Battle of Midway - Battle - Attacks On The Japanese Fleet

Attacks On The Japanese Fleet

The Americans had already launched their carrier aircraft against the Japanese. Admiral Fletcher, in overall command aboard Yorktown, and benefiting from PBY sighting reports from the early morning, ordered Spruance to launch against the Japanese as soon as was practical, while initially holding Yorktown in reserve should there be any other Japanese carriers discovered. (Fletcher's directions to Spruance were relayed via Nimitz who, unlike Yamamoto, had remained ashore.)

Spruance judged that, though the range was extreme, a strike could succeed and gave the order "Launch the attack" at around 06:00. He then left Halsey's Chief of Staff, Captain Miles Browning, to work out the details and oversee the launch, which did not go smoothly. It took until a few minutes after 07:00 before the first plane was able to depart from Spruance's carriers, Enterprise and Hornet. Fletcher, upon completing his own scouting flights, followed suit at 08:00 from Yorktown.

Fletcher, Yorktown's commanding officer, Captain Elliott Buckmaster, and their staffs had acquired first-hand experience in organizing and launching a full strike against an enemy force at Coral Sea, but there was no time to pass these lessons to Enterprise and Hornet which were tasked with launching the first strike. Spruance gave at this point his second crucial command, "Proceed to target" -- not to cast away precious minutes, waiting for the strike force to assemble fully, but to proceed to the target as quickly as possible, since neutralizing enemy carriers was the key to the survival of his own task force. Spruance judged that the need to throw something at the enemy as soon as feasible was greater than the need for a coordinated attack among the different types of aircraft (fighters, bombers, torpedo planes). Accordingly, American squadrons were launched piecemeal and proceeded to the target in several different groups. The lack of coordination was expected to diminish the overall impact of the American attacks as well as increasing their casualties. However, Spruance calculated that this risk was worth it, since keeping the Japanese under aerial attack hampered their ability to launch a counterstrike (Japanese doctrine preferred fully constituted attacks), and he gambled that he could find Nagumo with his decks at their most vulnerable.

American carrier aircraft had difficulty locating the target, despite the positions they had been given. The strike from Hornet, led by Commander Stanhope C. Ring, followed an incorrect heading of 263 degrees rather than the 240 heading indicated by the contact report. As a result, Air Group Eight's dive bombers missed the Japanese carriers. Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT-8, from Hornet), led by Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron, broke formation from Ring and followed the correct heading. However, the 10 F4Fs from Hornet had run out of fuel and had to ditch into the ocean, when Waldron's squadron sighted the enemy carriers and began attacking at 09:20, followed by Torpedo Squadron 6 (VT-6, from Enterprise), whose Wildcat fighter escorts also ran low on fuel and had to turn back, at 09:40. Without fighter escort, all fifteen TBD Devastators of VT-8 were shot down without being able to inflict any damage, with Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. the only survivor. VT-6 lost 10 of their 14 Devastators, and 10 of Yorktown's VT-3's (TDY from Saratoga, which took a torpedo on 11 January 1942) 12 Devastators were shot down with no hits to show for their effort, thanks in part to the abysmal performance of their Mark 13 torpedoes; senior Navy and BuOrd officers never questioned why half a dozen torpedoes, released so close to the Japanese carriers, produced no results. The Japanese combat air patrol, flying Mitsubishi A6M2 Zeros (which were both faster and had greater endurance, enabling them to engage the bombers for longer) made short work of the unescorted, slow, under-armed TBDs. A few TBDs managed to get within a few ship-lengths range of their targets before dropping their torpedoes, close enough to be able to strafe the enemy ships and force the Japanese carriers to make sharp evasive maneuvers.

The American torpedo attacks indirectly achieved three important results. First, they kept the Japanese carriers off balance and unable to prepare and launch their own counterstrike. Second, they pulled the Japanese combat air patrol (CAP) out of position. Third, many of the Zeros ran low on ammunition and fuel. The appearance of a third torpedo plane attack from the southeast by Torpedo Squadron 3 (VT-3, from Yorktown) at 10:00 very quickly drew the majority of the Japanese CAP to the southeast quadrant of the fleet. Better discipline and employment of all the Zeroes aboard might have enabled Nagumo to survive.

By chance, at the same time VT-3 was sighted by the Japanese, three squadrons of American SBDs from Enterprise and Yorktown (VB-6, VS-6 and VB-3, respectively) were approaching from the northeast and southwest. They were running low on fuel because of the time spent looking for the enemy. However, squadron commander C. Wade McClusky, Jr. decided to continue the search and by good fortune spotted the wake of the Japanese destroyer Arashi. The destroyer was steaming at full speed to rejoin Nagumo's carriers after having unsuccessfully depth-charged the U.S. submarine Nautilus, which had earlier unsuccessfully attacked the battleship Kirishima. Some bombers were lost from fuel exhaustion before the attack commenced.

McClusky's decision to continue the search and his judgment, in the opinion of Admiral Chester Nimitz, "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway...." The American dive-bombers arrived at the perfect time to attack. Armed Japanese strike aircraft filled the hangar decks, fuel hoses snaked across the decks as refueling operations were hastily completed, and the repeated change of ordnance meant bombs and torpedoes were stacked around the hangars, rather than stowed safely in the magazines, making the Japanese carriers extraordinarily vulnerable.

Enterprise's air group split up and attacked two targets. Beginning at 10:22, McClusky and his men scored hits on Kaga, while to the north Akagi was attacked four minutes later by three bombers, led by Lieutenant Commander Richard Halsey Best. Yorktown's VB-3, commanded by Max Leslie, went for Sōryū, scoring hits. Simultaneously, VT-3 targeted Hiryū, which was sandwiched between Sōryū, Kaga, and Akagi, but achieved no hits. The dive-bombers left Sōryū and Kaga ablaze within six minutes. Akagi was hit by just one bomb (dropped by Lieutenant Commander Best), which penetrated to the upper hangar deck and exploded among the armed and fueled aircraft there. One bomb exploded underwater very close astern; the resulting geyser bent the flight deck upward and also caused crucial rudder damage. Sōryū took three bombs in her hangar deck, Kaga at least four, possibly five. All three carriers were out of action and were eventually abandoned and scuttled.