CHAPTER 12
Midway Postmortem
10 June 1942
On the 8th we rendezvoused with Cimarron and Guadalupe (Neosho class tankers, both) for fueling in a spot about 200 mi. due north of Midway, having come 350-odd miles (by eye—guessing from a look at the chart), about 075° from our farthest west. When we finally got both tankers together some of our ships were pretty low—one DD said 1,500 gallons oil on hand. We had sent 2 to help Yorktown, then had to detach 2 for fueling, so we were down to 4. Then we ambled along at 12–15 kts through submarine infested waters—2 carriers & 6 cruisers supposedly screened by the 4 DD’s. This guy must be trying to use the force for sub bait.
Christ, this ship at least has a QC [sonar] and depth charges—we could form part of the AS protection. But no, jug-head hasn’t any more learned to take advantage of our special characteristics there than he has of our special AA battery.
Took all of the 8th & 9th to fuel, and at about 1800/ 9th took off in 060°, 20 kts, to rendezvous with Task Force 17, to get our replacement planes from the Saratoga. Understand she has TBF’s for us, to replace our deathtrap TBD’s. The crime of it all is that apparently these TBF’s had been available all along on the Atlantic coast, sitting in some god-damned storehouse—evidently all it took to get them was to report that we had no more VTB’s.
Heard that the Yorktown was lost after all; also one sub. The “Battle of Midway” looks all the more horrible as time goes by.
This morning we met the Sara, with San Diego, Portland, Astoria, about 4 DD’s of Sims class (TF 17). Fog and rain have prevented the plane transfer, so we’ve spent the day on 180° at low speed (into the wind) waiting for favorable conditions. Meanwhile, what will happen if some stray Jap sub chances along will be just too GOD DAMN bad. Kaskaskia is with TF 17; she is to go with us.
I have decided that I will try, next time I see George to persuade him of the advantages that can be gotten by specially disposing the Atlanta to take advantage of her characteristics. I thought the tactical handling of the carrier groups at the “Battle of Midway” was ghastly, absolutely the direct cause of the Yorktown’s loss, and certain, if repeated, to lose us one carrier the next time, one the next and so on. It looked like a perfect duplication of the events leading up to the tragedy of the Lexington. If I can get my ideas across to George, perhaps he can get them into the ear of the Task Force Commander. These aviators have too much on their minds to know anything about sound AS procedure, or AA stuff either.
We keep getting more dope on Jap fleet movements, and it keeps looking worse. However, the good laugh of the day was to read the Tokyo version of Midway, at long last released.
11 June 1942
Orders received this AM for TF 16 return to P.H., arriving PM of 13th. The last few days have been barren of reports from Aleutian area, indicating that Japs have withdrawn—it was a feint after all. Force they had up there was apparently Hosho, Ryujo, Kasuga (CV’s), two Atago’s, plus light forces.
Saratoga had given us our planes this AM. A classic of the dear old USA’s war effort in fact, as distinguished from the pap & pollyanna now scattered around the newsprints: To replace all losses of both carriers we got: 5 TBD’s (lovely deathtraps) and 29 SBD’s. Jesus H. God!
Wonder what toll the Jap subs will exact en route home. They were loaded into the Hawaiian chain to support the Midway grab.
***
As Spruance’s aircraft worked over Mikuma and Mogami, the carrier Saratoga, escorted by Atlanta’s sister ship San Diego and four destroyers, arrived at Pearl Harbor. Refueled and replenished, Saratoga headed out the next day with an additional destroyer plus the oiler Kaskaskia in company. Nimitz had a simple mission for the veteran carrier—to fly off aircraft to Enterprise and Hornet, to enable those two battle-seasoned carriers to further pursue operations against the Japanese.1
Lloyd Mustin laments the diminished destroyer screen for the task force and rightly admonishes the task force commander, Spruance, for not adroitly employing Atlanta to best advantage. Once he heard about the loss of Yorktown he also criticizes the tactical handling of the carriers. On this he could not criticize Spruance since Fletcher initially was the on-scene tactical commander, and it was Nimitz as the overall commander who ordered his forces to operate as two separate task forces. In this case the Pacific Fleet commander cannot be faulted. Going into what clearly presented itself as the most crucial battle of the war to date, Nimitz had two task forces that had been operating together in different areas of the Pacific in the months prior. Each task force had matured and had grown accustomed to working together. The task force commanders had an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the ships, ship commanders, and crews that served under them. Nimitz only had to reflect on the disastrous battle of the Java Sea to see the results of throwing ships together as a pick-up squad to confront the enemy.
The other factor Lloyd overlooked was that the arrival of Yorktown on scene was a fortuitous bonus given the damage she received at Coral Sea. Given the tenuous availability of CV 5, Spruance understood he might have to go it alone.
To Fletcher’s credit, he did intend to have the two task forces operate within visual range. Unfortunately, wind conditions were such that maneuvers for flight operations pulled the two forces apart.
Whereas Nimitz’s task force organization leaves little room for criticism, Yamamoto’s complex scheme using separate strike forces to converge on Midway from different directions, as well as sending two light carriers and supporting forces on a feint to the Aleutians, justifiably earned him harsh criticism from historians and other analysts. The addition of Yamato and the other battleships and escorts of Yamamoto’s Main Body to Nagumo’s screen could have provided the extra defensive firepower to thwart the American air attacks.2
As witnessed by what happened to both sides in the battle, clearly there was merit in Lloyd Mustin’s critique. For the Americans, later in the war they would employ large multi-carrier formations protected by a coordinated combat air patrol and rings of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers bristling with antiaircraft guns to ward off Japanese attackers. Such was the effectiveness of the American air defense at the battle of the Philippine Sea, dubbed the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,” that the Japanese then resorted to desperation tactics in the form of the kamikaze.
Spruance discreetly blamed the performance of Hornet’s air group for the loss of Yorktown since her dive-bombing and scouting squadrons were no-shows on the initial attack on Nagumo’s carriers. Spruance speculated in his endorsement of Captain Mitscher’s battle report that had Hornet’s SBDs turned to the north like their Yorktown and Enterprise comrades, they might have taken out Hiryu on the initial attack. However, since weather conditions temporarily hid Hiryu from view of Yorktown’s and Enterprise’s dive-bombers, it could hardly be assumed that Hornet’s planes would have discovered her. Spruance’s critique was overly harsh.3
Adm. Raymond A. “Jug head” Spruance has fared better in the writings of historians than in the estimation of Lloyd Mustin. Naval historian Samuel E. Morison rated Spruance’s performance as superb, emerging from the battle as “one of the greatest fighting and thinking admirals in American naval history.”4
Having crossed the International Date Line late on June 5, Spruance’s carriers completed their combat operations the next day. While doing so, the destroyers Worden and Maury departed the formation to seek fuel from one of the fleet oilers operating from Pearl Harbor. Entries in Atlanta’s war diary tracked the egress of Task Force 16 back across the date line. As Lloyd observed, one of the destroyers was practically running on fumes. To conserve black oil, Spruance slowed the speed of advance to 15 knots as the formation headed east on a course of 085 degrees true on June 7. Thus, the spotting of Cimarron early on June 8 was a welcome sighting. The task force formed a disposition around the fuel ship allowing the thirstiest ships to get their bunkers replenished. Upon learning that the oiler Guadalupe and two escorting destroyers were to the west, the task force commander sent Atlanta to corral the floating gas station and her attendants. Along the way the light cruiser came across the Worden and Maury. With enemy submarines still a threat, Captain Jenkins directed the two tin cans to form a screen.
At mid-morning, lookouts spotted the oiler along with the destroyers Ralph Talbot and Blue. The six ships then formed up and proceeded on a course of 149 degrees true to the southeast, meeting up with Task Force 16 at 1400. For the rest of the afternoon, the various screening ships took turns fueling from one or the other of the two oilers.5
The next morning fueling resumed. By the early afternoon, with the task force positioned back to the northeast of Midway, Atlanta took her turn alongside Cimarron. The light cruiser came alongside to what appeared to be a floating milk carton. Lloyd recalled: “When we came alongside of her to fuel, her bow was out of the water to where her keel was showing.” He went on: “to fuel us she had to give us fuel out of her own bunkers as distinguished from her cargo fuel … that gave us enough to get back safely to Pearl Harbor.”6
With the two oilers barely holding enough oil to make it back to Pearl on their own, Spruance detached them along with the destroyers Hughes, Phelps, and Blue to return to Oahu. The task force commander then ordered the ships to steam on a northeasterly heading in cruising formation 10-Victor.7
On the morning of June 10, Task Force 16 met up with Saratoga and her escorts. Inclement weather forced the delay of aircraft, as Atlanta’s log read: “Maneuvered at various courses and speeds attempting to get out of fog and rain.” There would be no flight operations that day as Spruance turned the formation south at a speed of 12 knots. Lloyd expressed frustration with the slow southerly heading. However, Spruance deliberately pointed the force into a southerly heading into the wind hoping for a sudden break in the weather that would allow for flight operations. The problem for Spruance was he did not want to advance south too quickly as he needed to turn around and head north in view of pending orders to challenge Japanese forces that had moved against the Aleutians. Obviously, the slow speed of the formation made it vulnerable to Japanese submarines; however, the inclement conditions also served to hide the Americans.
Toward the end of the day, Lloyd wrote he was humored by the Japanese media claims about the outcome of the battle. The press declared Midway a grand victory. The celebratory “Battleship March” was played prior to radio bulletins that provided updates on the victory. In the June 11 edition (June 10 at Midway) of Japanese Times and Advertiser the lead article featured the caption “NAVY SCORES ANOTHER EPOCHAL VICTORY” over a painting of Japanese aircraft bombing a helpless American flattop. The lead sentence of the article read: “Blasting all American hopes of conducting guerilla warfare on Japan by means of aircraft from aircraft carriers, the mighty Imperial Navy has sunk two more of these monster warships.” Clearly this sentence was designed to assuage lingering concerns about the Doolittle raid. To their credit, in contrast to wildly exaggerated past claims, the boasting of the sinking of two American carriers, a cruiser, and a submarine may not have been an over-exaggeration, being that Japanese pilots who attacked the Yorktown in subsequent waves thought they had attacked two different carriers and the Nautilus had received a solid depth-charging as she operated in the vicinity of the Japanese carrier forces. To claim the Hammann as a cruiser was a bit of a stretch; however, several of Spruance’s pilots had made the same claims about Japanese destroyers they had dropped bombs on.
What must have amused Lloyd and his shipmates was the lack of acknowledgement of losses. Indeed, the extent of the losses was not even made known within the circles of the Imperial Navy. Sailors returning to Japan were restricted from going ashore. The debacle was kept from the Japanese public through the end of the war. Not all in the Japanese military hierarchy felt comfortable with this policy, Rear Adm. Ryunosuke Kusaka, Nagumo’s chief of staff, had recommended that the true facts be made known to the Japanese nation. His recommendation was ignored.8
What must have stunned and disgusted Lloyd and his shipmates were the American media’s initial reports of the battle. Thanks to the return of the Army B-17s to Hawaii, well before the return of Fletcher’s and Spruance’s forces, an Army interpretation of the battle was first to hit the presses. On June 9, 1942, the New York Times editorialized that the “main damage to the Japanese fleet off Midway was inflicted by our land-based airplanes.” Three days later, the Honolulu Advertiser reported claims made by Army pilots that they hit three carriers, either a battleship or a cruiser, a cruiser, a destroyer, and a large transport. Spruance, for one, was incensed with the inaccurate claims made by the Army. Once he returned to Hawaii, he would take steps to assure the Navy received its proper credit; however, it wouldn’t be until after the war, after interviewing Japanese veterans of the battle and reviewing Japanese records, that the truth would come out on how little Army airpower contributed to the final victory. In the meantime, Lloyd’s low esteem of Army aviation certainly was knocked down a few more pegs.9
At daybreak on June 11, the weather had cleared and naval aviators in succession flew off Saratoga and landed either on Enterprise or Hornet. Spruance then turned his task force on a due north heading toward the Aleutians, as Captain Jenkins suspected he would. However, before the ships could travel three hours along that track, Admiral Nimitz issued orders to Spruance to return to Pearl Harbor. Atlanta’s 1025 war diary entry read: “Force ordered to return to Pearl Harbor.” Apparently, the Pacific Fleet commander sniffed that Yamamoto still hoped to smash Task Force 16 and he felt no obligation to provide him with the opportunity.
Throughout the rest of June 11 through June 13, the task force continued on a southeasterly heading. The anticipated victorious arrival probably contributed to slow step-ups of speed that were noted in Atlanta’s log over that time span. Entering the harbor, Lloyd remembered: “We steamed in with the biggest U.S. Ensigns in the ship at both mastheads.”10
Whether Lloyd had an opportunity to confer with his stepfather on the issue of carrier task force formations is not noted in later passages. If Murray did get Mustin’s two cents he would have the opportunity to employ it himself. Soon Murray would have an opportunity to command his own task force in the upcoming Solomons campaign.