Midway, battle of

Midway, battle of. This was fought between Japanese and US carrier forces from 4 to 7 June 1942, and was the first decisive defeat the US inflicted on Japan in the Pacific war.

In May 1942 Admiral Yamamoto, C-in-C of the Japanese Combined Fleet, collected a force of 145 warships to invade Midway Island, by then America's most westerly Pacific outpost. His objective was to lure part of the smaller US Pacific Fleet into the northern Pacific by launching the Aleutian Islands campaigns and then to bring the rest of the fleet to battle, and inevitable destruction, off Midway. If he succeeded, Hawaii was Yamamoto's next target with the USA at some point accepting, or being driven to sue for, a negotiated peace.

Instead of concentrating his formidable forces, Yamamoto was therefore dispersing them, and his plan was so intricate that some of his subordinates requested more time to train for it. He made other mistakes, too. He thought one of the US carriers, Yorktown, had been sunk; he was deceived by US radio deception (see also signals intelligence warfare) into believing that the Americans' two remaining operational carriers, Enterprise and Hornet, were nowhere near Midway; he was disastrously late in putting a screen of submarines in place; and a last-minute photographic reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor, which would have revealed the US forces gathered there, was cancelled.

But more crucial to the forthcoming battle than any of Yamamoto's errors was the faith the Pacific Fleet's C-in-C, Admiral Nimitz, put in the still new and untested ULTRA intelligence which soon revealed that Midway was Yamamoto's chief objective. It enabled Nimitz to place two carrier groups—comprising the 3 carriers, 233 aircraft, and an escort which included 7 heavy cruisers—near Midway before the Japanese submarine screen was in place, and the island was also strongly reinforced. In overall command was Rear-Admiral Fletcher aboard Yorktown, while the other carrier group was commanded by Rear-Admiral Spruance.

Yamamoto's force was divided into an invasion group with a powerful escort of warships; Vice-Admiral Nagumo's strike force of 4 carriers with 261 aircraft, 2 battleships, and other smaller escort ships; and a main group built around 3 battleships. The invasion force was sighted first, on 3 June, and was ineffectually attacked by bombers that afternoon. At dawn the next day aircraft from Nagumo's carriers attacked Midway, causing widespread damage. Then at 0715, still unaware of any American carriers in the area, Nagumo decided to rearm the aircraft he had kept in reserve for any American surface forces, and to use them for a second attack on Midway. This proved to be a costly error, for when Spruance's carrier group was eventually sighted Nagumo was unable to launch an immediate strike. But Spruance, though still at extreme range, committed his torpedo bombers imme diately the Japanese were sighted. By doing this he caught Nagumo's bombers, which had just returned from Midway, on the decks of the Japanese carriers.

Out of the 41 US torpedo planes launched by Spruance, and later by Yorktown, only 6 returned. However, the evasion tactics they had forced the carriers to take prevented additional Japanese fighters being launched, while those already in the air had been drawn down almost to water level by the bombers' low-level attacks. This allowed the dive-bombers that followed to attack almost unopposed, and they soon reduced three Japanese carriers to burning wrecks. The fourth, Hiryu, escaped, and in mid-morning she launched a strike at Yorktown, causing serious damage and forcing Fletcher to move ship and hand over command to Spruance. Spruance's dive-bombers retaliated and Hiryu was so seriously damaged she had to be scuttled. Yorktown survived a second attack, but was sunk on 7 June by a Japanese submarine.

Nagumo now announced that his escort was retiring in the face of superior forces, but was ordered by Yamamoto to reverse course and to prepare for a night action. However Spruance, whose mixture of daring and caution was to make him a leading figure in the Pacific war, coolly retired out of range to avoid any contact. It was as well he did so, for Yamamoto's powerful main group (which the Americans knew nothing about) was also approaching Midway at top speed in the hope of engaging him. When it became obvious that Spruance was not going to play his game Yamamoto cancelled the Midway operation and withdrew. Spruance followed, but when air reconnaissance next day failed to find the Japanese he contented himself with launching air attacks on two Japanese cruisers crippled in a collision, sinking one and badly damaging the other.

Thanks to ULTRA intelligence and superior tactics, the Americans inflicted a severe defeat on the Japanese which shifted the balance of sea power in the Pacific in their favour. It caused the Japanese to abandon the construction of battleships in favour of more carriers, postponed their plans to advance on New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, and delayed their offensive in the New Guinea campaign.

Bibliography

Prange, W. , Miracle at Midway (New York, 1982).