Fuel.
Weapons.
The Japanese crew fought to save the ship.
Damage-control teams worked inside smoke and heat.
However, the attack had struck at a moment when the carrier’s internal aviation spaces were particularly dangerous environments.
Soryu’s ability to continue flight operations disappeared.
Another Japanese flight deck was gone.
Akagi Received Fewer Hits, but One Was Enough
Akagi was Nagumo’s flagship.
It did not need to suffer the same number of direct hits as Kaga to become doomed.
Best’s attack placed a bomb where the resulting damage and fire became catastrophic.
Other bombs fell close enough to contribute additional damage.
The precise physical sequence aboard Akagi differed from Kaga and Soryu.
The strategic outcome did not.
Fire spread through critical aviation spaces.
Flight operations became impossible.
Nagumo’s flagship was burning.
Within the span of one dive-bomber attack, three of Japan’s four fleet carriers in the formation had been transformed from operational offensive weapons into ships fighting for survival.
The Destruction Happened So Quickly That Commanders Could Barely Understand the Scale
Carrier warfare compresses strategic change into minutes.
Before the dive bombers arrived, Nagumo still possessed four fleet carriers.
The Japanese had repelled multiple American attacks.
American torpedo squadrons had been devastated.
No decisive hit had yet been scored on the Japanese carrier force.
The situation remained dangerous for the Americans.
Then Kaga burned.
Soryu burned.
Akagi burned.
This was not the gradual attrition of a battleship duel.
It was structural collapse.
Three major flight decks disappeared almost simultaneously.
Hundreds of aircraft could no longer operate normally from them.
Command organization was disrupted.
Experienced personnel were suddenly occupied with fire, casualties, evacuation, and damage control.
The offensive power of the Japanese carrier force changed in minutes.
That is what makes Midway so extraordinary.
The battle did not slowly become favorable to the United States.
It pivoted violently.
The American Torpedo Squadrons Had Failed in Their Immediate Mission but Changed the Conditions of the Successful Attack
No American commander could honestly say that the torpedo attacks had been planned as deliberate sacrifices to clear the sky for dive bombers.
They had not.
Yet the tactical sequence mattered.
The Japanese combat air patrol had repeatedly descended to engage low-altitude threats.
Fighter attention had been pulled downward.
Aircraft were scattered.
The defenders were responding to one crisis when another arrived from above.
The torpedo crews did not score the carrier hits for which they had fought.
Their attacks still contributed to the defensive overload that followed.
This is one of the most painful truths about Midway.
Men can die believing their attack failed while their actions alter a battle in ways they never live to see.
The Dive Bombers Did Not Win Because Japanese Fighter Pilots Suddenly Became Incompetent
The Japanese pilots remained skilled.
The defensive failure was systemic.
A combat air patrol cannot be everywhere.
Fighters have limited fuel.
Limited ammunition.
Limited altitude.
Limited climb rate.
They respond to visible threats.
Repeated low-altitude attacks demanded attention.
The Japanese fleet lacked a perfectly integrated system capable of directing fighters instantly against every new threat at every altitude.
When the dive bombers arrived, the defensive geometry was wrong.
A few minutes earlier, it might have been different.
A few minutes later, it might have been different.
The Americans reached the fleet inside a narrow window.
That window became history.
One Carrier Had Escaped the Catastrophe
Hiryu was positioned separately enough that the first American dive-bomber attack did not destroy her.
This mattered immediately.
The battle was not over.
Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, commanding the carrier division that included Hiryu and Soryu, still possessed an operational carrier.
Hiryu still had aircraft.
Japanese crews still knew how to strike.
The Americans had inflicted an extraordinary blow, but they had not removed the possibility of retaliation.
Hiryu began launching counterattacks.
This is important because calling Midway “decided in five minutes” can become misleading if interpreted too literally.
The strategic balance changed in those minutes.
The tactical battle remained deadly.
Japanese Scouts Had Found the American Carriers
The same intelligence struggle now worked in the other direction.
Japanese aircraft identified American carriers.
Hiryu launched dive bombers.
The target they found was Yorktown.
Japanese aviators attacked aggressively.
Bombs struck the carrier.
Damage appeared severe.
Smoke rose.
The Japanese attackers believed they had badly damaged an American carrier.
They were correct.
What they did not know was how quickly American damage-control crews would respond.
Yorktown’s Damage-Control Teams Performed an Extraordinary Recovery
Carrier survival depended on much more than armor.
Damage control involved trained crews, pumps, firefighting equipment, electrical repairs, engineering skill, and discipline.
Yorktown had already survived damage at Coral Sea.
Now she was hit again.
Fires were fought.
Damage was contained.
Power and propulsion were restored sufficiently for the carrier to get underway again.
From the air, a carrier that had appeared crippled could soon look operational.
This led to one of Midway’s strange tactical effects.
When the second Japanese strike later found Yorktown, some Japanese airmen believed they were attacking a different American carrier.
The repair effort had made the same ship appear like a new target.
Hiryu’s Second Strike Hit Yorktown With Torpedoes
Japanese torpedo bombers attacked later in the afternoon.
Yorktown maneuvered.
Fighters and anti-aircraft guns defended.
Torpedoes still struck.
The carrier took severe underwater damage and developed a dangerous list.
This time, the situation became much harder to recover.
The crew eventually abandoned ship temporarily because of the danger of capsizing.
The Americans had lost the operational use of one of their three carriers.
The battle remained costly.
The Japanese still had one functioning flight deck.
If Hiryu survived the day, the tactical situation could remain uncertain.
The Americans needed to find her.
The Search for Hiryu Became the Next Critical Race
American commanders knew another Japanese carrier existed because attacks continued to arrive.
Finding Hiryu was therefore essential.
Aircraft searches located her.
Enterprise prepared another strike.
Some aircraft that had originally belonged to Yorktown were now operating through Enterprise because Yorktown was crippled.
The American carrier force, like the Japanese force, had become improvised under battle conditions.
Pilots were tired.
Aircraft had already flown long missions.
Fuel, bombs, maintenance, and deck operations continued under intense pressure.
Yet another strike had to be launched before darkness.
Late in the Afternoon, American Dive Bombers Found Hiryu
The attack struck the remaining Japanese carrier.
Bombs hit.
Fires spread.
Hiryu’s ability to conduct flight operations disappeared.
The final surviving Japanese carrier from Nagumo’s morning formation was now mortally damaged.
The Japanese carrier striking force that had approached Midway with four fleet carriers had lost all four.
The losses did not all occur in the same five-minute period.
Three had been destroyed in the morning’s decisive dive-bomber attack.
Hiryu had fought on for hours.
Its counterstrikes had crippled Yorktown.
Then Hiryu too was taken out of the battle.
The operational outcome was now extremely difficult for Japan to reverse.
The Japanese Still Possessed Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Other Powerful Forces
This point matters because Midway is sometimes told as though the destruction of four carriers left the Japanese fleet helpless.
It did not.
Yamamoto still commanded enormous naval power.
Battleships remained available.
Cruisers and destroyers remained dangerous.
The invasion force still existed.
However, naval warfare had changed.
The carriers were the force capable of projecting concentrated airpower across hundreds of miles.
Without them, approaching American carriers or Midway itself became much more dangerous.
Surface ships could not simply rush forward confidently under hostile air attack.
The Japanese plan had depended on carrier aviation.
The core of that aviation strike force was gone.
The invasion of Midway could no longer proceed as intended.
Withdrawal became necessary.
Yamamoto Could Not Restore the Morning’s Situation With Battleships
This revealed one of the great transformations in naval warfare.
Japan still possessed some of the most powerful battleships ever built or being completed.
Yamamoto’s own force included heavy surface power.
Yet the decisive battle had occurred beyond the range of battleship guns.
Aircraft had found and destroyed carriers without opposing surface fleets ever needing to line up for a traditional gun battle.
The battleships could not restore burned flight decks.
They could not replace lost pilots instantly.
They could not provide the same distant air cover.
Midway therefore reinforced a reality Pearl Harbor had already announced.
The aircraft carrier had become the central offensive instrument of naval war in the Pacific.
The Four Lost Carriers Represented More Than Four Hulls
Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu were physical ships.
Ships can theoretically be replaced.
Japan also lost experienced aviation personnel.
Pilots.
Aircrew.
Deck crews.
Maintenance specialists.