constricted space such as Pearl Harbor. Then he created the First Air Fleet — six aircraft carriers escorted by two battleships and a number of cruisers and destroyers.
At the last moment, the Naval General Staff ordered Yamamoto to send three of his carriers to the naval force about to begin operations in Southeast Asia. Yamamoto said that if he had to do that, he and his whole staff would resign. The Naval General Staff backed down. The First Air Fleet sailed under the command of Admiral Nagumo Chuichi, an old battleship admiral who was not convinced he could accomplish his mission.
Fortunately for the United States, all the aircraft carriers in its Pacific Fleet were elsewhere. Nagumo could hardly believe his success. His planes had sunk or crippled every battleship in the U.S. Pacific Fleet as well as many other smaller ships and a large number of land-based planes — most of them caught on the ground. From that day on, he was a fervent supporter of air power.
The U.S. Pacific Fleet was suddenly at war without battleships. Admiral Ernest J. King, commander-in-chief of the United States fleet, was hoarding all the newest battleships in the Atlantic, in line with the official policy that major enemy was Germany. It only gradually dawned on King that battleships were useless against Germany but would be most helpful fighting Japan. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, and his staff had to improvise. They created a new tactical formation, the carrier task force. It was modeled on Yamamoto’s First Air Fleet. It was built around one or more carriers which were escorted by cruisers and destroyers.
The new formation got its first big test in the Battle of the Coral Sea, when American and Japanese fleets slugged it out without ever coming to within sight of each other. All the action was done by airplanes. The battle was a tactical draw but a strategic U.S. victory, because it turned back an attempted Japanese invasion of the south coast of New Guinea, which would put Japanese troops in place for an invasion of Australia. The heaviest American loss was the end of “Lady Lex,” the big old U.S.S. Lexington.
The second test was the Battle of Midway. This was Yamamoto’s attempt to finish off American power in the Pacific. The Japanese plan was complicated. A diversionary attack on the Aleutians was supposed to draw off the American ships. Meanwhile, a task force under Nagumo, which included all four of the large Japanese carriers now operational, would attack American forces on Midway Island. Then the main Japanese fleet, commanded by Yamamoto himself from his flagship, the enormous Yamato, would wipe out the American ships returning from the north and invade Hawaii.
The Americans didn’t go to the Aleutians, because they had decoded enough of the Japanese radio transmissions to know that the Aleutians attack was a feint. They did not know, however, where the fleets of Nagumo and Yamamoto were. Scout planes then spotted Nagumo’s ships about the time they launched their first aerial attack on Midway. Admiral Raymond Spruance launched the planes from his carriers, Enterprise and Hornet, in an attempt to get the Japanese carriers while their planes were refueling. Meanwhile, Nagumo had changed his course. The American planes could not find the Japanese ships. While they were searching, the Japanese planes returned and refueled. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, aboard the U.S.S. Yorktown, launched his planes.
Meanwhile, navy, marine, and army planes from Midway attacked Nagumo’s fleet and were shot down or driven off without causing damage. U.S.S. Nautilus, a submarine, launched a torpedo at a Japanese carrier that missed. Nautilus was driven off by depth charges. Then Hornet’s torpedo bombers spotted the Japanese. Every single plane was shot down. Enterprise’s torpedo squadron then appeared, the Japanese shot down 10 of the 14 planes. Yorktown’s torpedo planes attacked next and suffered the same fate.
At this point (at 10:24 a.m.), on June 4, 1942, Nagumo’s carriers had defeated land-based air attacks and a submarine attack and shot down almost all of the Americans’ most formidable aircraft — their torpedo planes. It looked as if Yamamoto’s main fleet would have little to do.
At 10:26, Lieutenant Commander Clarence McClusky, leading the two dive bomber squadrons from Enterprise back to the carrier after an unsuccessful search, saw the carriers Kaga and Akagi through a break in the clouds. He signaled one squadron to follow him, and dived on Kaga. His second-in-command, Lieutenant W.E. Gallaher, led the second squadron on Akagi. The Enterprise dive bombers arrived while the Japanese Zeros were at a low altitude where they had been shooting down torpedo planes. Kaga was soon burning from stem to stern. Akagi took a hit on the flight deck and the explosion blew off the planes that were trying to refuel. Another bomb exploded in the torpedo magazine. Nagumo moved his flag from Akagi to a destroyer and the Japanese abandoned the ship. A Japanese destroyer sent Akagi to the bottom. A third Japanese carrier, Soryu, moved up and prepared to launch its Zeros. Just then, some of Yorktown’s dive bombers under Lieutenant Commander Maxwell Leslie appeared. They dived on Soryu, and three hits turned the Japanese carrier into an inferno. Then Nautilus reappeared and shot three torpedoes into Soryu. The ship broke in two and went down in a sizzling mass of steam.
Nagumo had one carrier left: Hiryu. He sent its planes off to attack the American ships, wherever they were. They found Yorktown, which had just launched its remaining dive bombers. The Japanese planes crippled Yorktown, but, while they were doing that, Yorktown’s second set of dive bombers found Hiryu. They attacked, refueled on Enterprise, and then returned with Enterprise’s dive bombers. The crippled Hiryu began to sink and went to the bottom the next day.
Nagumo signaled to Yamamoto what had happened and recommended he call off the expedition. Yamamoto was beside himself with rage and relieved Nagumo of his command. He refused to turn back. But after a short time, he realized that, without air cover, he would be heading for a disaster. He turned back.
Yorktown, which had been severely damaged in the Coral Sea and hastily repaired, was towed back to Pearl Harbor for more repairs. But a Japanese submarine spotted her and her tow ship and sank them both. “Waltzing Matilda,” as her crew called her, was a big loss, but it was nothing compared to what the Japanese had suffered.
In five minutes, with the destruction of Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu, Nagumo went from complete triumph to utter defeat. Then the destruction of Hiryu wiped out all of Japan’s operational fleet carriers. Japan could never build enough carriers or train enough pilots to come near to matching the Americans.
The Japanese tried, however. They turned what was to be a sister ship of Yamato and Musashi into an aircraft carrier. The new carrier, Sinano, became the biggest and most powerful aircraft carrier in the world, dwarfing the mighty old Saratoga. Sinano made her maiden voyage in November of 1944. On November 29, 1944, the U.S. submarine Archerfish sank Sinano before she could send a plane into combat.
That may have been prophetic. Many naval analysts think that nuclear-powered submarines may really be the new capital ships. At the present, aircraft carriers have been invaluable in projecting American power to the far corners of the world. But the big, powerful, and highly vulnerable ships have not been used since World War II against a major naval or air power.
Chapter 38
A Machine Gun for Every Man: Submachine Guns and Assault Rifles
The landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the other paratroop outfits in Normandy on D day were nothing like what happened on maneuvers. Each landing was mass confusion — almost chaos. The troops landed at night, a pitch-black night, scattered over a strange countryside. Some spent hours trying find another paratrooper. Many were unable to join all their regular units for quite a while.
Staff Sergeant Harrison Summers was at least able to join his battalion, the first battalion of the 502nd Regiment. Summers’s battalion commander, desperately short of men, gave the sergeant 15 strangers and told him to capture a German coast artillery barracks. Summers took his Thompson submachine gun, a basic load of ammunition, and the 15 strangers. Because the other men didn’t know him and didn’t trust him, Summers knew he’d have to lead them, not just tell them what to do.
The “barracks” was actually a number of buildings, strung out over almost half a mile. Summers ran up to the first building, kicked in the door, and mowed down four of the defenders with his tommy gun. The rest dashed out the back door. Summers looked around and saw that he was alone. “His” men were hiding in a ditch. He left them there and charged the second building. The Germans there saw him coming and fled. That encouraged one of the
