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The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Isoroku Yamamoto suffered a decisive defeat by the U.S. Pacific Fleet near Midway Atoll, about 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) northwest of Oahu. Yamamoto had intended to capture Midway and lure out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet, especially the aircraft carriers which had escaped damage at Pearl Harbor.

Before the battle, Japan desired to extend its Pacific defense perimeter, especially after the Doolittle air raid of Tokyo in April 1942, and to clear the seas for attacks on Midway, Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii. A related Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands began one day earlier, on 3 June. The Japanese strike force at Midway, known as the Kidō Butai, was commanded by Chuichi Nagumo. Yamamoto’s plan for the operation, which depended on precise timing and coordination, was undermined by its wide dispersal of forces, which left the rest of the fleet unable to support the Kidō Butai effectively.

On 4 June, the Japanese began bombing Midway and prepared to wait for the Pacific Fleet to arrive from Pearl Harbor to defend the island. Unknown to Yamamoto, U.S. code breakers had determined the date and location of his planned attack, enabling the Americans to prepare their own ambush; Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, had sent a large force under Frank Jack Fletcher to the Midway area before the Japanese had arrived. Land-based planes from Midway and carrier-based planes from the U.S. fleet surprised and attacked Nagumo’s force. All four Japanese fleet carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū—present at the battle were sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. Japan also lost 3,000 men, including many well-trained and difficult-to-replace pilots. The U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann, while the carriers Enterprise and Hornet (under the command of Raymond Spruance during the battle) survived the fighting without damage.

The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War. After Midway and the attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan’s ability to replace its losses in materiel and trained men became rapidly insufficient, while the U.S.’s massive industrial and training capabilities increased over time. Historian John Keegan called the battle “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare“,^[9] while historian Craig Symonds called it “one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential.”^[10]

Background

After expanding the war in the Pacific to include western colonies, the Japanese Empire quickly attained its initial strategic goals of British Hong Kong, the Philippines, British Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, the latter of whose oil resources were particularly important to Japan. Because of this, preliminary planning for the second phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942.

Because of strategic disagreements between the Imperial Army (IJA) and Imperial Navy (IJN), and infighting between the Navy’s Imperial General Headquarters and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet, a follow-up strategy was not formed until April 1942.^[11] Yamamoto finally won the bureaucratic struggle with a thinly veiled threat to resign, after which his plan was adopted.^[12] Yamamoto’s primary strategic goal was the elimination of America’s carrier forces, which he regarded as the principal threat to the overall Pacific campaign. This concern was acutely heightened by the Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942, in which 16 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) B-25 Mitchell bombers launched from USS Hornet bombed targets in Tokyo and several other Japanese cities. The raid, while militarily insignificant, was a shock to the Japanese and highlighted a gap in the defenses around the Japanese home islands as well as the vulnerability of Japanese territory to American bombers.^[13]

This, and other successful hit-and-run raids by American carriers in the South Pacific, showed that they were still a threat, although seemingly reluctant to be drawn into all-out battle.^[14] Yamamoto reasoned that another air attack on Naval Station Pearl Harbor would induce all of the American fleet to sail out to fight, including the carriers. However, considering the increased strength of American land-based airpower on the Hawaiian Islands since the 7 December 1941 attack, he judged that it was too risky to attack Pearl Harbor directly.^[15]

Instead, Yamamoto selected Midway, a tiny atoll at the extreme northwest end of the Hawaiian Island chain, approximately 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) from Oahu. Midway was outside the effective range of almost all the American aircraft stationed on the main Hawaiian Islands. It was not especially important in the larger scheme of Japan’s intentions, but the Japanese felt the Americans would consider Midway a vital outpost of Pearl Harbor and would be compelled to defend it vigorously.^[16] The U.S. did indeed consider Midway vital: following the battle, the establishment of a U.S. submarine base on Naval Air Facility Midway Island allowed submarines operating from Pearl Harbor to refuel and re-provision, extending their radius of operations by 1,200 mi (1,900 km). In addition to serving as a seaplane base, Midway’s airstrips were a forward staging point for bomber attacks on Wake Island.^[17]

Yamamoto’s plan

Typical of Japanese naval planning during World War II, Yamamoto’s battle plan for taking Midway (named Operation MI) was exceedingly complex.^[18] It required the careful coordination of multiple battle groups over hundreds of miles of open sea. His design was also predicated on optimistic intelligence suggesting that USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, forming Task Force 16, were the only carriers available to the Pacific Fleet. During the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier, USS Lexington had been sunk and USS Yorktown suffered so much damage that the Japanese believed she too had been lost.^[19] However, following hasty repairs at Pearl Harbor, Yorktown sortied and ultimately played a critical role in the discovery and eventual destruction of the Japanese fleet carriers at Midway. Finally, much of Yamamoto’s planning, coinciding with the general feeling among the Japanese leadership at the time, was based on a gross misjudgement of American morale which was believed to be debilitated from the string of Japanese victories in the preceding months.^[20]

Yamamoto felt deception would be required to lure the U.S. fleet into a fatally compromised situation.^[21] To this end, he dispersed his forces so that their full extent (particularly his battleships) would be concealed from the Americans prior to battle. Critically, Yamamoto’s supporting battleships and cruisers trailed Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo‘s carrier force by several hundred miles. They were intended to come up and destroy whatever elements of the American fleet might come to Midway’s defense once Nagumo’s carriers had weakened them sufficiently for a daylight gun battle.^[22] This tactic was doctrine in most major navies of the time.^[23]

Unknown to Yamamoto, the U.S. had broken parts of the main Japanese naval code (dubbed JN-25 by the Americans), divulging many details of his plan. His emphasis on dispersal also meant none of his formations were in a position to support the others.^[24] For instance, although Nagumo’s carriers were expected to carry out strikes against Midway and bear the brunt of American counterattacks, the only warships in his fleet larger than the screening force of twelve destroyers were two Kongō-class fast battleships, two heavy cruisers, and one light cruiser. By contrast, Yamamoto and Kondo had between them two light carriers, five battleships, four heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers, none of which saw action at Midway.^[22]

The light carriers of the trailing forces and Yamamoto’s three battleships were unable to keep pace with the carriers of the Kidō Butai (機動部隊, “Mobile Strike Force”) and so could not sail in company with them. The Kidō Butai would sail into range at best speed so as to increase the chance of surprise and would not have ships spread out across the ocean guiding the USN toward it. If the other parts of the invasion force needed more defense, the Kidō Butai would make best speed to defend them. Hence the slower ships could not be with the Kidō Butai. The distance between Yamamoto and Kondo’s forces and Nagumo’s carriers had grave implications during the battle. The invaluable reconnaissance capability of the scout planes carried by the cruisers and carriers, and the additional anti-aircraft capability of the cruisers and the other two battleships of the Kongō-class in the trailing forces, were unavailable to help Nagumo.^[25]

Aleutian invasion

Main article: Aleutian Islands campaign

To obtain support from the IJA for the Midway operation, the IJN agreed to support their invasion of the United States through the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska, part of the Alaska Territory. The IJA occupied these islands to place the Japanese home islands out of range of U.S. land-based bombers in Alaska. Most Americans feared that the occupied islands would be used as bases for Japanese bombers to attack strategic targets and population centers along the U.S. West Coast.

The Japanese operations in the Aleutians (Operation AL) removed yet more ships that could otherwise have augmented the force striking Midway. Whereas many earlier historical accounts considered the Aleutians operation as a feint to draw American forces away, according to the original Japanese battle plan, AL was intended to be launched simultaneously with the attack on Midway. A one-day delay in the sailing of Nagumo’s task force resulted in Operation AL beginning a day before the Midway attack.^[26]

Prelude

American reinforcements

To do battle with the IJN, expected to muster four or five carriers, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, needed every available flight deck. He already had Vice Admiral William Halsey‘s two-carrier (Enterprise and Hornet) task force at hand, though Halsey was stricken with shingles and had to be replaced by Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Halsey’s escort commander.^[27] Nimitz also hurriedly recalled Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher‘s task force, including the carrier Yorktown, from the South West Pacific Area.^[28]

Despite estimates that Yorktown, damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, would require several months of repairs at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, her elevators were intact and her flight deck largely so.^[29] The Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard worked around the clock, and in 72 hours she was restored to a battle-ready state,^[30] judged good enough for two or three weeks of operations, as Nimitz required.^[31][32] Her flight deck was patched, and whole sections of internal frames were cut out and replaced. Repairs continued even as she sortied, with work crews from the repair ship USS Vestal, herself damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier, still aboard.^[33]

Yorktown‘s partially depleted air group was rebuilt using whatever planes and pilots could be found. Scouting Five (VS-5) was replaced with Bombing Three (VB-3) from USS Saratoga. Torpedo Five (VT-5) was replaced by Torpedo Three (VT-3). Fighting Three (VF-3) was reconstituted to replace VF-42 with sixteen pilots from VF-42 and eleven pilots from VF-3, with Lieutenant Commander John Thach in command. Some of the aircrew were inexperienced, which may have contributed to an accident in which Thach’s executive officer Lieutenant Commander Donald Lovelace was killed.^[34] Despite efforts to get Saratoga (which had been undergoing repairs on the American West Coast) ready, the need to resupply and assemble sufficient escorts meant she was unable to reach Midway until after the battle.^[35]

On Midway, the U.S. Navy had by 4 June stationed four squadrons of PBYs—31 aircraft in total—for long-range reconnaissance duties, and six brand-new Grumman TBF Avengers from Hornet‘s VT-8.^[36] The Marine Corps stationed 19 Douglas SBD Dauntless, seven F4F-3 Wildcats, 17 Vought SB2U Vindicators, and 21 Brewster F2A Buffalos. The USAAF contributed a squadron of 17 B-17 Flying Fortresses and four Martin B-26 Marauders equipped with torpedoes: in total 122 aircraft. Although the F2As and SB2Us were already obsolete, they were the only aircraft available to the Marine Corps at the time.^[37]

Japanese shortcomings

During the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier, the Japanese light carrier Shōhō had been sunk, while the fleet carrier Shōkaku had been severely damaged and was in drydock for months of repair. Although the fleet carrier Zuikaku escaped the battle undamaged, she had lost almost half her air group and was in port at the Kure Naval District in Hiroshima, awaiting replacement planes and pilots. That there were none immediately available can be attributed to the growing inability of the IJN to properly train pilots faster than they were killed in action. In desperation, instructors from the Yokosuka Air Corps were relieved of their duties to plug the gap.^[38]

Historians Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully believe that by combining the surviving aircraft and pilots from Shōkaku and Zuikaku, Zuikaku likely could have been equipped with almost a full composite air group. They note, however, that doing so would have violated Japanese carrier doctrine, which stressed that carriers and their air groups must train as a single unit. (In contrast, American air squadrons were considered interchangeable between carriers allowing for more flexibility.) The Japanese apparently made no serious attempt to get Zuikaku ready for the forthcoming battle.^[39]

Thus, Carrier Division 5, consisting of the two most advanced aircraft carriers of the Kido Butai, was not available which meant that Vice-Admiral Nagumo had only two-thirds of the fleet carriers at his disposal: Kaga and Akagi forming Carrier Division 1 and Hiryū and Sōryū making up Carrier Division 2. This was partly due to fatigue; Japanese carriers had been constantly on operations since 7 December 1941 including raids on Darwin and Colombo.^[40] Nonetheless, the First Carrier Strike Force sailed with 248 available aircraft on the four carriers (60 on Akagi, 74 on Kaga (B5N2 squadron oversized), 57 on Hiryū and 57 on Sōryū).^[41]

The main Japanese carrier-borne strike aircraft were the Aichi D3A1 “Val” dive bomber and the Nakajima B5N2 “Kate”, which was used either as a torpedo bomber or as a level bomber. The main carrier fighter was the fast and highly maneuverable Mitsubishi A6M Zero. For a variety of reasons, production of the “Val” had been drastically reduced, while that of the “Kate” had been stopped completely and, as a consequence, there were none available to replace losses.^[42] In addition, many of the aircraft being used during the June 1942 operations had been operational since late November 1941 and, although they were well-maintained, many were almost worn out and had become increasingly unreliable. These factors meant all carriers of the Kidō Butai had fewer aircraft than their normal complement, with few spare aircraft or parts in the carriers’ hangars.^{[43][nb 1]}

In addition, Nagumo’s carrier force suffered from several defensive deficiencies which gave it, in Mark Peattie‘s words, a “‘glass jaw‘: it could throw a punch but couldn’t take one.”^[45] Japanese carrier anti-aircraft guns and associated fire control systems had several design and configuration change deficiencies^{[clarification needed]} which limited their effectiveness. The IJN’s fleet combat air patrol (CAP) had too few fighter aircraft and was hampered by an inadequate early warning system, including a lack of radar. Poor radio communications with the fighter aircraft inhibited effective command and control. The carriers’ escorting warships were deployed as visual scouts in a ring at long range, not as close anti-aircraft escorts, as they lacked training, doctrine, and sufficient anti-aircraft guns.^[46]

Japanese strategic scouting arrangements prior to the battle were also in disarray. A picket line of Japanese submarines was late getting into position (partly because of Yamamoto’s haste), which let the American carriers reach their assembly point northeast of Midway (known as “Point Luck”) without being detected.^[47] A second attempt at reconnaissance, using four-engine H8K “Emily” flying boats to scout Pearl Harbor prior to the battle and detect whether the American carriers were present, part of Operation K, was thwarted when Japanese submarines assigned to refuel the search aircraft discovered that the intended refueling point—a hitherto deserted bay off French Frigate Shoals—was occupied by American warships because the Japanese had carried out an identical mission in March. Thus, Japan was deprived of any knowledge concerning the movements of the American carriers immediately before the battle.^[48]

Japanese radio intercepts did notice an increase in American submarine activity and message traffic. This information was in Yamamoto’s hands prior to the battle. Japanese plans were not changed; Yamamoto, at sea in Yamato, assumed Nagumo had received the same signal from Tokyo and did not communicate with him by radio, so as not to reveal his position.^[49] These messages were, contrary to earlier historical accounts, also received by Nagumo before the battle began. For reasons that remain unclear, Nagumo did not alter his plans or take additional precautions.^[50]

U.S. code-breaking

Nimitz had one critical advantage: U.S. cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy’s JN-25b code.^[51] Since early 1942, the U.S. had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective “AF.” It was initially not known where “AF” was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea communications cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway’s water purification system had broken down.^[52] Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that “AF was short on water.”^[53] No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese was having a water shortage, which Japanese intelligence might have suspected as deception.^[54] HYPO was also able to determine the date of the attack as either 4 or 5 June, and to provide Nimitz with a complete IJN order of battle.^[55]

Japan had a new codebook, but its introduction had been delayed, enabling HYPO to read messages for several crucial days; the new code, which took several days to be cracked, came into use on 24 May, but the important breaks had already been made.^[56] As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a good picture of where, when, and in what strength the Japanese would appear. Nimitz knew that the Japanese had negated their numerical advantage by dividing their ships into four separate task groups, so widely separated that they were essentially unable to support each other.^[57] This dispersal resulted in few fast ships being available to escort the Carrier Striking Force, thus reducing the number of anti-aircraft guns protecting the carriers. Nimitz calculated that the aircraft on his three carriers, plus those on Midway Island, gave the U.S. rough parity with Yamamoto’s four carriers, mainly because American carrier air groups were larger than Japanese ones. The Japanese, by contrast, remained largely unaware of their opponent’s true strength and dispositions even after the battle began.^[56]