June 3rd, 1942.
Aboard the aircraft carrier Akagi, Vice Admiral Tuichi Nagumo stood on the bridge as his flagship cut through the North Pacific swells.
Around him spread across miles of ocean, steamed the most powerful naval strike force ever assembled.
Four fleet carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, and a screen of destroyers.
Below decks, mechanics made final checks on hundreds of aircraft.
In the ready rooms, pilots reviewed their attack plans for tomorrow’s strike against Midway Island.
Nagumo was 55 years old, a torpedo warfare specialist who had never particularly liked aviation.
Yet here he was commanding the Kido Bhai, the first airfleet that had struck Pearl Harbor 6 months earlier.
That attack had been flawless.
The Americans had been caught completely unprepared.
Japanese aircraft had destroyed or damaged eight battleships, killed thousands, and returned with minimal losses.
Since then, the Kido Bhutai had rampaged across the Pacific, striking at will from Darwin to Salon.
No one had been able to stop them.
Tomorrow would be different, only in that the target was smaller.
Midway was just an atoll, two tiny islands with an airfield.
Intelligence reported a few dozen American aircraft there, perhaps some patrol boats.
Nothing the Kido Bhutai couldn’t handle in an afternoon.
After neutralizing Midway’s defenses, they would occupy the atole.
That would extend Japan’s defensive perimeter, and more importantly, it would lure the remnants of the American Pacific Fleet into a decisive battle.
The Americans would have to respond to the threat to Midway.
When they did, Yamamoto’s battleships waiting to the west would destroy them.
At least that was the plan.
Nagumo had reservations he kept largely to himself.
400 m to the west aboard the battleship Yamato, Admiral Isuroku Yamamoto commanded the operation from a distance that troubled some of his staff.
Yamato was the largest battleship in the world, displacing over 60,000 tons, mounting 18-in guns that could hurl shells weighing more than a ton over 25 m.
But for all its power, Yamato was too slow to keep up with the carriers.
So Yamamoto directed the battle from far behind the striking force connected to Nagumo only by radio.
Yamamoto was 57, a Harvard educated officer who had spent years in America and understood American industrial power better than most of his colleagues.
He had opposed war with the United States, telling politicians that he could run wild for 6 months to a year, but after that, he had no confidence in victory.
Now, 6 months after Pearl Harbor, he was trying to force a decisive battle before American production overwhelmed Japan’s early gains.
The plan for Midway was complex, perhaps too complex.
Forces were divided across thousands of miles of ocean.
A diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands to the north would draw American attention away.
The carriers would strike midway.
Then, when the American fleet responded, the battleships would close in for the kill.
It required precise timing, perfect coordination, and one critical assumption that the Americans would react exactly as predicted.
On the evening of June 3rd, Yamamoto staff reviewed the latest intelligence reports.
There was no indication that American carriers were anywhere near Midway.
Radio traffic analysis suggested they were still near Hawaii over a thousand miles away.
Even if they sorted immediately upon learning of the midway attack, they couldn’t arrive in time to interfere.
The operation would be over before they got there.
Commander Yasuji Watanab Yamamoto’s operations officer had helped plan every detail.
He knew the American carriers were the real target.
Midway itself meant nothing.
The atal was bait and everything depended on the Americans taking it.
In his post-war account, Watanab recalled the confidence that permeated Yamato’s operations room that evening.
“We believed we had achieved complete surprise,” he said.
“Our intelligence indicated the American carriers were not in the area.
We expected to strike Midway, draw out their fleet, and destroy it.” What Watanabe and Yamamoto didn’t know was that American codereakers had been reading Japanese naval communications for weeks.
They knew about Midway.
They knew approximately when the attack would come, and three American carriers, Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown were already at sea, positioned northeast of Midway, waiting an ambush.
Aboard a Kagi.
That evening, the mood was almost festive.
Officers gathered in the wardroom discussing the upcoming operation over dinner.
Commander Minoru Jender, the brilliant air operations officer who had helped plan the Pearl Harbor attack, should have been among them.
Instead, he lay in his cabin, burning with fever.
Pneumonia had struck him days earlier.
The ship’s doctor had confined him to bed, warning that his condition was serious.
Gender refused to stay down.
At 37, he was one of the most innovative aviation tacticians in the Imperial Navy.
He had fought in China, developed new divebombing techniques, and had been instrumental in planning every major carrier operation since the war began.
The idea of missing the battle was unbearable.
According to his own later account, he told the doctor, “I will not stay in bed while my carriers go into action.
If I’m going to die, I’ll die at my post.
The doctor reluctantly agreed to let him work, provided he rest as much as possible.
Gender’s illness was more than a personal hardship.
His tactical judgment had been crucial in previous operations.
Now, at a moment when sharp thinking might matter most, one of Nagumo’s key advisers was operating at diminished capacity.
Rear Admiral Tamman Yamaguchi commanded the second carrier division here and Soryu, the two smaller carriers in Nagumo’s force.
At 49, Yamaguchi was considered one of the Navy’s rising stars.
He had attended Princeton, understood Americans, and had a reputation for aggressive tactics.
Unlike Nagumo, Yamaguchi was an aviation enthusiast who trusted his pilots and believed in taking calculated risks.
That evening, Yamaguchi met with his staff aboard Hiru to review the next day’s operations.
His chief of staff later recalled that Yamaguchi expressed concern about the divided nature of the plan.
The carriers would strike midway at dawn, but they would have to hold back a reserve in case American ships appeared.
This split focus troubled him.
In carrier warfare, he believed you concentrated everything on the primary target.
Dividing your strength invited disaster, but Yamaguchi kept his concerns professional.
Orders were orders.
His carriers would launch their assigned aircraft on schedule.
If American ships appeared, they would deal with them.
He had confidence in his air groups and his captains.
Hiru’s air group commander, Lieutenant Joi Tomaga, was one of the best in the fleet.
Rear Admiral Runoske Kusaka served as Nagumo’s chief of staff, the admiral’s closest adviser.
At 51, Kusaka was methodical, cautious, and deeply loyal to Nagumo.
He understood his commander’s limitations with aviation and tried to compensate by ensuring staff work was thorough.
That evening, he reviewed the operation orders one more time, checking details, confirming that every unit understood its role.
Kusaka later wrote about the atmosphere on Akagi’s bridge that night.
There was confidence, perhaps too much confidence, he recalled.
We had won every engagement since the war began.
Our pilots were veterans.
Our ships were undamaged.
We saw no reason why Midway should be different from our previous operations.
But Kusaka also noted a nagging concern that he shared with Nagumo in private.
The operation required them to accomplish two potentially conflicting missions.
Neutralize Midways air base and be ready to engage American warships if they appeared.
If American carriers were nearby, which seemed unlikely but possible, the Kido Bhai might find itself caught between two objectives at the worst possible moment.
Nagumo listened, but didn’t share Kusaka’s worry publicly.
The admiral had learned to trust his staff, particularly Gender, whose tactical instincts had proven sound.
With Gender ill, more responsibility fell on Kusaka’s shoulders.
As night fell on June 3rd, the Kido Bhai maintained radio silence and pressed eastward through darkness.
The sea was rough with low clouds and occasional rain squalls.
Weather reports suggested conditions would improve by morning, good enough for flight operations, but with some cloud cover that might help conceal the carriers from American patrol planes.
In the ready rooms, pilots attended final briefings.
The plan called for a strike of over a 100 aircraft to hit midway at dawn, dive bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters.
Their targets were the airfield, fuel dumps, and any aircraft on the ground.
It would be a powerful blow, but not overwhelming.
Nagumo was holding back a substantial reserve, nearly half his aircraft in case enemy ships appeared.
Lieutenant Jochi Tomaga, who would lead the strike, was 35 years old and had flown combat missions since the war’s beginning.
He had led attacks on Darwin and Son.
His pilots respected him for his skill and his willingness to lead from the front.
That evening he briefed his air group on the attack plan.
According to pilots who were present, Tomaga was calm and professional.
“We will destroy their airfield and return safely,” he told them.
“Expect anti-aircraft fire, but minimal fighter opposition.
The Americans at Midway are not prepared for what we’re bringing.” What Tomaga didn’t know, what none of them knew, was that Midway’s radar had been recently upgraded.
The Americans would have warning of their approach, and three American carriers with over 200 aircraft were positioned to strike the Kido Boutai while its decks were cluttered with aircraft returning from midway.
Aboard Yamato far to the west, Yamamoto retired to his cabin around midnight.
His staff would wake him if anything significant developed.
He had done everything he could to ensure success.
The forces were in position.
The plan was sound.
American carriers were nowhere near the area.
By tomorrow evening, Midway would be in Japanese hands, and the American fleet would be steaming into a trap.
But Yamamoto was a poker player, and he understood that even the best hands could lose.
In a conversation with his senior staff officer that evening, he had mused about the Americans.
They are not stupid, he said, according to postwar accounts.
They will fight cleverly.
We must not underestimate them.
It was as close as the admiral came to expressing doubt.
The hours before dawn on June 4th were busy aboard the carriers.
Mechanics prepared aircraft, arming them with bombs for the midway strike.
Pilots ate breakfast, checked their gear, and gathered for final briefings.
The weather had improved as predicted.
Visibility was decent with scattered clouds at 3,000 ft.
At 0430, a kagi turned into the wind.
On the darkened flight deck, aircraft engines roared to life.
One by one, they thundered down the deck and lifted into the pre-dawn darkness.
Tomaga led them east toward midway, over a 100 aircraft in a formation that would have terrified any observer.
This was the Kido Bhai at full power.
The force that had humbled the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on Akagi’s bridge.
Nagumo watched the launch with satisfaction.
The operation was proceeding exactly on schedule.
Behind him, Kusaka coordinated with the other carriers.
Kaga, Hiru, and Soryu had also launched their strikes.
Now came the waiting period.
The aircraft would take about an hour to reach Midway, conduct their attack, and return.
During that time, the carriers would recover scout planes, maintain combat air patrol, and keep the reserve strike force ready.
That reserve was the key to the plan’s flexibility.
93 aircraft sat on the hanger decks, armed with torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs for use against ships.
If American carriers appeared, these aircraft could launch immediately.
If no ships appeared, they could be rearmed with land attack bombs and sent against Midway in a second strike.
Gender, despite his fever, had insisted on being on the bridge for the launch.
He stood near Nagumo, wrapped in a coat, watching the eastern horizon begin to lighten.
In his postwar writings, he described feeling uneasy, though he couldn’t articulate why.
Everything was going according to plan, he wrote, but I felt something was wrong.
Perhaps it was the fever affecting my judgment.
At 0530, reconnaissance aircraft launched from the cruisers and battleships.
These float planes would search the ocean to the east and south looking for American ships.
It was standard procedure, though no one expected them to find anything.
The searches had been delayed slightly by catapult problems on the cruiser tone, but this seemed a minor issue.
The scout would cover its assigned sector, just a bit behind schedule.
At 0700 hours, the first reports came back from the Midway Strike Force.
Tomaga radioed enemy fighters rising to intercept.
The Americans were reacting, but this was expected.
Minutes later, another message.
Encountering heavy anti-aircraft fire.
Still nothing alarming.
Midway’s defenses were more robust than intelligence had suggested, but nothing the strike force couldn’t handle.
Then at 0705, American aircraft from Midway appeared.
Obsolete torpedo bombers and dive bombers flying in uncoordinated attacks against the Kido Bhutai.
The carriers combat air patrol and anti-aircraft guns tore them apart.
The attacks were brave but futile.
Not a single American aircraft scored a hit.
Burning planes fell into the sea.
The few survivors limped back toward Midway.
On a Kagi’s bridge, the easy victory reinforced confidence.
These Americans were courageous, but poorly trained and equipped.
Their attacks were uncoordinated, almost suicidal.
If this was the best Midway could throw at them, the operation would be even easier than planned.
But the attacks had an effect no one on the Japanese side immediately recognized.
They forced the carriers to maneuver, breaking formation, disrupting the neat organization of the fleet, and they kept the combat air patrol busy at low altitude, shooting down attackers, burning fuel, unable to climb to higher altitude where they might spot approaching threats.
At 0728, a message arrived that changed everything.
The scout plane from the cruiser tone, the one that had launched late, reported, “Sight what appears to be 10 enemy surface ships bearing 010° distance 240 mi from Midway.” On AGI’s bridge, the message created immediate tension.
Ships, American ships, northeast of the carriers, roughly where they shouldn’t be.
But what kind of ships? Cruisers, destroyers, or something more dangerous? Nagumo turned to Kusaka.
Find out what type of ships, he ordered.
The message was transmitted to the scout plane.
Now came an agonizing wait.
The scout needed time to close the distance, identify the ships, and report back.
Meanwhile, another message arrived from Tomaga, still over midway.
There is need for a second attack.
The first strike had hit the island hard but hadn’t completely neutralized its defenses.
The runway was damaged but still operational.
Hangers were burning but American aircraft were still flying.
To truly suppress Midway, another strike would be necessary.
Nagumo faced a decision.
He had 93 aircraft on his hanger decks, armed with torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs for use against ships.
But if those 10 ships the scout had spotted were just cruisers or destroyers, they weren’t worth a full strike.
Better to rearm those aircraft with land attack bombs, send them against Midway and finish the job Tomaga had started.
But if carriers were among those ships, launching a strike armed for land attack would be disastrous.
Torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs were essential for attacking carriers.
The decision hung on one question.
What type of ships had the scout found? At 0745, without waiting for clarification, Nagumo made his choice.
Prepare to rearm the reserve aircraft with land attack bombs, he ordered.
It was a reasonable decision based on available information.
Intelligence had consistently indicated no American carriers were in the area.
10 ships probably meant a cruiser force sent out from Pearl Harbor in response to the Midway attack.
They could be dealt with later.
Right now, finishing Midway was the priority.
Gender standing nearby was too ill to object forcefully.
Later, he would say he felt the decision was premature, that they should have waited for confirmation.
But in the moment, burning with fever, he didn’t press the point.
On the hangar decks below, ordinance crews began the laborious process of switching weapons.
Torpedoes had to be removed, taken back to the magazines, and replaced with land attack bombs.
It would take time, perhaps an hour, but once complete, Nagumo could launch a devastating second strike against Midway.
At 0800 hours, the first wave of aircraft began returning from Midway.
They had fought through heavy anti-aircraft fire, pressed home their attacks, and now needed to land.
Some were damaged.
Some were low on fuel.
The carriers turned into the wind to recover them.
This meant the reserve strike force, still being rearmed below decks, couldn’t launch until the Midway aircraft was safely aboard.
At 0809, the message everyone had been waiting for arrived from the scout plane.
Enemy ships are five cruisers and five destroyers.
Relief swept through Akagi’s bridge.
No carriers, just cruisers and destroyers.
Nagumo’s decision to rearm for a second Midway strike was vindicated.
Those ships could be dealt with later after Midway was thoroughly suppressed.
But at 8:20, another message arrived.
This one with very different implications.
Enemy force accompanied by what appears to be a carrier.
A carrier.
An American carrier 240 mi away with aircraft that could already be in the air heading toward the Kido Bhai.
The bridge erupted in controlled chaos.
Kusaka immediately grasped the situation.
We must launch against that carrier immediately, he told Nagumo.
But how? The decks were full of aircraft returning from midway.
Below, the reserve strike force was in the middle of rearming.
Torpedoes removed, land attack bombs not yet fully loaded.
The carriers couldn’t launch until the midway aircraft landed.
And once they landed, they would need to be struck below to clear the decks, and the reserve strike force would need to be brought up, which meant moving the Midway aircraft out of the way in the hangers.
It was a traffic jam.
A choreography problem that would take time to solve.
Time they might not have.
Yamaguchi commanding Hiru and Soryu sent a message to Nagumo.
Consider it advisable to launch attack force immediately.
Yamaguchi understood carrier warfare.
Speed was everything.
If an American carrier was out there, it might already be launching.
Every minute of delay increased the danger.
But Nagumo faced an impossible situation.
He couldn’t launch with the decks full.
He couldn’t abandon the Midway Strike Force, which was now landing.
Some aircraft were damaged, some low on fuel.
Turning them away would mean losing pilots and planes, and the reserve strike force wasn’t ready.
Half the aircraft still had land attack bombs, useless against a carrier.
The other half were still being rearmed.
Recover the Midway Strike Force first.
Nagumo ordered.
Then we will spot the reserve strike and launch against the enemy carrier.
It was the only practical decision, but it meant delay.
Precious, dangerous delay.
Gender, watching this unfold, later wrote, “I knew we were in trouble.
The Americans had surprised us.
We had assumed they weren’t there, and we were wrong.
Now we were caught in the worst possible situation with our decks full and our reserve force not ready.
The carriers turned into the wind.
One by one, aircraft landed.
Some crashed on landing, damaged by anti-aircraft fire.
Crews rushed to clear wrecks, push aircraft forward, make room for the next plane.
It was controlled chaos, the inevitable result of recovering a large strike force.
At 8:30, another message from the scout.
10 enemy torpedo planes heading toward you.
American aircraft already attacking.
The scout had spotted them taking off from the carrier.
They were coming.
Nagumo ordered the carriers to increase speed, maneuver radically if attacked.
The combat air patrol was reinforced.
Fighters scrambling to intercept the incoming Americans.
But the situation was deteriorating.
The Kido Bhai was on the defensive, reacting rather than attacking.
Below decks, ordinance crews worked frantically.
Some aircraft still had torpedoes.
Some had land attack bombs.
Some had armor-piercing bombs.
It was a mess, a confused mixture of weapons, and sorting it out was taking too long.
Worse, the land attack bombs that had been removed were sitting on the hanger decks, not properly stored in the magazines.
They would be in the way when the reserve strike force came up to the flight deck.
At 0918, lookouts spotted aircraft approaching low over the water.
American torpedo bombers from the carrier Hornet.
15 Douglas Devastators, obsolete and slow, attacking without fighter escort.
The combat air patrol fell on them like wolves.
Zero fighters shot them down one after another.
Anti-aircraft fire filled the sky.
The Americans pressed their attacks with suicidal courage, but they were outmatched.
Torpedoes dropped into the water, ran wide, or were evaded.
Not a single hit.
14 of the 15 Devastators were shot down.
Only one pilot survived.
On a Kagi’s bridge, the victory seemed complete.
The Americans were brave but incompetent.
Their attacks were uncoordinated, their aircraft obsolete.
If this was the best the American carrier could do, the Kido Bhutai would survive and strike back.
But the attack had consequences.
The carriers had maneuvered violently, breaking formation again.
The combat air patrol was at sea level, having just shot down the torpedo bombers.
Pilots were low on fuel and ammunition, and the decks were still cluttered with aircraft from the Midway Strike.
At 09:30, the last aircraft from the Midway Strike landed.
Now the carriers could begin the complex process of striking those aircraft below, bringing up the reserve strike force and launching against the American carrier.
Nagumo estimated they could launch in 30 minutes, perhaps 45.
Minutes later, more American torpedo bombers appeared, this time from Enterprise.
14 more devastators attacking from a different angle.
Again, the combat air patrol and anti-aircraft fire tore them apart.
10 were shot down.
No hits.
The Americans seemed determined to throw away their aircraft in futile attacks.
Kusaka watched the slaughter with grim satisfaction, but growing unease.
“Where are their dive bombers?” he asked.
American carriers carried dive bombers as well as torpedo planes.
Why were they only seeing torpedo attacks? No one had an answer.
Perhaps the Americans were poorly coordinated.
Perhaps their dive bombers had gotten lost.
Whatever the reason, the absence was fortunate.
At 0955, yet another group of torpedo bombers appeared, this time from Yorktown.
12 aircraft attacking through intense fire.
The combat air patrol was exhausted now.
Some fighters landing to refuel and rearm, but enough remained to savage this attack, too.
Seven were shot down.
Again, no hits.
On a Kagi’s flight deck, crews worked to spot the reserve strike force.
Aircraft were being brought up from the hangers, positioned for launch.
The deck was crowded with planes, some still being fueled, others having weapons checked.
In perhaps 15 minutes, they could begin launching.
The American carrier would pay for its futile attacks.
At exactly 10:22, lookouts aboard a Kagi looked up and saw something that froze their blood.
High above, where no one had been watching because all attention had been on the low-level torpedo attacks.
American dive bombers were rolling into their attacks.
They came from Enterprise and Yorktown.
37 Douglas Dauntless dive bombers that had arrived at precisely the moment when the Kido Butai was most vulnerable.
The decks were crowded with aircraft, armed and fueled.
The combat air patrol was at sea level, out of position.
The carriers were making flank speed in straight lines, recovering from the last torpedo attack, unable to maneuver effectively.
On a Kagi’s bridge, someone shouted a warning.
Nagumo looked up to see aircraft diving almost vertically, growing larger with terrifying speed.
There was no time to do anything.
No time to turn, no time to launch fighters, no time even to think.
The first bomb hit a kagi amid ships penetrating to the hanger deck where aircraft were packed together, where land attack bombs from the aborted riming operation sat unsecured, where aviation fuel lines ran.
The explosion was catastrophic.
Secondary explosions followed as bombs and torpedoes cooked off.
Fire raced through the hanger, reached the flight deck, engulfed aircraft spotted for launch.
Kusaka, standing next to Nagumo, was blown off his feet by the blast.
When he struggled up, the bridge was filled with smoke.
Flames roared from the hanger below.
The ship’s structure groaned.
Akagi, the pride of the fleet, the carrier that had launched the Pearl Harbor attack, was dying.
Nearby, Kaga took four bomb hits in rapid succession.
The explosions ripped through her hanger decks, ignited fuel and munitions, turned the carrier into an inferno.
Soryu took three hits with the same devastating result.
In the space of 5 minutes, three of the four carriers in the Kido Bhutai were transformed from powerful warships into burning wrecks.
Only Hiru, separated from the others by earlier maneuvering, escaped the initial attack.
Yamaguchi, watching from Hiru’s bridge, saw the disaster unfold.
Three carriers burning, the pride of the Japanese Navy crippled in minutes.
He immediately ordered his aircraft prepared for launch.
Here you would strike back.
Aboard the burning Akagi, Nagumo stood on the bridge, stunned.
Everything had collapsed so quickly.
Minutes ago, they had been preparing to launch against the American carrier.
Now his flagship was on fire, unsalvageable.
Kusaka urged him to transfer his flag to a cruiser to maintain command.
But Nagumo seemed paralyzed, unable to process what had happened.
The confidence of the previous evening, the certainty that had pervaded the fleet, had been destroyed as thoroughly as the carriers.
The Kido Bhutai, which had seemed invincible, had been caught at the worst possible moment and paid the ultimate price.
In the hours before Midway, Japanese admirals had spoken with confidence born of 6 months of unbroken victory.
They had believed their intelligence, trusted their plans, and assumed the Americans would react predictably.
They had divided their forces, split their objectives, and made decisions based on incomplete information.
What they said in those final hours reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of their situation.
They didn’t know American code breakers had read their plans.
They didn’t know three carriers waited in ambush.
They didn’t know their own success had made them overconfident.
Their victories had made them careless.
The words spoken on Akagi’s bridge that morning, the orders given, the decisions made had seemed reasonable at the time.
Recover the Midway strike force, rearm for a second attack, deal with the enemy carrier after finishing midway.
Each decision made sense in isolation.
Together, they created a cascade of delays that left the Kido Bhai vulnerable at precisely the wrong moment.
By noon on June 4th, the battle was effectively over.
Three Japanese carriers were sinking or abandoned.
Hiru would launch strikes that damaged Yorktown, but American dive bombers would find and destroy Hiru that afternoon.
The Kido Bhai, the force that had terrorized the Pacific for 6 months, ceased to exist.
Yamamoto, receiving reports aboard Yamato, initially couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Four carriers lost, the entire striking force destroyed.
He had expected to annihilate the American fleet.
Instead, Japan’s carrier force had been gutted in a single morning.
The admiral, who had warned that he could run wild for 6 months, had been proven right.
6 months after Pearl Harbor, the tide had turned.
The words spoken in confidence the night before Midway now seemed like epitaps for a strategy that had failed.
For a plan that had been too clever, for an enemy that had been underestimated.
In the end, what Japanese admirals said in the hours before Midway mattered less than what they didn’t know.
They didn’t know the Americans were reading their mail.
They didn’t know three carriers waited an ambush.
They didn’t know that courage and determination could overcome tactical disadvantages.
and they didn’t know that in war, confidence is no substitute for accurate intelligence and sound judgment.
The battle would continue for another 2 days as Yamamoto tried to salvage something from the disaster.
But the outcome was already decided.
Japan had lost not just four carriers, but the initiative in the Pacific War.
The words spoken before midway, the confidence expressed, the plans made, all belong to a moment that ended at 10:22 on the morning of June 4th when American dive bombers appeared out of the sun and changed the course of the
