The Combined Fleet operated farther behind.
The plan assumed surprise.
That assumption was already broken.
American naval codebreakers had made substantial progress against Japanese communications.
They knew the Japanese were planning an operation against a target identified in coded traffic as "AF."
American intelligence strongly suspected AF was Midway.
To confirm it, Midway was instructed to transmit an uncoded message claiming that its freshwater system had broken down.
Soon afterward, Japanese traffic reported that AF was short of water.
The identification was effectively confirmed.
Admiral Chester Nimitz now possessed something every commander dreams of.
Advance warning.
He knew approximately where the Japanese were going.
He knew roughly when they would arrive.
And he knew the Americans would be outnumbered if the Japanese caught them under normal circumstances.
So he refused to give Japan normal circumstances.
Three American Carriers Moved Into Ambush Position
USS Enterprise.
USS Hornet.
And, against expectations, USS Yorktown.
Yorktown had been damaged at Coral Sea badly enough that the Japanese believed she would not appear at Midway.
American repair crews at Pearl Harbor worked around the clock.
A repair that might normally have required far longer was compressed into a few frantic days.
The carrier returned to sea.
Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher commanded the overall American carrier force from Yorktown.
Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance commanded Enterprise and Hornet.
The Americans positioned northeast of Midway and waited.
The Japanese carrier force approached unaware that American carriers were already nearby.
The first phase of the battle began before dawn on June 4.
Japanese aircraft launched against Midway.
American radar detected them.
Fighters took off.
Bombers on Midway prepared to attack the carriers.
The Japanese raid struck the atoll but failed to destroy its ability to continue resisting.
Then American aircraft began coming toward the Japanese fleet.
They came in scattered groups.
Different aircraft types.
Different altitudes.
Different directions.
Poor coordination would characterize much of the American effort.
But the repeated attacks would force the Japanese defensive system to work continuously.
The First American Torpedo Attack of the Morning Did Not Come From Hornet
There is an important detail often lost when the story of Torpedo Squadron Eight is told.
VT-8 had two operational elements at Midway.
The main squadron aboard Hornet still flew the older TBD Devastator.
A small detachment based on Midway had received the new Grumman TBF Avenger.
The Avenger would eventually become one of the finest torpedo bombers of the war.
At Midway, it was new and largely untested.
Six Avengers from the VT-8 detachment took off from Midway early that morning.
They found the Japanese carriers.
Then they discovered that a newer torpedo bomber could still be slaughtered without fighter protection.
Japanese fighters attacked.
Five of the six Avengers were lost.
The surviving aircraft returned to Midway terribly damaged.
Its crew had suffered casualties.
That attack produced no decisive torpedo success.
Other Midway-based aircraft attacked too.
Army B-26 Marauders attempted torpedo runs.
Marine dive bombers attacked.
B-17s bombed from high altitude.
The Japanese carriers maneuvered.
Zeros intercepted.
Anti-aircraft guns fired.
The attacks were courageous.
They were also largely ineffective.
No Japanese carrier had yet been seriously damaged.
From Nagumo's perspective, the morning was dangerous but manageable.
That impression would not survive much longer.
On Hornet, John Waldron Was Already Arguing About Where the Enemy Was
Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron commanded Torpedo Squadron Eight aboard Hornet.
He was an experienced naval aviator.
He was also convinced that the planned search course for Hornet's air group was wrong.
The air group commander, Stanhope Ring, had his own estimate of the Japanese position.
Waldron believed the Japanese carriers were farther to the southwest.
Before takeoff, he made his view clear.
Accounts of the exact wording differ, as they often do when remembered conversations become part of battle legend.
The important fact is not the precise sentence.
Waldron disagreed strongly enough that once airborne, his squadron eventually separated from the rest of the Hornet formation.
This was an extraordinary decision.
Carrier strikes depended on coordination.
Dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters were supposed to arrive together or close enough that enemy defenses would be divided.
A lone torpedo squadron was dangerously exposed.
But flying to the wrong patch of ocean would accomplish nothing.
Waldron believed his responsibility was to find the enemy.
So he led his fifteen TBDs away.
The decision isolated the squadron.
It also put them on the correct path.
The Rest of Hornet's Strike Would Become Associated With the “Flight to Nowhere”
The term is dramatic but captures the basic problem.
Large parts of Hornet's air group failed to find the Japanese carriers during the morning strike.
Some aircraft eventually had to turn back because fuel was running low.
Several fighters and other planes were lost during forced landings or ditchings after exhausting fuel.
The precise course decisions became controversial afterward.
But one fact is clear.
Waldron's Torpedo Squadron Eight broke away and found the enemy.
There is a cruel irony in that success.
Finding the target is normally the first requirement for victory.
For VT-8, finding the Japanese carriers placed thirty men directly into a killing zone without the support they had expected.
Had they followed the wrong course, many might have survived the morning.
They would also have failed their mission completely.
Waldron chose the target.
The TBD Devastator Had Been Modern When America Was Not Yet at War
When the Douglas TBD entered service in the late 1930s, it represented important advances.
It was an all-metal monoplane.
It had retractable landing gear.
An enclosed cockpit.
Features that looked modern compared with the biplane torpedo aircraft it replaced.
A few years in aviation technology can be enormous.
By 1942, the Devastator had been overtaken by newer fighters.
Its maximum speed was inadequate against the Zero.
With a torpedo aboard, performance worsened.
The aircraft was not useless in every circumstance.
But against a carrier force protected by skilled fighters, its disadvantages became lethal.
The attack profile made everything worse.
A torpedo had to enter the water correctly.
That meant the TBD could not simply dive steeply toward a ship like an SBD Dauntless.
It had to approach close to the sea.
Relatively slow.
Relatively straight.
For a Zero pilot above, that was nearly ideal.
The torpedo bomber's path could be anticipated.
The fighter could dive with enormous speed, fire, climb again, and repeat.
The rear gunner in the TBD carried defensive armament.
But one gunner facing multiple Zeros was not a meaningful substitute for fighter escort.
The crew could shoot back.
They could not dictate the fight.
Then There Was the Mark 13 Torpedo
The Mark 13 should have been the Devastator's reason for existing.
Instead, in the early Pacific War, it was a source of frustration.
American aerial torpedoes suffered from serious defects.
Some sank too deeply after entering the water.
Some ran erratically.
Some failed to explode correctly.
The safe release envelope was restrictive.
Pilots had to place themselves in danger to give an unreliable weapon its best chance.