Later retellings can make Midway sound almost too perfectly designed.
According to the simplified version, American torpedo bombers attacked first to drag the Japanese fighters down, knowingly clearing the high altitude for dive bombers.
That is not what happened.
The torpedo squadrons were trying to hit the carriers.
They were not sent as deliberate bait.
Their crews expected their attacks to matter directly.
The fact that their attacks helped pull Japanese fighter attention downward was an unintended tactical consequence.
That distinction matters because it preserves the real uncertainty of the battle.
Nobody was executing a perfect script.
The Americans were struggling to make disconnected attacks reach the same moving target.
The eventual coordination emerged partly from accident.
Enterprise’s Torpedo Squadron Arrived Next and Suffered Heavily
Torpedo Squadron Six from Enterprise also attacked.
Again, Japanese fighters engaged violently.
Again, the slow Devastators suffered.
The squadron pressed forward under terrible conditions.
Again, no decisive torpedo hit resulted.
Aircraft were lost.
Crews disappeared into the ocean.
The Japanese carriers survived.
Another American attack had apparently failed.
Yet Japanese fighter pilots were repeatedly being forced to lower altitudes, chase attackers, expend ammunition, and reposition.
The carriers were continuously turning to evade torpedoes.
Flight operations became harder while ships maneuvered.
This was not enough to destroy the Japanese force.
It was enough to create increasing disorder in the defensive picture.
Yorktown’s Torpedo Squadron Entered the Same Killing Zone
Torpedo Squadron Three from Yorktown arrived later with fighter support, but the engagement remained brutal.
The Japanese combat air patrol attacked again.
More American torpedo aircraft were lost.
The sequence had become almost unbearable.
Wave after wave had approached at low altitude.
Wave after wave had failed to score the decisive hits needed.
The men flying those aircraft could not see the larger tactical effect of what was happening above them.
They saw fighters.
Tracers.
Carrier wakes.
Ocean.
Smoke.
They fought inside seconds.
The strategic consequence would emerge elsewhere.
Japanese Fighters Had Been Pulled Toward the Wrong Part of the Sky
The Zero pilots had done what they were supposed to do.
They had attacked incoming threats.
The threats happened to be arriving low.
That pulled defensive attention toward the surface.
Combat air patrol fighters were not all at one altitude or one location.
Some were chasing torpedo planes.
Others were climbing, descending, returning for ammunition or fuel, or trying to reposition.
Japanese fighter direction relied heavily on visual observation and shipboard communication rather than the kind of integrated radar-controlled fighter direction that would become increasingly important later in the war.
The Japanese fleet remained heavily defended.
However, its defensive system was concentrated against the attacks it could see.
Then another threat arrived from high above.
American Dive Bombers Had Been Searching for a Fleet That Was Not Where They Expected
Lieutenant Commander Clarence Wade McClusky led dive bombers from Enterprise toward the reported Japanese position.
When he arrived, the carriers were not there.
This was one of the decisive moments of the entire battle.
The aircraft were burning fuel.
The ocean below offered no obvious answer.
McClusky could turn back.
If he continued searching too long, aircraft might be lost even if they eventually found the enemy.
Carrier aircraft had to travel back to a moving flight deck.
Fuel calculations could not be ignored.
McClusky continued searching.
His decision has become one of the most famous acts of judgment at Midway.
Then he noticed a Japanese destroyer moving rapidly.
The ship was Arashi.
It had been delayed after attacking the American submarine USS Nautilus.
Now it was racing to rejoin the Japanese carrier force.
McClusky followed the destroyer’s course.
The decision turned an apparently empty ocean into a path.
Ahead lay Nagumo’s carriers.
One Japanese Destroyer Accidentally Pointed Toward the Most Important Target in the Pacific
Arashi did nothing foolish by returning to its formation.
Its crew had no reason to imagine that American dive bombers high above would use the ship like an arrow.
The destroyer’s wake and heading provided exactly the clue McClusky needed.
This moment demonstrates how difficult it is to separate planning from chance at Midway.
American intelligence had positioned the carriers.
Spruance had launched early.
McClusky had flown the search.
The Japanese destroyer happened to appear.
McClusky happened to interpret what its movement meant.
Chance created the clue.
Preparation allowed someone to recognize it.
Had McClusky turned in another direction several minutes earlier, the battle might have developed very differently.
At Almost the Same Time, Yorktown’s Dive Bombers Were Approaching From Another Direction
The Enterprise dive bombers were not alone.
A dive-bomber group from Yorktown under Lieutenant Commander Maxwell Leslie was also approaching the Japanese force.
The American attacks that had been fragmented across the sky were now converging almost accidentally.
Below them, Japanese fighters were still heavily engaged against low-altitude attackers.
The Japanese carriers were maneuvering and working through the complicated process of aircraft recovery, rearming, refueling, and preparation.
Popular images sometimes show Japanese flight decks packed edge to edge with fully fueled aircraft and bombs moments from launching.
The historical reality was more complicated.
The carriers were not simply sitting motionless with perfect rows of attack aircraft waiting on deck.
Aircraft were being handled through a dynamic carrier cycle.
Some operations were happening in hangars.
Aircraft and ordnance were in various stages of preparation.
Returning aircraft from the Midway strike had to be recovered.
Combat air patrol fighters required attention.
The ships were turning and maneuvering.
What mattered was not a cinematic image of every bomb lying exposed on a flight deck.
What mattered was that the carriers were in the middle of an intensely demanding operational transition when the dive bombers appeared.
That was a terrible moment to be attacked.
Carrier Operations Create Periods of Vulnerability
A carrier is most powerful when its aircraft are away striking the enemy.
It can also become vulnerable when those aircraft return.
Flight decks have to receive them.
Fuel lines, ammunition handling, maintenance crews, elevators, hangars, and deck crews all become part of a complicated cycle.
Aircraft returning from combat may be damaged.
Some are low on fuel.
Others need ammunition.
Fighters need to be relaunched.
Strike aircraft may need new weapons.
The carrier cannot perform every operation simultaneously without limit.
The Japanese force on the morning of June 4 had already launched a major strike against Midway.
It had defended itself against repeated attacks.
It had changed preparations after conflicting tactical information.
It had recovered returning aircraft.
It was preparing for the newly discovered American naval threat.
Then high-altitude dive bombers appeared.
This was not merely bad luck.
It was the cumulative consequence of the entire morning.
Shortly After Ten Twenty, the Sky Changed
From the perspective of the Japanese ships below, the danger appeared with frightening speed.
Dive bombers do not approach like torpedo aircraft.
They begin high.
Then they roll into steep dives.
The aircraft points downward.
Speed builds.
The target grows rapidly in the windscreen.
Anti-aircraft gunners have seconds to react.
Fighters at low altitude must climb.
A pilot releases the bomb, then pulls out under enormous physical strain.
The entire attack may be decided in moments.
The American SBD Dauntless was well suited to the mission.
It was not fast compared with fighters.
It was not glamorous in the way the Zero appeared glamorous.
However, it was rugged, accurate in a dive, and capable of delivering a heavy bomb against a moving ship.
At Midway, its greatest advantage was that it arrived from the direction Japanese defenses were least prepared to meet at that instant.
Target Confusion Almost Wasted the Opportunity
Even at the decisive moment, the American attack was not perfectly organized.
Enterprise dive bombers initially concentrated heavily on Kaga.
Multiple aircraft selected the same target.
This risked leaving Akagi insufficiently attacked.
Lieutenant Richard Best recognized the problem.
Best and a small number of aircraft shifted toward Akagi.
That decision became another critical moment.
If every Enterprise bomber had attacked Kaga, Akagi might have escaped the first devastating wave.
Instead, Best’s small group attacked the flagship.
Meanwhile, Yorktown’s dive bombers focused on Soryu.
Three Japanese carriers were now under attack almost simultaneously.
The attack lasted only minutes.
Its effects would determine the battle.
Kaga Was Hit Repeatedly
Kaga presented a large target.
American dive bombers came down from altitude one after another.
Bombs struck the carrier.
Explosions tore through aircraft-handling areas.
Fuel and ordnance created additional hazards.
Fires spread.
Carrier aviation requires enormous quantities of gasoline.
It requires bombs and torpedoes.
It requires aircraft filled with fuel and surrounded by combustible materials.
A carrier can survive some bomb damage.
However, once fire reaches aviation fuel and armed aircraft, the situation can become extremely difficult.
Kaga rapidly became a burning wreck.
The carrier that had helped strike Pearl Harbor was effectively removed from battle.
Soryu Was Hit Almost at the Same Time
Yorktown’s dive bombers attacked Soryu.
Bomb hits ignited devastating fires.
Damage spread quickly through the carrier.
Like Kaga, Soryu carried the very things that made a carrier powerful and vulnerable at once.
Aircraft.