Challenge for the Pacific

Marines flying the near-useless Brewster Buffaloes had no chance against the superior Zero. Only pilots such as Captain Marion Carl flying the new Grumman Wildcats were able to battle the Zero on anything like even terms. In all, fifteen American fighters were shot down. But superb American antiaircraft fire prevented the enemy from damaging Midway’s runways, while downing or damaging dozens of enemy aircraft.

One third of the Japanese attacking force was either shot down or badly damaged, and the formation leader radioed Admiral Nagumo that a second strike against Midway was required. Even as the report was being received, Midway’s land-based bombers came winging over Nagumo’s ships. They were driven off with heavy losses, the Japanese ships were not scratched, but the very appearance of the Americans served to underscore the report that Midway’s airfields were far from being knocked out.

Nagumo ordered ninety-three planes, then armed for possible strikes against enemy ships, to be rearmed with fragmentation and incendiary bombs for use against Midway. As the armorers rushed to comply, a search plane reported ten American ships to the northeast.

Chuichi Nagumo was thunderstruck. No American ships were supposed to be within a thousand miles of Midway! Shaken, pacing Akagi’s bridge with his white-gloved hands locked behind his back, Nagumo took a full quarter-hour to decide to order the ninety-three planes changed back to ship-bombs. By then, it was too late—the formations which had attacked Midway were returning and all flight decks had to be cleared to receive them. Still sailing toward Midway in box formation, the four big carriers—Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, and Kaga—began taking planes aboard.

An hour later all decks were cleared. Nagumo ordered the second strike launched against the American task force.

And in so doing he did exactly what the Americans expected him to do.

Captain Miles Browning, Bull Halsey’s chief of staff on loan to Admiral Spruance, had calculated that Nagumo would keep steaming toward Midway and would launch a second strike at the island. He decided that the time to hit the Japanese would be while they were refueling planes on deck.

At seven that morning, 175 miles from the enemy’s calculated position, Spruance ordered Enterprise and Hornet to launch planes. Twenty Wildcats, sixty-seven Dauntless dive-bombers, and twenty-nine Devastator dive-bombers—116 planes in all—went hurtling aloft. Admiral Fletcher delayed Yorktown’s launching on the chance that other targets might be discovered. Even so, by nine o’clock, just as the last of the warbirds from Enterprise and Hornet were airborne, Yorktown had thirty-five planes—six Wildcats, seventeen Dauntlesses, and twelve Devastators—in the skies.

Most of them caught Nagumo. They found his four big carriers as expected, rearming and refueling.

Hornet’s torpedo-bombers—her fighters and dive-bombers missed the enemy entirely—attacked first. They were annihilated. Of fifteen Devastators that struck, every one was shot down and only one pilot survived. Enterprise’s torpedo squadron skimmed in next, and was also slaughtered: ten out of fourteen destroyed. Then came Yorktown’s dozen Devastators, and only four survived.

Not a single Japanese ship was touched.

In about a hundred glittering seconds it seemed to Chuichi Nagumo that the war was won.

And then the matchless American dive-bombers also found the Japanese.

There were thirty-seven Dauntlesses from Enterprise under Lieutenant Commander Clarence McCluskey. McCluskey took half of them down on Kaga, while Lieutenant Earl Gallaher led the rest against Akagi.

They sank them both.

Next, seventeen Dauntlesses from Yorktown under Lieutenant Commander Max Leslie fell upon Soryu and left her a crippled wreck to be broken in two by the torpedoes of U.S. submarine Nautilus.

In six minutes, Nagumo had lost his own flagship—having to transfer to the cruiser Nagara— and two other carriers. But he retaliated by ending the career of Yorktown. And while the bold Japanese Kates were breaking through Yorktown’s antiaircraft screen to put three torpedoes into the great ship’s hull, twenty-four Dauntlesses led by the formidable Gallaher found Hiryu, fell upon her, and put her on the bottom.

Well to the rear with Yamato and the Main Body, Isoroku Yamamoto read reports of the battle in stunned silence. His entire fast carrier group—four big flattops—had been lost, against only one American carrier sunk. With them went their complement of 250 planes, and 2200 officers and men. Although the smaller northern force had seized bases in the Aleutians, it had failed in its chief mission: to lure the Americans away from Midway.

Yamamoto recognized disaster when he saw it, and he ordered a general retirement. For the first time in 350 years Japan had suffered a naval defeat. At one blow—in a single day’s fighting—the advantage gained at Pearl Harbor had been lost and parity in carrier power was restored in the Pacific.

All of the Japanese ships reversed course. Isoroku Yamamoto went to his cabin and stayed there for the remainder of the voyage. Tight-lipped and sorrowing, Admiral Tanaka and Commander Hara escorted a bewildered Colonel Ichiki back to Guam.

Never again was the word Midway mentioned in the Japanese Navy.

Ernest King saw his chance.

The Japanese had been checked at Midway and it was now time for the Americans to seize the offensive. The question was: Where? By the middle of the month King had decided that Tulagi-Guadalcanal in the Solomons was the proper place. He proposed the operation to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But General Marshall and General Arnold were firmly committed to the build-up of the U.S. forces in England—Operation Bolero, as it was called. On May 6, President Roosevelt had told them: “I do not want Bolero slowed down.” They were cool to King’s proposal, even though Cominch backed it up with intelligence reports that the Japanese were moving into Guadalcanal. After much debate, with some reluctance, they agreed.

But who would command?

Marshall wanted General MacArthur and King wanted Admiral Nimitz. It would be a Navy show with the Navy’s Marines, King argued, even though the Solomons did lie within MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area. Finally, again after debate, the Solomons were included in the South Pacific Area which Admiral Ghormley was developing under Nimitz’s control.

On June 25 the Joint Chiefs notified Ghormley to confer with MacArthur on the operation.

Next day Ghormley, in Auckland, telephoned General Vandegrift in Wellington.

Wakefield had entered Wellington’s beautiful harbor on a Sunday, June 21. Marines crowding the rails saw a great round of deep blue water girdled by an amphitheater of sloping green hills dotted by white houses with red-tile roofs.

But there was bad news in Wellington.

Lieutenant Colonel William Twining, chief of Vandegrift’s advance party, came aboard with the report that the unloading of the cargo ships which had preceded them was far behind schedule.

“What in hell is wrong?” Vandegrift exploded.

“They work differently from us,” Twining replied. “They stop for morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea. If it’s raining they don’t work at all.”¹¹

Vandegrift met the impasse with characteristic directness. Heedless of the sensitivities of socialist unions basking in the favor of a Labor Government, he ordered his Marines to form working parties and unload the ships themselves. It was fortunate that he had acted thus and so quickly, for five days later he received Ghormley’s telephone call, and on the next day he and his staff were flying to Auckland.

Vandegrift was astounded when he entered Ghormley’s office. He had known the admiral as a suave and gracious diplomat. But Ghormley appeared harassed. His manner was brusque.

“Vandegrift,” the admiral said, “I have some very disconcerting news.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Admiral,” the general said.