MIDWAY COULDN’T BELIEVE IT was over. The morning raid was just a softener. The Japanese would be back.
Anticipating a heavy surface bombardment by sunset, Captain Simard dispersed his PBYs, evacuated all nonessential staff, warned the FT boats to be ready for a night attack. Colonel Sweeney sent seven of his B-17s back to Hickam; he didn’t want them caught on the ground. On Eastern Island an old Marine took the bankroll he won at craps and hurled it into the surf—he’d rather lose it this way than let the Japs get it.
Actually, by early afternoon the only seaborne “invaders” still heading for Midway were two men in a rubber boat about 10 miles out. Ensign Thomas Wood and his gunner belonged to Bombing 8, the Hornet squadron that came in to refuel, but their own tank went dry just short of the base. Ditching, they launched their boat and began paddling toward the smoke they saw in the distance.
It was dark by the time they reached the Midway reef. Once across they still had a five-mile paddle to solid ground, but at least they’d be in the calm waters of the lagoon. All they had to do was get across the reef.
But that was just the trouble. There was only one easy place to cross, and guarding it was a huge bull sea lion. He refused to budge and ignored all shouts and threats. Finally Wood sloshed up to him and delivered several solid kicks in the rear. Thus persuaded, the sea lion flopped into the water, but he didn’t give up that easily. As the two men rested on the coral after getting their boat across, he swam around the reef, barking at them and generally showing displeasure.
Ultimately they reached shore safely, to find Midway scared and discouraged. The remaining Marine dive bombers had staged an evening attack but couldn’t locate the Japanese. They finally returned minus their new skipper Major Norris—apparently a victim of vertigo. Meanwhile the B-17s were coming in from their afternoon strike … some of them with hair-raising stories of Zeros. These might be orphans (actually the case) or just possibly from a fifth carrier somewhere. Then there were all those ships to the west und southwest—latest reports said they were still advancing.
Around 9:54 a Marine at Battery B saw a submarine cautiously surface about two miles off Eastern Island. Midway held its fire, not knowing what to expect. Colonel Shannon didn’t want to give away his gun positions yet. By the light of a half-hidden moon, the men watched the sub silently glide along the shore, working its way west and south. Then at 10:21 it slipped out of sight in the dark.
The suspense grew. On Sand Island Ensign Leon Grabowsky cleaned up his M-l and .45 for the landings he felt sure to come. On Eastern Island Lieutenant Jim Muri and his B-26 crew loaded themselves with all the weapons they could scavenge. Then they bedded down in the sand by their plane, restlessly watching a cloud-swept sky flecked by occasional stars.
PEARL HARBOR couldn’t believe it was over either. Workers still manned the rooftop guns in the Navy Yard. At Hickam Captain D. E. Ridings, skipper of the 73d Bombardment Squadron, got a hurry call at 10:00 P.M.: Collect all the B-17s available and get over to Midway. He was off before dawn. On Ford Island the pilots of Detached Torpedo 8 manned their planes at 4:00 A.M.—ready for anything.
It was much the same on the West Coast. All radio stations went off the air at 9:00 P.M. on orders from the Fourth Fighter Command. The Seattle waterfront was closed to all but “official and legitimate” traffic. California’s Attorney General Earl Warren warned that the state stood “in imminent danger” of attack.
At sea the destroyer Hughes stood lonely guard on the deserted Yorktown. As Commander Ramsey saw the situation, he could expect the Japs to send one or two surface ships to finish her off during the night. He could also expect submarines, and perhaps an air attack after dawn. He had orders to sink the carrier to prevent capture or if serious fires developed—in any case, sink her before he got sunk.
All through the night he steamed an unpredictable course around the hulk. In the dark the Yorktown was an eerie sight. There were what appeared to be flickering lights, and members of the crew thought they could even hear voices and strange noises when the destroyer was close. Ramsey considered boarding to check—then thought better of it. That would mean stopping, lowering a boat, using lights. He would be just inviting trouble on a night like this. So the Hughes continued her nervous vigil.
It was a restless, worried night on Task Force 16 too. The pilots were too tired to think, but in the Hornet wardroom nobody could overlook those 29 empty chairs. On the Enterprise Ensign Charles Lane, an orphan from the Yorktown, was assigned the room of a Torpedo 6 pilot who didn’t come back. Walking in, the first things Lane saw were the man’s family pictures and a Bible lying on his desk. It was almost too much to bear.
Down in the enlisted men’s quarters Radioman Snowden of Scouting 6 stared at the empty bunks all around. He felt overwhelmingly depressed. He wasn’t questioning why they were there, or the reason for war. He just had a feeling of deep, personal emptiness at the thought of losing so many good friends… .
Topside, the officers on watch searched the night. But not for the Japanese. After recovering the Hiryu strike, Task Force 16 swung east at 7:09 and was now heading away from the enemy.
Many of Halsey’s old staff were dismayed. He would never have done it that way, they said. It seemed such a perfect opportunity to polish off the rest of Nagumo’s fleet. The Japs’ air power was obviously gone—every pilot swore to that. This, then, was the time for all-out pursuit. Perhaps a night torpedo attack; or the dive bombers could deliver the coup de grâce at dawn. That was all it would take. Why couldn’t Spruance see it?
Spruance could. It was a great temptation, but there were other factors too. He was all Nimitz had, and at this point no one knew what the Japanese might do. Yamamoto still had his great collection of battleships and cruisers, maybe even another carrier somewhere out there. Certainly the enemy had strength enough to blast him out of the ocean … enough still to take Midway if the cards fell right. As he later wrote in his report to Nimitz:
I did not feel justified in risking a night encounter with possibly superior enemy forces, but on the other hand, I did not want to be too far away from Midway next morning. I wished to be in a position from which either to follow up retreating enemy forces, or to break up a landing attack on Midway… .
So east it was. Fifteen knots due east until midnight … then north for 45 minutes … then back south … then west again. In this way Spruance cautiously kept his distance. He didn’t want to be trapped; those big Jap battleships and cruisers might be steaming toward him right now.
THE heavy ships of Admiral Kondo’s Invasion Force raced northeast in the dark. At 11:40 the Admiral radioed his plans: he expected to be in position at 3:00 A.M… . then he would search east, hoping to trap the Americans into a night engagement.
At midnight he was back on the air, handing out specific assignments. Briefly, his force would form a line and sweep northeast at 24 knots, combing the sea for the U.S. fleet. It would be a “comb” with plenty of “teeth”—21 ships spaced less than four miles apart. These would be his cruisers and destroyers. Behind them would come his battleships Kongo and Hiei, ready to rush where needed. It all added up to a line about 75 miles long—certainly enough to turn up something.
Yamamoto couldn’t have asked for more. Trouble was, he finally realized the time had passed for this sort of show. Five hours earlier, yes; but by now he knew all four of Nagumo’s carriers were lost, and Kondo couldn’t even get in position until 3 A.M. That left little more than an hour to find the Americans and fight his night engagement. Once daylight came, those U.S. carrier planes would be at his throat.
Nor could Admiral Kurita’s four sleek cruisers—previously sent to shell Midway—do any good. They had been ordered to open fire at 2 A.M., but here was another miscalculation. They couldn’t arrive until nearly dawn. Then they too would be wide open to air attack.
The staff babbled with alternatives. All were hopelessly hare-brained, and the chief of staff Admiral Ugaki plainly showed his contempt. Yamamoto didn’t even deign to comment. Finally somebody asked a little hysterically, “But how can we apologize to His Majesty for this defeat?”
“Leave that to me,” Yamamoto broke in coldly. “I am the only one who must apologize to His Majesty.”
At 12:15 A.M. on the 5th the Commander in Chief suspended the plans for a night engagement, ordered Kondo, Nagumo and Kurita to rendezvous with himself instead. He would be at a given point some 350 miles northwest of Midway at 9:00 A.M. Five minutes later he followed this up with another message, specifically for Kurita, canceling the 2:00 A.M. bombardment of the base, and again ordering him to rendezvous.
In the confusion Yamamoto forgot that he had also ordered the submarine I-168 to shell Midway. Commander Tanabe had been poking around the atoll for several days now, in perfect position to help out. Under the plan, he was to open the show and keep firing until Kurita took over at 2:00. All very well, but when the cruisers were called off, nothing went out to Tanabe. Now he lay on the surface, antenna up, listening in vain for any further instructions. Around 1:20 he quietly glided into firing position.
A FLASH to the south—a sharp crack in the night— punctured the uneasy silence on Midway. A shell screamed overhead and landed in the lagoon. Then another. At Jim Muri’s B-26, the crew jumped up with a start, grabbed their BARs and dived for a slit trench. It was the same everywhere—men racing for rifles and shelter. Most of the aviators had done plenty of bombing, but they had never heard a shell before. The sound was anything but pleasant.
At 1:23 Battery C began firing star shells … 1:24, searchlight No. 102 picked up the sub,’ bearing 110° … 1:25, Batteries B, D and E thundered into action.
For three minutes the duel continued. The Marine guns belted out 42 rounds; the sub rather casually lobbed eight shells into the lagoon. Then at 1:28 it submerged as unexpectedly as it had opened fire. On Sand Island a sailor sighed with relief and swore he’d take back everything he had ever said about the Marines.
ADMIRAL Kurita’s four big cruisers were less than 80 miles from Midway when he got the message to cancel the bombardment and rendezvous with Yamamoto instead. In many ways it was a relief. The whole business looked more and more like suicide. Yet some were still eager; a squad of volunteers stood ready to sneak ashore and blow up installations.
But now they were heading back, steaming northwest at 28 knots in the dim moonlight. The flagship Kumano led, then the Suzuya, the Mikuma, and finally the Mogami. A pair of destroyers—the Arashio and Asashio—panted along in the rear.
It was 2:15 when the Kumano spotted a surfaced submarine just off her starboard bow. Using her low-powered directional signal lamp, she flashed “Red! Red!”—meaning a 45° emergency turn to port. On the bridge of the Mogami the navigator, Lieutenant Commander Masaki Yamauchi, elbowed the officer on duty aside, took over this tricky maneuver himself. As he turned, he thought he saw too much distance between himself and the Mikuma, next up the line. He adjusted course a little to starboard. Suddenly, to his horror, he saw he wasn’t looking at the Mikuma at all, but at the Suzuya, two ships up the line. The Mikuma lay in between, directly ahead.
“Port the helm … hard a-port … Full astern!” The commands came in quick succession, but it was all too late. With a shower of sparks the Mogami’s bow ground into the Mikuma’s port quarter. The two ships shuddered, then drifted apart. The Mikuma got off lightly—only a ruptured fuel tank —but the Mogami lost 40 feet of her bow. Everything back to the first turret was bent to port at right angles. Painfully she inched up to 12 knots again.
That wasn’t enough for Admiral Kurita. He had an appointment with Yamamoto. He detached the Mikuma and both destroyers to provide escort, then hurried on northwest with the Kurnano and Suzuya.
To Admiral Yamamoto, steaming east toward the rendezvous point, the collision must have seemed a relatively minor matter. Nothing could compare with the step he took at 2:55 A.M. For it was then that he finally faced the inevitable and radioed all commands, “Occupation of AF is canceled.” He had reached the end of the line as far as invading Midway was concerned. When Commander Watanabe sought to query him, he simply answered, “Sashi sugi”—roughly meaning, “The price is too high.”
Before sunrise he made another decision almost as hard. At 4:50 he again faced the facts and ordered the hulk of his beloved Akagi scuttled. After this night he was ready for anything—even the fiasco of having two of his finest cruisers lumber together in this clumsy fashion.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER John W. Murphy, skipper of the submarine Tambor, adjusted his periscope and carefully studied the two cruisers he had been shadowing. It was 5:00 A.M. now, and he could see them much better. One of them had lost about 40 feet of her bow.
Murphy had been playing hide-and-seek with these ships, along with several others, for nearly three hours. He was part of Admiral English’s submarine screen, and he was patrolling on the surface when he first saw them at 2:15A.M. They were 89 miles from Midway and heading away from the base.
But that was all he could tell. They might be Japs—or U.S. ships chasing Nagumo. He ordered right rudder and began following a parallel course. The minutes ticked by, and still he couldn’t figure them out. At 3:00 he finally sent a contact report anyhow, calling them simply “many unidentified ships.”
Daylight solved his problem. He could see only two of them now, but at 4:12 he definitely made out the truncated stacks of Japanese warships. Next moment he thought he was spotted and made an emergency dive. He lay low for 25 minutes, then popped up for a look with his periscope. By now he could see they were Mogami-type cruisers, and he radioed this news too. It was at this point he noticed that one had a damaged bow. And that was about all he saw, for they were steaming west, moving faster than he could follow.
MIDWAY was ready to believe the worst. The Tambor’s contact report didn’t say which way the “many unidentified ships” were going, but “89 miles” was mighty close. It seemed all too likely that the invasion was still on. At 4:30 A.M. Brooke Allen led eight B-17s to counter the threat. But the early morning weather was so thick they saw nothing. By 6:00 they were aimlessly circling Kure.
It was a PBY that produced the first hot information. At 6:30 it reported “two battleships streaming oil,” heading west about 125 miles west of Midway. Clearly they were retiring; a surge of relief swept the base.
The first Marine dive bombers roared off in pursuit at 7:00. VMSB-241 was now down to 12 planes; Captain Marshall Tyler was the squadron’s third skipper in two days; but the men were as aggressive as ever.
Forty-five minutes out they picked up the oil slick—a broad inviting avenue leading straight west. Twenty minutes later they were there. Dead ahead, already tossing up antiaircraft shells, were two big warships—one of them trailing the oil, the other with a smashed bow. A couple of destroyers hovered nearby.
The Marines began attacking at 8:08. First Tyler dived with the six remaining SBDs, but no hits were scored. Then Captain Fleming arrived with the Vindicators, slanting down in a glide-bombing run. No hits here either, but on the way in, Fleming’s plane began to burn. Somehow he kept his lead, made his run, dropped his bomb. Then—a blazing comet—he plunged into the after turret of his target.
“VERY brave,” thought Captain Akira Soji of the Mogami, watching the U.S. bomber crash into the Mikuma’s turret. His own ship took a handful of near-misses, one about 10 yards away. Splinters riddled the bridge and stack, but no serious damage.
The Mikuma fared worse. The crash dive started a fire that soon spread to the intake of the starboard engine room. Flames were sucked down, and the fumes suffocated the engineers.
The two cruisers continued plodding westward at 12 knots. But the Mikuma was no longer just keeping the Mogami company. Thanks to that American flier, she now couldn’t do any better herself.
ADMIRAL Spruance, too, had his eye on these Japanese cruisers. The Tambor’s first report reached him a little after 4:00, relayed from CINCPAC. Like nearly everyone else, he felt the invasion might be still on. At 4:20 he turned southwest and raced toward Midway at 25 knots.
By 9:30 it was clear his fears were groundless. Spruance now eased off to the west, in good position either to attack these damaged ships or go after what was left of Nagumo. Important information was coming from that direction too. At 8:00 a PBY had reported a burning carrier trailing two battleships, three cruisers and four destroyers. For some reason the message didn’t reach Task Force 16 till late in the morning, but once Spruance had it he made his choice. The carrier was 275 miles away, the contact was cold, but it was still the “prime target.” At 11:15 he turned northwest and began a long stern chase. If a carrier was up there at 8:00 A.M., he’d take a chance on it now.
COMMANDER Aiso decided it was high time to leave the Hiryu’s engine room. He felt it was about 8:00 A.M.—hours since his last contact with the bridge. Meanwhile the fires had died down, a torpedo had slammed into the ship, and now Ensign Mandai—up on the next deck battling a blaze in some rice sacks—was yelling down to get out: the Hiryu was beginning to sink.
Aiso led some 50 men up through a hatch, where they joined Mandai and his fire-fighting party. They found themselves on the port side of the ship, in a long steel corridor that led nowhere. The one exit was sealed, and the only other opening was a tiny pinhole in the inboard wall of the corridor—apparently a flaw in the weld. Here they could peek out onto the hangar deck, empty and strangely flooded with sunshine.
Aiso decided that their only hope was to break through the wall by the peephole. Here the steel was very thin, and the daylight spelled escape. They found a hammer and chisel and went to work. Gradually they punched through a hole about a yard wide—just big enough for one man at a time.
Squeezing through, they emerged on the deserted hangar deck. The forward end was wide open—the result of the hit that blasted the forward elevator—hence the sunlight streaming through. The men now worked their way up to the flight deck and found that deserted too. Looking up at the mast, they saw even the flag was gone. The halyard flapped loosely in the morning breeze. To Ensign Mandai it said more eloquently than words that the ship had been abandoned.
Mandai idly looked into the hole where the forward elevator had been. Sea water was swirling onto the hangar deck—covering the spot they just left. He alerted Commander Aiso, who called the men together. Aiso told them the situation looked hopeless and he simply wanted to thank them for doing their duty so well.
Most of the men slumped down on the flight deck—that was as good a place as any to await the end. Mandai dozed off—then was awakened by a kick in the ribs. To his amazement several other survivors had now appeared from the quarterdeck—an aircraft mechanic, four or five firemen. They had escaped from below a good deal earlier, and they brought exciting news.
It seemed that when they first reached deck a destroyer was just leaving. They frantically signaled her, and she blinkered back. Nobody understood code, but it might mean help later. Even more exciting: around 6:30 a Japanese plane flew over—a plane with wheels. It could only have come from the carrier Hosho … which must mean Yamamoto was near. Suddenly it was worth trying to stay alive.
Aiso led all hands aft and down to the boat deck. Here he found two launches, plus a 30-foot cutter already, lying in the water just astern. Perhaps they could float around in these until help came. But the Hiryu was now sinking fast by the bow, and he soon realized they could never get the launches off before she went down. He hastily divided the men into two groups, told them to jump from the stern and make for the cutter.
Ensign Mandai leaped as far out as he could, grabbed at a dangling line. It was attached to nothing, and he plummeted into the sea. Popping up, he turned and looked back at the Hiryu. There, high above him, were the carrier’s great bronze propellers, dripping and gleaming in the sun. He swam for dear life … heard a great detonation … turned again and saw only the empty sea.
When the men looked at their watches afterward (one of them a Mickey Mouse watch), they found that all had stopped between 9:07 and 9:15—thus fixing the time when the Hiryu finally sank. But right now their only concern was to get to the cutter still floating nearby. Thirty-nine of them made it, including Commander Aiso and Ensign Mandai. Aiso took charge, announced that they would wait right here till help came. The plane with the wheels would alert the fleet; Admiral Yamamoto himself was on the way.
Actually, Yamamoto had no intention of coming. He was, in fact, shocked by the report from the plane with the wheels. It looked as though somebody had botched the job of scuttling the Hiryu, and what could be worse than to have her fall into American hands? He radioed Admiral Nagumo to make sure she was sunk.
Meanwhile another derelict was occupying Yamamoto’s attention. At 6:52—just a few minutes before the report on the Hiryu—an intriguing message came in from the Chikuma’s No. 4 plane, off to the east scouting the U.S. fleet: “Sight an enemy Yorktown class carrier listing to starboard [sic] and drifting in position bearing 111° distance 240 miles from my take-off point. One destroyer is in the vicinity.”
The I-168, still patrolling off Midway, was immediately ordered to leave station and destroy this target. Commander Tanabe pulled out his charts and began his calculations. He figured that the carrier was only 150 miles away—no trouble reaching her. The real trick was the approach. He wanted to come in from the west at dawn. Then the carrier would be nicely silhouetted while he remained hidden in the dark. He carefully plotted the course and speed that would do just that, then turned the I-168 away from Midway and headed north-northeast.
No ONE on the destroyer Hughes actually saw the Japanese search plane. It was just a blip on the radar, picked up at 6:26 A.M. as the ship continued her lonely job of guarding the Yorktown. Commander Ramsey ordered the crew to stand by to repel air attack, but no one ever came. The blip just hovered there, 20 miles to the west, for about ten minutes. Then it gradually faded away.
The incident made the men all the more nervous when at 7:41 machine-gun bullets began cutting the water off the port side of the Yorktown. At first Signalman Peter Karetka was sure some Jap had sneaked in for a strafing run, but when no plane appeared, he knew it couldn’t be that. Commander Ramsey thought it might be a gun going off, overheated by a smoldering fire somewhere.
More splashes, and the men suddenly realized it could only be somebody still alive on the Yorktown, trying to attract attention. The Hughes stood in close. There, sure enough, was a man waving from the port side of the hangar deck. Ramsey lowered his motor whaleboat, and the boarding party soon found Seaman Norman Pichette, now slumped unconscious beside his gun. He had a bad stomach wound and was wrapped in a sheet. They were all back on the Hughes by 8:35, and moments later the ship’s doctor was cutting away the sheet. This seemed to rouse Pichette, who came to long enough to mumble there was still another man alive, lying in the Yorktown’s sick bay.
Again the whaleboat chugged over. This time it returned with Seaman George Weise, who had fractured his skull when blown off the smokestack. Weise never knew how he got to sick bay; he just remembered dimly hearing the alarm and the call to abandon ship. It was dark; the Yorktown was listing heavily; the ladder topside hung loose at a crazy angle. In the blur of shapes and shadows trying to get the wounded out, he recalled someone coming over to help him. Then he heard, or thought he heard, a voice say, “Leave him and let’s go—he’s done for anyway.”
The last thing he remembered was sitting up in his bunk and swearing a blue streak … but by then everyone was gone. For hours he lay helpless in the dark, semiconscious and never able to move. Finally he became vaguely aware that Pichette was in the room too, also left behind in some fashion. Pichette was very badly off, but at least he could move. In the end it was he who found the strength to get up, wrap himself in his sheet, and stagger up three decks for help.
Were there any others? The men in the motor whaleboat thought so. They reported strange tapping sounds from deep inside the carrier, suggesting men trapped below. Ramsey sent the boat back again—this time with orders to explore everywhere. They found important code materials but no human beings. The tapping, it turned out, was just the sound of creaking steel as the Yorktown wallowed in the swell. No one else was alive on the ship.
But someone was very much alive in the water. While the whaleboat was off exploring the Yorktown, the men on the Hughes were amazed to see a man in a yellow rubber raft paddling furiously toward them. He turned out to be Ensign Harry Gibbs of Fighting 3. Gibbs had been shot down defending the Yorktown the day before. He spent a long night in his raft, then sighted the carrier at sunrise. He paddled six miles to get back to his ship.
Around 10:00 the mine sweeper Vireo turned up, and Ramsey arranged for a tow. A line was rigged, and by early afternoon they were under way, heading east at about two knots. The Yorktown yawed dreadfully. She seemed unwilling to leave the scene of battle. At times, in fact, she appeared to be pulling the Vireo backward.
Other destroyers began turning up—the Gwin, the Monaghan. With more muscle on hand, a jettisoning party went over to the Yorktown, began dropping loose gear overboard to help straighten her up. During the afternoon Ramsey also sent a message to CINCPAC, urging the organization of a salvage party. The carrier was holding her own; he was sure she could be saved.
Admiral Fletcher and Captain Buckmaster needed no prodding from CINCPAC. They were working hard on their own to save the Yorktown. But it wasn’t a simple matter. By the morning of the 5th, Task Force 17 was 150 miles east of the carrier, and over 2,000 survivors were scattered among six different destroyers. It would take time to cull out the specialists needed for a proper salvage party and then get them back to the scene.
One by one the destroyers came alongside the Astoria, and the men needed were transferred by breeches buoy to the cruiser. Here they were organized, briefed, and transferred again to the destroyer Hammann, which would take them back. They were mostly engineers and technicians, but there was no lack of volunteers among the cooks and yeomen. Everybody wanted to go. Finally guards had to be placed at the highlines to keep useless personnel from sneaking over in their determination to get back to the “Old Lady.”
Midafternoon, and the Hammann started off. On board were Captain Buckmaster and a crack salvage team which, with the addition of a few from the Hughes, totaled 29 officers and 141 men. Escorted by the destroyers Balch and Benham, they reached the Yorktown shortly after 2:00 A.M. on the 6th.
Far to the west Spruance continued his pursuit of the Japanese fleet, but it had been a discouraging day for Task Force 16. The trail was cold, the chase long, and when the strike was finally launched at 3:00 P.M., the distance was still 230 miles. On the hopeful side, the attack packed a powerful punch: 32 dive bombers from the Enterprise, 26 from the Hornet.
Two hours passed, but they saw nothing below. Three hours—still nothing. Gas was low … it was getting dark … the fliers were tired and hungry. Over the radio a voice kept saying, “Let’s go home.”
Finally at 6:20 someone spotted the wake of a single ship hurrying westward in the gathering darkness. Not much of a target, but it was this or nothing. With Dave Shumway leading the way, the 58 dive bombers poured down on their lone quarry.
It should have been an unequal fight, but it wasn’t. The ship, which turned out to be a destroyer, twisted and squirmed with fantastic skill. Fifty-eight bombs rained down—but not one hit. Worse than that, a blast of antiaircraft fire caught Lieutenant Sam Adams’s plane. He plunged into the sea.
As the rest headed home, the big trouble began. It was really dark now, and the pilots knew little about night carrier landings. On the Enterprise Captain George Murray turned on his deck lights to help. Robin Lindsey, the landing signal officer, switched from paddles to illuminated wands. He nursed down plane after plane, until it seemed the parade would never end. Finally he turned to his signalman and asked how many more. “I’ll be damned if I know,” answered the sailor, “we’ve got more than we’re supposed to have already.”
It turned out that five of the Hornet’s planes had come in too. Completely green, their pilots were happy to land on the first carrier they saw. In return, one Enterprise plane came down on the Hornet.
Lieutenant Ruff Johnson, leading Bombing 8, couldn’t find any carrier at all. His homing signal was out; his tanks were all but drained. He called his rear-seat man McCoy and asked if he could swim. McCoy answered “negative,” so the skipper told him to get out his survival book and learn quickly. Then at the last minute they sighted the task force, and Johnson asked the Hornet to blink her side lights.
Marc Mitscher did better than that. These were dangerous waters—enemy subs might be lurking—but fliers were sacred to Mitscher, and he didn’t hesitate a minute. Two searchlight beams shot into the sky. Johnson landed without even enough gas to taxi down the flight deck. As he rolled to a stop his chief mechanic leaped on his wing with joy: “Captain, you S.O.B., are we glad to see you—oh, I beg your pardon.”
It was also a fruitless day for the B-17s. During the morning Colonel Allen’s eight bombers finally located the two damaged ships west of Midway. Arriving at 8:30, they dropped a total of 39 bombs from 20,000 feet, but even the communiqué writers found little to cheer about. The fliers themselves, one of them later recalled, considered the attack “a terrible disappointment.”
Undeterred, the B-17s went out again in the afternoon. First Colonel Allen’s group, then a separate bunch under Captain Ridings took off after the same “burning carrier” Spruance was chasing. They had no better luck than the Admiral. Like the Navy planes, they searched in vain far to the northwest. And also like the Navy planes, they finally settled for that lone destroyer. Attacking at various levels from 9,000 to 16,000 feet, they aimed 79 more bombs at the target. The Jap skipper proved as elusive as ever.
COMMANDER Motomi Katsumi was one of the best in the business; he maneuvered the destroyer Tanikaze with enviable skill as the American bombs rained down from above. For Katsumi it was the climax of a wasted day. Early in the morning Nagumo had sent him to check the reports that the Hiryu was still afloat. He found nothing and was returning to rejoin the fleet when he was hit by both dive bombers and B-17s.
All those bombs on one destroyer. Yet Katsumi managed to dodge everything. The only damage came from a fragment of a near-miss that slashed through his No. 3 turret: it set off an explosion that killed all six men inside. The Tanikaze continued on, linking up with the fleet shortly after sunset.
It turned out that the other ships too had spent some anxious moments. Around 2:30 P.M. radio intelligence had warned of enemy aircraft high overhead. A false alarm, but no less nerve-racking. Then at 5:25 the Nagara detected some heavy bombers heading west. These planes were real indeed, but friendly clouds intervened, and the fleet was never discovered.
It was a curious scene the Americans missed. Most of Yamamoto’s great armada had now rendezvoused 350 miles northwest of Midway, and dozens of ships lay motionless on the gray sea as a stream of cutters shuttled back and forth, transferring survivors from the stand-by destroyers to the battleships Haruna, Kirishima, Mutsu and Nagato.
All through the afternoon and into the evening the fleet lay licking its wounds. During the night Yamamoto steamed still farther west out of carrier range. Early on the 6th Admiral Kurita joined up with the cruisers Kumano and Suzuya. That meant every major element in the fleet was now safe, except for the damaged Mogami and Mikuma, left behind with a couple of destroyers. They would have to fend for themselves.
ALL through the night of June 5, and the predawn hours of the 6th, Admiral Spruance steamed west at a conservative 15 knots. Having failed to overtake the ships to the northwest, he didn’t want to overrun the cripples to the southwest.
At 5:10 A.M. the Enterprise sent 18 scouts on a 200-mile sweep to the west, and around 6:45 two separate contacts were made. The Hornet launched the first strike—26 dive bombers, 8 fighters—and by 9:30 they could see the Japs ahead. There were two big cruisers and two destroyers trying to screen them. At 9:50 Stan Ring called, “Attack when ready,” and Gus Widhelm replied with his favorite battle cry: “Widhelm is ready; prepare the Japs!”
Down they screeched, getting hits on both cruisers and a destroyer. But the Japanese fought back hard, and heavy antiaircraft fire knocked down one of the SBDs. The Hornet group headed home for more bombs.
Now it was the Enterprise’s turn. At 10:45 she launched 31 dive bombers, 12 fighters and 3 torpedo planes, all led by Lieutenant Wally Short. They found the cruisers easily, but wasted half an hour searching for a nonexistent battleship 40 miles farther on. By 12:30 they were more than willing to settle for what they had. Cocky from past triumphs, hungry for a kill, and free at last of the deadly Zeros, they tore into the Japanese with fierce elation. Their radios told the story:
This is Wally pushing over on the rear ship now.
Close up on me.
Hey, any of you fellows got any bombs? There is a Mogi class cruiser in the rear.
Oh baby, did we put that God-damn can on fire.
Looks like that battleship blew up too… .
Get the sons-of-bitches again. OK, that’s fine.
Hit em again—give em hell.
They will never get that fire out.
Put all of them smack on the bottom.
That one blew up too. Good hit. Good hit.
Boy that’s swell. Boy, oh boy. You son of a gun,
You’re going up … wish I had a camera along.
Tojo, you son-of-a-bitch, you’ll not get your
laundry this week.
And if all this wasn’t enough, the Hornet planes were back with a second load at 2:45 P.M. By now both cruisers were a shambles, and one of them was being abandoned. A destroyer stood alongside, taking men off, when the bombers began to dive. As she tried to pull clear, Lieutenant Clayton Fisher plastered her too.
The Hornet’s eight fighters came next. There was no antiaircraft fire now, so they swooped low, ripping into one of the cruisers with their machine guns. As Lieutenant J. F. Sutherland whipped by, he noticed a mass of people huddled on the stern, shaking their fists in futile rage. His reaction was one of sudden sympathy for their helplessness, and he flew back to the Hornet contemplating how quickly a hated enemy could become a pitied human being.
One final touch. In the late afternoon the Enterprise launched two camera planes to record the day’s handiwork. Reaching the scene, Lieutenant Cleo Dobson, leading the flight, found the abandoned cruiser still burning and dead in the water. Men were swimming all around her. He dropped to 100 feet and took his time. His crystal-clear pictures froze the ship in all her agony—her amidships torn and smoldering, a sailor climbing down a rope ladder, another in a small raft by the stern.
Off to the west he sighted the other cruiser and the two destroyers crawling away as fast as possible. In a magnificent golden sunset he headed back to the Enterprise thinking of the small difference that separates the winners from losers. That night he confided in his diary, “I keep thinking to myself how I would hate to be in the place of those fellows in the water. I offered a prayer to God that I be spared their fate.”
FIREMAN Kenichi Ishikawa could make out several hundred other men swimming in the water; so he was all the luckier to reach this raft. Scrambling aboard, he lay exhausted and looked back at the sinking Mikuma. She was going fast now—though not as fast as the setting sun. It was dusk when she finally rolled over on her port side and disappeared into the Pacific.
Even so, she lived up to her reputation as one of Japan’s toughest big cruisers. The very first attack knocked out her bridge, fatally wounding Captain Sakiyama, yet the exec Commander Takagi took over and fought on. The second attack finished her—five hits and then her torpedo supply exploded.
Takagi ordered abandon ship. As the men poured over the side, Lieutenant Nasao Koyama drew his sword and committed hara-kiri on the forward turret. The destroyer Arashio moved in and was picking up survivors when the third attack came in. Scores were killed when a bomb landed squarely on the destroyer’s stern.
It was almost as bad on the Mogami. She took five hits altogether, the last exploding amidships, where it permanently sealed a number of men in the engine room. A near miss also honeycombed her port side—someone later counted 800 holes. About 90 men were lost altogether. But Captain Soji and his leading officers came through, and Lieutenant Saruwatari did a superb job at damage control. By sunset the fires were out and the bulkheads holding. Escorted by the two damaged destroyers, she limped away toward Truk and safety.
SAFETY for the Yorktown meant Pearl Harbor, and by the dawn of June 6 the chances seemed better than ever of getting her there. Sunrise found the battered carrier still holding her own in a calm and dazzling sea.
Captain Buckmaster led the salvage party aboard. With a small burial party he first climbed to the sharply canted flight deck, where many of the dead still lay at their posts. Chief Pharmacist’s Mate James Wilson turned to give some instructions, but the Captain silenced him with a wave of the hand. Uncovering, he addressed himself in prayer, gave thanks for the victory, and recited verbatim the beautiful but seldom used service for Burial of the Dead at Sea.
This moment of reverie soon gave way to the clatter of hammers and the sputter of acetylene torches. Working parties started cutting away loose gear to lighten the ship. Others pitched two stranded planes, all live bombs and torpedoes into the sea. Lieutenant Greenbacker began collecting the classified papers strewn about.
The Hammann nudged up to the starboard side to provide power, portable pumps and fire hoses. Down below, men attacked the blaze still smoldering in the rag locker and began the important work of counterflooding. A high moment came when the first 5-inch gun on the port side was cut loose and dropped overboard. Free of the weight, the whole ship shook … and seemed to straighten up a little in relief.
By 1:00 P.M. they had worked 2° off the Yorktown’s list. It was time for a break, and the Hammann sent over fruit and sandwiches. Some distance out, the other five destroyers slowly circled the carrier. They were listening for submarines, but it was hard to tell. Echo-ranging conditions were poor due to what destroyer men call a “thermal barrier.” Yet this was often the case on calm days, and there was no hint of real trouble. It was just 1:30, and on the Yorktown the men were about to go back to work. …
COMMANDER Tanabe raised his periscope for a last look. The carrier was now about 1,300 yards away. She was still under tow, but barely moving. The destroyer was still alongside. The others were still circling slowly—no sign they suspected. The hydrophone man said he couldn’t even hear the enemy’s sound detection system working. Tanabe made a mild joke about the Americans all being out to lunch.
The I-168 had worked hard for this perfect chance. Nearly eight hours had passed since the lookout’s cry of a “black object” on the horizon. It was, of course, the crippled U.S. carrier, just where Tanabe expected to find her at dawn.
It was only 5:30, and for the first 10 or 20 minutes he stayed on the surface. Approaching from the west, he was still sheltered by darkness. Then it got too light for that, and he submerged, poking up his periscope every 15 minutes.
By 7:00 the I-168 was about six miles off, and Tanabe had a much better picture of the situation. For the first time he could see the destroyers guarding the carrier. To make detection harder, he now cut his speed to three knots and raised his periscope only once or twice an hour.
Ever so carefully, he stole closer. To get a sure kill, he decided to fire his four torpedoes with a spread of only 2°, instead of the usual 6°. This meant a bigger punch amidships, but it also required getting as near as possible.
He dived still lower, hoping to get through the destroyer screen. Next time he looked he was safely through, but now he was too close. The carrier loomed like a mountain only 700 yards away. He needed that much for the torpedo to run true. Slowly he curled in a wide circle to starboard, coming around to try again. This time everything was perfect… .
“HEY, look, porpoises!” CPO Joseph Kisela heard somebody call, pointing off the starboard side of the Yorktown. A couple of men stared out to sea. “Porpoises, hell!” a sailor snorted.
A machine gun on the bridge began firing. This was the prearranged signal in case of danger. There was a wild scramble topside. Coming up from the engine room, Lieutenant Cundiff looked to starboard and saw four white torpedo streaks heading straight for the ship. An avid photographer, he gasped. “What a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and no camera!”
Lieutenant Greenbacker, about to transfer some files to the Hammann, fled “downhill” to the port side of the quarterdeck. Then the thought occurred that torpedoes might be coming from that side too. He worked his way back “uphill” to the center of the ship—as close to neutral ground as he could get. Here he waited for the torpedoes to hit, and that seemed to take forever.
One missed … one struck the Hammann … the other two passed under the destroyer and crashed into the Yorktown amidships. Once again there was that teeth-rattling jar that came only from torpedoes. It whipped the tripod mast, shearing off most of the rivets at the base. It knocked down the ship’s bell, shattering it completely. It bowled over the damage control officer, Commander Aldrich, breaking his left arm. It hurled Commander Davis, cutting loose the 5-inchers, right into the sea. It almost made Commander Ray bite off the stem of his pipe.
Seeing it was about to happen, Chief Electrician W. E. Wright made a wild leap to the deck of the Hammann. But this was no solution, for she was hit at almost the same instant. Wright was blown high in the air, landing in the water.
Commander Arnold True was desperately trying to back the Hammann clear when the torpedoes hit. To the end his gunners were firing at the streaks, hoping to explode the warheads. The crash hurled True across the bridge and into a chart desk, breaking two ribs and knocking out his wind. He couldn’t speak for several minutes.
Few words were needed. The Hammann’s fate was clearly sealed. The concussion from the two hits on the Yorktown stove in her plates, and the direct hit snapped her almost in two. She looked like a toy ship that had been dropped from a great height—upright but broken.
Within two minutes the foredeck was awash, and the executive officer Lieutenant Ralph Elden ordered abandon ship. As the bow went under, most of the crew swam off. Chief Torpedoman Berlyn Kimbrell, however, remained on the rising stern, trying to put the depth charges on “safe” and handing out life jackets. When Boilermaker Raymond Fitzgibbon went over the side, Kimbrell shook hands with him and gave him the Churchill “Victory” sign.
Then she was gone, but the worst was yet to come. The depth charges—though presumably set on “safe”—went off anyhow. (There are a dozen theories.) An immense explosion erupted under the water, right where everyone was swimming. The concussion was fantastic: one sailor’s metal cigarette lighter was mashed absolutely flat in his pocket The effect on a man’s body could be far worse than that.
The destroyers Benham and Balch left the screen, rescuing the lucky ones who escaped, plus several from the Yorktown too. One man swam up to the Benham and climbed aboard unassisted. It was the same ship’s cook they had saved on the 4th, who wanted only to help in the galley. This time he simply said, “I know where the galley is, I’ll go get to work.”
Long after everyone else was picked up, the Balch spotted a lone swimmer among the debris. He was desperately trying to hold the faces of two other men out of the water. It was the Hammann’s skipper Commander True. Barely conscious himself, he had struggled alone for nearly three hours to keep two of his dying men alive.
On the Yorktown it was time to leave again. The two new hits on the starboard side had the effect of straightening her up, but that was deceiving. She was definitely lower in the water. The Vireo pulled along the starboard side, and the salvage party swung down the lines to safety.
When everyone else seemed to be off, Captain Buckmaster came down hand over hand. Then at the last minute Commander Delaney and one of his engineers appeared from a final inspection below and also left the ship. Deprived of the privilege of being the last to leave, Buckmaster was enormously upset. He even wanted to swing back up the line and touch the Yorktown again, but the Vireo cast off before he could make it.
While the rescue work went on, the Gwin, Hughes and Monaghan charged here and there looking for the submarine. The three destroyers dropped numerous depth charges, but for five hours there was no evidence of success. Then at 6:45 the Hughes suddenly saw smoke on the horizon. A check with the glasses showed a sub on the surface about 13 miles away. Its diesels were smoking, and it was racing west, trying to get clear of the area.
The Hughes and Monaghan set off in pursuit, and at 7:05 they opened fire. Bracketed by shell explosions, the submarine soon disappeared into the sea. On the Monaghan Fireman Edward Creighton was sure they got her. That night he wrote in his diary, “We had a 15 or 20 minute gun battle, and she finally went down. There were no survivors.”
COMMANDER Tanabe had one last trick up his sleeve. He dived into his own smoke and went right under the destroyers that were chasing him. They throbbed by overhead, and the crisis was passed.
He breathed easily for the first time since torpedoing the carrier. Except for a brief moment of exhilaration—the banzais, the touching gift of cider from all hands—the whole afternoon had been hell. Lieutenant Tomita counted 61 depth bombs altogether. The I-168 finally had to break surface at 6:30, but happily the American destroyers were now far astern. They gave chase soon enough, but Tanabe stayed up as long as he dared, gulping in air and recharging his batteries. He also took the occasion to radio Yamamoto the good news about the carrier.
On the Yamato the Admiral now had bigger game in mind. All morning his radio had crackled with the troubles of the Mogami and Mikuma. Apparently the U.S. force was moving steadily west, farther and farther from home. Perhaps he could trap it yet. Around noon he sent Admiral Kondo south with the carrier Zuiho, six cruisers and eight destroyers. They were to join up with the Mogami and Mikuma and lure the Americans into a night battle.
At 3:50 P.M. Yamamoto broadened this plan into an all-out effort. The Yamato was also ordered south with the Main Body and what was left of Nagumo’s fleet. Land bombers were ordered up from the Marshalls and put on Wake. These plus his own scattering of planes would give him real air power again. His heavy ships would do the rest. All that remained was for the Americans to walk into the trap.
ADMIRAL Spruance had a feeling (“an intuition perhaps”) that he had pushed his luck far enough to the west. He was over 400 miles from Midway, and he was determined to keep out of the range of Japanese planes based on Wake. Besides, he was low on fuel, short on destroyers, and had lost a lot of good pilots. From his long walks on the flight deck, he also sensed how weary the others were.
Shortly after 7:00 P.M.—as soon as the two planes returned from photographing the dying Mikuma—Task Force 16 turned and headed back east. Astern lay the remnants of Japanese hopes; ahead lay good things like oil, sleep and ultimately home.
For Midway, too, it was over. A final flight of B-17s on the afternoon of the 6th reported sinking an enemy “cruiser” in 15 seconds; but this turned out to be the U.S. submarine Grayling, crash-diving to escape the bombs. During the evening Major General Clarence L. Tinker—just in from Hawaii—led four Liberators in a long-range attempt to neutralize Wake, but the effort was in vain. The bombers never found the target, and Tinker himself was lost.
By dawn on the 7th, all was quiet again on Midway.
“MY GOD, she’s going right on over, isn’t she?” Boatswain Forest Lunsford gasped to Ensign J. T. Andrews, as they stood on the Benham watching the Yorktown in the first light of day, June 7. For the men in the destroyer screen, the sight of the carrier at dawn ended any hope they still had of saving her.
Some time during the night the Yorktown had heeled back heavily to port, and by 4:30 her flight deck slanted into the water. Great bubbles were foaming up, and loud cracking noises came from somewhere inside her. From the halyards her last signal hoist hung straight down— “My speed, 15.” Captain Buckmaster’s American flag was still flying, but it almost touched the sea.
At 4:43 she lay on her port side, revealing a huge hole in her starboard bilge—the result of yesterday’s submarine attack. The end was near, and at 4:54 all ships half-masted their colors; all hands uncovered and came to attention. Two patrolling PBYs appeared overhead and dipped their wings in salute.
At 5:01, well down at the stern, the Yorktown slowly sank from sight. There were the usual noises, the veil of smoke and steam, but to most of the men she went quietly and with enormous dignity— “like the great lady she was,” as one of them put it.
On the Hughes Signalman Karetka fought to hold back his tears. He was very young and wanted to appear grown up. Then he saw that even the old-timers were crying, so he didn’t feel too badly when he wept too.