fleet into a decisive, final battle and secure their holdings.
Unfortunately, the Navy was reading the Japanese code, and we knew their plans.
We were outnumbered across the board. They had four carriers and several battleships sailing for Midway — and all the carriers veterans of Pearl Harbor. We had two in good shape, and a third — the Yorktown — in need of three months of repair after being mauled at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
But thanks to some heroic efforts by dock workers, those three months were condensed into three days, and the Yorktown — still battered, but restored to functional status — she sailed to fight alongside her sisters, the Enterprise and Hornet.
The trap was set.
Still, bad luck ruled the seas for both sides. The Japanese had sent submarines to watch for US ships heading for Midway, but missed them. Scout planes also failed to spot the US forces. The carriers met at “Point Luck” and started hunting for the Japanese fleet.
Meanwhile, unaware of the US fleet’s presence, the Japanese launched their attack on Midway. They mauled the island’s defenders, but didn’t believe they had softened them up enough for the landings.
Then the US struck.
Bad luck governed the first strikes. The combined torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and screening fighters were separated, and the torpedo bombers arrived first.
Torpedo bombers were big, slow, and clumsy. They had to fly low, slow, and straight at their targets. As such, they were absurdly easy to shoot down.
And they were.
They were, in a word, slaughtered. One squadron lost every plane and 29 of 30 men. A second squadron had three surviving aircraft. The third, four.
And not a single hit was scored.
But their sacrifice achieved a goal they did not even dream of.
With all the Japanese guns aimed at sea level, all the fighters low on altitude, fuel, and ammunition, and all eyes scouring the horizon, the dive bombers arrived.
In a matter of minutes, three of the four carriers were shattered, burning hulks. The avenging of Pearl Harbor had begun in earnest.
The battle played out over the next two days, with Hiryu joining Soryu, Akagi, and Kaga on the ocean floor, and valiant Yorktown once again mauled — but savable. Then a submarine sneaked in and sent her and her escort, the destroyer Hammann, under the waves.
Midway was the turning point of the Pacific War. It was the last great offensive of the Japanese, and the last time their carriers posed a credible threat to our forces. It also gave the United States the breathing room to plan the attack on Guadalcanal, the first offensive operation that set the tone for the rest of the war.
At the time, everyone knew that Midway was a tremendous victory for the United States, the first real one for us. But few at that time could know that we had broken the back of the Japanese Navy, shattering her mighty carrier force. 307 Americans died in that battle, but the Japanese lost ten times that many.
Before the war, the United States had built eight aircraft carriers. On the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, we had seven — the first, the Langley, had been converted into a seaplane tender and replaced with bigger, faster, stronger, far more capable ships. But by the end of 1942, only three were still afloat. The Japanese had sunk Langley, Lexington, Saratoga, Hornet, and Wasp. The Saratoga was crippled and laid up for repair, and the Ranger was needed in the Atlantic. Only the Enterprise stood between the Japanese and total victory.
But she was all we needed, until the new carriers — the mighty Essex class — started arriving.
The Enterprise was enough to stave off the Japanese, in large part to the victory she helped win at Midway.
Sixty-five years ago today.
(Update: the Saratoga survived the war; it was the Yorktown that was sunk in 1942. I can’t believe I made the same damned mistake a year ago, and didn’t learn from it then.)
