History_of_War_43_2017

GREAT BATTLES
aircraft batteries with which to defend the
Midway against the expected amphibious attack.
The air group that Simmard commanded
at Midway would function as an “unsinkable
aircraft carrier” that would help balance
the Japanese advantage in carriers. Both
Yamamoto and Nimitz knew that whoever won
the battle in the sky would control the island
when the battle was over.
Yamamoto did not expect the US Pacific
Fleet to be in a position to contest the invasion
force. The Japanese mistakenly believed that
both the Lexington and Yorktown had been
destroyed in the Coral Sea. The Americans had
indeed lost the Lexington at Coral Sea, but not
the Yorktown. As for the other US carriers, the
Enterprise, Hornet and Saratoga, the Japanese
had no idea where they were in the Pacific. The
Saratoga was unavailable for Midway because
it was undergoing extensive repairs in Puget
Sound following a Japanese submarine attack
in January 1942.
Intelligence failure
Although the Imperial Japanese Navy had
destroyed the American battleships in its Pearl
Harbor attack on 7 December 1941, it had failed
to catch any of the American carriers in the
harbour. Yamamoto believed that the American
aircraft carriers would sortie from Pearl Harbor
once the invasion was in full swing. At that point,
Nagumo and Yamamoto would team up against
the weaker US Pacific Fleet and destroy it in a
decisive battle that would compel the United
States to sue for peace.
To monitor the movements of the US Pacific
Fleet, Yamamoto ordered Vice Admiral Teruhisa
Komatsu to deploy his fleet of ten submarines in
an arc between Hawaii and Midway no later than
2 June to watch for the US aircraft carriers. The
only way the Japanese would know how many
they would be up against at Midway was from
Komatsu’s submarines and from scout planes
launched by Nagumo’s fleet once it had arrived
north of Midway.
Through back-breaking effort, the US combat
intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor gleaned that
the Aleutians strike was nothing more than
a diversion, and that the real objective was
Midway. The intelligence data spurred Nimitz to
put his two task forces into position northeast
of Midway to ambush Nagumo’s carrier strike
force. Both US task forces included cruisers
and destroyers with which to screen their
carriers from attack by Japanese carrier aircraft
and submarines.
During the last week of May, both sides
sailed for the waters around Midway. Nagumo’s
carrier group departed from Japan on 27 May,
and other elements followed over the next
several days both from Japan and the Marianas
Islands. Meanwhile, Task Force 16 sailed from
Pearl Harbor on 28 May, and it was followed
two days later by Task Force 17. Both task
forces were in position 350 miles north of
Midway before the Japanese submarines were
in place between Oahu and Midway. The result
was an intelligence failure for the Imperial
Japanese Navy that would leave Nagumo’s
carrier group vulnerable to a first strike by the
American carriers.
While Nagumo’s carrier group moved into
position north of Midway, Admiral Kakuta sent
BATTLE OF MIDWAY
4 JUNE 1942
THE IJN ATTACKS
02 At 6:30am, Japanese dive bombers
screamed down on Eastern Island to drop their
single-bomb loads on the airfield, while level
bombers dropped high-explosive ordnance on the
infrastructure on Sand Island to the west. US antiaircraft
batteries shot down 11 Japanese aircraft.
MIDWAY ATOLL
01 US-held Midway Atoll consisted of Eastern
Island, where an airstrip was located, and Sand
Island, which housed a seaplane base, radar
installations and fuel dumps. Nimitz toured
Midway in early May to inspect its defences, and
afterwards reinforced it with aircraft, troops and
heavy weapons from Pearl Harbor.
ASSAULT ON IJN CARRIERS
03 Japanese lookouts spotted American
dive bombers at 10:20am over the carrier group.
The Americans caught the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu
carriers at peak vulnerability; however, they did
not see the Hiryu. The flight decks were crowded
with the flight deck crews refuelling A6M Zero
fighters and preparing armed bombers for launch
against the American carriers.
04 CARRIERS
AFLAME
The American dive
bombers in the first
strike wave hit the Kaga
with four bombs, the
Soryu with three bombs,
and the Akagi with
two bombs. The dive
bomber attack lasted
only four minutes. The
bombs touched off
secondary explosions
that transformed the
decks of all three ships
into infernos.
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