Their pilots needed to identify targets, position themselves, then tip their aircraft into steep dives.
Below, the Japanese ships were recovering and preparing aircraft while maneuvering after the torpedo attacks.
Combat air patrol fighters were scattered.
Some were low.
Some were refueling or rearming.
The defensive system had been stressed repeatedly.
Then men aboard the Japanese carriers looked upward.
The American dive-bombers were there.
Once a dive-bomber begins its attack, the geometry becomes frightening.
The aircraft tips nose-down.
The target fills the windscreen.
Speed increases.
Anti-aircraft fire comes upward.
The pilot tries to hold the carrier beneath his sight.
He cannot release too high because accuracy decreases.
He cannot wait too long because the aircraft needs room to pull out before striking the ocean or the ship.
The dive continues.
Wind.
Engine noise.
Gunfire.
The carrier deck growing rapidly larger.
Then bomb release.
The pilot pulls back.
Gravity that had accelerated the aircraft now punishes the pilot as the SBD curves out of the dive.
The bomb continues.
Seconds decide whether months of training produce a hit or a splash.
The Dauntless was not glamorous in appearance compared with sleek fighters.
It was sturdy.
It possessed effective dive brakes.
Its pilots had trained to make accurate attacks against maneuvering ships.
At Midway, the aircraft would earn its reputation in minutes.
Confusion Almost Sent Too Many Bombers Against One Carrier
McClusky's Enterprise dive-bombing force included aircraft from Bombing Squadron Six and Scouting Squadron Six.
As they positioned over the Japanese fleet, target assignment became imperfect.
McClusky intended to divide the bombers among carriers.
Lieutenant Richard Best, commanding Bombing Squadron Six, recognized that too many aircraft were beginning to follow McClusky against the same target.
That target was Kaga.
Best attempted to redirect his own section toward Akagi.
The distinction mattered enormously.
If every Enterprise bomber attacked Kaga, the carrier might be destroyed several times over while Akagi escaped untouched.
In carrier warfare, distributing bombs correctly could matter more than adding another hit to a ship already doomed.
Best and a small number of bombers shifted toward Akagi.
Meanwhile, McClusky and most of the Enterprise dive-bombers descended on Kaga.
The attack happened so quickly that Japanese crews had almost no time to reorganize.
Bombs began falling.
Kaga Was Hit Repeatedly
Kaga was a large carrier.
Its deck provided a clear target from above.
The first American bombers attacked.
Near misses threw water and fragments.
Then direct hits landed.
Bombs penetrated the flight deck and exploded within the ship.
Aircraft, fuel lines, ammunition, and enclosed spaces transformed each successful hit into something larger than a hole.
Fires spread.
Japanese damage-control crews responded.
They had training.
They had courage.
They faced a situation developing faster than any realistic response could contain.
The bombs did not need to sink the carrier immediately.
They needed to destroy the ship's ability to conduct flight operations and start fires intense enough to reach fuel and ordnance.
Kaga became an inferno.
On deck and in compartments below, crewmen fought to survive and control the damage.
Smoke rose over the fleet.
The carrier that had helped attack Pearl Harbor six months earlier was now crippled.
Yet Kaga was only one ship.
Richard Best was already diving toward another.
Three Bombers Went After Akagi
The attack on Akagi became one of the most famous small-unit actions at Midway.
Only a few of Best's aircraft made the critical dive against Nagumo's flagship.
A small number of aircraft attacking a major fleet carrier might seem insufficient.
Dive-bombing did not require dozens of hits.
One bomb in the wrong location could be decisive.
Best descended.
His target maneuvered below.
Bombs were released.
One struck with devastating effect.
The bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded in a position where the resulting fire spread among aircraft and aviation facilities.
Other bombs or near misses contributed to damage.
Akagi was not instantly blown apart.
She remained afloat.
But her ability to function as an aircraft carrier was effectively destroyed.
Fire spread beyond control.
Vice Admiral Nagumo eventually had to transfer his flag.
For the Japanese commander, the battle had changed in minutes from one in which he was preparing offensive action to one in which his flagship was dying beneath him.
He did not yet know the full scale of the disaster.
To the east, Yorktown's dive-bombers were attacking Soryu.
Soryu Was the Third Carrier Caught in the Same Window
Max Leslie's bombers descended on Soryu.
Several aircraft had experienced arming problems during the flight, and not every bomber carried the ideal load by the time the attack occurred.
Enough bombs remained.
Hits smashed into the carrier.
Fires erupted.
Within only a few minutes, three Japanese fleet carriers had received mortal damage.
Kaga.
Akagi.
Soryu.
At the beginning of the American dive, Nagumo commanded one of the most powerful carrier forces in the world.
Minutes later, most of that force had been crippled.
That is the scale of change the Midway dive-bombing attack produced.
It was not gradual.
It did not unfold over an afternoon of evenly exchanged blows.
The balance shifted violently.
Three carriers that had supported Japan's expansion across the Pacific were effectively removed from the fight in one short sequence.
The American torpedo squadrons had not scored the decisive hits.
But their sacrifice had helped create the defensive geometry in which the dive-bombers arrived.
McClusky's search had seemed almost lost.
The destroyer had led him home to the enemy.
Leslie's bombers had arrived at the same critical time.
And Japanese flight operations had created the vulnerability that American bombs exploited.
This was not one miracle.
It was a chain.
Break one link, and the result could change.
The Japanese Still Had Hiryu
The battle was not over.
This is another point often lost in retellings that end emotionally with the three-carrier strike.
One Japanese carrier remained operational.
Hiryu.
Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi commanded the carrier division that included Hiryu and Soryu.
With three carriers burning, Hiryu suddenly carried the remaining offensive air power of Nagumo's force.
The Japanese response demonstrated why American victory was still not guaranteed.
Aircraft launched from Hiryu found USS Yorktown.
Japanese dive-bombers attacked.
Bombs struck the American carrier.
Damage-control crews responded effectively.
Fires were controlled.
The ship recovered enough function that later Japanese attackers initially mistook it for another undamaged American carrier.
Then torpedo aircraft from Hiryu attacked.
Torpedoes struck.
Yorktown lost power and developed a severe list.
The carrier was eventually abandoned temporarily.
To Japanese aviators, it appeared they had attacked two American carriers.
In reality, they had attacked the same one twice.
That misunderstanding mattered.
Japanese commanders still did not possess a clear picture of American strength.
But Hiryu had demonstrated that one surviving carrier could continue to inflict serious damage.
If she remained operational, she could potentially launch again.
American scouts needed to find her.
Late in the afternoon, they did.
Another dive-bombing strike attacked Hiryu.
The carrier was hit and set ablaze.
By the end of June 4, all four Japanese carriers that had begun the morning as the striking heart of Kido Butai were doomed.
The American victory was becoming real.
The cost remained substantial.
Yorktown would not survive the battle.
American aircrews had suffered severe losses.
The torpedo squadrons had been devastated.
Many men who created the opportunity never saw the result.
The Men of Torpedo Eight Could Not Know What Their Attack Had Done
This is one of the hardest truths about Midway.
The men flying low toward the Japanese fleet did not sacrifice themselves according to some deliberate master plan designed to pull Zeros down for dive-bombers arriving later.
They wanted to hit carriers with torpedoes.
They expected escorts.
They expected their weapons to work.
Their attack failed in its immediate purpose.
The larger battle transformed that failure into something else.
This distinction matters because calling their destruction a planned sacrifice distorts their experience.
They were not expendable pieces knowingly moved into position so dive-bombers could win.
They were aviators attempting their assigned mission under terrible tactical conditions.
Their courage forced the Japanese defense to react.
That reaction became important later.
History connected the events afterward.
The men in the cockpits could not.
George Gay floating in the ocean after Torpedo Eight's destruction could see Japanese ships maneuvering.
He could see aircraft overhead.
He eventually witnessed parts of the dive-bombing attack.
He knew his squadron was gone.
He also knew the Japanese carriers were finally being hit.
Few people experienced the reversal more directly.
Minutes separated catastrophe from triumph.
That is Midway in miniature.
McClusky's Fuel Problem Returned After the Attack
Destroying the enemy did not refill American fuel tanks.
The Enterprise dive-bombers had searched far beyond the expected interception point.
They had maneuvered.
They had attacked.
Now they had to return.
Some aircraft were desperately low.
Pilots made decisions about whether they could reach the carrier.
Some landed where they could.
Some ditched.
Victory at sea does not end when bombs leave the aircraft.
Every returning plane still has to find a moving deck in the ocean.