All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [156]
The Battle of Midway
Nagumo’s bomber attack, at 0635, inflicted widespread damage but failed to knock out Midway’s airfields. Its leader signalled the fleet: ‘Second strike necessary.’ Thereafter, nothing went right for the Japanese admiral. His first mistake of the day had been to dispatch only a handful of reconnaissance aircraft to search for American warships; one seaplane, from the heavy cruiser Tone, was delayed taking off – and it was vectored to search the sector where Fletcher’s carriers were steaming. Thus, Nagumo was still ignorant of any naval air threat when he received the signal from his Midway planes. At 0715 he ordered ninety-three ‘Kate’ strike aircraft, ready with torpedoes on his decks, to be struck below and re-armed with high-explosive bombs to renew the attack on the island, meanwhile clearing the way for the returning Midway planes to land on.
Even as they did so, ships’ buglers sounded another air-raid alarm. Between 0755 and 0820, successive small waves of Midway-based US aircraft attacked Nagumo’s fleet. They had no fighter cover, and were ruthlessly destroyed by AA fire and Zeroes without achieving a single hit. The gunfire died away, the drone of the surviving attackers’ engines faded. Meanwhile, the first of Spruance’s torpedo planes and dive-bombers were already airborne, heading for the Japanese fleet from extreme range. Although Tone’s scout plane belatedly spotted the American ships, only at 0810 did its pilot report that they seemed to include a carrier. Among Nagumo’s staff, this news prompted a fierce argument about how to respond, which continued even as the last of the US land-based attacks was repulsed.
The only achievement of the strikes from Midway, purchased at shocking cost, was to impede flight operations aboard the Japanese carriers. Nagumo was hamstrung by the need to recover his attack force, short of fuel, before he could launch a strike against Fletcher’s fleet; meanwhile, he ordered the ‘Kates’ in the hangars once more to be armed with torpedoes. By far his wisest course, at this stage, would have been to turn away and open the range with the enemy, until he had reorganised his air groups and was ready to fight. As it was, however, with characteristic lack of initiative he held course. At 0918, the Japanese flight decks were still in chaos as aircraft completed refuelling, when picket destroyers signalled another warning, and began to make protective smoke. The first of Fletcher’s planes were closing fast, and Zeroes scrambled to meet them.
Before the American fly-off, Lt. Cmdr. John Waldron, a rough, tough, much-respected South Dakotan who led Torpedo Eight from Hornet, told his pilots that the coming battle ‘will be a historic and, I hope, a glorious event’. Wildcat squadron commander Jimmy Gray wrote: ‘All of us knew we were “on” in the world’s center ring.’ Lt. Cmdr. Eugene Lindsey, commanding Torpedo Six, had been badly injured only a few days earlier when he ditched his plane after making a botched landing; his face was so bruised that it was painful for him to wear goggles. But on the morning of the Midway strike he insisted on flying: ‘This is what I have been trained to do,’ he said stubbornly, before taking off to his death.
The American attackers approached the Japanese in successive waves. Jimmy Gray wrote: ‘Seeing the white feathers of ships’ wakes at high speed at the far edge of the overcast, and realising that there for the first time in plain sight were the Japanese who had been knocking hell out of us for seven months was a sensation not many men know in a lifetime.’ The twenty escorting Wildcats flew high, while the Devastators necessarily attacked low. Over the radio, crackling dispute about tactics between fighters and torpedo-carriers persisted even as they approached the enemy. The Wildcats maintained altitude, and anyway lacked endurance to linger over the enemy fleet. The consequence was that when fifty Japanese Zeroes fell on the Devastators, these suffered