IT MUST HAVE SEEMED like the whole Japanese Navy. After all those grim briefings—all those days of suspense—it was understandable that the 27 ships of the Transport Group now looked even more formidable than they were. At 9:25 Ensign Reid flashed a two-word contact report: “Main Body.”
“Amplify,” Midway flashed back, and for the next two hours Reid played a desperate game of hide-and-seek, darting in and out of cloud puffs, sending additional scraps whenever he could. At 9:27 he radioed, “Bearing 262°, distance 700” … 10:40, he noted “six large ships in column” … 11:00, he made out “eleven ships, course 090, speed 19.” That seemed to do the job; base radio now told him to come on home.
On Midway Colonel Sweeney could hardly wait to get going with his B-17s. Captain Simard was just as anxious, but first there were some things to clear up. Where were the Japanese carriers? Nimitz’s orders were, above all, to go for those carriers. None had been reported so far; the intelligence said they wouldn’t come till tomorrow, and then from the northwest. Should they hold back the B-17s until they definitely appeared? That would be playing it safe.
On the other hand, Reid described this as the “Main Body.” That might well mean carriers there too. If there was any chance at all, Midway shouldn’t wait. “Hit before we are hit” remained the paramount rule.
But even if the B-17s went out, where should they go? Contact reports were now coming from three different PBYs, pinpointing four different sightings to the southwest. They were all just fragments; it wasn’t easy to count ships when they were shooting at you. Was Reid’s contact really the big one? It was worth waiting a little while to see.
Reid’s report at 11:00 A.M. settled the matter. Now it was clear he had at least 11 ships—a much bigger concentration than anyone else reported. Moreover, most of the other ships were converging that way, probably planning to link up. There was still no report of carriers, but even if there weren’t any, Sweeney could go out, get back and be ready again by the time they were promised tomorrow.
At 12:30 he was on his way. One after another, nine olive-drab B-17s thundered down the Eastern Island runway and into the blue Pacific sky. With Colonel Sweeney leading in the Knucklehead, they roared west in loose formation. They carried only half a “pay load”—four 600-pound bombs apiece —for the range was so great they needed bomb-bay gas tanks if they were going to make the round trip.
Six hundred miles was a long way to go to drop less than 11 tons of bombs on a squirming target, but this was the first attack these young men had made. For all of them it was a new and tremendously exciting experience. Sweeney himself had been to West Point—his father was a retired major general—but the men around him were typical of the adaptable amateurs America somehow finds to fight its wars. His co-pilot Everett Wessman was a truck driver; his navigator Bill Adams a lumber salesman.
Three and a half hours went by. Then, 570 miles out and just where the Navy said to look, Sweeney made out a score of white streaks slashing the blue of the sea: the wakes of the Japanese ships. Another pilot, Lieutenant Edward Steedman, counted 26 of them, which was very good counting indeed. Contact time was exactly 4:23 P.M.
At this point Sweeney veered off, circling around the ships so as to attack from out of the afternoon sun. The white streaks stayed steady and straight; apparently no one down there yet suspected. Now the B-17s were behind the Japanese, forming into three flights of three at 8,000, 10,000 and 12,000 feet. Turning into his bomb run, Sweeney picked up his microphone and called to the planes in his own flight, “I’ll go in at 8,000 feet—you follow me.”
Lieutenant Wessman shuddered. He could only hope the Japanese weren’t tuned in. Or if they were listening, that they wouldn’t believe any foe could be so innocent of war as to broadcast his intentions in the clear.
ON THE bridge of the Jintsu Commander Toyama casually studied the sky with binoculars. The Japanese ships didn’t have radar, and a good man’s eyes remained the best defense against a surprise bombing. An attack seemed likely, too, right after the PBY spotted them, but that was seven hours ago, and nothing had happened yet. Now everything was routine again as the Transport Group continued toward Midway, plodding along in two straight columns.
Suddenly Toyama’s glasses picked up nine planes flying toward them “in stately fashion.” There was only time to yank the alarm before the bombs began falling. Lieutenant Yunoki, gunnery officer on one of the destroyers, didn’t have that much time. His first inkling was a pattern of bombs crashing down near the ship. The Argentina Maru was a little more alert. The alarm sounded; the bridge cranked her up to 20 knots; and at 4:38 she opened fire—one minute before a rack of bombs exploded 200 yards astern. The convoy wriggled and squirmed, smoke pouring out of the stacks and guns. Antiaircraft fire speckled the sky, but before the defense really got going the attack was already over. Still flying “in stately fashion,” the nine B-17s disappeared into the northeast haze.
The Transport Group took stock. No hits, except some splinters from a near-miss on one of the freighters. With the buoyancy a fighting man always feels when he has just pulled through an engagement, the executive officer of the Argentina Maru dashed off his combat report, noting that all hands were in “exceptionally high spirits.”
THE ex-salesmen and track drivers flying the B-17s were in high spirits too. To a man trained in banking at the University of Illinois, like Captain Paul Payne of the bomber Yankee Doodle, a transport at 10,000 feet could look like almost anything—he marked his target down as “hit and burning.”
Taking the largest ship in the world for comparison, Lieutenant Robert Andrews said he bombed a transport of the “Normandie class.” Captain Clemence Tokarz thought he got a battleship or a heavy cruiser. Looking back when they were 30 miles off and homeward bound, Colonel Sweeney was sure he saw two ships burning: “They were both out of column, appeared motionless and were issuing huge clouds of dark smoke which mushroomed above them.”
In contrast the trip back seemed more hair-raising than bombing the Japanese. Night soon fell, and nobody was used to flying formation in the dark. There were several near-misses. It was hard, too, for an Army pilot to find a dot like Midway in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. At 7:30 Eastern Island turned on its runway lights, but for an anxious hour there was no sign of anyone. Finally, the base heard the welcome drone of distant motors, but it was 9:45 before the last planes groped their way home—Captain Willard Woodbury felt he didn’t have enough gas left “to fill a cigarette lighter.”
Even as they were landing, another strike was on its way out, aiming at the same Japanese force. It was the culmination of an amazing enterprise that began over 12 hours earlier at Pearl Harbor.
It must have been about three o’clock that morning when Ensign Allan Rothenburg, a young PBY skipper, was suddenly shaken awake as he lay in his bed at the Ford Island BOQ. “Get up; you’re going to Midway.”
“Midway to what?” was Rothenburg’s sleepy reaction. His patrols in Squadron 51 never carried him in that direction, and at first he didn’t even click on the name. But he pulled on his clothes, went to the field, and in the first light of dawn found his amphibian was one of four warming up. The other three were from Squadron 24, but the PBY men all knew each other, and as they briefly compared notes, it turned out none of them knew why they were going.
They took off around 7:00, landing at the Eastern Island airstrip nine long hours later. By ordinary standards this was a day’s work—time for a hot meal, a good bed and maybe a stretch of routine patrols starting tomorrow. As the flight’s leader, Lieutenant (j.g.) Charles Hibberd, nudged his PBY into its revetment, the crew were surprised, then, to find an enlisted man waiting for them on a tractor with a torpedo mounted on the trailer behind. It was even more astonishing when he said the torpedo was for them—that the other three PBYs would be equipped too, that all four planes were a “striking force” to go out after the Japanese fleet.
Hibberd’s navigator, Ensign James Boyden, couldn’t take it seriously. The PBY amphibian was a wonderful patrol plane, but it only cruised 100 miles an hour, maneuvered with stately dignity, and offered as big and inviting a target as a Pennsylvania Dutch barn. Surely no one could dream of sending it on an attack mission. Shrugging the thought off, Boyden headed for the mess hall to get a snack.
The place was crowded with other crews in flight gear—Army, Navy, Marine. The atmosphere was hushed, serious, almost gloomy. More of the new PBY men turned up, and they soon pieced together a sobering picture: a big Jap force to the southwest … the B-17s out bombing them now … the enemy sweeping toward Midway. All refreshments were on the house, creating a sort of “last supper” feeling.
A messenger came, summoning the new arrivals to the command post. They crowded into Colonel Kimes’s dimly lit dugout—Lieutenant Hibberd, Al Rothenburg, the other pilots and navigators. Logan Ramsey took over the briefing. He explained they were selected to launch a night torpedo attack, and although it had never been done before, “we have to throw everything we have at them.”
He went on to say it would be on a volunteer basis. If they didn’t think they could do it, they wouldn’t be required to go. He waited, studying their faces.
Not a word was said. Ensign Gaylord Propst grimly stared at the floor. Lieutenant (j.g.) Douglas Davis was mute, more from shock than from any burning desire to charge out on a suicide mission. Ensign Boyden silently stared back at Ramsey, trying to read the Commander’s thoughts. All too clearly Ramsey’s face betrayed how little he expected ever to see them again, how much he hated doing what he had to do.
The briefing continued: target, course, speed, position, technical procedures on signals and communications. Yes, it was the “Main Body”—they should look for a carrier. The attack would be led by Lieutenant W. L. Richards, the tall, redheaded executive officer of Patrol Squadron 44, already based on Midway. Outside, mechanics buckled the torpedoes onto the PBYs—one under each plane’s starboard wing.
At 9:30 they took off, Richards leading the way in Charlie Hibberd’s plane. It was not a graceful departure. The PBYs—laboring under the unbalanced load—struggled painfully into the air. Rothenburg, delayed by trouble with his ladder, was late getting off and tagged along after the rest.
Turning southwest, they headed into a beautiful moonlit night, flying in loose formation at 3,000 feet. On Lieutenant Davis’s plane coffee was brewed and served. Taking a sip, Davis pondered his chances of coming through this, night alive—and became slightly nauseated.
The hours droned by. The planes flew on, now through scattered clouds that made it difficult to follow Richards—the others had only his exhausts and a small white light on his fuselage to guide them. Rothenburg, still trailing far in the rear, lost the rest completely. Then Propst too drifted off. But just after that, at 1:20 A.M., Richards’s radarman picked up some targets about seven miles away. At the controls, Charlie Hibberd calmly said he had already spotted them.
Directly ahead, bathed in the moonlight, two columns of darkened ships were steaming toward them. A ring of destroyers guarded both columns, but there was no sign that they suspected danger. Disdaining evasive moves of any kind, they held to a course that would ultimately take them straight to Midway.
Richards had Hibberd circle once to alert the others, then let down to a point off the port beam of the northern column. Now the enemy ships were silhouetted perfectly—black beads in the silvery moon path. Looking for the “carrier,” he picked out a long, low ship toward the rear of the column. Charlie Hibberd began his final run-in.
The job was all his. He had to fly the plane and manipulate the torpedo director at the same time. The rest crouched at their posts, peering through the windows and blisters at the sea rushing past them. Now they were only 200 … 150 … 100 feet from the water. Still no sign that the Japanese suspected anything, but this run-in was taking forever.
“Drop that damn thing and let’s get the hell out of here!” someone finally yelled. But Hibberd wasn’t ready yet. At 1,000 yards he knew this wasn’t a carrier after all—it looked like some sort of merchant ship—but they hadn’t come this far for nothing. On they roared, now only 50 feet off the sea. At 800 yards Hibberd finally released the torpedo, rammed the controls forward, and the PBY heaved up and over the target as a few scattered shots blazed out. Looking back, the man at the waist hatch saw a muffled explosion followed by a second and clearer flash. It looked like a hit, and they were home free.
Lieutenant Davis was close behind. But he didn’t like his position, turned away, circled and came on again. Starting his second approach, he too flew straight up the moon path toward a ship in the rear of the north column. He too faced no return fire as he raced in, now at 50-75 feet.
But they certainly saw him. The target veered hard to starboard and put on speed. Too late to do anything about that; just get as close as possible. At 200 yards Davis released the torpedo almost dead astern of the ship. He had a fleeting glimpse of her thrashing screws and rudder jammed hard to starboard.
A blaze of antiaircraft fire erupted as he pulled up with full power over the stern of the ship. On the port waist gun Machinist’s Mate Ted Kimmell fired back at the forest of masts, funnels and ventilators directly below. In seconds the whole convoy seemed to be shooting at them. Strange pink and red tracers ripped the night; shrapnel and machine-gun fire raked the PBY. One blast smashed through the nose bubble, shattering Navigator J. I. Foster’s goggles, but miraculously not hurting him. They picked up 58 bullet holes altogether … but they too were home free.
Now it was Ensign Propst’s turn. Though he had lost Richards on the way out, he found the Japanese anyhow. He circled down on their port side and, like the others, attacked up the moon path. It proved to be another of those low, harrowing run-ins. At one point he almost rammed one of the escort. “Don’t run into that destroyer!” someone yelled. They hopscotched over it, skimmed on in, releasing at 800 yards. Then with everything bent to the fire wall, Propst did a mad, climbing turn to the left. Co-pilot B. L. Amman had a brief glimpse of a flash that looked like a hit, as the whole Japanese fleet opened up. To Propst it was “Coney Island on the 4th of July.”
They caught some shrapnel, once exchanged shots with a prowling Japanese seaplane. But with a little luck and a friendly cloud, they too managed to get clear and were home free.
Only Rothenburg missed the show. Lost early in the game, he kept on course but never found the others again. By the time he reached the scene, the attack was in full swing. Tracers laced the sky, and there was absolutely no chance to get near enough for a successful run. Hoping for an opening, he milled around for 30 minutes. Finally—his gas half gone—he broke off and headed home, winding up a thoroughly frustrating evening.
ON THE transport Argentina Maru, Commander Yonai never expected an attack at night. It was astonishing the way those big PBYs came in from nowhere. Commander Toyama was just as surprised on the escort flagship Jintsu. After a hectic day, he was finally relaxing in the operations room—even time for an action meal of rice balls—when a destroyer flashed the first warning.
As the bugle blared general quarters over the loudspeaker, Toyama rushed out on the bridge. He was just in time to see a big, black enemy plane come skimming across the water. Then another … and another. Antiaircraft fire exploded everywhere, but they were gone as suddenly as they appeared.
Happily there was little damage. The tanker Akebono Maru—bringing up the rear of the north column—caught a torpedo in the bow, killing 13 and wounding 11. The transport Kiozumi Maru lost a few men from strafing. The other ships weren’t touched, but Admiral Tanaka spent some anxious moments worrying whether the Akebono Maru could continue. Finally word came that she could make 12-14 knots—more than enough to keep in line. Still intact, the convoy plodded on toward Midway.
All this was promptly radioed to the Yamato, where Admiral Yamamoto’s staff reacted with considerable surprise. It was all very puzzling—first, getting sighted at nine o’clock that morning … then the B-17s … and now this torpedo attack. Certainly nobody expected the Americans to move so quickly. In fact, Captain Kuroshima had hoped they wouldn’t find the convoy at all until after Nagumo’s attack on the 4th. Here they were a day too soon, already lashing at the transports 600 miles out.
The question again rose whether to relay all this news to Admiral Nagumo, now starting his final run-in, but once again it was decided radio silence was just too important. Nothing must give those carriers away.
Perhaps more thought might have been given to the matter, but too many things were happening. In all its complexity the great operation was beginning to unfold. On May 31 midget subs had staged a brief, diversionary raid at Diégo-Suarez, Madagascar … then on June 1, others raided Sydney Harbor … and now in the early hours of June 3 Admiral Hosogaya’s Northern Force launched its major attack against the Aleutians. Long before Admiral Yamamoto sat down to breakfast, he got the welcome word that the Ryujo’s bombers had plastered Dutch Harbor.
At 8:30 he detached an important part of the Main Force in a pre-arranged plan to back up this effort in the Aleutians. Vice Admiral Shiro Takasu took his flagship Hyuga, three other battleships, two light cruisers, a handful of destroyers and headed for northern waters. But not too far. His “Aleutian Screening Force” would hover halfway between the Northern Force and Yamamoto himself—ready to jump either way, depending on how the U.S. fleet reacted. The Commander in Chief continued east with the rest of the Main Force, now about 500 miles astern of Nagumo’s carriers.
Nagumo himself was less than 700 miles from Midway, girding for his final dash. At 6:07 A.M. Captain Masanao Oto’s five oilers dropped astern. The carriers inched up to 12 knots. No more right now—it was folly to go any deeper into patrol plane range than necessary during daylight hours. But by 3:00 P.M. the Admiral had to make his move if he was going to launch tomorrow at dawn. The engine room telegraphs rang, and the First Carrier Striking Force leaped forward at 24 knots.
Down in the Akagi’s engine room Commander Yoshibumi Tanbo watched the great turbines respond. How he loved that place. He even took his meals there—rice balls with pickled plums amid the hot oil and pounding machinery. Topside, working parties were rigging stacked hammocks and coils of rope to protect the most exposed equipment from flying shrapnel. Overhead there were still plenty of clouds, but the weather was steadily improving, and at 7:30 Admiral Kusaka stood on the bridge watching the last rays of a magnificent Pacific sunset.
A crash of gunfire shattered the evening calm—the escorting cruiser Tone began blazing away with her antiaircraft batteries. Three fighters roared off from the Akagi to investigate, and the whole task force scanned the sky. At 7:40 the Tone’s blinker explained she had spotted about ten enemy planes, but then lost them. Fourteen minutes later the Akagi’s fighters returned after a fruitless search. Clearly some lookout was getting the jitters.
Not so the fliers. The months of solid victory had built that rarest kind of confidence—the faith that lets a man rest easily the night before a battle. The Kaga’s pilots turned in early, and when the air officer Commander Amagai checked a little later, they were all fast asleep. On the Soryu Juzo Mori inspected his bomber one last time, then went to bed as usual with his mother’s picture by the pillow.
By midnight the Striking Force was less than 340 miles from Midway—about 110 from the launching point. At 2:30 A.M. on the 4th a lookout on the Akagi sounded another alert—a “light” from an enemy plane on the starboard beam. Another flurry of excitement; another false alarm. It wasn’t the first time in history a sailor had been fooled by a star.
Admiral Nagumo knew better. The halfhearted Americans weren’t about to cause any trouble at this point. Later they might be goaded into action. His intelligence estimate explained it nicely: “Although the enemy lacks the will to fight, it is likely that he will counter attack if our occupation operations progress satisfactorily.”
“LOGAN, I just know I can get them,” Massie Hughes urged in his deep Southern drawl as he talked with Commander Ramsey in the Midway command post dugout. It was around 3:00 A.M.; word had come through that the PBYs had hit the Japanese force hard; and now Hughes wanted to take some more PBYs and finish them off. He was a real fighter—an aggressive little middleweight boxer from Alabama—and sitting still was always hard for him.
Ramsey was gently discouraging. It was now clear that this was only the Transport Group, that the Sunday punch was coming from the carriers hidden under those clouds to the northwest. He explained all this, but still it was difficult; they were only a few years apart at Annapolis, and he didn’t want to make it a question of rank. But he remained firm, and beyond tactical grounds there was another reason: Ramsey wanted Hughes to take over if anything happened to himself during the coming attack. He didn’t want to risk killing the next-in-line chasing a group of transports.
Not that Ramsey didn’t appreciate the difficulty of just waiting. “I feel like a June bride,” he remarked. “I know it’s going to happen, but I don’t know what it will be like.”
They all felt the same. It was a tense night, for everything was turning out exactly as the intelligence boys had said— first the raid on Dutch Harbor … then the invasion force discovered to the southwest … now, according to the same script, they’d really get it in the morning from that big force of carriers.
Intelligence said they’d be coming in on a 320° bearing; so it was a serious group of PBY pilots who studied their patrol sector assignments that evening. When. Lieutenant Howard Ady of Squadron 23 checked the blackboard at the Sand Island BOQ, he saw he drew 315°. That meant he’d be flying out on 322½°, back on 307½°. As far as he was concerned, he was “elected.”
After briefing, the usual bull session. Squadron 23 had a great collection of talkers, and tonight there was an extra treat: John Ford, the distinguished movie director, was on hand. In an imaginative stroke, Nimitz had sent him out to film whatever might happen. Now he was in the middle of everything, exasperating the supply people but delighting everyone with his tremendous enthusiasm. Far into the night he helped ease the tension with tales of glamorous Hollywood.
“Oh, my God—now I’ve got a movie-ite!” was Captain Simard’s somewhat quaint reaction when Ford first appeared, but he too was soon won over, and now the problem was where to put this celebrity and still keep him alive. Simard finally decided the best place would be the upper part of the main powerhouse on Sand Island. It was relatively well protected and at the same time offered a superb vantage point. From there Ford could take his movies and at the same time give the underground command post a useful running account of what was going on.
This solved, Captain Simard’s preparations were practically over. Everything had been done that could be done—even a touching talk to the navy yeomen and pharmacist’s mates chosen to make the last stand. With great feeling in his voice, Simard wished them all “good-bye and good luck.”
Nearly everyone now seemed resigned to “another Wake Island”—that base’s capture remained a bitter memory. The officers removed their insignia to keep Japanese snipers from picking them off. In the harbor the PT boat crews prepared to make the landings as expensive as possible. One of the squadron’s officers had always refused to buy GI insurance; that afternoon he asked for the full $10,000 worth. Sorry, he was told, no forms available.
The Marines were grimly determined. Captain McGlashan carefully burned most of the remaining classified documents. The men in the gun positions swapped chilling bits of scuttlebutt—the Japs had a marvelous new landing barge that could drop a gate right over the reef … the big blow would be a night gas attack. Carlson’s Raiders busily armed themselves with a new weapon—the 14-inch screwdriver that was part of a PT boat’s standard equipment. As one of the Raiders explained, it was “good for the ribs, if you know what I mean.”
One and all, they continued working on Midway’s defenses to the end. On Sand Island men were still placing the last mines on the northwest beach in the early evening twilight. At Eastern, “Barbed Wire Bob” Hommel anchored his last concertinas offshore after dark. Private Joseph E. Love, normally relegated to garbage collection and the gooney bird burial detail, found himself stringing telephone lines until nearly midnight.
It was after 12:00 when Colonel Shannon and Captain McGlashan finished one last tour of inspection and trudged back to the command post. McGlashan was satisfied: he felt that come what may, the Marine garrison had done all it could.
The fliers were ready too. During the evening Colonel Kimes called a meeting of all the personnel in Marine Air Group 22. “This is it, boys,” he said, and not knowing how things would turn out, he simply told them, “Give it all you’ve got, and good luck to you all.”
The fighter pilots in Squadron VMF-221 would need all the luck they could get. The seven F4Fs seemed so pitifully few, the 16 Brewster Buffaloes so hopelessly obsolete. Major Red Parks, the squadron commander, knew how long the odds were. Normally he was an aggressive, intelligent extrovert, not too concerned with psychology or the vulnerabilities of mankind. He would rather slit his throat than admit to anything that might be construed as longing for solace. Tonight was different. As he sat with his executive officer Captain Kirk Armistead in the Eastern Island snack bar, he seemed very serious and disturbed. Armistead tried to cheer him up, saying something like, “By this time tomorrow, it’ll all be behind us.”
“Yeah,” Parks gloomily nodded, “for those of you who get through it.”
The outlook wasn’t much brighter for the dive bomber pilots in Squadron VMSB-241. During the evening Major Henderson called them together and gave them a few of his thoughts. He said he knew how poor the equipment was; the flight tomorrow would be strictly a voluntary proposition. However, he was taking off as soon as the enemy fleet was within range, and the others could follow him if they wished. Henderson was like a father to most of the squadron, and there was little doubt what they’d do.
“Sleep in your clothes tonight,” Captain Richard Fleming, one of the pilots, told his rear-seat man Corporal Eugene T. Card. “They may come in at any time, so be ready to turn out.”
Card was ready. He had gone over his machine gun once again. He checked and rechecked the radio frequencies and various dial settings. He even stocked the plane with cans of corned beef and pineapple juice in case they were forced down at sea. Now if only the Japs would attack or go away—anything, as long as they did something.
The young Navy pilots “on loan” from Torpedo 8 were ready too. During the day they kept posted on the various sightings and strikes; they knew their turn would soon be coming up. But Ensign Bert Earnest felt he had a good omen. Walking alongside the Eastern Island runway just after dark, he found a two-dollar bill. He carefully tucked it in his wallet, hoping that any powers it had would help bring him through.
The B-26 crews remained utterly casual. Probably nobody is less informed than an Army flier at a Navy base (unless it’s a Navy flier at an Army base), and these men were no exceptions. Lieutenant Muri had yet to learn of any enemy sighting, still had only the haziest idea why he was at Midway. That evening as he and his crew sat beside their plane, a Marine private wandered by who knew just as little. The private was happy, said he was about to go Stateside on leave, and demonstrated a “gooney-bird dance” which he planned to introduce back home. The crew laughed and clapped, agreed that it would soon be all the rage. They hadn’t a worry in the world.
By the end of the day, seven more B-17s had arrived from Hawaii—a final “gift” from Admiral Nimitz. Altogether, some 120 planes now jammed the base, along with 11 PT boats, 5 tanks, 8 mortars, 14 shore-defense guns, 32 antiaircraft guns, and 3,632 defenders. For two tiny islets in mid-Pacific—one two miles long, the other about a mile—it all added up to quite a show. Midway, as one Marine put it, “looked like an asparagus patch.”
Even so, they felt very much alone. In some cases the defenders were warned they were strictly on their own; in others they just assumed it. Only a few knew there was any chance for help from the outside. One of these exceptions was Ensign Jacoby, Logan Ramsey’s aide in the command post. Jacoby wasn’t making the big decisions, but he listened a lot, and nothing intrigued him more than the talk about Point Luck.
FOR Admiral Fletcher on the Yorktown, it just didn’t add up right. Ensign Jack Reid’s contact report, intercepted by the carriers, clearly said “Main Body,” yet it was the wrong direction. According to Nimitz’s briefing, the carriers should be coming down from the northwest, and certainly the intelligence had been right so far about everything else— Dutch Harbor was hit exactly on schedule.
“That is not repeat not the enemy striking force,” warned a radio message that soon arrived direct from Nimitz, ending all doubts on the matter. CINCPAC’s signal went on to stress that only the Invasion Force had so far been sighted, that the carriers would still strike from the northwest tomorrow.
Task Forces 16 and 17 continued marking time, cruising slowly north under gray, broken clouds. On the carriers the fliers went over their planes, checked the firing circuits, cleaned their charts and plotting boards for tomorrow’s data. The fighter pilots saw that their guns were loaded bullet by bullet. The bomber and torpedo pilots once again went over their signaling and firing procedures with their rear-seat men. No relationship was closer—and none more of a life-and-death matter—than the teamwork between these two. The crew captains fussed over the planes, and when there was nothing more to be done, polished them one more time. Woe to the mechanic on the Yorktown whose maintenance work didn’t come up to Leading Chief V. J. Feigenbutz’s standards. The old chief had a passion for Bombing Squadron 3 and a volcanic vocabulary to express it.
All afternoon Fletcher and his staff waited for word that Nagumo had been sighted, but nothing ever came. At 7:50 P.M. he changed course to the southwest. This would take him to a point about 200 miles north of Midway at dawn. Assuming Nagumo was still following the script, the U.S. carriers would be in perfect position for launching a surprise attack on the Japanese flank.
The ships steamed on into the night, dark forms cutting a calm, moonlit Pacific. If the battened ports and hatches suggested inactivity, that was deceptive, for there was plenty going on. It has been said that running a carrier for an air group was a little like running a hotel for a crowd of conventioneers, and this was never truer than the night before a major strike.
On the Enterprise the supply officer, Commander Charles Fox, faced a hundred extra problems feeding and servicing the ship. Tomorrow, most of his men would be at battle stations far from their regular jobs—the day’s needs must be met in advance. Spares and plane parts were brought up from below; battle rations prepared and packaged. In the kitchen the cooks turned out stacks of sandwiches, and no less than 10,000 spiced ginger cookies.
The fliers themselves had little to do but wait … and think about tomorrow. There was no single, dominant mood. Every man had his own private mixture of feelings. For Ensign Charles Lane, a young but experienced dive bomber pilot on the Yorktown, it was not a feeling of fear exactly, but apprehension and regret that he might not return. On the Enterprise Lieutenant Bill Roberts felt a strange sense of excitement. It was the element of trapping the Japanese, he thought, that made this time so different. Ensign Thomas J. Wood on the Hornet bubbled with high spirits. Like the rest of the ship’s pilots, he knew nothing of combat, had never even had a chance to learn about fear. He was young, aggressive, and boasted to anyone who would listen that he personally would sink the Akagi.
The dive bomber pilots, at least, shared one thing in common. They were ready. They had trained months for this, worked hard, now felt prepared to give a really decent account of themselves. The new men, in particular, yearned to go out and show what they could do.
Not so, some of the older torpedo pilots. They had been around too long to be carried away by the excitement. By now they had been in enough scrapes to know that even the finest spirit can’t make up for poor equipment. And they knew these TBDs were death traps—the 100-knot speed, the slow rate of climb, the wretched torpedoes.
None knew the truth better than Lieutenant Commander Massey, skipper of the Yorktown’s Torpedo 3. Lem Massey was a shambling, lovable character who enjoyed good company and went out of his way to find it. Tonight he recruited a couple of nonfliers in the squadron and brought them into his cabin. Bringing out a bottle of scotch (illegal but not unknown on carriers), he told them how long the odds were against the squadron. He probably shouldn’t be talking this way, he said, but he just had to share his gloom with someone. When they went out tomorrow, he didn’t see how they’d ever get back.
Another man who knew about” these torpedo planes was John Udell Lane on the Enterprise. He was a rear-seat man in Torpedo 6, and he too had a premonition of what tomorrow offered. Visiting a friend’s compartment, he talked long and sadly of his home in Illinois. Putting on a favorite record of soprano Miliza Korjus, he moodily played it over and over again.
Against this almost bittersweet mood of resignation, the blazing spirit of the Hornet’s brand-new Torpedo Squadron 8 seemed all the more striking. Lieutenant Commander John Waldron was a hard-driving taskmaster with a fierce passion for getting at the enemy. Whenever the big day came, he was determined to be ready. He drilled his men mercilessly, ran their legs off, fought for extra equipment—anything to win. “If we run out of gas,” he once remarked, “we’ll piss in the tanks.”
He also knew how to blow off steam. The squadron parties that he and his wife Adelaide gave in Norfolk were famous. Then he put aside his toughness, royally entertained the young ensigns, and sometimes allowed a deep streak of tenderness to shine through. There was the night when he took Ensigns Jim Cook and Corwin Morgan to a darkened room where his children were sleeping: “Cookie, you and Morgan look in this room. Did you ever see such pretty little girls?”
The following morning he’d be all business again, pounding away at his tactical theories. They were often unorthodox. Ensign George Gay considered him “foxy”; Waldron himself lightly referred to his extra intuition, thanks to a streak of Sioux blood. In any case, he hammered home his ideas till, as Gay put it, “We could almost look at the back of Commander Waldron’s head and know what he was thinking.”
His men griped a lot—no one else had to work that hard —but they believed in him completely. Soon they were a compact, closely knit, team as fiery and determined as their skipper. They ran laps around the flight deck and did group calisthenics, while the other fliers hooted and loafed. They tucked knives in their belts, wore shoulder holsters, and didn’t give a damn about the taunts of “Circus” and “Mexican Panchos.”
And all the time they worked. There wasn’t much chance to fly, but no squadron ever spent more hours in the ready room. Waldron was a fanatic on detail, and he’d go over the smallest point again and again. Like a schoolteacher, he’d toss sharp, unexpected questions at any pilot who seemed to be daydreaming.
This night of June 3 the briefing stressed one of the skipper’s favorite subjects: the proper angle of attack on a hard-turning target. As usual he was all business, but when the meeting broke up, he turned almost shy as he handed out a final mimeographed message along with his plan of attack:
Just a word to let you know I feel we are all ready. We have had a very short time to train and we have worked under the most severe difficulties. But we have truly done the best humanly possible. I actually believe that under these conditions we are the best in the world. My greatest hope is that we encounter a favorable tactical situation, but if we don’t, and the worst comes to worst, I want each of us to do his utmost to destroy our enemies. If there is only one plane left to make a final run in, I want that man to go in and get a hit. May God be with us all. Good luck, happy landings and give ‘em hell.
Torpedo 8 drifted back to its quarters. Most of the men puttered, read or played records. Ensign Abercrombie won $45 at poker. Waldron himself wrote a tender note to “Dearest little Ann,” one of his children, and endorsed a small check to his father-in-law. He had already written Adelaide everything he could say: “… I love you and the children very dearly and I long to be with you. But I could not be happy ashore at this time. My place is here with the fight.”
Only Ensign Gay was still busy. As navigation officer he was attending to the last-minute job of getting some charts run off for the rest. Finally it was time to turn in, but he found it hard to sleep. Bulletins on the battle were beginning to come in … the PBYs were out making their midnight attack. Gay felt “a little bit nervous, kind of, like before a football game.”
Throughout the fleet others had the same trouble. On the Enterprise Dick Best slept “like a baby,” but more were like Lieutenant Dickinson of Scouting 6, restlessly visiting back and forth, talking the night away. One thing was true of them all. As Lieutenant Jim Gray, skipper of Fighting 6, has put it: “It is doubtful that there were any atheists in Enterprise on the night of 3 June 1942.”
Through the night and into the first hour of June 4, the U.S. force steamed on, always edging southwest toward Midway. On the Yorktown’s bridge Admiral Fletcher’s staff were “biting their nails” wondering why the Japanese carriers were still unreported—they should be well within Midway’s range by now. “After a battle is over,” Fletcher later remarked, “people talk a lot about how the decisions were methodically reached, but actually there’s always a hell of a lot of groping around.”
He finally decided to launch a search to the north at dawn, just in case the enemy might be sneaking down that way. Certainly they were out there somewhere; everyone knew that by now. Belowdecks, Seaman Melvin Frantz slipped down to his locker and switched his money to his wallet: “By tomorrow night I might be swimming.”
Up in sky control on the Enterprise the assistant gunnery officer, Lieutenant Elias Mott, restlessly flicked on a portable radio. Wherever it happened to break out, he knew battle would be joined in the morning. Maybe a little music and news from home might help. Honolulu came in strong and clear: the news said a leading entertainer had just been commissioned a lieutenant commander. Mott bitterly snapped it off— “That’s all I need from home tonight.”
ACTUALLY, “home” was taking things far more seriously than Lieutenant Mott thought. The Army had never completely given up thinking that the real Japanese target was the West Coast, and tonight was a time of great jitters. Leaves were canceled; West Coast radio stations were silenced for a while; a nine-minute “blue” alert was sounded in the San Francisco Bay area. Radar had picked up an unidentified target 60 miles off the Golden Gate. Whatever it was, it soon faded away, but not the feeling of fear and alarm.
To get early warning of any assault, the Navy’s Western Sea Frontier Command established a picket line of patrol boats and yachts 400 miles off the California coast. Ashore, the Fourth Army and the Western Defense Command urged the public to report immediately any Japanese seen wearing the uniform of an American soldier. There was little chance of mistaken identity, because all Japanese-Americans in uniform had been shifted to other areas, except three men on special duty at Fort Ord.
Conditions were even more tense in Hawaii. By now every one knew “something was up,” and the wilder rumors had a big Japanese fleet heading straight for Pearl Harbor. Army patients were discharged from the hospital at Schofield in anticipation of battle casualties. The Civilian Defense Volunteers were called to duty. General Emmons urged all women and children living in downtown Honolulu to evacuate to a safer place. A strange silence seemed to hang everywhere— a mixture of hope and fear.
At Pearl Harbor the Marine guards manned the machine guns atop the concrete pillars of the Navy Yard gate. Trucks were parked as roadblocks across the entrance before dark. On all ships the gun crews were at their posts.
Shortly after dark there was an A-l, all-out “red” alert. All repairs came to a stop. Workers manned machine guns on the shop roofs: others stood by the fire hoses. The yard was completely blacked out and sealed off. When the graveyard shift came they were told to go home; the swing shift, caught by the alert, sat around in the shelters. They tried to sleep or smoked and talked about the coming invasion.
Behind blackout curtains, the CINCPAC staff worried the night away. Commander Layton found himself thinking of the people he knew on the other side. He wondered what an old friend like Takashi Kanoe was doing right now.
ON THE Hiryu Commander Takashi Kanoe paused briefly before the ship’s shrine outside Captain Kaku’s cabin, then hurried on to the bridge. As executive officer, this was Kanoe’s battle station, and looking down, he could already see the planes warming up in the pre-dawn darkness.
Below decks the ship was springing to life. The fliers were up at 4:00 and had breakfast on trays in the ready room. Normally they had just an action meal before battle, but this time they got the full treatment—rice, soybean soup, pickles, everything. And to top it off there were dry chestnuts and cold sake—a traditional combination served from the earliest times to Japanese warriors entering battle.
The Hiryu’s air officer, Lieutenant Commander Susumu Kawaguchi, had never heard of such a breakfast. All this symbolism suddenly made him take Midway far more seriously. In his final briefing, he made a special plea, urging the pilots to “put their nerve into it.”
Beyond that, there was little to say. The men were all veterans, knew their jobs perfectly, and Kanoe had complete faith in their leader Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga. A tough, silent, hard-drinking man, Tomonaga was an expert torpedo plane pilot. He had seen no action since Pearl Harbor and was champing at the bit. When he said good-bye to his wife at Beppu, he seemed particularly glad to get aboard the Hiryu and head for battle. Kanbe noticed this, and when Fuchida came down with appendicitis, he immediately thought of Tomonaga as the ideal man to take over. Kanoe put it to his old Academy classmate Commander Minoru Genda, who was Nagumo’s operations officer, and the matter was quickly settled.
The briefing over, the pilots headed for their planes. Overhead a few stars lingered in the sky. It was still quite cloudy, but the eastern horizon glowed orange, promising clear weather ahead.
On all the carriers the scene was much the same … yet as varied as human nature. On the Soryu CPO Mori and his friends engaged in the nervous banter that fighting men find useful at such times. “You’re going to get it today,” someone told Mori. “No, you’re the one,” he retorted exactly as expected. Then they turned to joking about who would end up with each other’s savings accounts. On the Kaga serious, thoughtful CWO Morinaga quietly adjusted his senim bari around his waist. According to ancient tradition, its thousand stitches—each sewn by a different well-wisher—would give him divine protection.
On the flagship Akagi a wobbly Mitsuo Fuchida struggled topside to see them off. Then Commander Genda arrived on the bridge in pajamas; he too had been sick, down with a wretched cold, but was determined to be on hand today. And no one could have been more welcome. Admiral Nagumo depended enormously—some said too much—on the brilliant mind of his operations officer. On practically any subject Nagumo accepted Genda’s recommendations without question. Indeed, cynics referred to the striking force as “Genda’s fleet.’’ But his appearance at this moment was a shot in the arm for them all. In a rare display of sentiment by that dour old sailor, Nagumo threw his arm around the Commander’s shoulder.
“All hands to launching stations,” blared the Akagi’s loudspeaker.
“Start engines.”
A sudden roar, and the soft gray of dawn blazed with unexpected color. Exhausts flared white … wing lights flicked on, red and blue … floodlights bathed the yellow flight deck. “Commence launching,” ordered the bridge, and the air officer Commander Shogo Masuda swung his green signal lamp in a great arc over his head.
Lieutenant Shirane’s Zero crawled forward … gathered speed … thundered down the deck and into the air. Eight more fighters followed, then 18 dive bombers. As Lieutenant Chihaya’s plane flashed by, he had his canopy open and waved to the cheering men on deck.
The other carriers were launching too, their planes orbiting slowly around the fleet till they were all in formation. From the Hiryu’s bridge, the ship’s only passenger watched with more than academic interest. He was Lieutenant Commander Asaichi Tamai, appointed to command the air wing of the new naval base to be established at Midway.
By 4:45 they were all formed up and on their way—36 level bombers from the Hiryu and Soryu; 36 dive bombers from the Akagi and Kaga; 36 fighters, 9 from each carrier. Heading southeast, they soon faded into the brightening sky. All was quiet again on the carriers, but not for long. Orders went out to prepare the second attack wave—Nagumo’s insurance policy in case a U.S. fleet unexpectedly turned up. In total strength these reserves matched the force now winging toward Midway. The main difference lay in the arming. This time the level bombers would carry torpedoes, and the dive bombers would switch to armor-piercing missiles for use against ships. It all added up to 36 dive bombers from the Hiryu and Soryu; 36 torpedo planes from the. Akagi and Kaga; and, again, 36 fighters from all four carriers.
In the first rays of the morning sun, the elevators brought the new planes up … flight deck crews wheeled them into position … mechanics shackled on the torpedoes. The pilots stood by, loafing and relaxed. It seemed almost a waste to hold back so many good men this way—Lieutenant Takashige Egusa on the Soryu was the finest dive-bomber pilot in the Navy—but Nagumo wanted to be safe. Anybody could bomb an island, but a moving ship took skill. As long as there was any chance of the Americans appearing, however unlikely, he wanted to have his best men available.
On the same unlikely chance, he had also ordered search planes to scout generally eastward for 300 miles. There were only seven of them—a motley collection from five different ships—and they had to cover an arc of 165°, but nobody was taking this effort too seriously. Nagumo remained convinced that there were no U.S. carriers around, and Genda had a reputation for always slicing reconnaissance rather thin. Every plane used for patrol work meant one less for the slashing attacks that were his specialty.
Today the search also had a ragged start. The planes were meant to leave at 4:30, same as the Midway strike, but it didn’t work out quite that way. The cruiser Tone, which was contributing her No. 1 and No. 4 float planes, had catapult trouble, and that held her up awhile. But finally all was fixed, and at 5:00 A.M. the Tone’s No. 4 plane—last of the seven to leave—soared eastward into the sunrise. It was a half hour late, but to Lieutenant Takeda, the Tone’s hard-working air officer, that shouldn’t make very much difference.
IT WAS breakfast as usual—almost—in the Enterprise wardroom, as the U.S. fleet hovered 200 miles north and slightly east of Midway. Although only 1:30 A.M., Steward Collins had everything ready. Lieutenant Best had his invariable shirred eggs … Lieutenant Gray had his “one-eyed sandwich”—an Enterprise specialty consisting of a slice of toast holed to accommodate a fried egg.
For some of the old hands it seemed like any other day. But for others it was different. Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky, leading the Enterprise Air Group, felt the usual quips were missing; a hushed note of expectancy hung over the room. On the other hand, Commander Fox sensed a note of nervous gaiety. In any case, as supply officer, Fox knew for a fact that appetites were below par.
As McClusky sampled his scrambled, eggs, he was surprised to see Lieutenant Commander Gene Lindsey slide into the seat beside him. Skipper of Torpedo 6, Lindsey had cracked up coming in the other day. Fished out of the Pacific with a badly wrenched back, he was meant to be sidelined indefinitely. Now here he was, not only up but planning to fly in a spare torpedo plane. When one of his pilots asked how he felt, Lindsey obliquely replied, “This is the real thing today, the thing we have trained for, and I will take my squadron in.”
Breakfast over, the pilots drifted off to their ready rooms. There was one for each squadron on every carrier, and they looked more like classrooms than anything else—rows of seats with writing arm attached, a blackboard up front for the latest dope on position, wind, course, target and the all-important “Point Option” where the ship could be found again after a strike. There was also a teletype machine that clacked out bulletins which were projected on a screen.
At the moment there was little on the blackboard and the teletype, was silent—Nagumo’s force still hadn’t been found. On all three carriers the pilots hauled out their plotting boards from drawers under their seats, checked a few odds and ends, then sat back and waited. Cards and paperbacks appeared. Seats were adjustable, and a man like Ensign Whitey Moore of Torpedo 8 was soon leaning back, grabbing a little extra sleep—he could never get enough.
Commander Waldron slipped down to the Hornet’s wardroom for morning coffee with Commander Ed Creehan, the ship’s engineering officer. They were old Annapolis classmates, and this was a daily custom. Today Waldron was in an exalted mood—Torpedo 8 would at last have a crack at the enemy. He said he was going to “get a Jap carrier” or he wouldn’t be back.
The minutes crawled by. On the Yorktown Ensign Charles Lane of Bombing 3 decided to leave behind his Clemson ring and Hamilton watch in case he didn’t return. On the Enterprise Commander McClusky began assembling his flight gear in the little office he used outside the squadron ready rooms. At this point his regular rear-seat man stumbled in to report he had just broken his glasses. Of all times. McClusky put in a hurried call to Bombing 6 for a spare gunner who didn’t need glasses, and in a few moments a bright-looking lad named Chochalousek appeared. He had no combat experience, but he was just out of aerial gunnery school—welcome news on this particular day.
The U.S. force continued southwest—the Yorktown trailing about ten miles behind the Enterprise and Hornet. On the Yorktown’s bridge Admiral Fletcher still wondered where Nagumo could be. He had sent out his “just-in-case” search to the north, but there was no word from that direction. No word from the Midway planes either.
LIEUTENANT Ady was an hour out of Midway now, and still no sign of the Japanese. “Elected” to patrol the all-important 315° segment, so far he was having a milk run. The big PBY droned on, the long rays of the rising sun lighting the broken clouds ahead.
Then around 5:10 a small seaplane came whistling along from out of the west. It was on an opposite course and didn’t swerve an inch—just hurried on toward Midway about 120 miles away. Ady radioed the single word “aircraft,” then followed it up with a longer description.
To the crew in the PBY, it meant only one thing: the Japanese fleet must be close. On they flew through occasional squalls. By 5:30 the weather was clearing “upstairs,” but there were still some cloud banks near the water. As Ady approached one of these, two aircraft carriers burst through from the other side—just 20 miles away and steaming directly toward him. It was, he thought, like a curtain going up at the theater.
In the next patrol sector to the south, Lieutenant William Chase had also spent an uneventful first hour. His PBY was flying about 15 minutes behind Ady’s, but the sunrise, the clouds, even the coffee were much the same. Then around 5:40—probably just after Ady discovered his carriers—Chase found something too. There to the north was a huge formation of fighters and bombers flying toward Midway. Standard procedure called for a carefully encoded contact report, but this was no time for that. In plain English, he shot off a fast warning: “MANY PLANES HEADING MIDWAY, BEARING 320, DISTANCE 150.”
“THAT’S him!” Relief, excitement, elation, anticipation were all mingled together in Admiral Spruance’s first reaction, as news of the contact reached him on the flying bridge of the Enterprise. It was the same on the Yorktown, where Admiral Fletcher thankfully realized the long wait was over.
So the Japanese carriers were found … but where? The first brief contact reports were agonizingly sketchy. Task Forces 16 and 17 were both tuned to the PBY frequencies, so there was no delay, but there was certainly confusion. For one thing, the fact was quickly lost that two different PBYs were reporting two different sightings; messages were mixed together. making for inconsistencies. More important, there was nothing yet on enemy course and speed—absolutely vital for launching an attack.
LIEUTENANT Ady was doing his best. After that electrifying discovery of the carriers, he veered to the left, circling slowly around the Japanese fleet. He used the clouds as much as he could, sending back bits of information as fast as he gathered it: “5:34, enemy carriers” … “5:40, ED 180, sight 320°” … “5:52, two carriers and main body of ships, carriers in front, course 135, speed 25.”
That was enough. Somehow the full picture didn’t reach the Yorktown’s bridge until 6:03, But once in hand Admiral Fletcher lost no time. At 6:07 he signaled Spruance, “Proceed southwesterly and attack enemy carriers when definitely located. Will follow as soon as search planes recovered.”
Task. Force 16 plunged forward at 25 knots. On all ships general quarters began sounding—at 6:15, the harsh staccato of the buzzer on the Enterprise; at 6:26, the urgent clang of the Hornet’s gong. It varied from ship to ship but the effect was always the same: the scrambling, the pounding of feet, and always in the background the insistent clamor of the alarm itself.
ON SAND ISLAND the powerhouse whistle blasted away; the siren on Eastern added its wail. Private Love, just lining up for chow, dropped all thoughts of breakfast and raced for his antiaircraft battery. Lieutenant Donald Cooksey, 6th Battalion dental officer, rushed to his first-aid post, well aware of Colonel Shannon’s sharp reminder, “A dead or wounded doctor is no damn good to me.” In his Eastern Island dugout Captain W. M. Bell, platoon leader of I Battery, recalled an old Marine dictum that it was an officer’s duty to look calm and well-groomed at all times. He carefully shaved, dressed, and sipped a glass of pineapple juice before going to his platoon.
Confusion was everywhere along the Eastern Island runway. When the first contact reports came in around 5:30, the Marine CP ordered all planes to start engines. Enemy bombers were said to be only 100 miles away. But when minutes went by and nothing appeared on radar, new orders went out: cut engines. Then at 5:53 Navy radar broke in: “MANY BOGEY AIRCRAFT BEARING 310°, DISTANCE 93.”This was it all right, and as the siren went off at 5:55 new orders went out to get going. But by now some of the pilots had cut engines; others were still warming up and couldn’t hear the alarm. The CP truck raced along the runway, its own siren shrieking, Captain Bob Burns shouting to everyone to stand by for take-off.
At least the B-17s were no problem. They had gone out as usual at dawn, but instead of merely using up gas, this morning they had been ordered to attack the Japanese transports again. Now the new threat changed everything. Captain Simard radioed Colonel Sweeney to divert his bombers to the carriers sweeping down from the northwest. At the same time, orders went out to the PBYs on patrol: stay clear of Midway; after completing mission, go to French Frigate Shoals, or one of the outlying reefs.
But there were still 66 planes at Midway; none must be caught on the ground. At 6:00 the 26 fighters began taking off. One of them soon returned with engine trouble, but the other 25 climbed toward the northwest. Major Parks led the way with two divisions; Captain Kirk Armistead followed with the rest, heading out on a slightly different bearing as a hedge against radar error. About 30 miles out they were all ordered to orbit. They would not have long to wait: at 6:04 Navy radar put the “bogeys” only 74 miles away.
Next it was the six TBFs’s turn to take off. Captain Burns raced up in his jeep and spoke to Lieutenant Fieberling. The skipper sent a mechanic running to each plane; he scrambled on the wing and yelled above the roar of the motors, “320°, 150 miles out!” One by one the TBFs thundered down the runway, rising gracefully despite the torpedoes. It was 6:10, and radar had the Japanese 47 miles out.
Now the four B-26s. Major Jo K. Warner, the Army liaison man, drove up and gave Captain Collins the dope. But as the crews scrambled into their planes, Lieutenant Jim Muri still wasn’t sure what this was all about. He only knew he had a torpedo, a position, and there was some “target” out there. Rolling down the runway, he hoped it would be a nice fat, easy merchantman.
Only the Marine bombers were left. Major Benjamin Norris went first, taking out his 12 decrepit Vindicators. One immediately returned when a cowling blew off. The squadron’s skipper Major Henderson brought up the rear, leading the relatively new SBDs. By now there was no field organization left—no radio, no briefing officer, no directions. Just a wild scramble to get into the air. But Joe Henderson somehow knew what to do, and his young pilots were more than willing to follow. At the last minute two of the SBDs broke down, but the other 16 took off. Colonel Kimes fixed the time at 6:15; some put it a few minutes later. In any case it was none too soon—at 6:16 the radar had the Japanese at 29 miles.
With the last planes gone, an overwhelming silence hung over Eastern Island. Men crouched quietly in the gun pits, the slit trenches, the observation posts—all eyes fixed on the empty blue sky to the northwest. It was almost hypnotizing, and at E Battery Captain James O’Halloran sharply reminded his lookouts that there were other sectors too—that the Japanese had been known to pull some surprises.
In the shelters and dugouts hundreds of other men quietly waited, hidden by sand and camouflage. As WO Bill Lucius hurried toward his slit trench near the mess hall, Major William Benson called out from the command post dugout: “Bill, I have the best dugout on the island, as well as the best communications equipment. Why don’t you stay with me?”
“I was so scared at Pearl Harbor,” Lucius replied, “that I hardly saw the Japanese planes: I don’t want to miss them now.”
From the piers and moorings a small flotilla of boats slipped into the lagoon between Eastern and Sand. Lieutenant Clinton McKellar neatly dispersed his 11 PTs. Boatswain Olivier carefully positioned his collection of launches, all loaded with machine guns and rifles. Chief Boatswain’s Mate Stanley Engels took his tug Tamaha and tied up to an old sunken scow that looked like the last thing the Japanese would want to bomb.
In the dugout hospital on Sand Island Pharmacist’s Mate E. B. Miller began boiling coffee on a hot plate. It was far too strong to drink; he was making it for a “Murphy drip,” an old-fashioned remedy used rectally in treating shock.
At the command post Captain Simard couldn’t resist temptation. He should be in the dugout by now, but he hung back —fascinated like so many others—straining his eyes to the northwest. Logan Ramsey kept urging him to get under cover.
On the upper decks of the powerhouse Simard’s “movie-ite” John Ford was searching the northwest too. He was now equipped with cameras, film, binoculars and a phone direct to the CP. His vantage point was perfect, but so far there was nothing to see. In fact Midway looked deserted—nothing moving—just a lazy, peaceful tropical island.
Outside Colonel Shannon’s command post the Marine guard, Pfc Ed D. Winslow, stood watch by the doorway. It was a distracting assignment this morning. The radar station was hard by, and as the Japanese drew closer, someone kept calling out the miles. Inside, the radar operators watched closely as two sets of blips—one enemy, one friendly—swept together just beyond the horizon.