SWEEPING TOWARD THE Japanese ships, Ensign George Gay watched their sharp turns, the smoke pouring out, and decided they must already be under attack. It looked as if the 15 planes of Torpedo 8 were late.
They were far from late. Yet Gay’s fears were natural. It had been a morning full of tense waiting, false starts, and finally a late launching from the Hornet. Yet this too was understandable, for the top command was still groping for the right decisions on the skimpiest information.
Racing southwest at 6:30, Task Force 16 had nothing to go on except those first contact reports—growing colder every minute. Spruance’s staff could listen to the PBY traffic, but there was nothing in since 6:02. The other best source—Midway itself—they couldn’t pick up at all. The fleet and the base were on entirely different frequencies, so there was no direct way to get anything reported by Midway’s Army and Marine pilots. Everything had to be relayed by Pearl—a slow, hit-or-miss process. Nor could Task Force 16 ask any questions—radio silence limited the fleet’s efforts at self-help to eavesdropping.
But cold information is better than none, and assuming the Japanese would continue to close Midway as last reported, Spruance’s chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, urged that the attack be launched at 7:00 A.M. Browning, inherited from Halsey, was a difficult man—almost impossible to get along with—but there was no doubt about his mind. He calculated that Nagumo would then be 155 miles away—just within effective striking range. That meant a long flight to the target—practically no safety margin—but it was all-important to attack at the earliest possible moment. The key to everything was surprise … to hit the Japanese before they discovered the U.S. force.
Spruance understood. Originally his own inclination was to launch at 9:00. Task Force 16 would then be about 100 miles away, and this would allow a certain margin of error for the planes to find the enemy, strike and get back home. But Browning was his man on this, and if the chief of staff said 7:00, he would follow that advice.
Still, it was a tough decision. The fighters had a combat range of only 175 miles, the torpedo planes not much more. There would be little leeway for maneuvering, even less for fooling around in case of navigational errors. Many of the planes were bound to splash—hopefully the destroyers could rescue the crews—it was a risk that had to be taken.
At the same time, Spruance took another risk, equally daring: he would hit the Japanese with everything he had. It was a temptation to hold something back, for the contact reports mentioned only two of the four enemy carriers meant to be present. Perhaps the others were lurking somewhere else. But CINCPAC’s intelligence said they were bunched together, and it was all-important to hit hard. Spruance decided to take his chances.
The Enterprise would attack with 33 dive bombers, 15 torpedo planes, 10 fighters; the Hornet with 35 dive bombers, 15 torpedo planes, 10 fighters—everything available. Only a handful of scouts and fighters were left to fly antisub and combat air patrols. That too was cutting it thin, but here again was a risk that had to be taken.
Meanwhile the pilots waited restlessly in various squadron ready rooms. Five hours had passed since that 1:30 breakfast, and nobody’s disposition was noticeably improved. Nor did it help to have two false alarms that sent everyone trooping up to the flight deck, only to be ordered back below.
But on one of these false alarms an odd thing happened. As the members of Scouting 6 stood up to go, they unaccountably shook hands all around. They were quite surprised at themselves, for studied casualness was an unwritten law. Maybe this time was different after all.
Things seemed more normal when the order was canceled, and they trooped back to the ready room, griping about the bridge. More waiting, more fidgeting… .
Then around 6:45 the teletype machines began clacking again. Once more the men got out their pencils as the “talkers” went to the blackboards and chalked up a new set of data: enemy position based on 6:02 contact report … heading … speed … Point Option where their own carrier could be found again. The pilots busily scribbled away, hunched over their plotting boards like schoolboys taking a final exam.
“Hope you’re ready,” a flier on the Hornet said to Gus Widhelm, one of Scouting 8’s jauntier characters. “I’m ready,” Widhelm replied, “I only hope the Japs are.”
On the Enterprise many of the fighter pilots added an extra twist to getting ready—they were lining up at the water cooler. The theory was to drink up now; if shot down, they could last that much longer before thirst became a problem.
“Pilots, man your planes,” for the third time this morning the traditional summons came over the loudspeakers. On the flight decks of both the Hornet and the Enterprise the starters whined, the motors sputtered and roared, the blue exhaust smoke washed back in the light morning breeze. The two carriers veered apart—the Hornet and its escorts falling out of line, the Enterprise group continuing on course. Then at 7:00 both ships swung sharply into the wind (this morning not enough and from the wrong direction), and the launching began.
The fighters and bombers were already taking off when the men of Torpedo 8 left their ready room. As they zipped up their flight jackets, tightened their yellow Mae Wests, and pulled on their helmets, Commander Waldron gave them a few final words. He said he thought the Japanese ships would swing around once they discovered U.S. carriers present; they would not go on to Midway as everyone seemed to think. So don’t worry about navigation; he knew where he was going. “Just follow me. I’ll take you to ‘em.”
Climbing the ladder to the flight deck he turned to his young navigator Ensign Gay, reminding him to “keep on my tail.” Then up to the bridge for final instructions, stopping by the chart house long enough to assure his friend Commander Frank Akers that he’d take the squadron all the way in. His exchange with Captain Mitscher was very brief—neither was given to oratory. As the Commander promised to “get hits,” Mitscher gently put his hand on Waldron’s shoulder.
Across the water the Enterprise planes were taking off too; the plan was to rendezvous above the carrier, then fly out together in a single, coordinated strike. The dive bombers left first at 7:06—climbing, circling, forming into ever larger groups. Taking off like that, a flier’s heart always thumped a little faster, but it also had its secret pleasures. As one pilot has remarked, “To get off a carrier deck, one does have a lot of mechanical preparation on deck and a never-failing audience, which means that the beginning of every strike involves fulfillment of Walter Mitty dreams. I’d say the actual takeoff forced one into some self-confidence and bravado, unlike the infantry situation where no one was watching.”
Orbiting high above the Enterprise, Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky, leading the carrier’s whole Air Group, waited for his torpedo planes and fighter escorts. Fifteen minutes … a half-hour went by, and still no sign of them. Impatiently he studied the flight deck far below: “Action seemed to come to a standstill.” Meanwhile, he was using up desperately needed gas, just circling and waiting.
There were many reasons for the delay. Spruance’s decision to throw a “full load” at the enemy had its price—no more than half the planes could be on the flight deck at once. Also, there was a last-minute change in the bomb load on some of the planes; that took time too. In addition, a torpedo plane broke down. But above all, there was the problem of inexperience. Carrier operations might be an old story to the Japanese, but the Americans were still just feeling their way. Confusions of all sorts were bound to occur while the U.S. Navy got “on-the-job training” in this new business of carrier warfare.
At 7:28 there was a new complication. Spruance’s radar picked up something suspicious; then the Enterprise’s forward gun director, with its powerful range finder, sighted it for certain—a Japanese seaplane lurking on the southern horizon. It hung there much too long to hope it had missed them. No doubt about it: they had been spotted.
The chance for surprise seemed gone—with the planes only half launched. Still, there was no thought of calling off the operation. As Miles Browning pointed out, the Japanese would be locked in their present course at least till they recovered their Midway strike. But it was more important than ever to get going fast.
By 7:45 Spruance felt he could wait no longer. The Enterprise’s fighters and torpedo planes were still on deck, but the launching had dragged on long enough. He’d just have to give up the plan for a coordinated strike and send out what he had—the rest could follow. The ship’s blinker flashed to McClusky, “Proceed on mission assigned.”
As the dive bombers headed southwest, Lieutenant Jim Gray’s Fighting 6 was already taking off. Then it was Torpedo 6’s turn. The injured Gene Lindsey hobbled over to his borrowed TBD. The plane captain had to help him climb in, but the skipper was as determined as ever to lead his squadron. They left at 8:06.
On the Hornet John Waldron’s Torpedo 8 was leaving about the same time. For George Gay and the other “boot” ensigns it was all a brand-new experience. They wondered how hard it would be taking off with that “pickle,” as they invariably called the torpedo. Not only had they never done it before, they had never even seen it done. For all that, it turned out to be easy, and they too were heading out at 8:06.
But if this suggested that the Hornet’s and Enterprise’s air operations were in any way coordinated, that would be misleading. This was another art America had yet to learn. Here, neither Air Group knew what the other was doing, much less what the Yorktown’s planes were up to. And while the two torpedo squadrons were indeed leaving at the same time, the circumstances were entirely different. The Enterprise’s Torpedo 6 was chasing after its dive bombers; while the Hornet’s Torpedo 8, although last off, was actually leading its group.
Captain Mitscher’s idea was to send his slow torpedo planes ahead, while the faster bombers and fighters were climbing to rendezvous high above the ship. These could then catch up en route, and all would attack together. Fine in theory, but risky too. With the torpedo planes below a thousand feet and the rest of the squadron at 19,000, it would be easy to miss connections.
So now Torpedo 6 and Torpedo 8 were each heading out alone—separately yet close together—with very little to choose between them. One difference lay in the courses they took. Torpedo 6—under the meticulously correct Gene Lindsey— was flying exactly as prescribed. His course was 240°, or generally southwest. Torpedo 8, on the other hand, was veering off to the right, flying a more westerly course. The unorthodox John Waldron had said to forget navigation—just follow him—and he meant it. Another difference lay in the number of planes. Torpedo 6, short one TBD, had only 14; while Torpedo 8 was at full strength with all 15 on hand.
Looking down from above, Lieutenant Jim Gray watched 15 torpedo planes join up and set out with no escort. As skipper of Fighting 6 it was his job to protect Torpedo 6. Not knowing the squadron was short a plane, he decided these unescorted TBDs must be his. He took station over them and continued to climb.
This was in line with an arrangement he had with Lieutenant Art Ely, operations officer of Torpedo 6. Shortly before take-off, they had agreed that Gray would fly high enough to protect not only the torpedo planes but the dive bombers too. After all, it was the bombers that took the big beating at Coral Sea. But the torpedo planes weren’t neglected; if they needed any help, Ely was to radio, “Come on down, Jim.”
As they continued on, Gray noticed another torpedo squadron flying behind him and heading more to the southwest. For a while he tried to cover them too, but the gap grew steadily wider. Finally he gave up and concentrated on those below. He didn’t realize it, but the others were the 14 planes of Torpedo 6—the squadron he was meant to cover.
Directly below, the 15 planes of Torpedo 8 lumbered on—oblivious of the fighters above, of navigation, of everything except the determined man who led them. Waldron had his planes flying in two rough Vs; there were six sections of two and one section of three bringing up the rear. He, of course, was leading; Ensign Gay was flying the last plane in the last section.
Around 9:00 Waldron opened up on the intercom to warn they were being watched. Gay looked up and saw a Japanese seaplane trailing them in the distance. It finally broke off and Torpedo 8 continued on, wondering what sort of reception committee the seaplane’s radio might recruit. At the moment, there was nothing in sight—Torpedo 8 was all alone between the empty blue sea and the broken white clouds.
High above the clouds, and a little to the south, the Hornet’s 35 dive bombers and 10 fighters overtook Waldron’s squadron and continued on to the southwest. Whether it was due more to the clouds or the diverging course no one would ever know, but the rendezvous had failed. Torpedo 8 continued on alone.
About this time Waldron put his planes into a long scouting line. It was nearly time they sighted something, and this might make it easier. Soon, over his right wing, he saw two columns of smoke rising from beyond the horizon. He swung to the right, waggling his wings for the others to join up again. By 9:20 they were there, skimming the waves, going full throttle toward Nagumo’s outer screen of cruisers and destroyers. “He went just as straight to the Jap fleet as if he’d had a string tied to them,” George Gay later recalled. Pardonable license. If the enemy forces weren’t exactly where Waldron expected to find them, they were close enough. But there’s a limit to Sioux intuition, and the Commander’s reasoning was somewhat off. Nagumo had indeed turned north, but only a minute or so before Waldron got there. There was a different reason why the Japanese were far short of the position estimated by Spruance’s staff. Nagumo was short because he had spent so much of the past two hours dodging the planes from Midway.
In any case, Waldron had found them, and as Torpedo 8 roared closer he could soon make out three carriers already turning in evasion moves. Picking out the one to his left— southernmost of the three—he drove on in. The carrier threw out a curtain of antiaircraft fire. Waldron then shifted to the central carrier instead—it was smaller but looked easier to reach.
The rest of Torpedo 8 swung with him—Ensign Grant Teats, the lumberjack … Ensign Harold Ellison, the insurance man … Ensign Bill Evans, the Wesleyan intellectual … all of them. Outnumbered amateurs, they never faltered, but they had so far to go—the carrier was still nine miles off.
Without warning 10, 20, no one knew how many Zeros came raging down at them from somewhere high above. These fighters knew their business—they concentrated on the leading planes of Torpedo 8. The very first Zero picked off a TBD on the far left. Waldron came on the radio, asking his rear-seat man Horace Dobbs whether it was “ours or theirs.” Gay, who had all too good a view of the proceedings from his position at the rear, broke in to say it was a TBD.
Torpedo 8 continued on, with the Zeros diving again and again. The rear seat men did their best to fight back, but even the new twin mounts were no match for the Japanese. The Zeros were just too fast, the TBDs just too slow. Waldron again opened up on his radio, trying to reach Commander Stanhope Ring, leading the rest of the Hornet’s planes: “Stanhope, from Johnny one, answer.” But there was no answer.
The Zeros kept pounding, and more planes fell. Yet Waldron had one satisfaction: he was at last ramming home an attack, right down the enemy’s throat. It was what everything had been leading to all these months—all that training, all that psychology—it was what his whole life was all about. Now that the big moment had come, there was a touch of fervor in the broken phrases that crackled over his radio: “Watch those fighters … See that splash! … How am I doing, Dobbs? … Attack immediately … I’d give a million to know who did that.”
Then he got it too. A burst of flame—a brief glimpse of him standing up in the blazing cockpit—and he was gone. Then another went, and another. It was always the same: that sheet of flame, the blur of erupting smoke and water, the debris swirling by to the rear. Watching planes fall in these early battles, young Americans often thought of the old war movies they had seen. But this wasn’t like those movies at all. George Gay could only think of the time he was a boy and tossed out orange peels from the back of a speeding motor-boat.
Soon there were only three TBDs left—Gay and two others. Next instant the others were down and there was only Gay. Bullets slashed into his plane and rattled against the armored back of his seat. His gunner Bob Huntington was hit, and Gay felt a sharp pain above his left elbow. He fumbled with his torn sleeve; the bullet was spent, and he easily pressed it out. Not knowing what else to do with it, he put it in his mouth.
Incredibly the plane was still flying. And now he was by the destroyer screen, heading straight for the carrier. He was coming in on her starboard side, and as he drew near, she turned hard toward him, hoping to offer less of a target. Instinctively (or, more accurately, thanks to all those blackboard sessions), Gay pulled out to the right, cut across the carrier’s box, and swung back to the left. Now he was coming in on her port side.
All the ship’s guns were firing. The air around him was black with antiaircraft bursts, but Gay kept boring in.
At 800 yards he pressed the release button. Nothing happened—the electric connections had long since been shot away. He couldn’t use his left hand, so he jammed the stick between his knees and yanked at the manual release. The plane gave a welcome surge; the “pickle” was on its way.
Now to clear out. He was much too close to turn away. Those guns would pour into the plane’s belly at point-blank range. So he did the only other thing he could do. He kept on coming.
Flying “right down the gun barrel” of a big pompom up forward, he hopped across the flight deck, did a flipper turn and flew aft along the starboard side. It was a wild moment as he swung by the island below bridge level— “I could see the little Jap captain up there jumping up and down raising hell.”
Scooting by the afterpart of the flight deck, he had a glimpse of a sight that made him yearn for a heavy machine gun up forward. The deck was full of planes, clearly being rearmed and refueled. Gas hoses were scattered all over the place, and a few incendiary bullets could have started an inferno.
For a split second he felt an urge to crash into the whole mess, but then he decided things weren’t that bad. The plane was still flying; he felt pretty good. Maybe he could get out of this, come back and hit them again someday. He dropped down close to the water and headed astern of the carrier.
The Zeros weren’t about to let him get away a second time. A string of them poured down from above, and the second or third one caught him. An explosive shell carried away his left rudder control, flash-burning his leg. Nothing worked any more, and Gay pancaked hard into the ocean. The fifteenth and last plane of Torpedo 8 was gone.
Circling high above, Lieutenant Jim Gray was having a comparatively uneventful morning. Fighting 6 had little trouble following those 15 torpedo planes most of the way. Like most fighter pilots, he left the course to the planes he escorted; after all, they had an extra man. So now he just “followed the crowd,” which he still assumed to be Torpedo 6.
As the time drew near when they should be sighting the Japanese, Gray began to worry about Zeros. It would be hard to protect both McClusky’s dive bombers (whenever they appeared) and those torpedo planes far below. Then, as if in answer to a prayer, he saw a low-lying cloud bank directly ahead. Fine. The torpedo planes could use this for cover, as they did at Coral Sea, and he could concentrate on keeping the upper area safe for the dive bombers. If anything went wrong below, there was always the prearranged signal with Torpedo 6 that would bring him rushing down.
Shortly after 9:00 the 15 torpedo planes disappeared under the clouds and Gray saw them no more. But it was easy to guess they must have made contact, for soon afterward he sighted the white feathers of the Japanese wakes at the far edge of the overcast. Fighting 6 began circling above, watching for Zeros, wondering where McClusky was, occasionally catching a glimpse of the ships below. The torpedo attack must be going well; no one called the magic words, “Come on down, Jim.”
As ENSIGN Gay’s TBD smacked into the sea, the right wing snapped off, and the canopy hood above his head slammed shut with the impact. The plane began filling with water. Gay desperately tugged at the hood. He was scared. The Japanese were one thing, drowning was another.
Somehow he finally yanked it open. Climbing out, his first thoughts were for his rear-seat man Bob Huntington—there had been no word from him since he said he was hit. The plane was sinking fast, but Gay made a dive anyhow to try and pull him out. The wreckage sank too soon.
Gay inflated his Mae West and looked around. The plane’s rubber boat bobbed up, deflated and in its bag … then the black cushion Huntington used to kneel on while working. Gay tucked the boat under his arm, and recalling stories of Zeros strafing helpless pilots in the water, he pulled the cushion over his head and kept as low as possible. From this unusual vantage point, he settled down to a front-row view of the First Carrier Striking Force in action.
AT9:36 the Akagi ordered cease-fire; the fighters were bringing down the last of the U.S. torpedo planes. They had given the Soryu quite a scare, but beyond that nothing. To the critical eye of the experts on the Striking Force, the American tactics were very primitive. Surprisingly, they had no fighter escorts. Nor. did they split their attack, as the Japanese had learned to do. They foolishly kept in a single unit and simply hurled themselves at the Soryu. Bunched together, they were easy to shoot down. Their torpedoes (the men on the Soryu thought they saw four) passed harmlessly by the carrier.
So a sixth American attack had been beaten off. But there was little time for self-congratulation, for at 9:38—just two minutes after the Akagi’s cease-fire—a new enemy flight of 14 torpedo planes was sighted, steadily boring in from the south.
THE smoke, the distant wakes were farther north than Gene Lindsey expected. Fortunately, Torpedo 6 was flying at 1,500 feet—below the clouds yet high enough to catch those first telltale traces 30 miles away.
Lindsey signaled, and the 14 planes made a wide swing right so that they approached the target from about due south. The Japanese were heading west at the moment, and their formation was extremely loose—they were apparently under, or had just been under, a heavy torpedo plane attack by somebody.
But where were all the Enterprise’s own planes? Jim Gray’s fighters were meant to be on hand, yet no one had seen them all the way out. And the disappearance of Wade McClusky’s dive bombers was even more baffling. They left first, were faster, should be here waiting. But they too were nowhere in sight. Gene Lindsey just didn’t have the gas to wait around. He would have to go it alone. Picking the closest carrier, he began his approach about 9:40. He was off his target’s port bow—an excellent position—and at 20 miles he split his planes, seven and seven, hoping to come in on both sides.
There was only one thing wrong with his theory: the planes were TBDs. The manual might say they went 134 knots, but 100 was closer to the mark these days. With the carriers going 25-30 knots, it took a long, long while to close the gap. All the more so, since the Japanese skipper cleverly kept his stern to the planes, forcing them into an ever wider arc to get in a bow shot. And this was necessary because a 30-knot ship could easily dodge a 33-knot torpedo at any other angle. It all added up to a 20-minute approach.
The Zeros made good use of the time. Starting about 15 miles out, 25 of them swept down, making pass after pass at Torpedo 6.The rear-seat men fired back as best they could; the pilots just hunched low and hoped. They couldn’t dodge; they couldn’t maneuver; everything depended on keeping course. Pablo Riley … Tom Eversole … Gene Lindsey himself went down one after another in flaming cartwheels. Others went too, but the rest kept coming—slowly, ever so slowly, edging around toward the bow of the turning carrier.
The antiaircraft was there too; they had a 15-minute dose of it. As usual, it caused little actual damage, but it did have a jarring effect. It forced the planes out a little more, making that long circuitous journey that much longer.
They never did reach a decent launching position, but that didn’t keep them from trying. At 9:58 the remaining TBDs finally turned in and began a desperate run on the carrier’s port quarter. The big ship—so far away for so long—suddenly seemed overwhelmingly near. Lieutenant Ed Laub found he could make out the planes on her flight deck … next instant he could even see their propellers turning.
And that was close enough. At 500-800 yards he released, felt that lift to his plane, and raced to get clear. Three other TBDs did the same; the remaining ten were gone.
It was all over soon after 10:00 A.M. For more than 20 minutes the men of Torpedo 6 had pitted themselves against the entire First Carrier Striking Force. They had, of course, their prearranged signal for help— “Come on down, Jim”— but there’s no sign it was ever used. Perhaps it was sent but never received; perhaps Art Ely was shot down too soon; perhaps Gene Lindsey didn’t know about it; or perhaps, having seen no sign of Fighting 6 all the way out, he just assumed there was nobody up there.
High above the broken clouds, Fighting 6 restlessly orbited at 20,000 feet. Still no sign of the torpedo planes, but if they needed help, they’d call. Meanwhile Jim Gray was more and more worried about McClusky’s dive bombers. Where were they anyhow? He circled, looking to the south; no luck. He tried a few radio calls; no answer.
He glanced at his gas gauge—and got a shock. It stood about half where it normally did after two hours’ flying. This meant Fighting 6 couldn’t do much even if the dive bombers came. They no longer had the gas to mix it up with the Zeros!
At 9:52 Gray again tried to contact McClusky. He reported he was over the target, but running short of fuel and would soon have to go back to the ship. No answer. At 10:00 he tried again, this time summing up the situation as far as he could see it: the enemy fleet had eight destroyers, two battleships, two carriers … course north … no combat patrol. Still no answer.
By now he had little gas left for anything at all. Maybe he should strafe the Japanese carrier he could see clear of the clouds. On the other hand, that would take him down too low to use the Enterprise’s homing device to return to the ship. All things considered, the gains from a strafing run just didn’t seem worth the risk of running out of gas. As Admiral Halsey once said, the fighters’ first job was to protect the fleet.
Gray decided the sensible thing to do was go back for more fuel. A few minutes after 10:00—just about the time Torpedo 6 was making its final, lonely dash at the First Carrier Striking Fleet—Fighting 6 headed for home.
IT TOOK all Captain Okada’s skill to keep the Kaga’s stern to this new group of American planes. At one point he had to use hard-left rudder to avoid some torpedoes on his starboard quarter, then go immediately to hard-right rudder to dodge another set to port.
But the job was done. By 10:00 everything seemed under control, and the Striking Force hurried northeast at 24 knots. Admiral Nagumo still planned to strike the American carrier at 10:30, and the time had come to close the enemy.
Nagumo also sent a new message to Admiral Yamamoto, reviewing the morning’s events. He briefly reported his attack on Midway, the futile attacks on him by shore-based planes. He again told how a U.S. task force, complete with carrier, had been found. “After destroying this,” he reported, “we plan to resume our AF attack.”
He didn’t mention the two TBD strikes he had just received, or perhaps he assumed they were shore-based too: After all, what did it matter? He had hurled back seven separate American attacks. Admiral Nagumo was more than satisfied.
ENSIGN Thomas Wood was beginning to realize he might have to eat his words. Back in the wardroom he had boasted that he, personally, would sink the Akagi, but the Hornet’s 35 dive bombers and 10 fighters had been searching for an hour now, and it looked more and more as if they might not find the Japanese fleet at all, much less sink the flagship.
It was all very baffling. Commander Stan Ring had led his planes exactly as directed—239°, 155 miles—but nothing had gone quite right. First, they didn’t link up with Torpedo 8 on the way out. Topping that, when they reached the interception point around 9:30, there were no ships in sight.
Yet they must be somewhere. Were they to the right, off to the north? This would be the case if they had unexpectedly changed course—and carriers had a way of doing that. Or were they to the left? Had they already passed by the interception point and were now between the Hornet’s planes and Midway? Maybe not as likely, but a far more harrowing thought. The whole point of the battle was to defend the base. Stan Ring swung left and headed south. Scouting 8, Bombing 8, Fighting 8 all followed along.
By the time they reached Kure—the tiny atoll 60 miles west of Midway—it was clear there were no Japs in this direction. But they had made their choice, and now they were stuck with it. They milled around, hoping for some helpful word over their silent radios, while their gas dropped ever lower.
Finally Ring decided it was useless. They would have to return to the Hornet. There they could refuel and start all over again. The group broke up, and each squadron headed back on its own. It would be up to others to stop Nagumo this morning.
ENSIGN Bill Pitman was getting more and more worried. The Enterprise dive bombers had been out more than two hours—and still no sign of the Japs. By now his gas gauge was touching the halfway point, yet here was Wade McClusky continuing to lead them “all over the Pacific.”
Pitman, a young pilot in Scouting 6, was flying wing on McClusky. Across the way Dick Jaccard was flying the other wing, and behind these three, stepped at various levels, followed the other 28 SBDs of Scouting 6 and Bombing 6. They were all still there with two exceptions—both forced to drop out with engine trouble. Tony Schneider looked as if he might be the next to go—his engine was smoking badly, eating up gas. Yet he kept perfect formation, as though he had all the fuel in the world.
Ensign Pittman figured they were almost at the end of their rope. He glanced across at Dick Jaccard, who was also wondering when—or if—the “old man” would ever turn back.
Wade McClusky flew on, sure he had made all the right decisions, yet understandably wondering why nothing better had come of them. Just as instructed, they flew out on 240°, distance 155 miles—yet when they reached the interception point at 9:20 the sea was empty. Not a ship in sight. He checked his navigation; no mistake there.
Nor could it have been the weather. The day was beautiful. Just a few puffy clouds below—certainly nothing that could hide the whole Japanese fleet. And all the way out he used his binoculars; he couldn’t have passed them unsighted.
Yet they must be somewhere. To the left, between himself and Midway? No: allowing for a maximum advance at 25 knots, McClusky felt certain they hadn’t already passed. Then they must be to his right—gone off to the east or west, or most likely, turned around.
He decided to fly a “box” search, covering as much of this area to the right as he could. First he kept on to the southwest for another 15 minutes. The other pilots dutifully followed, wondering what the skipper was up to. Radio silence made it all a guessing game.
At 35 miles there were still no signs of the Japanese. McClusky was convinced they couldn’t be any farther down this way. So he turned right, to the northwest, and began flying the reverse of Nagumo’s course. The rest of the planes turned too, the pilots still wondering.
Now McClusky’s big problem was how far he could go. The planes had been in the air a long time. They had climbed, heavily loaded, to 20,000 feet. The less experienced pilots were probably using more gas than himself—and he was using plenty. He decided to keep flying northwest until 10:00, then turn northeast before making the final, dreary decision to give up the hunt and go back to the Enterprise.
The 31 planes flew on. No sign of anything, left or right. The gas gauge in Tony Schneider’s plane dropped toward empty.
WHILE the dive bombers from the Hornet and Enterprise searched in vain, Admiral Fletcher on the Yorktown was by no means idle. He had sent Task Force 16 on ahead, while he picked up his planes scouting to the north. But by 6:45 they were recovered and the Yorktown was pounding after the Enterprise and Hornet.
Fletcher’s problem was how best to support the other two carriers. Should he throw everything at the same target they were attacking? Or should he hold something back? He was still bothered by the fact that the PBYs had reported only two enemy carriers. There should be four; that meant two others were somewhere. The Yorktown’s planes were all he had left to get them. He decided to hold back for a while, hoping time might throw a little more light on the situation.
But time revealed nothing. There was no further news from the PBYs, and if anyone else was sending reports, the information was not getting through. Around 7:00 word came that the Enterprise and Hornet were launching; the Yorktown’s pilots grew more and more restless.
The squadron leaders got together for a final conference. They quickly reviewed how they could carry out their attack, whenever and wherever it happened. It would be a coordinated job, with Fighting 3 going in first to strafe; then Bombing 3 and Scouting 5; and finally Torpedo 3. Hopefully the early planes would cripple the target enough for the slow-moving torpedoes to do their job. As for when they could start, the key decision lay in Commander Thach’s lap—his fighters had the shortest range. Thach said he was willing to go at 175 miles, which Leslie felt was “really giving a lot.” It left practically no safety margin at all.
To save as much fuel as possible, the Yorktown Air Group commander, Oscar Pederson, suggested an arrangement somewhat like that on the Hornet. He proposed that the squadrons rendezvous along the way. The torpedo planes would go first; the rest would catch up.
The discussion turned to the interception point. According to the last contact report, Nagumo was heading straight into the wind for Midway. This was ideal for air operations, and he’d probably stick to this course as long as possible. At the same time, the contact report was now very stale, and the Yorktown’s air officer, Commander Murr Arnold, felt the Japanese wouldn’t get too close on their first strike. He and Pederson decided to allow for a maximum enemy advance; then if the planes found nothing at the interception point, they’d turn northwest and fly the reverse of the Japanese course.
Meanwhile Admiral Fletcher fretted on the bridge, hoping in vain for some new report pinpointing those missing enemy carriers. Finally at 8:38 he decided he could wait no longer. After all, he was a target too. The Japanese now knew the Americans were around, and any moment their dive bombers might come screaming down from the sky. He certainly didn’t want to get caught with all his own planes on deck.
Yet the missing carriers still bothered him. Only a month ago at Coral Sea he had been fooled in a situation like this. Acting on a bad contact report, he had thrown his whole Air Group at the little escort carrier Shoho, while the big Zuikaku and Shokaku lay undiscovered within range. It was just luck they hadn’t clobbered him. He didn’t want to run that risk again. As always, a battle remained this eternal business of groping.
In the end he decided he could have it both ways. He’d send off Bombing 3, Torpedo 3 and six planes from Fighting 3. But as an ace in the hole, he’d hang on to Scouting 5 and the rest of the fighters. The stay-at-homes didn’t take it easily, but Fletcher was firm.
While the brass debated—and the pilots fidgeted—the rear seat men once more checked the planes spotted on the flight deck. This was now an old story to Radioman Bill Gallagher, who rode with Max Leslie, skipper of Bombing 3. When the time came, the “old man” would tell him everything he needed to know, and sometimes a little bit more.
This morning he went to the plane as usual when general quarters sounded. He knew the Yorktown was out here on serious business, but he didn’t know of any plans for attack this particular day. That wasn’t his job. But he checked and rechecked everything (that was his job) and stood by while the plane captain warmed up the motor. Then more waiting. Sooner or later they’d either secure, or Mr. Leslie would come up from the ready room. This time they didn’t secure. At 8:40 the loudspeakers blared the familiar call, “Pilots, man your planes.”
As the pilots poured out on deck, Gallagher climbed into the plane, and in a few seconds Leslie joined him. Swinging aboard, the skipper said something about a “Jap contact.” But he didn’t mention carriers, and Gallagher still had no idea exactly what they were gunning for. Yet after years of service, a man could smell out situations, and he certainly sensed that this was “it.”
At 8:45 Lem Massey’s 12 torpedo planes roared into the sky. Then Max Leslie led his 17 dive bombers off. Lieutenant (j.g.) Paul Holmberg, following right behind the skipper, caught his slipstream and almost spun into the water. An added difficulty was the big 1,000-pound bomb, he carried— it was the first time he had ever taken off with such a load.
For 12 minutes the bombers climbed and circled high above the Yorktown, then started off after the torpedo planes. Finally at 9:05 Jimmy Thach’s six fighters followed. As they pulled out, the men on the ships of Task Force 17 waved them on, and the cruiser Astoria’s blinker signaled a parting salute: “Good hunting, and a safe return.”
Less than five minutes out, Jimmy Thach was startled by an enormous explosion erupting in the water just ahead of Fighting 3. There were no ships around; it could only come from a bomb accidentally released by somebody “upstairs.”
High above, Commander Max Leslie shook his fist in wild frustration. He had just signaled the squadron to arm their bombs, but when he threw the new electric arming switch in his own cockpit, some faulty connection released the bomb instead.
He banged on the side of the plane—his standard method of signaling Bill Gallagher in the rear seat—and wondered aloud whether they had time to go back and reload. Gallagher, with an enlisted man’s healthy distrust of brass, said they’d probably be kept on the ship if they did. Leslie said he certainly didn’t want that, so on they flew.
A few minutes later a second bomb went, as another pilot tried to throw the electric switch. This was too much. Leslie now committed the dangerous sin of breaking radio silence long enough to warn all pilots not to use the new device—go back to the old manual way instead. For his own peace of mind, happily he didn’t know at the time that two more pilots had lost their bombs the same way. Bombing 3 still boasted 17 planes, but only 13 of them now had anything to drop on the enemy.
For Leslie, the leader, it seemed especially ironic. The others were mostly young reservists, but he had studied and practiced for twenty years for just this climactic moment—and now this: he was en route to the enemy without a bomb.
Yet it never occurred to him to drop out. A dive bombing squadron is an intricate mechanism, requiring split-second timing to do its job properly. Bombing 3 was used to Leslie and his way of operating. No matter how skillful, another man taking over now might upset their coordination just enough to throw everything off. So Leslie was determined to lead his squadron anyhow; he would be the first to dive, just as though he still had his 1,000-pound bomb.
Far below, Jimmy Thach flew on—his aplomb mildly upset by those four explosions that rocked the sea around him. About 9:30 he caught the reassuring sight of Lem Massey’s torpedo planes flying directly ahead. Fifteen minutes later Leslie’s SBDs caught up with them too.
They flew on together, in a sort of vertical formation. At the bottom, of course, were the torpedo planes sticking to 1,500 feet … next the fighters, keeping low enough to cover them … and finally the dive bombers—a wedge of tiny specks at 16,000 feet. Except for some cumulus along the horizon, most of the clouds had now disappeared. Just occasional white tufts in a world of sparkling blue.
At 10:00 the sharp eyes of Lem Massey picked up three columns of smoke rising from beyond the northwest horizon, some 30-40 miles away. Torpedo 3 immediately turned right, climbing a little to get a better look. Fighting 3 and Bombing 3 swung too, although neither yet knew what Massey had seen.
Max Leslie again risked breaking radio silence, asked Massey in code if he had sighted the enemy. No answer. They flew on, and at 10:05 Leslie found out for himself. First the smoke; then Bill Gallagher pointed out the wakes of ships perhaps 35 miles dead ahead.
About 10:15 Leslie lost track of the torpedo planes. They were somewhat ahead, 14,000 feet below, and between the distance and some scattered clouds, he could no longer see them. But he now could hear them all too well. Massey had opened up on his radio and was frantically calling for fighter support.
Torpedo 3 had almost reached the outer screen—they were 14-18 miles from the carriers—when the first two Zeros hit. They came without warning, from above and to the left, and before CAP Wilhelm Esders knew what was happening, bullets tore through his cockpit, exploding a C02 bottle tucked between his feet.
Gas was everywhere—he couldn’t see—he couldn’t imagine what had happened. For a moment he thought the plane was on fire. Then realizing it was the CO2, he yanked back the canopy and gulped in the fresh air.
Massey nosed down, trying to reap as much advantage as he could from speed and low altitude. Esders was keeping alongside him, while Machinist Harry Corl flew the other wing. Together they made up the lead section of Torpedo 3. The rest of the planes were following, stacked down in sections of three.
They were over the screen now, beginning their approach. At ten miles, two more Zeros hit, then several more. Six to eight were constantly on them, making pass after pass, while the rear-seat men did their best to shoot back. They dropped down to 150 feet, and that was the limit; from here on, Torpedo 3 would just have to take it.
Massey picked out the lead carrier—the one farthest north—and the squadron split into two divisions of six. The first would take the starboard side, the other the port. As they bore in, the ship’s guns opened up too. Generally the antiaircraft fire was wild, but the Zeros were never in better form.
Someone shot away Corl’s elevator controls, and his plane headed for the water. Seeing he was about to crash, he released his torpedo. Free of the weight, he discovered he could get his nose up again by using the tab control. He moved back into position, hoping he could at least help fight off the Zeros.
Then came the moment that overwhelmed all the rest. About a mile from the carrier, Lem Massey’s plane was hit and caught fire. Still flying alongside, Esders watched the skipper climb out on the stub wing as the TBD, now engulfed in flames, headed down for the sea. Massey never had a chance.
Watching him go, it dawned on Esders that he was now the head of the squadron. Things were so critical it just wasn’t possible to turn the lead over, as customary, to the next senior man. Although the junior pilot present, he must lead the attack the rest of the way.
As he took over, he glanced at the scene around him. It was a weird and terrible sight: “Any direction I was able to look, I could see five, six, seven or more aircraft on fire, spinning down, or simply out of control and flying around crazily.”
Seeing Esders begin his final run, Corl turned north to get clear of the fleet. He had done all he could; now even his guns were jammed. His rear-seat man Lloyd Fred Childers, though wounded in both legs, kept popping away with a .45 pistol.
Esders barreled in, as his own rear-seat man Mike Brazier came on the intercom. He had just been hit, Brazier explained, and would no longer be able to help. Nevertheless, he managed for quite a while to call out whenever the Zeros got on their tail.
At 600-800 yards Esders finally dropped his torpedo, turned sharply to the right, cleared the carrier by several hundred yards. Four other TBDs dropped too, one of them crashing just off the ship’s bow. Esders never saw what happened to the rest, but whatever it was, they didn’t escape. By the end of their attack, 10 of Lem Massey’s 12 planes were gone; only Esders and Cod were left, and they still had to get home.
A thousand feet up, there was little that Jimmy Thach could do. He heard Massey’s call for help, all right, but a horde of Zeros hurled themselves on Fighting 3 at the same time. “It was like the inside of a beehive,” he later recalled, and it was all his men could do to stay alive.
“Skipper, there’s a Zero on my tail, get him off,” Thach’s wing man Ram Dibb sang out at one point. Leading the Japanese around to the front, Dibb gave Thach a perfect target. He opened up, and the Zero reeled down toward the sea. But none of this helped Lem Massey below. There just weren’t enough fighters to do the job. Torpedo 3 had to face Nagumo alone.
RAITA OGAWA, flying combat air patrol over the Akagi, felt these last two torpedo attacks were the most troublesome of the morning. The planes maneuvered better than the earlier bombers and it took longer to shoot them down. Also, they had a way of hanging around after delivering their attacks; this was annoying because it meant still more time had to be wasted chasing after them.
This new strike was a good example of Okawa’s problem. Coming in from the southeast around 10:10, there were only 12 TBDs, plus a few fighters, yet they caused no end of trouble. It took the air cover from all four carriers to handle them properly. Meanwhile there was nobody left to patrol up high.
By now the carrier formation was a shambles again. On the Akagi Captain Aoki could no longer even see the Hiryu—she was somewhere in the smoke to the north. The Kaga and Soryu were still around, but the distance had widened from the prescribed 1,300 to 4,500 or 6,000 yards. At 10:10 the Striking Force had been ordered to head east, but within a minute the Akagi was turning hard to the northwest, trying to keep her stern to the 12 TBDs. In the end they passed on north toward the Hiryu, but who could have guessed that? The formation ended up all the more jumbled.
Nor did it help to have an enemy submarine poking around. The destroyer Arashi gave the first warning when she saw some torpedo tracks coming her way around 9:10. She immediately countered with depth charges and stayed behind when the rest of the Striking Force turned northeast. The Arashi was still back there somewhere, hopefully sitting on the sub, but one never knew.
For all that, it had been a good morning. By 10:15 the latest batch of torpedo planes was going the way of the others. This would make eight attacks thrown back in three hours. Meanwhile all that work below deck was about to pay off—93 planes had been rearmed or refueled, and at this very moment were being spotted on the flight decks. The First Carrier Striking Force had suffered enough indignities; the all-out attack on the American fleet would be launched, as scheduled, at 10:30.
At 10:20, even before the enemy torpedo attack had been completely throttled, Admiral Nagumo gave the order to launch when ready. Maybe a little ahead of schedule, but the Akagi’s planes were already in place, a flight of Zeros spotted first. The ship began turning into the wind. The other three carriers caught Nagumo’s signal and did the same.
On the Kaga CWO Morinaga was standing with a group of pilots in the center of the flight deck, just aft of the second elevator. They were all slated to go on the coming strike, and while they waited to man their planes, they had orders from the bridge to stand by as extra lookouts. Now they were scanning the sky—mostly clear, but studded here and there with clouds.
No one can say who spotted them first. All the pilots were shouting at once. But there was no doubt what they saw, pouring down from the blue like tiny black beads falling loose from a string. With one voice, they yelled up to the bridge, “Enemy dive bombers!”