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{| border=1 width=300 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 align=right |- !colspan=2 bgcolor=#cccccc|Battle of Midway |- |Conflict||World War II |- |Date||June 4-June 6, 1942 |- |Place||Vicinity of Midway Island |- |Result||Decisive American victory |- |colspan=2| {| border=1 width=300 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 |- !colspan=2 bgcolor=#cccccc|Combatants |- | width=50%|United States | width=50%|Japan |- !colspan=2|Commanders |- |Raymond A. Spruance
|Chuichi Nagumo |- !colspan=2|Strength |- |? |? |- !colspan=2|Casualties |- |307 |Approximately 2,500 |} |}
Overview
The Battle of Midway, fought in World War II, took place on June 5, 1942 (June 4 in US time zones). The United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll, marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific theatre.
Fought just a month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, Midway was the turning point of the Pacific War. Skill, daring, and luck all played a part. The attack on the island of Midway, which also included a feint to Alaska by a smaller fleet, was a ploy by the Japanese to draw the American carrier fleet into a trap. With the remaining American ships destroyed, the Japanese hoped to invade Hawaii.
Midway by itself was not overly beneficial in the larger scheme of Japan's success: they were keen on concentrating on the Samoa Islands, Fiji and Australia to expand their new-found regime. However, it was close to Japan and also US territory, and it would be in the best interests of their defence to invade the islands.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's battle plan was, typically, bold and ingenious. Like most JIN strategic doctrine, it was designed, in part, to lure major parts of the US Fleet into a fatally compromising situation. Yamamoto's main force trailed his carriers and was intended to take out whatever part of the US Fleet that came to Midway's support. The plan was complicated, probably in part because it was put together very rapidly in the wake of the Tokyo Air Raid by US Army B-25's flying from US carriers in the middle of April. The raid did little significant damage, but demonstrated that the Japanese military could not prevent attacks against the Japanese Home Islands. It was a severe psychological shock.
US Intelligence
However, US Naval Intelligence (in cooperation with the British and Dutch) had been reading parts of the primary Japanese Imperial Fleet communications system (JN-25, a superencypherd code) for some time, and since the most recent version change just before the Pearl Harbor attack, had made considerable progress on the new version. By April and even more by May, it became apparent that enough of the current JN-25 version was becoming known that new Japanese operations might be blocked effectively. One code element was unclear, however. Location AF was clearly to be a major point of attack, but just what AF was was not so clear. Some, especially in the Pacific, thought it Midway; others, concentrated it seems at OP-20-G in Washington, believed AF to be in the Aleutians. However, there was no cryptographic way of settling the issue. An ingenious suggestion, by a young officer in Hawaii, led them to discover the Japanese plan. He asked that the base commander at Midway radio Pearl Harbor, in plain English that the island was running low on drinking water due to a breakdown of the water plant. A JN-25 message not long thereafter noted that AF had fresh water problems and that the attack force should plan accordingly. AF was Midway, and would be attacked in the new operation.
Information from JN-25 decrypts came in slowly, and it wasn't till the very last minute that Admiral Nimitz had enough information to put together an ambush for the Midway attack force. He called back Fletcher's carriers from the SW Pacific area, and Pearl Harbor shipyard did a legendary job getting the Yorktown -- severely damaged at the Battle of Coral Sea -- together enough to steam with the rest to meet the Japanese at Midway.
The Battle
At dawn on June 4, Japanese carrier aircraft bombed and heavily damaged the base on Midway. Long range bombers made several attacks on the Japanese, to little effect, and Midway based fighters made a strenuous defense of Midway, also to little effect. U.S. carrier forces, led by Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, had the advantage of knowing, through decryption of Japanese Navy communications, pretty much what the enemy was up to. When the Japanese aircraft returned to their carriers, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo decided to re-arm them with bombs for a second strike at Midway. While being serviced, the waiting American ships were detected. Nagumo eventually decided to change the arms load for an attack against the American ships. With torpedoes and bombs stacked, and fuel hoses snaking across their decks, the Japanese carriers made vulnerable and highly flammable targets.
Spruance launched an attack from his carriers USS Enterprise and Hornet against the Japanese carriers. Anti-aircraft fire and fighters shot down 35 of 41 torpedo bombers, including every plane of Hornet's Torpedo Squadron 8. (See George H. Gay) This, and other action, brought the defending Zeros down so low that American dive-bombers from Enterprise under Wade McCloskey were able to attack almost without opposition. Five minutes later, three Japanese carriers, the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu, were ablaze, abandoned, or crippled.
Aircraft launched from the remaining Japanese carrier Hiryu struck the USS Yorktown, which was severely damaged, but it survived both this and a second attack, only to be sunk while adrift by a Japanese submarine on June 7. The same submarine sank the destroyer USS Hammann which had been assigned to remain with the Yorktown. Aircraft from the Enterprise in turn attacked the Hiryu and set her ablaze, and damaged the destroyer Isokaze. After this, Spruance, in concert with the forces on Midway, launched attacks that crippled and destroyed the Japanese cruisers Mogami and Mikuma.
Aftermath
Having scored a decisive victory, American forces retired. The loss of four carriers stopped the expansion of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific, and put Japan on the defensive. It had been six months to the day since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had predicted to his superiors that Japan would prevail for only six months to a year against the United States, after which American resources would begin to overwhelm the Japanese Navy. He had been exactly correct.
Carrier Striking Force
Task Force 17
Order of Battle
Japan
Midway Occupation Force
Main Body
Northern Area ForceUnited States
Task Force 16
Submarines
Midway Garrison
