The damage could easily have removed Yorktown from Midway.
Instead, extraordinary repair efforts at Pearl Harbor returned her to action with remarkable speed.
The carrier entered the fight still carrying evidence of recent damage.
Her presence gave Nimitz three carriers instead of two.
That difference would matter enormously.
Admiral William Halsey, normally associated with Enterprise’s task force, was ill and could not command.
Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance took his place.
Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, aboard Yorktown, held overall tactical command of the carrier forces during the opening battle.
The Americans were preparing an ambush with three carriers against four experienced Japanese fleet carriers.
Even with intelligence, the odds did not look comfortable.
Midway Itself Became Part of the Ambush
The atoll was more than the object Japan intended to seize.
It was also an American reconnaissance platform and forward air base.
Patrol aircraft could search enormous sectors of ocean.
Marine fighters defended the island.
Bombers and attack aircraft could strike ships.
Midway therefore extended American observation and striking power.
Japanese planners understood that the base had to be neutralized before an invasion could succeed.
That requirement forced Nagumo to launch a major air strike against the island on the morning of June 4.
Every aircraft committed against Midway was an aircraft temporarily unavailable for immediate anti-carrier attack.
That distinction would become critical.
The Japanese Carrier Strike Launched Before Dawn
Early on June 4, Nagumo launched a powerful strike against Midway.
More than one hundred aircraft took part.
Fighters escorted dive bombers and level bombers toward the island.
At the same time, the Japanese carriers retained aircraft to deal with American ships if they appeared.
This was a sensible precaution.
Nagumo’s force had not yet confirmed the presence of American carriers.
Japanese planners expected the Americans might respond, but the exact location and timing remained unknown.
Nagumo had to prepare for two different missions.
The first was suppressing Midway.
The second was destroying any American fleet that appeared.
Carrier aviation makes changing between these missions difficult.
Aircraft need the correct weapons.
A plane intended to attack land targets may carry bombs.
A plane intended to attack major warships may need torpedoes or different bomb loads.
Changing those weapons takes time.
Fueling takes time.
Moving aircraft inside a carrier takes time.
Recovering returning aircraft takes time.
Launching combat air patrol fighters takes time.
A carrier deck is powerful because it can launch aircraft.
It is also a limited piece of moving real estate where multiple operations compete for space.
Nagumo’s morning would become a struggle against that fact.
The First Japanese Attack Damaged Midway but Did Not Neutralize It
Japanese aircraft hit the atoll hard.
Installations were damaged.
Fuel facilities, hangars, defensive positions, and other targets came under attack.
The defending Marine fighters suffered severely against experienced Japanese aviators.
However, Midway remained operational enough to remain dangerous.
The Japanese strike leader reported that another attack would be necessary.
This created Nagumo’s first major operational problem of the morning.
Aircraft held in reserve aboard the carriers had originally been prepared for use against ships.
If Midway needed another strike, those aircraft might instead need bombs for land targets.
Nagumo ordered rearming preparations.
At the moment the decision was made, it was rational.
He still lacked confirmed information that American carriers were nearby.
The threat he could see was Midway.
Then new information arrived.
Japanese Reconnaissance Was Searching, but Its Picture Was Incomplete
The Japanese carrier force did not simply ignore the possibility of American ships.
Search aircraft were launched.
However, the search plan did not locate the American carriers early enough to provide Nagumo with a comfortable decision.
One scouting aircraft from the cruiser Tone launched later than planned after a technical delay.
Eventually it reported American ships.
The first report did not immediately establish that an American carrier was present.
That uncertainty mattered.
A commander preparing hundreds of aircraft cannot instantly reverse direction every time a vague report arrives.
Nagumo needed more information.
What ships had been sighted?
How many?
Was a carrier among them?
How far away were they?
What course were they following?
Carrier warfare punishes uncertainty because preparations take time while information becomes outdated.
Nagumo’s Famous Rearming Decision Was More Rational Than the Simplest Retellings Suggest
After the returning Midway strike indicated that another attack on the island was necessary, Nagumo ordered reserve aircraft rearmed for another land strike.
Then came the sighting of American surface ships.
The situation changed.
If enemy carriers were present, Nagumo needed anti-ship weapons.
The rearming process had to change again.
Popular accounts sometimes portray this as simple indecision.
The reality was more complicated.
Nagumo had competing obligations.
He needed to recover the aircraft already returning from Midway.
Some were damaged.
Others were low on fuel.
He needed to maintain fighter protection over the fleet.
He needed a confirmed target before launching a major anti-ship strike.
He needed enough deck space to cycle aircraft safely.
He could not simply push every returning aircraft into the sea so another strike could launch instantly.
Every decision consumed minutes.
At Midway, minutes became strategic weapons.
The American Carriers Were Already Launching
American commanders had received reports indicating the location of Nagumo’s carriers.
Spruance made an aggressive decision.
Enterprise and Hornet would launch strikes from considerable distance rather than waiting to approach closer.
This meant aircraft would face a long flight.
Fuel would become dangerous.
Navigation would become difficult.
However, launching early increased the chance of reaching the Japanese carriers before Nagumo could strike the American fleet.
Fletcher later launched Yorktown’s strike as additional information became available.
The Americans were now attempting something extremely difficult.
Aircraft from three carriers, organized into multiple squadrons and flying at different speeds, had to cross open ocean and locate moving ships based on imperfect position reports.
They did not have satellite navigation.
They did not have modern airborne surveillance networks.
They had maps, compasses, clocks, radio information, dead reckoning, and human judgment.
The battle depended on whether enough aircraft could solve the geometry correctly.
Many did not.
The American Strike Groups Began Separating Almost Immediately
Different aircraft types had very different performance.
Fighters did not have the same endurance as torpedo bombers.
Dive bombers flew differently from the slow TBD Devastators.
Coordinating a huge mixed formation over hundreds of miles was difficult even under peaceful conditions.
At Midway, confusion developed.
Some formations chose different courses.
Some fighter escorts became separated.
Hornet’s air group famously flew a course that failed to bring most of its dive bombers to the Japanese carriers during the crucial morning period.
Aircraft eventually had to turn back because of fuel.
Some were lost after being unable to return safely.
The American strike did not arrive as one synchronized blow.
It fragmented.
That should have been a major advantage for the Japanese defenders.
Instead, the fragmentation produced a strange sequence that exhausted and displaced the Japanese combat air patrol at exactly the wrong time.
The First American Attacks Came From Midway Itself
Aircraft based on Midway attacked the Japanese carriers before the carrier-based American groups arrived.
The attacks included several different aircraft types.
Some crews were flying machines poorly suited to attacking a well-defended carrier force.
Marine dive bombers approached under intense fighter opposition.
Army bombers attempted high-altitude bombing.
Torpedo aircraft pressed low-level attacks.
The Japanese carriers maneuvered aggressively.
Zeros intercepted.
Anti-aircraft fire filled the sky.
The Americans scored no decisive carrier hits during these early attacks.
The losses could be severe.
From a purely immediate perspective, the attacks looked unsuccessful.
However, they forced Japanese fighters and ship crews into continuous defensive action.
The carriers had to maneuver.
Combat air patrols had to intercept.
Fighters consumed ammunition and fuel.
Additional aircraft had to be launched or recovered.
The operational rhythm Nagumo needed was repeatedly interrupted.
The Americans did not yet know how important those interruptions might become.
The Japanese Combat Air Patrol Was Extremely Dangerous
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero had earned a frightening reputation for good reason.
At the beginning of the Pacific War, it combined excellent maneuverability, long range, and capable pilots.
Japanese carrier fighter pilots were experienced and aggressive.
Against slow American torpedo bombers, the Zero could be devastating.
Japanese carrier defenses were not simply a wall of anti-aircraft fire.
Fighters were the first major defensive layer.
When American aircraft were detected, Zero pilots moved to intercept.
Low-flying torpedo planes were particularly vulnerable because their attack profiles required them to approach close to the ships at relatively low altitude and limited maneuvering freedom.
This was exactly where Japanese fighters could attack them violently.
The American torpedo squadrons were about to discover how severe that danger was.
Torpedo Squadron Eight Found the Japanese Fleet Without Its Fighter Support
Torpedo Squadron Eight from USS Hornet, commanded by Lieutenant Commander John Waldron, did not follow the same course as the rest of Hornet’s air group.
Waldron believed the Japanese carriers were in a different direction.
His judgment brought his squadron to the enemy.
The price was terrible.
The squadron’s TBD Devastators approached without effective fighter protection.
They were slow.
Their torpedoes required low-altitude attack runs.
Japanese Zeros descended upon them.
One aircraft after another was shot down.
The squadron continued the attack.
No torpedo hit a Japanese carrier.
Nearly the entire attacking formation was destroyed.
Ensign George Gay became the only survivor from the squadron’s carrier-based Devastator crews involved in that attack.
From the Japanese perspective, the attack had been crushed.
From the American perspective, it looked like catastrophe.
Nothing about that moment suggested imminent victory.