June 4 will mark the 75th anniversary of what historian John Keegan called “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare,” the Battle of Midway.
The U.S. Navy won the battle despite the Japanese navy having a larger force and more experience. The victory proved to be the turning point in the Pacific in World War II.
How did the Navy win? With luck, failures by Japanese commanders and intelligence, and the hard work of some smart people working in an office at Pearl Harbor.
Japanese forces devastated the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. But the Japanese plan to knock the U.S. out of the Pacific war failed because the Navy’s most important ships, the large fleet aircraft carriers, were away from Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese Empire had its way in the Pacific in the early months of 1942, scoring numerous victories against Allied forces and capturing Allied possessions.
The Pacific war produced a new kind of naval warfare: carrier vs. carrier. The Battle of the Coral Sea, May 4 to 8, 1942, was history’s first battle where carriers engaged each other. It was also the first battle where the participating ships never sighted or fired directly on one another.
The Japanese Empire was at its height. But naval commanders still wanted a decisive battle that they believed would knock the U.S. out of the war in the Pacific.
The Japanese plan was to send a naval force to attack and invade the vital U.S. outpost at Midway Island. They reasoned this would force the U.S. Navy to react by sending its carriers to Midway. The Japanese would have four carriers waiting to ambush the American fleet.
The Japanese planners badly misjudged, though, the American response and morale.
Also, the Japanese believed that the U.S. carrier Yorktown had been sunk in the Coral Sea. Instead it was hastily repaired and joined the U.S. forces headed for Midway.
More decisively, U.S. cryptographers had cracked the Japanese navy’s code. They were able to determine when and where the Japanese would strike and which ships would take part.
Shortly before the battle, some Japanese officers began to suspect the Americans knew their plans. But thanks to communications problems, institutional inertia and high-ranking officers’ inflexibility, the operation went on as planned.
Meanwhile, the U.S. forces, including the carriers Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown, arrived ahead of the Japanese and set up an ambush of their own.
Japanese reconnaissance aircraft were unable to find the U.S. carriers in the early hours of June 4. By the time one of the U.S. carriers was spotted, the Japanese were unable to attack because their carriers were recovering planes from a raid on Midway and refueling and rearming them for a second strike.
Meanwhile, U.S. pilots kept searching for the Japanese carriers even as some planes ran out of gas and ditched. Finally, the Japanese ships were spotted. By luck, all three dive bomber squadrons from the Enterprise and Yorktown arrived almost simultaneously over the Japanese carriers.
The presence of fuel hoses and bombs and torpedoes on the decks of the Japanese carriers made the damage caused by the U.S. bombs more devastating. Three carriers, Akagi, Kaga and Soryu, were sunk.
The remaining Japanese carrier, Hiryu, launched a counterattack, sending out two attack waves that heavily damaged the Yorktown. The carrier eventually sunk.
Later in the day, the Americans spotted Hiryu. Planes from the Enterprise attacked and sunk the carrier.
Over the next three days, the opposing fleets struggled to find one another, although the U.S. fleet did launch sporadic attacks on the remaining Japanese ships.
In a matter of hours on June 4, the Japanese lost four irreplaceable carriers. The Japanese navy also suffered heavy losses among experienced pilots and ground crews. Japan was never able to replace these men.
Victory at Midway allowed the Allies to seize the initiative in the Pacific. Japan was put on the defensive until the end of the war.
What would have happened if the Japanese had won at Midway? Theories abound. Modern observers think that even if Japan had won, there’s little chance the U.S. would have sued for peace. The U.S. had a much greater industrial capacity and manpower reserve. The Japanese couldn’t match the speed at which the U.S. built weapons and trained personnel.
A Japanese victory would have just delayed the inevitable.
• Contact Charles Corder at 581-7241 or ccorder@gwcommonwealth.com.
