The anniversary of the Battle of
Midway coming as it does on June 4, is usually overshadowed by remembrances of
the Allied landings on the coast of Normandy on D-Day, the sixth of June.
Nevertheless, if not for the American naval victory in the Battle of Midway on
June 4, 1942, D-Day might never have happened.
Nowhere is the story of Midway
told better than in Admiral Samuel Morison’s epic history of United States
naval operations during the Second World War. Admiral Morison was a rare
combination of sailor and historian. Before the war he had written a
magisterial biography of Columbus that still ranks with anything ever written
about that great sailor. As part of his research Morison even used a sailing
ship to cover the route Columbus had taken.
When the war broke out, the U.S.
Navy asked Morison to be its official historian. The Navy took pains to put him
on actual ships that were very likely to see action. He was not at Midway but
his account reads like an eyewitness. Below are excerpts from his depiction of
the pivotal two minutes of that epic battle.
First, a little introduction.
After their stunning success at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Japanese
had rolled up one victory after another. By the spring of 1942 Japanese
strategists thought that they only had to secure the tiny island of Midway in
the central Pacific to completely solidify their hegemony over most of Asia.
They sent a huge naval task force
including four of their best aircraft carriers and most of their best pilots to
take the tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Even though the American navy
had been battered at Pearl Harbor, it was able to send a carrier force to
intercept the Japanese after code-breakers deciphered enough of the Japanese
naval code to reveal that Midway was the target.
The Japanese had already bombed
the small garrison at Midway when the American carriers came into range.
Admiral Raymond Spruance was in command of the American fleet and he followed
the advice of Captain Miles Browning who shrewdly predicted the location of the
Japanese force. Spruance launched an immediate attack and the American planes
quickly found the Japanese. Unfortunately, the initial torpedo bomber attack
was thwarted by Japanese fighters (Jekes). Not one torpedo reached its target
and practically all the torpedo bombers were shot down. It seemed like all was
lost for the Americans. Morison relates what happened next.
Lt. Commander McCluskey |
"The third torpedo attack was over
by 1024, and for about one hundred seconds the Japanese were certain they had
won the Battle of Midway, and the war. This was their high tide of victory.
Then, a few seconds before 1026, with dramatic suddenness, there came a
complete reversal of fortune, wrought by the Dauntless dive-bombers, the SBDs,
the most successful and beloved by aviators of all our carrier types during the
war. Lieutenant Commander Clarence W. McClusky, air group commander of
Enterprise, had two squadrons of SDBs under him: 37 units. He ordered one to
follow him in attacking carrier Kaga, while the other, under Lieutenant W. E.
Gallaher, pounced on Akagi, Nagumo’s flagship. Their coming in so soon after
the last torpedo-bombing attack meant that the Zekes were still close to the
water after shooting down TBDs, and had no time to climb. At 14000 feet the
American dive-bombers tipped over and swooped screaming down for the kill.
Akagi took a bomb which exploded in the hangar, detonating torpedo storage,
then another which exploded amid planes changing their armament on the flight
deck—just as Browning had calculated. Fires swept the flagship, Admiral Nagumo
and staff transferred to cruiser Nagara, and the carrier was abandoned and sunk
by a destroyer’s torpedo. Four bomb hits on Kaga killed everyone on the bridge
and set her burning from stem to stern. Abandoned by all but a small
damage-control crew, she was racked by an internal explosion that evening, and
sank hissing into a 2600 fathom deep.
Lt. Commander Leslie |
The third carrier was the victim
of Yorktown’s dive-bombers, under Lieutenant Commander Maxwell F. Leslie, who
by cutting corners managed to make up for a late start. His 17 SBDs jumped
Soryu just as she was turning into the wind to launch planes, and planted three
half-ton bombs in the midst of the spot. Within
twenty minutes she had to be abandoned . U.S. submarine Nautilus,
prowling about looking for targets, pumped three torpedoes into her, the
gasoline storage exploded, whipsawing the carrier, and down she went in two
sections....
Never has there been a sharper
turn in the fortunes of war than on that June day when McClusky’s and Leslie’s
dive-bombers snatched the palm of victory from Nagumo’s masthead, where he had
nailed it on 7 December.
Midway was a victory not only of
courage, determination and excellent bombing technique, but of intelligence,
bravely and wisely applied….it might have ended differently but for the chance
which gave Spruance command over two of the three flattops. Fletcher did well,
but Spruance’s performance was superb. Calm, collected, decisive, yet receptive
to advice, keeping in his mind the picture of widely disparate forces, yet
boldly seizing every opening, Raymond A. Spruance emerged from this battle one
of the greatest admirals in American naval history.
Admiral Spruance |
Admirals Nimitz, Fletcher, and
Spruance are, as I write, very much alive; Captain Mitscher of Hornet, Captain
Murray of Enterprise and Captain Miles Browning of the slide-rule mind have
joined the three-score young aviators who met flaming death that day in
reversing the verdict of battle. Think of them, reader, every Fourth of June.
They and their comrades who survived changed the whole course of the Pacific
War."
A recent controversial Japanese film does a remarkable job of reenacting the battle scenes in which brave men on boys sides participated. Here is a link to a brief segment on Midway.
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