The Battle of Midway, 4-6 June 1942, was the turning point of the Pacific War. The US Pacific fleet sank four Japanese aircraft carriers for the loss of only one US carrier, the Yorktown, and destroyed nearly 250 Japanese aircraft. After Midway, the Imperial Japanese Navy, which had suffered its first major defeat since the 16th century, was obliged to go on the defensive in the Second World War (1939-45), steadily losing territory until Japan's home islands were themselves attacked from late 1944.
Prelude: The Coral Sea
So far in the Second World War (1939-45), the Japanese military government had expanded with great success throughout the Pacific coast of East Asia. By late 1941, Japan occupied Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, parts of coastal China, and French Indo-China (which included what is today Laos, Cambodia, and parts of Thailand). In December 1941, Japanese carriers sent aircraft to attack Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, home of the US Pacific Fleet. The plan was the brainchild of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (1884-1943), Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet. Achieving complete surprise, the attack caused over 3,500 casualties and destroyed or seriously damaged 18 ships, including eight battleships. Crucially, no US carriers were in harbour that day. The US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) responded by declaring war on Japan.
That same December, Japan launched attacks on the US-controlled Philippines, and British-controlled Malaya, Burma (Myanmar), and Hong Kong. Singapore was captured in February 1942. Through March and April, Japanese forces ripped through the main islands of the Dutch East Indies (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and New Guinea). Not all senior Japanese commanders were convinced that Japan should continue to directly confront the US Navy, especially given the successes of Japan’s land armies, but support for Yamamoto’s more aggressive plans at sea grew significantly following the Doolittle Raid, when US bombers attacked Tokyo itself in April 1942.
An important prelude to the Battle of Midway, one with significance on who would participate in the encounter, was the Battle of the Coral Sea between 4 and 8 May 1942. The Japanese navy here attempted to occupy the Solomon Islands and the eastern part of Papua, but the US Navy was determined to prevent further Japanese expansion in the region and defend its supply routes from Australia. In the battle, the Japanese lost the light carrier Shōhō, while the US Navy lost the carrier Lexington.
The battle was a Japanese tactical victory given the tonnage sunk, but an Allied strategic victory since Japanese expansion had finally been halted. Crucially, the Japanese carrier Shōkaku was rendered inoperable, with extensive damage to its flight deck, and the carrier Zuikaku had lost too many of its aircraft to be able to function any time soon. The Japanese, perhaps overconfident in their ability to use what they had, were rather slow to administer repairs to these two ships. In contrast, the US carrier Yorktown, also badly damaged, was repaired with remarkable speed to make the ship battle-worthy within a matter of days. Another notable absentee at Midway was Captain Mitsuo Fuchida (1902-1976), who had coordinated and then personally led the first attack wave of aircraft at Pearl Harbor. Fuchida was struck down with appendicitis and missed Midway.
Operation MI
The Battle of the Coral Sea had been the first carrier battle in history, but Midway would offer a much more significant confrontation. The Japanese Navy remained intent on attacking and destroying the real source of power held by the enemy: their aircraft carriers. It was decided that the place to do it was Midway Atoll. The strategic importance of Midway, composed of two main islands with a US military base, meant control of it would allow Japanese forces to permanently threaten both Pearl Harbor and its supply lines, which ran back to Australia. The attack on Midway was given the code name Operation MI.
The Japanese plan included a diversionary attack made on the western Aleutian Islands, which, it was hoped, would draw off some enemy ships to the far north. It was believed that if a large Japanese carrier force approached Midway and the islands were invaded by a land force, the US would have no choice but to then send its fleet to defend the islands. Japanese carriers and battleships would then combine to crush the smaller US Pacific Fleet. Crucial to the whole plan was surprise, since it could only work if the US fleet was nowhere near Midway at the time of the invasion. Aircraft from the Japanese carriers had to have completed their attack on Midway before any US naval ships arrived; otherwise, the Japanese carriers would be left highly vulnerable to attack from the aircraft of the US carriers.
The Opposing Fleets
The Japanese put to sea six carriers, eleven battleships, 22 cruisers, 65 destroyers, 21 submarines, and various support vessels. In all, 165 ships were involved. First assembling at Guam, Saipan, Ominato, and Hashirajima, the various fleets separated in the final days of May into four command groups, with Yamamoto leading in person. An additional command group, which included two carriers, headed for the Aleutians. A sixth attack group was composed of 214 land-based aircraft dispersed on various Japanese-controlled islands.
The Japanese carrier force that approached Midway was commanded by Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (1887-1944). The land-invasion force was commanded by Admiral Nobutake Kondō (1886-1953). Aircraft from the four carriers, led by Commander Minoru Genda (1904-1989), would first attack the defences at Midway. The army element, composed of one bulked-up regiment of 5,000 men, would then put boots on the ground in an amphibious landing scheduled for 7 June. Submarines and two flying boats would be sent out in an arc in the direction of Pearl Harbor to gather reconnaissance information on the US response. It was a complex plan with many different groups involved, none of which was close enough to another to give support if required. In addition, the timing was planned to the minute, but there was not much leeway for delays in any one element of the invasion plan.
The US Pacific Fleet, commanded by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (1885-1966), had only three operational carriers, Hornet, Enterprise, and the newly repaired Yorktown. US military intelligence was able to decode and piece together snippets from Japanese communications and so inform Nimitz of where the enemy intended to be: Midway. This meant the diversionary assault on the Aleutians did not achieve its purpose of diverting any US carriers to that part of the Pacific. Yamamoto would have been better off using the Aleutian force to bolster his Midway campaign. Indeed, if anyone was deceived as to where certain ships were, it was Yamamoto. The Japanese were confused by deliberately misleading radio signals from US intelligence. In addition, a planned Japanese photo-reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor to check if the US carriers were still in port was cancelled at the last minute. Nimitz achieved his plan to surprise the Japanese by arriving at Midway undetected.
The US task force Nimitz sent to Midway would have been commanded by Vice Admiral William Halsey, but he was ill in hospital. Halsey’s replacement was Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher (1885-1973), who had participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Nimitz gave Fletcher orders not to defend Midway (it could be recaptured later) but to destroy as many Japanese ships as possible, especially the carriers.
The US fleet was split into two groups. Fletcher’s second-in-command, Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, left Pearl Harbor on 28 May with the Enterprise, Hornet, five cruisers, and nine destroyers (Task Force 16). Fletcher took the Yorktown and an escort of two cruisers and six destroyers (Task Force 17) out of Pearl Harbor on 30 May. The two carrier groups joined forces on 2 June and headed for Midway. Fletcher’s plan was to avoid directly engaging with the Japanese ships but rather to send out aircraft to target the carriers. In total, Fletcher had 221 aircraft: 79 Wildcat fighters, 101 Dauntless dive-bombers, and 41 Devastator torpedo planes.
Battle
The Japanese task force led by Nagumo launched its bombardment of Midway on 4 June, but because the submarines had been slow to get into position and the fact there were not enough aircraft scouting the seas, intelligence was lacking on just what and how big the US response was to the Japanese operation. The lack of sightings further convinced the Japanese commanders that the US fleet from Pearl Harbor would not arrive at Midway until the islands had already been captured.
Conversely, US reconnaissance was conducted much more thoroughly, and aircraft spotted the Japanese ships attacking Midway, and so Fletcher launched an air attack on them using bombers from the islands. Fighter aircraft, the anti-aircraft gun units, and the garrison of 2,000 Marines on the islands also rallied to defend themselves. The Midway bomber force was easily dealt with by the Japanese carrier fighter protection, and none made a successful hit on enemy shipping.
Around 7:00 a.m. Fletcher took the gamble of launching aircraft from the Enterprise and Hornet to attack the Japanese carriers, even if the range was at the very limit of their capabilities and they would be without fighter escort. The bombers of Yorktown were kept in reserve. Around 7:30 a.m., Nagumo realised that with resistance ongoing and still significant enemy aircraft undamaged, he would need to send a second wave of aircraft to attack Midway, but he just then received the first confirmation of the approaching US ships. As fate would have it, the one sector where the US ships were spotted was covered by an aircraft whose take-off had been delayed by half an hour because of a technical problem. In addition, none of the Japanese carriers had radar, but the US carriers did.
Nagumo, after some dithering, decided that his bombers would have to be kept on board and rearmed with more appropriate ordnance to meet this unexpected new threat of US shipping. He also needed to welcome back his fighters from the Midway attack; otherwise, they would have to ditch in the sea for lack of fuel. As it happened, the Japanese ships turned northwards, and the aircraft from the US carriers were now unable to locate them. Many US aircraft had to land on Midway or ditch in the sea since they had insufficient fuel to return to the carriers. Finding and then identifying the enemy, two different problems, was far from easy in the huge expanse of the Pacific.
One group of US Devastator bombers did find some Japanese ships, but these were all shot down when they encountered the group of 50 Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters already in the air to protect the surface vessels. Two more US dive-bomber groups took to the air from their carriers and managed to find the Japanese ships, but these also suffered heavy losses. A weakness of the US Navy at this time was the lack of coordination between flight groups launched from different carriers. Not one Japanese ship was hit by a torpedo. It was a messy start to the battle but still only mid-morning of 4 June.
The aircraft of the Japanese carriers were yet to launch when a second wave of US dive-bombers, this group coming from the Yorktown, arrived at the scene. The protective Zero fighters, somewhat depleted following the first US attacks, were now returning to refuel and rearm and so were at a low altitude when these new bombers, which unlike the earlier waves, had their own fighter escort, arrived. The Zeros went after the low-flying US torpedo bombers, but, much higher in the sky, a squadron of US dive-bombers was also arriving, and they now had a clear run at the Japanese carriers Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu. The carriers were all hit repeatedly. As in previous battles, the Japanese anti-aircraft fire from the carriers’ own defences proved woefully inept – in the whole battle, only 5 US aircraft were shot down by surface fire. The presence of so many of their own aircraft’s bombs in the hangar decks while aircraft were being rearmed proved fatal, turning what should have been minor bomb blows into catastrophic hits. All three carriers ultimately sank.
Meanwhile, the 58 bombers and fighters of the carrier Hiryu did take off, and they followed the US bombers which were now returning home. In this way, the Yorktown was exposed to a full-on attack and hit first by three bombs and then two torpedoes. At 3:00 p.m., the crew was ordered to abandon ship, although the stricken Yorktown, without power and suffering a 23-degree list, stayed afloat for another 48 hours until a Japanese submarine delivered the coup de grace with another two torpedoes. This submarine also sank the destroyer Hammann. Revenge for the Yorktown’s loss was swift, since the Hiryu was attacked from the air by a force of dive-bombers from the Enterprise. The Japanese carrier was hit four times and so badly damaged it had to be scuttled the next morning.
Incredibly, Yamamoto had lost four carriers in less than 24 hours, but he was determined to carry on the battle. The Japanese admiral believed a ship-to-ship battle could be won if conducted at night when the enemy’s aircraft would be rendered much less potent. The problem was that most of Yamamoto’s battleships and cruisers were several hundred miles away. As these ships steamed closer to Midway, Yamamoto ordered the landing at Midway to be abandoned at midnight on 4 June. He also instructed the two carriers in the Aleutians task force, the Ryujo and Junyo, to head south. If he could get his ships in position, including his ace in the pack, the super-battleship Yamato with its nine 18-inch guns, then Yamamoto still believed he might achieve his original objective of destroying the US carriers. This was sheer folly, though, since the days of battleships exchanging blows were long gone given the new dominance of aircraft.
It occurred to Fletcher and Spruance that Yamamoto might now try to instigate a more traditional naval battle, and they prudently withdrew their ships, first to the east and then redirecting west under the cover of darkness. This manoeuvre, and the realisation that the two carriers from the Aleutian raid would not be at Midway before 8 June, led Yamamoto to withdraw his ships westwards in the early hours of 5 June.
The action was not quite over since a task force of four Japanese cruisers was conducting, as planned, a night attack on Midway. The orders to abandon the attack had been delayed, but when finally received, the task force turned back. In the confusion caused by the arrival of a US submarine in the area, the Japanese cruisers Mikuma and Mogami collided at high speed. The Mikuma sank, and the Mogami was badly damaged by US bombers the next day. Having decisively won the battle of Midway, the US fleet was ordered to return to Pearl Harbor on the evening of 6 June.
Why Japan Lost at Midway
The US forces had lost one battleship, one destroyer, and 144 aircraft. 362 service personnel had been killed (Stille, 91). The Japanese forces lost four carriers, one heavy cruiser, and 275 aircraft. Around 3,500 personnel had been killed (Marston, 97). The loss of the carriers dealt the severest blow to Japan’s future naval capabilities. The heavy losses in experienced pilots and maintenance crews were another serious setback. The Japanese people were not informed that four carriers had been lost at Midway.
The US commanders had used their military intelligence well, the defenders on Midway had fought with valour, and US pilots had conducted a courageous and effective attack on the enemy carriers. For Genda, the main explanation for the loss was military intelligence deciphering Japanese coded messages: “The biggest reason for the failure was that the secret leaked…Midway was the turning point” (Holmes, 247).
Historians point to other reasons for the battle's outcome. Yamamoto made several important mistakes. Historian M. M. Boatner notes that Yamamoto:
…failed to follow the Napoleonic dictum of mustering all available force for the main effort; he did not position himself to control the action… he failed to brief major subordinate commanders fully on the plan; he was careless about deploying reconnaissance and screening forces; but perhaps his greatest fault was overconfidence.
(622)
Yamamoto’s whole plan was flawed since even if it had been successful, holding Midway and operating Japanese forces from there would only have resulted in constant bomber attacks from Pearl Harbor. Nor could Midway have been used to launch a surprise attack by a carrier force on Pearl Harbor since, already stung once, the US commanders had adopted an impressive array of reconnaissance and defensive measures to ensure they would never be caught out again.
The Battle of Midway is considered the turning point of the Pacific War. It was Japan’s first major naval defeat since the 16th century. The Japanese had to delay their offensive on Papua and abandon altogether their plans to invade Caledonia, Samoa, and Fiji. Although Japan still possessed significant naval forces, this was the start of the Japanese retreat all the way back to the home islands. The economic, industrial, and military might of the US was clearly demonstrated with the construction of 14 Essex-class carriers in 1943. Nevertheless, it would take three long years of fighting for the US to finally defeat Japan in August 1945.
