My colleague Mary Chastain wrote a magnificent post about D-Day, which is truly a must-read.
As I spent the day nursing a cold and rewatching the movie “Midway”, I thought I might take this opportunity to review the naval engagement that occurred 83 years ago to pair with the piece.
The Battle of Midway was fought from June 4 to June 7, 1942, and is widely regarded as a World War II turning point. However, I feel the battle doesn’t quite get the attention it deserves, so I thought I would hit the highlights and share a few videos that I found quite interesting.
The battle took place near Midway Atoll, a strategic U.S. outpost, and was initiated by the Japanese in hopes of eliminating the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers and securing dominance in the Pacific.
On June 4, Japanese aircraft from four carriers bombed Midway Island, intending to draw out and destroy the U.S. fleet. However, U.S. cryptanalysts had broken Japanese codes, allowing Admiral Chester Nimitz to set an ambush with three American carriers (Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown) positioned northeast of Midway.
The importance of this code-breaking can not be stressed enough. U.S. Navy intelligence, particularly the cryptanalysts at Station HYPO, led by Commander Joseph Rochefort, played a pivotal role in uncovering Japanese plans for the offensive. The Japanese referred to their intended target only as “AF” in their encrypted communications. While some U.S. analysts speculated that “AF” could be locations like Samoa or Hawaii, Rochefort’s team suspected it was Midway Island.
To confirm their hypothesis, Rochefort and his team devised a ruse: The U.S. garrison on Midway was instructed to send an uncoded radio message stating that their water purification system had failed and they were running short of fresh water. Shortly after this message was sent, U.S. intercepts picked up a Japanese encrypted transmission reporting that “AF” was experiencing a water shortage. This conclusively identified “AF” as Midway.
By the time Midway was identified as the Japanese target, Nimitz had only 2 weeks to set up the ambush.
Interestingly, some Japanese naval officers had foreseen just such a strategy during a war game just a month before the battle.
Japanese officers assigned to play the American (Red) forces adopted a strategy that closely mirrored what the U.S. Navy would actually employ: They had American carriers arrive at Midway earlier than the Japanese expected and launch a surprise attack on the Japanese carrier force while it was engaged in bombing Midway. In this scenario, the American side managed to inflict heavy damage on the Japanese carriers, sinking two of them (the Akagi and Kaga).
However, the outcome of this war game was not accepted by the Japanese command staff. Rear Admiral Ugaki, acting as the chief umpire, considered the result “ludicrous” and overruled the umpires’ decision. He did not believe the Americans would be so aggressive or that their bombers would be so effective. Ugaki reduced the result from two carriers sunk to only three hits scored, leaving Akagi afloat and minimizing the impact of the American attack.
At first glance, Ugaki’s decision appears to be a perfect example of a senior officer insisting that a plan will work while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. After all, American aircraft did indeed catch the Kido Butai by surprise and destroyed Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu on the first day of the battle. Had Ugaki accepted the game results and taken its lessons to heart, he might have taken the American air threat more seriously and acted accordingly.
The combination of intelligence, American bravery, and the Divine contributed to the victory at Midway.
As Japanese planes attacked Midway, U.S. carrier-based aircraft launched counterstrikes. In a series of attacks, American dive-bombers fatally damaged three Japanese carriers (Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu) in quick succession during the morning of June 4. Later that day, the fourth Japanese carrier, Hiryu, managed to launch strikes that heavily damaged the USS Yorktown, but was sunk by U.S. aircraft by evening.
There was so much that could have gone wrong for the U.S. over 80 years ago, but the victory began to turn the tide in America’s favor.
Finally, as my mentor Gordon W. Prange told me, one must consider the intangibles. What might have happened had the Japanese destroyed the three U.S. carriers and won at Midway is very debatable and open to speculation, but Australia and perhaps Hawaii would have been the next Japanese targets. With virtually all of the Pacific Fleet’s aerial striking power out of the picture, there would have been little to stop Japan. It would have been open season on U.S. forces, and the Japanese would have been in total command of the Pacific, including possibly the waters around the U.S. West Coast. Fortunately, this did not happen.Captain Edwin T. Layton, an excellent intelligence officer and authority on Pearl Harbor, pointed out to Prange that “at Midway the Japanese lost or left behind a naval air force that had been the terror of the Pacific—an elite force, an overwhelming force that would never again come back and spread destruction and fear as it had over the first six months of the war.” This is the meaning of Midway.
I highly recommend a viewing of the 2019 version of “Midway” (which I prefer over the more drama-laden 1976 version).
One last note: There are so many heroes involved in this American victory that we have an abundance of good name options for our Navy’s ships that are better than the woke picks we have endured recently.
Image by perplexity.ai.
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