In the pre-dawn darkness of June 4th, 1942, many young Japanese pilots sit in their cockpits aboard four aircraft carriers, breathing deeply of the Pacific morning air.

Others are being briefed in ready rooms, studying their target maps one final time.

Still others, mechanics and deck crews, are making lastminute adjustments to aircraft that will soon launch into history.

Unknown to them, 240 mi to the northeast, three American carriers are already turning into the wind, preparing to launch their own strikes.

In just a few hours, what was meant to be Japan’s decisive victory, the elimination of American carrier power in the Pacific will instead become the Empire’s most catastrophic defeat.

Four Japanese carriers that had triumphed at Pearl Harbor will slip beneath the waves, taking with them not just steel and fuel, but the dreams of Japanese expansion and over 3,000 irreplaceable airmen and sailors.

This had been the culmination of six months of victories.

And now, for the first time, this pivotal battle will be viewed through the eyes of those who lost it.

The Japanese admirals who planned it, the pilots who flew it, and the sailors who died in it.

This is the Battle of Midway.

It is the spring of 1942, 2 months before the disaster at Midway.

Currently in Tokyo, Admiral Isuroku Yamamoto, commanderin-chief of the combined fleet, is locked in heated arguments with the naval general staff.

Things are not going as smoothly as the public believes.

The previous December’s attack on Pearl Harbor, while tactically brilliant, had failed to destroy even a single American aircraft carrier.

This reality haunts Yamamoto’s every waking moment.

The USS Enterprise and USS Lexington had been at sea during the attack.

And now, 6 months later, these carriers continue to strike at Japanese forces across the Pacific.

Worse still, on April 18th, American B-25 bombers launched from the carrier USS Hornet had appeared in the skies over Tokyo itself.

The do little raid, an unthinkable humiliation for the Japanese military that had sworn to protect the emperor from all harm.

This raid, while causing minimal physical damage, had created a psychological earthquake within Japanese leadership.

The vulnerability of the homeland had been exposed, and someone had to take responsibility.

Vice Admiral Tichi Nagumo, who had led the Pearl Harbor attack, was particularly shaken.

He had been criticized for not launching a third wave at Pearl Harbor, for not finding the American carriers, and now Tokyo itself had been bombed.

The pressure for a decisive action was immense, but the Japanese high command was, as always, deeply divided.

In the corridors of power, two competing strategies emerged.

The naval general staff, conservative and cautious, advocated for a southern strategy, continuing to consolidate gains in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, cutting the supply lines between America and Australia.

But Yamamoto had a different vision, one born of both opportunity and desperation.

He knew something that few others in Japan truly understood.

Time was not on their side.

During his years in America, studying at Harvard and serving as a naval attache, Yamamoto had witnessed American industrial might firsthand.

He had seen the steel mills of Pittsburgh, the shipyards of Newport News, the endless farmlands that could feed millions of workers.

Once America’s war machine reached full production, Japan would be overwhelmed by sheer material superiority.

As Yamamoto would tell Prime Minister Fumimaru Kono in a documented conversation from 1940, “If we are ordered to do it, then I can guarantee to put up a tough fight for the first 6 months, but I have absolutely no confidence as to what would happen if it went on for 2 or 3 years.

” This prediction would prove prophetically accurate.

In another verified statement from September 1941, he had warned, “For a while we’ll have everything our own way, stretching out in every direction like an octopus spreading its tentacles, but it’ll last for a year and a half at the most.

” The solution, Yamamoto argued, was Operation MI, the invasion of Midway at this tiny pair of islands, just six square miles of coral and sand, held strategic importance far beyond its size.

Located 1,100 mi northwest of Pearl Harbor, Midway served as America’s westernmost outpost, a crucial refueling station for submarines and aircraft patrolling the central Pacific.

But more importantly for Yamamoto, Midway would serve as bait.

Irresistible bait that would draw out the American carriers from Pearl Harbor.

When they came to defend the atole, the superior Japanese fleet would destroy them in a decisive battle.

The Kai Kessan that Japanese naval doctrine had always envisioned.

The plan was complex, perhaps too complex.

It involved multiple forces operating across thousands of miles of ocean.

an invasion fleet to capture Midway, a carrier strike force to destroy American air power, a main body with battleships, including Yamamoto’s flagship, the mighty Yamato, and even a diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands to confuse the Americans.

Some 200 ships in total, the largest fleet Japan had ever assembled.

The operation order alone ran to 700 pages, distributed only days before sailing, giving subordinate commanders barely any time to study it.

Opposition to the plan was significant, but ultimately futile.

Rear Admiral Mat Ugaki, Yamamoto’s chief of staff, conducted war games in early May that showed disturbing results.

In the tabletop exercises, the American carriers appeared earlier than expected and inflicted serious damage on the Japanese fleet.

But these results were literally overruled.

The umpires arbitrarily reduced American hits and refloated Japanese ships that had been sunk in the exercise.

When Lieutenant Commander Minoru Jender, the brilliant tactical planner who had designed the Pearl Harbor attack, expressed concerns about the operation’s complexity and the vulnerability of the carriers, he was dismissed.

The victory disease, that fatal overconfidence born from 6 months of easy conquests, had infected even the most brilliant minds in the Imperial Navy.

The Japanese believed they had sunk two American carriers at Coral Sea in May.

They had actually sunk only one, the USS Lexington.

They assumed the USS Yorktown was so badly damaged she would be out of action for months.

Japanese intelligence had failed to detect the frantic repair efforts at Pearl Harbor, where 1,400 workers labored around the clock to patch up Yorktown in just 3 days, a feat Japanese shipyards could never have accomplished.

They calculated the Americans could have at most two operational carriers to oppose them.

Meanwhile, the man chosen to lead the carrier strike force, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagamo, harbored his own deep doubts.

Nagamo was not a carrier admiral by training or temperament.

A torpedo specialist who had been appointed to command the first airfleet more by seniority than expertise.

He had never been comfortable with naval aviation.

At Pearl Harbor, his caution had prevented a third strike that might have destroyed the American fuel depots and repair facilities.

Now he was being asked to lead an even more complex operation with an increasingly worn out force.

His carriers had been at sea almost continuously since Pearl Harbor, striking Darwin, Salon, and supporting operations from the Indian Ocean to the Coral Sea.

His air crews were exhausted, and the ships needed maintenance.

Most troublingly, the recent battle of the Coral Sea in May had cost Japan dearly.

While tactically a Japanese victory with the sinking of the Lexington, strategically it was a setback.

The carrier Shokaku had been badly damaged and would need months of repairs.

Her sister ship Zuikaku had lost so many aircraft and pilots that she could not participate in the midway operation.

Two of Japan’s best carriers would be absent from the decisive battle.

As Nagamo confided to his chief of staff, Captain Ryunosuk Kusaka, “We are being asked to do too much with too little.

The Americans have had time to prepare.

Our pilots are tired, and we don’t even know where their carriers are.

Yamamotoan is gambling with the fate of the empire.

” But perhaps the most fatal flaw in the Japanese plan was one of intelligence and mindset.

Unknown to the Japanese, the Americans had broken the Japanese Navy’s JN25B code.

Commander Joseph Rashfort, station hypo at Pearl Harbor, had been reading Japanese messages since early 1942.

The Americans knew about Operation MI, knew the target was Midway, confirmed through the famous AF ruse, where Midway broadcast false reports of water shortage via secure cable, then intercepted Japanese messages that AF was short on water and knew the approximate date of the attack.

Admiral Chester Nimitz had complete Japanese order of battle and could position his forces accordingly.

The Japanese submarine cordon meant to detect American ships leaving Pearl Harbor would arrive on station too late.

The American carriers had already passed through.

The planned reconnaissance by flying boats of Pearl Harbor, Operation K was cancelled when submarine Natapshad 123 found American warships USS Thornton and USS Pelba occupying French frigot Scholes, the intended refueling point.

This had worked in March when two Kawanishi H8K flying boats had refueled there from submarines to bomb Aahu, but Nimmits had learned from that raid.

One by one, the eyes that might have warned of the American ambush were being blinded.

Radio intelligence did indicate increased American submarine activity and message traffic around Midway.

The ease with which the Americans had found Japanese forces at Coral Sea suggested their codes might be compromised.

But these warnings were dismissed.

As one staff officer put it, “The Americans are too stupid to break our codes and too cowardly to fight unless they have overwhelming superiority.

They will come to Midway only after we have taken it, and then we will destroy them.

” On May 27th, the anniversary of Admiral Togo’s great victory over the Russians at Tsushima, Nagumo’s carrier strike force, the Kido Bhutai, sailed from the inland sea.

Four carriers departed.

Akagi, Red Castle, Yamamoto’s former command, and Nagumo’s flagship.

Kaga, Increased Joy, the converted battleship.

Hiu, flying dragon, and Soryu, green dragon.

Between them they carried 248 aircraft including 2110 being fed to Midway with 225 operational for combat and the most experienced naval aviators in the world.

These were the ships and men who had devastated Pearl Harbor who had rampaged from Hawaii to Salon.

Surely nothing could stop them.

Commander Minoru Jender, still recuperating from his emergency appendecttomy, but serving as Nagumo’s air operations officer despite his illness, made a final entry in his diary before departure.

We sail with heavy hearts.

This operation has been rushed.

Our intelligence is poor, and the plan is too complex.

But we are samurai.

We will do our duty even if it leads to death.

May the gods protect Japan, for I fear we sail toward catastrophe.

The fatal flaw of overconfidence was perhaps best exemplified by the treatment of Commander Mitsuo Fuida, who had led the Pearl Harbor attack.

In late May, Fuida underwent an emergency appendecttomy aboard a Kagi.

The surgery left him too weak to fly, depriving the Japanese of their most experienced strike leader at the most critical moment.

According to later testimony from other officers, Fuida watched the preparations from his sick bed with growing unease, sensing that everything about this operation felt wrong.

The timing, the plan, the very air itself seemed heavy with impending doom.

However, historians note that Fuida’s postwar accounts must be treated with caution, as modern scholarship has challenged many of his claims.

In the pre-dawn darkness of June 3rd, 600 m to the north, the Alleutian Islands operation begins.

Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakutoa’s second carrier strike force with the light carriers Ryujo and Juno launches strikes against Dutch Harbor in Alaska.

This is meant to be the Great Diversion, pulling American forces north while Nagumo attacks Midway.

But unknown to the Japanese, the Americans have not taken the bait.

Admiral Chester Nimmitz, fully informed by his codereakers of the real target, has kept his carriers at midway.

The elaborate deception has deceived no one but the Japanese themselves.

Meanwhile, Nagumo’s carriers steam through fog toward their launch point, maintaining strict radio silence that will prevent any coordination between the widely separated forces.

In the ready rooms, pilots receive their final briefings.

Lieutenant Joyi Tomminaga, who will lead the first strike, studies the reconnaissance photos of Midway one last time.

The images are weeks old, but they show the airfield, the fuel tanks, the defensive positions.

What they don’t show is the recent reinforcement of the island, the additional fighters, bombers, and most crucially, the radar station that will detect the Japanese strike while it’s still 93 mi away.

That evening, American PBY Catalina flying boats spot portions of the Japanese invasion fleet 700 m west of Midway.

This first contact electrifies the American command.

Navy pilot Enen Jack Reed flying a PBY reports at 0925.

Cited main body bearing 262 distance 700.

But Nagumo’s carriers remain undetected, hidden by weather and distance.

On the bridge of Akagi, the tension is palpable.

Chief of Staff Kusaka approaches Nagumo.

Sir, if the Americans have spotted the invasion force, they may be more alert than we expected.

Nagumo dismisses the concern.

The invasion force is supposed to be seen.

It will draw them out.

Tomorrow, we will destroy their air power on Midway.

And when their carriers arrive to counterattack, we will be waiting.

But even as Nagumo speaks these confident words, 300 m to the northeast, Admiral Raymond Spruent aboard USS Enterprise is plotting the Japanese carrier forc’s probable position.

The American carriers are exactly where they shouldn’t be according to Japanese calculations.

Already at sea, already in position, already preparing to strike.

Task Force 16 under Spruent with Enterprise and Hornet and Task Force 17 under Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher with the hastily repaired Yorktown have reached Point Luck their designated rendevous northeast of Midway undetected by any Japanese reconnaissance.

The weather is clear, the seas calm, perfect flying conditions with visibility extending for miles.

At precisely 0430, Akagi and Kaga begin launching the first wave against Midway.

The launch proceeds smoothly.

36 ID 3A Val dive bombers, 36 Nakajima, B5N Kate level bombers and 36 Mitsubishi A6M0 fighters.

Lieutenant Tomminaga leads them into the lightning sky, circling once over the fleet before heading southeast toward Midway, 240 mi distant.

As the 108 aircraft form up and depart, Nagumo makes his first fateful decision of the day.

Despite doctrine calling for a full deckload strike to maximize impact, he holds back 108 aircraft.

Kates armed with type 91 torpedoes and 800 kg armor-piercing bombs in case American ships appear.

It seems prudent, but it will prove catastrophic.

Below decks in the hanger of a kagi, Commander Mitsuo Fuida watches the launch from his sick bed, still recovering from his appendecttomy.

The absence of his experience and tactical genius will be keenly felt in the hours to come.

According to witness accounts from other officers, Fuchida expressed deep concern about the operation, though his specific words remain unverified in contemporary documents.

At 0500, Nagumo launches his search planes, just seven aircraft to cover a vast expanse of ocean.

By contrast, the Americans have over 30 PBYs searching for the Japanese fleet.

Most critically, the search plane from the heavy cruiser tone, designated as number four scout and assigned to search the sector where the American carriers actually are launches 30 minutes late.

Various sources attribute this to catapult problems, though some suggest engine trouble or bureaucratic delays.

This single mechanical failure will cascade into catastrophe.

Ironically, recent scholarship suggests that had the plane launched on time, its search pattern might have missed the American task forces entirely.

At 0534, PBY pilot Lieutenant Howard AD spots the Japanese carriers and transmits the electrifying message, “Enemy carriers.

” He follows with more detail at 0552.

Two carriers and battleships bearing 320°, distance 180 mi, course 135, speed 25.

On Enterprise, Spruent makes a command decision that will determine the battle’s outcome.

Despite the extreme range, nearly 200 m, he orders an immediate strike.

His aircraft will have barely enough fuel to return, but he wants to catch the Japanese when they’re most vulnerable.

recovering their midway strike.

Meanwhile, at 0553, radar on midway picks up the incoming Japanese strike 93 miles out.

Air raid sirens whale across the tiny atole.

Every available aircraft is scrambled.

Bombers to attack the Japanese fleet, fighters to defend.

Marine fighters launch into the air.

20 obsolete Brewster F 2 A Buffaloos and seven Grumman F 4F Wildcats.

They are outnumbered four to one by the escorting zeros.

The interception occurs at 0616.

Marine Major Floyd Parks leading the defenders makes his final radio transmission.

Hawks at Angels 14 supported by fighters.

The massacre is swift and brutal.

The Zeros with their superior maneuverability and experienced pilots tear through the marine formation.

Within minutes, 13 Marine fighters are shot down, four severely damaged.

Major Parks is among the dead.

The Zeros lose just three planes.

At 0630, Tomminaga’s strike force arrives over Midway.

The dive bombers and level bombers execute their attacks with precision, setting fuel tanks ablaze, destroying buildings, cratering the runway.

But as Tomaga circles to assess damage, he sees something troubling.

American aircraft are still taking off from the supposedly destroyed airfield.

The runway, while damaged, is still operational.

Most importantly, none of the American aircraft were caught on the ground.

They had all been launched before the strike arrived.

At 0700, Tomminaga radios Nagumo.

There is need for a second attack wave.

This message reaches Nagumo at 0700 just as the first American strikes from Midway begin arriving.

First come six TBF Avengers and four B-26 Marauders carrying torpedoes.

The Zeros assigned to combat air patrol swarm them.

Five Avengers are shot down, two B26 destroyed.

But one B-26, nicknamed Suzie Q and piloted by Lieutenant James Murray, makes a desperate run directly at a Kagi after dropping his torpedo.

According to multiple Japanese witnesses, including bridge personnel, the bomber roared down the length of Aagi’s flight deck, its gunners strafing and killing two sailors.

The plane pulled up at the last second, barely clearing the bridge where Nagumo and his staff ducked for cover.

Muri’s aircraft sustained over 500 bullet holes and lost hydraulic fluid, but somehow made it back to Midway.

A second B26, piloted by Lieutenant Herbert Mays and heavily damaged, actually crashed into the ocean near a Kagi’s bridge, possibly attempting a deliberate ramming attack.

This near miss has a profound psychological effect.

As Captain Kusaka would later testify, the admiral was visibly shaken.

To have an enemy plane nearly crash into the bridge, it was as if the war god had given us a warning.

More American attacks follow in rapid succession.

16 Marine dive bombers led by Major Loftton Henderson, who would be killed leading his squadron.

15B7 bombing from high altitude, 11 marine vindicators.

All are repulsed with heavy losses, scoring no hits, but they keep the Japanese carriers dodging and weaving, unable to conduct flight operations efficiently.

At 0715, Nagumo faces a critical decision.

His reserve aircraft are armed with armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes for ship attack.

But Tomminaga needs support at midway, and no enemy carriers have been spotted.

After heated discussion with his staff, Nagumo issues the order that seals his fate.

Remove torpedoes, load land attack bombs.

This violates Yamamoto’s explicit orders to maintain readiness for anti-ship operations.

Down in the hangar decks of all four carriers, chaos erupts.

Ordinance crews begin the laborious process of removing type 91 torpedoes and 800 kg armor-piercing bombs, replacing them with smaller land attack munitions.

Against regulations and safety protocols, the removed torpedoes are stacked in the hanger spaces rather than being returned to the magazines far below.

There isn’t time.

Bombs are piled near the aircraft.

Fuel hoses snake everywhere as planes are refueled.

As one mechanic, Airman my would later testify if he had survived.

The hangar deck looked like a bomb factory.

One spark and we would all be dead.

At 0728, everything changes.

The tone’s delayed scout plane number four finally reports.

Sight what appears to be 10 enemy surface ships bearing 010 degrees.

Distance 240 mi from midway.

Course 150° speed over 20 knots.

Nagumo immediately signals ascertain ship types.

The response doesn’t come for 12 agonizing minutes.

Meanwhile, the riming continues, the hanger decks becoming increasingly cluttered with ordinance.

At 0745, another American strike arrives.

16 Marine dive bombers from VMSB 241 led by Major Henderson.

The Zeros savage them, shooting down eight, but the attacks keep coming, forcing violent evasive maneuvers that prevent flight operations.

Nagumo is trapped in an impossible position.

His fighters are running low on fuel and ammunition from fighting off continuous attacks.

Tomaga’s strike force will return soon, also low on fuel.

His decks are spotted with aircraft being rearmed.

And somewhere out there are American surface ships, possibly carriers.

At 0809, tone number four scout finally clarifies.

Enemy ships are five cruisers and five destroyers.

Nagumo breathes a sigh of relief, no carriers, and continues rearming for a second midway strike.

But at 0820, another message shatters his composure.

The enemy is accompanied by what appears to be a carrier.

Rear Admiral Tamman Yamaguchi, commanding the second carrier division from Hiru, immediately signals Nagumo at 0830.

Consider it advisable to launch attack force immediately.

Yamaguchi, aggressive and decisive, sees the danger clearly.

Every minute of delay increases vulnerability, but Nagumo hesitates.

His aircraft are in chaos.

Some armed with bombs, some with torpedoes, many not armed at all.

His fighters need to land and refuel.

Tomminaga’s returning strike is approaching.

To launch now would mean a partial uncoordinated attack with no fighter escort, violating every principle of Japanese carrier doctrine.

Commander Minorugu Jender, despite his illness from the appendecttomy, is consulted.

According to staff officer testimonies, he argued for an immediate launch.

Speed is everything now.

Launch what we have.

But Captain Kusaka council’s caution.

If we attack peace meal, we’ll suffer heavy losses for little gain.

Better to recover our aircraft, properly arm them, and launch a fully constituted strike according to doctrine.

Nagumo, always cautious, always by the book, sides with Kusaka.

We will recover Tom Monoga’s force, rearm and refuel properly, and then strike with full strength.

He signals all carriers.

After completing recovery of aircraft, we shall proceed north to engage the enemy.

This decision, logical, prudent, and completely wrong, seals the fate of the Kido Bhutai.

As Tommanaga’s planes land starting at 0837 and are struck below to be refueled and rearmed, the hanger decks become death traps.

Fuel lines are everywhere.

Bombs and torpedoes are scattered about.

The constant cycling of elevators brings planes up and down.

Safety protocols are completely abandoned in the rush to prepare for launch.

No one notices the first American torpedo planes appearing on the horizon until it’s too late.

At 0920, the first American carrier planes arrive.

15 TBD Devastator torpedo bombers from Hornets torpedo squadron 8 VT8 led by Lieutenant Commander John Waldron.

Without fighter escort, flying obsolete aircraft at just 100 knots, barely above the waves, they bore in against the entire Japanese fleet.

The zeros on combat air patrol finally with worthy targets after hours of fighting off land-based attacks descend like hawks on pigeons.

The massacre is total.

One by one, the slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers are shot down.

All 15 are destroyed.

Of 30 air crew, only one survives.

Enen George Gay, who will float in the water, hiding under his seat cushion, watching the rest of the battle unfold.

Not a single torpedo hits, but Waldron’s sacrifice is not in vain.

The Zeros are all drawn down to sea level, focused on the torpedo planes.

At 0954, 14 Devastators from Enterprises VT6 arrive, led by Lieutenant Commander Eugene Lindsay.

Again, the Zeros swarm down.

10 are shot down, four escape, no hits.

At 1012 devastators from Yorktown’s VT3 attack led by Lieutenant Commander Lance Massie, 10 more shot down.

Still no torpedo hits.

Of 41 torpedo bombers that attack, only six survive.

It seems like another slaughter for nothing.

On the bridge of Aagi, there is relief, even celebration.

The American attacks have been repulsed with terrible losses.

Nagumo orders the strike force to prepare for launch at 10:30.

Victory seems within grasp, but high above, unnoticed with every zero at sea level, two groups of SBD dauntless dive bombers arrive simultaneously.

Lieutenant Commander Wade McCcluskey, leading 33 dive bombers from Enterprise, had searched beyond his calculated interception point, gambling his fuel to find the Japanese.

He had spotted the destroyer Arashi speeding north.

It had been depth charging the submarine USS Nautilus and followed its course directly to the Kido Bhutai.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander Max Leslie’s 17 dive bombers from Yorktown arrived from a different direction at the same moment.

At 10:20, lookouts on a kagi scream, “Hell divers!” But it’s too late.

With the zeros at sea level, with the decks packed with fueled and armed aircraft, with bombs and torpedoes scattered throughout the hanger spaces, the Japanese carriers are perfectly vulnerable.

At 10:22, McCcluskey pushes over into his dive from 14,500 ft.

Behind him, his squadrons roll into their attack dives.

The rising sun insignia on the carrier decks below grow larger, becoming perfect targets in the crystalline Pacific morning.

Lieutenant Commander McCcluskey leads his bombers against Kaga, while Lieutenant Richard Best takes his division against Akagi.

Almost simultaneously, Leslie’s Yorktown bombers plunge towards Soryu.

The Japanese carriers recovering from violent evasive maneuvers and with their decks crowded with aircraft are caught at their most vulnerable moment.

On Kaga, four bombs strike in rapid succession.

The first, a 1,000 pounder, explodes near the bridge at 10:22, killing Captain Jasaku Okarda and most of his command staff instantly.

The second strikes the flight deck amid ships, penetrating to the hanger deck where fueled aircraft explode in chain reactions.

The third and fourth bombs turn the ship into an inferno.

Within minutes, Kaga is a floating torch with ammunition cooking off and aviation fuel creating walls of flame.

A kagi takes just one direct hit at 1,024 from Lieutenant Best’s bomb, but it’s enough.

The 1,000lb bomb penetrates the flight deck and explodes in the upper hanger among 18 aircraft being refueled and rearmed.

The induced explosions of the improperly stored ordinance are catastrophic.

Torpedoes detonate, bombs explode, and aviation fuel creates an unstoppable conflration.

Bridge personnel report that within 2 minutes, the entire hanger deck is an inferno with temperatures exceeding 1,000° C.

Soru suffers three direct hits in her hanger spaces at 10:25.

Lieutenant Leslie’s bombers place their ordinance with deadly precision.

13 valves, three zeros, and four Kates on the flight deck are blown apart.

Below in the hangers, the stacked torpedoes and bombs create secondary explosions that tear through the ship’s vitals.

Her captain, Ryusaku Yanagimoto, refuses to leave his burning ship.

According to the testimony of Chief Petty Officer Abe, who was sent to rescue him, Yanagamoto was last seen on the bridge, sword in hand, singing the national anthem, Kimigayo, as flames engulfed the command structure.

Only Hiru, separated from the others by several miles and screened by clouds, escapes.

Admiral Yamaguchi immediately prepares a counter strike, but 3/4 of Japan’s carrier striking power has been eliminated in 5 minutes.

At 1058, even as the three carriers burn, Yamaguchi launches 18 Valdive bombers and six zero escorts led by Lieutenant Mitio Kobayashi.

Following the American planes return track, they find Yorktown at 1200.

Despite fierce resistance from Wildcat fighters and anti-aircraft fire, they score three bomb hits, leaving the American carrier dead in the water, burning and listing.

Damage control parties work frantically, and incredibly, within 2 hours, Yorktown is underway again, making 20 knots.

Yamaguchi, aggressive to the end, immediately prepares a second strike.

At 13:31, only 10 Kate torpedo bombers and six zeros are available, led by Lieutenant Tomminaga.

During the morning midway strike, Tomminaga’s left-wing fuel tank had been damaged.

Maintenance crews only had time to fuel his right tank.

Offered a chance to switch planes, Tomaga refused, stating every aircraft was needed.

He knows it’s a one-way mission.

His fuel will only last for the attack run.

At 14:30, Tomminaga’s small force finds Yorktown, now making 19 knots after heroic damage control efforts.

American fighters tear into the formation.

Tomaga holds his course despite his plane catching fire from fighter attacks.

According to American witnesses, his burning aircraft maintained its torpedo run until the very last moment, releasing its torpedo before crashing into the sea.

Two torpedoes hit Yorktown at 1445, tearing open her port side and causing a 26° list.

This time, the damage is fatal.

But at 1700, 24 dive bombers from Enterprise find Hiru.

Four bombs turn her into another inferno.

At 1703, Yamaguchi assembles his crew on the tilting flight deck.

According to survivors, he apologized for the defeat, urged them to survive and rebuild a stronger navy, then retired to his bridge with Captain Tomoko Kaku.

Both chose to go down with their ship.

Their bodies were never recovered.

Yamaguchi’s final message to Nagumo included an apology for the defeat and a hope for the emperor’s fortune in war.

He was postumously promoted to vice admiral.

Through the night of June 4th to 5th, the surviving Japanese ships attempt damage control, but it’s hopeless.

Soryu sinks at 1913 on the 4th with 711 men.

Kaga follows at 1925, taking 811 sailors to the bottom.

At 0200 on June 5th, Yamamoto, still 600 m away aboard his flagship Yamato with the main body that never engaged, finally accepts reality.

He signals, “Occupation of Midway is canled.

Withdraw.

” Akagi proves surprisingly hard to kill.

Despite the raging fires, she remains afloat through the night.

At 0500 on June 5th, after all survivors are evacuated, Japanese destroyers fire four torpedoes into her.

She finally sinks, taking 267 men with her.

Hiu, also refusing to die easily, is scuttled at 0510.

After burning through the night, she takes 392 sailors and both her admirals into the deep.

As the sun rises on June 5th, the cream of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s carrier force lies on the bottom of the Pacific in water over 17,000 ft deep.

With them are 3,57 men.

Of these, 2,181 died on the carriers.

A Kagi lost 267.

Kaga 811, Hiru 392, and Soryu 711.

Another 792 died on the heavy cruisers when Makuma was sunk, 700 dead, and Moami damaged, 92 dead, after they collided during night operations and were caught by American aircraft.

Crucially, only 110 were air crew.

Most pilots were rescued.

The greater irreplaceable loss was over 700 skilled aircraft mechanics and flight deck personnel whose expertise had taken years to develop.

The survivors picked up by destroyers are immediately segregated from the rest of the fleet to prevent news of the disaster from spreading.

They are confined below decks, forbidden to communicate with anyone.

The disaster isn’t quite over.

On June 6th, the submarine I168 commanded by Lieutenant Commander Yahachi Tanab finds the crippled Yorktown Undertoe by USS Vero.

Tonab had been off midway providing weather reports and had watched the morning attacks through his periscope.

Now slipping through the destroyer screen at 3 knots, he achieves what the entire Kido Bhutai could not.

At 1331, Tanabay fires a spread of four torpedoes from 1,200 yds.

Two hit Yorktown.

One hits the destroyer Hammond alongside, providing auxiliary power.

Hammond breaks in two and sinks in 4 minutes with 80 dead, many killed by her own depth charges exploding.

Yorktown, hit by two more torpedoes, is doomed, but refuses to sink immediately.

She finally rolls over and sinks at 0701 on June 7th in approximately 16,650 ft of water.

This small consolation sinking the carrier that had helped destroy the Kido Bhutai barely registers against the scale of the Japanese defeat.

Meanwhile, the heavy cruisers Magami and Mikuma attempting to bombard Midway on the night of June 4th had collided while avoiding submarine attack.

American aircraft find them on June 6th.

Makuma is sunk with 700 hands, the highest death toll of any Japanese ship at midway.

Moami, heavily damaged and with 92 dead, barely makes it back to Trrook.

The disaster is complete.

The journey home is one of shame and silence.

Wounded sailors from the carriers are kept isolated in special compartments.

No one is allowed to speak of what happened.

When the fleet returns to Japan at Hashiima Naval Base on June 14th, they anchor at night to avoid observation.

The wounded are offloaded in darkness, classified as secret patients, and taken to isolated naval hospitals where they’re kept under virtual arrest, quarantined even from their own families.

They are forbidden any contact with the outside world.

According to US Naval Institute sources, they were treated in an appalling manner as disgraced losers.

The survivors of the air groups are immediately reassigned to distant bases in the South Pacific without being allowed to see families or friends.

The majority will die in the subsequent battles of the Solomon Islands campaign.

The carrier crews are dispersed to different ships and bases sworn to secrecy under threat of severe punishment.

The systematic cover up begins immediately.

The government prepares its propaganda.

The sunken carriers are Kagi and Hiryu remain on the official roster as unmanned to maintain the fiction they still exist.

No flag officers are caught marshaled or even officially reprimanded as this would require admitting defeat.

Information about the defeat is withheld from the Imperial Japanese Army for a full month.

Even Prime Minister Hideki Tojo is kept in the dark about the full extent of the disaster.

On June 5th, while the ship still burned, Tokyo radio had announced to the Japanese people, “Naval and air forces of the Empire have succeeded in inflicting heavy damage on American fleet and air forces in the Central Pacific.

” Later broadcasts added that Japan had achieved another smashing victory with two American carriers sunk.

As an aside mentioned almost in passing, the loss of one carrier Kaga was acknowledged with Soryu’s loss admitted later.

Akagi and Hiru’s destruction would not be publicly acknowledged until after the war.

The Japanese people celebrated in the streets, unaware they were cheering a catastrophe.

It wasn’t until June 10th that the Tokyo press first hinted at problems, using vague language about difficulties in the operation, but still maintaining the fiction of overall victory.

Commander Fuchida recuperating in the hospital from his appendecttomy and burns received during Akagi’s destruction, is visited by a naval intelligence officer who warns him, “You are forbidden to speak of what happened.

As far as the world knows, we won a great victory.

According to postwar accounts that must be treated cautiously given questions about Fuida’s reliability, he responded with bitter irony about the futility of building a war on lies.

Though this exchange cannot be independently verified, Admiral Yamamoto returns to his cabin aboard Yamato and doesn’t emerge for 3 days.

His staff hears him pacing at night, tortured by his failure.

To his diary, he confides thoughts that would only be discovered after the war.

According to staff officers who served with him, Yamamoto fell into deep depression, knowing the war was now unwinable.

His prediction to Prime Minister Konoy had proven prophetic.

Japan had indeed run wild for 6 months, exactly as he had foreseen.

Now at Midway, occurring precisely 6 months after Pearl Harbor, the tide had turned.

In a private meeting with his staff documented by Captain Kurroshima, Yamamoto was brutally frank.

I gambled and lost.

In trying to destroy the American carriers, I have lost our own.

The war is not lost yet, but I fear I have lost the means to win it.

To his close friend, Rear Admiral Teichi, he would later write a letter that survived the war.

The defeat at Midway was not a matter of bad luck or enemy superiority in numbers.

It was the result of our own overconfidence and poor planning.

We underestimated American capabilities and overestimated our own.

Now we will pay the price for our hubris.

I give Japan perhaps 18 months before the situation becomes completely hopeless.

His prediction would prove optimistic.

Within 18 months, Japan would lose the Maranas, and American B-29s would be within range of the home islands.

The true cost of Midway extends far beyond the four carriers and 3,57 dead.

Japan has lost over 100 of its best pilots, men with years of training and combat experience from China to the Indian Ocean.

The pilot training program which takes 2 years minimum to produce a combat ready aviator and far longer to create an expert cannot replace them.

More critically, the 700 plus skilled aircraft mechanics, armorers, and flight deck crew who died represent institutional knowledge that took decades to develop.

These men knew every rivet of their aircraft, every quirk of their carriers operations.

As Admiral Ugaki writes in his diary, later captured and translated, “We can build new carriers in two years.

We cannot build new pilots with the experience of those we lost.

And we will never replace the skilled maintenance crews who knew how to keep our aircraft flying under combat conditions.

The real tragedy of Midway is not the ships, but the men.

The Japanese naval aviation never recovers.

At the Battle of the Philippine Sea 2 years later in June 1944, inexperienced Japanese pilots will be massacred in what Americans call the Great Mariana’s Turkey Shoot.

Japanese naval aviators flying against veteran American pilots in Superior Aircraft, lose over 600 planes while inflicting minimal damage.

The seeds of that disaster were planted in the waters off Midway.

Midway marks the end of Japanese expansion.

Within the Imperial General Headquarters, the reality slowly sinks in.

Despite the propaganda, the planned invasions of Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii are quietly cancelled.

The proposed operation FS to cut the supply lines between America and Australia is abandoned.

Instead, Japan is forced into a defensive war it cannot win.

The Americans, their confidence soaring, begin planning their counter offensive.

Guadal Canal, just two months away, will begin the long, bloody American advance toward Japan.

The psychological impact is equally devastating.

The Japanese Navy’s aura of invincibility, carefully cultivated since the victory over Russia at Tsushima in 1905, is shattered forever.

As one destroyer captain, Commander Tamichihara, recalled in his memoirs, “After Midway, we never felt confident again.

We went into battle expecting to lose.

The Americans went in expecting to win.

The whole psychology of the war had changed in those 5 minutes when our carriers were hit.

” Within the Navy itself, bitter recriminations begin immediately, though never publicly.

Admiral Nagumo made a scapegoat for the defeat despite following Orthodox doctrine is relegated to shore duty.

He will never command carriers again.

In 1944, during the American invasion of Saipan, where he commands ground forces, he commits suicide rather than face capture.

Admiral Ugaki writes in his diary, “Nagumo is finished as a commander.

The blame must fall on someone and it cannot be Yamamoto.

The defeat also exposes fundamental flaws in Japanese military culture.

The inflexibility of thinking, the inability to adapt to unexpected situations, the blind adherence to doctrine even when circumstances change.

All these cultural traits that contributed to the defeat are recognized but cannot be changed.

The same rigid hierarchy and thinking that led to disaster at Midway will be repeated again and again throughout the war.

Postwar analysis reveals the cascade of failures that led to disaster.

The Japanese operation was too complex with forces scattered across thousands of miles unable to support each other.

Radio silence maintained religiously prevented any coordination when plans went arry.

Intelligence was abysmal.

The Japanese had no idea American carriers were already at sea, while the Americans knew every detail of Japanese plans thanks to their codebreaking.

The failure of reconnaissance was particularly damning.

Only seven search planes to cover a vast ocean area compared to over 30 American PBY Catalinas.

The canceled operation K reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor due to American presence at French frigate Scholes.

The submarine Cordon arriving too late to detect American carriers leaving Pearl Harbor.

The tone’s crucial half-hour delay in launching its scout plane.

Each failure individually might not have been fatal.

Together, they guaranteed disaster.

Perhaps most critically, the Japanese underestimated American capabilities while overestimating their own.

They assumed Americans couldn’t break their codes.

They had.

They assumed Yorktown couldn’t be repaired quickly.

She was fixed in 72 hours.

They assumed American pilots were inferior.

At Midway, American dive bomber pilots proved devastatingly effective.

They assumed American carriers would arrive after Midway was captured.

They were waiting in ambush.

The damage control failures were equally telling.

Japanese carriers with enclosed hanger decks and inadequate firefighting systems became death traps when hit.

American carriers with open hanger decks and superior damage control proved far more survivable.

Yorktown took tremendous punishment and might have survived if not for the submarine attack.

The Japanese carriers burned catastrophically from single hits due to poor fuel system design and inadequate ammunition handling procedures.

Admiral Yamamoto does not long survive the defeat he knew doomed Japan.

On April 18th, 1943, American codereers intercept his travel schedule.

P38 lightning fighters intercept his plane over Bugenville and shoot it down.

His death, exactly one year after the dittle raid that had precipitated Midway, seems almost poetic justice.

Found in the jungle, still strapped to his seat, sword at his side, Yamamoto takes to his grave the full knowledge of how Japan lost the war in those five minutes at Midway.

Before his death, in one of his last letters to a friend that survived the war, Yamamoto reflected with remarkable clarity.

At Midway, we learned that wars are not won by spiritual strength alone.

They are one by intelligence, both kinds, good information, and the wisdom to use it properly.

We had neither.

We were too proud to believe the Americans could be waiting for us, too rigid to adapt when our plans went wrong, and too arrogant to admit our codes might be broken.

Pride goeth before a fall, and our pride was limitless.

The result was inevitable.

The greatest irony of Midway is that it achieved Yamamoto’s goal just in reverse.

It was indeed the decisive battle he had sought, but it was Japan, not America, that was decisively defeated.

The carriers he had tried to trap had instead trapped him.

The ambush he had planned became the ambush he suffered.

The decisive battle doctrine that Japanese naval strategy had been built upon for 40 years was proven correct.

But it was the Americans who won it.

As documented in Japanese military archives, Yamamoto had genuinely feared American industrial might.

In early 1942, he told his staff, “A military man can scarcely pride himself on having smitten a sleeping enemy.

It is more a matter of shame simply for the one smitten.

I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.

At Midway, that counterattack arrived with devastating efficiency.

The Americans had not only recovered from Pearl Harbor, but had turned Japanese strategy against them.

The war would continue for three more years, but its outcome was effectively decided in those 5 minutes on June 4th, 1942.

But beyond the strategic implications, Midway was fundamentally a human tragedy.

In the waters 325 mi northwest of Midway, 3,57 Japanese sailors and airmen died.

young men who had written final letters to their families that morning, who had shared rice and tea for breakfast, who had dreams of victory and home.

They died in flames that reached 1,000°, drowned in oil sllicked waters, or were torn apart by explosions that could be heard miles away.

Lieutenant Hashimoto, one of the few survivors from Akagi’s engine room, testified at postwar investigations.

The screams of burning men echo in my nightmares still.

We couldn’t save them.

The passages were blocked by fire.

The ladders melted from heat.

We could only listen as they died.

Their voices calling for their mothers, for water, for death to end their agony.

Every night I hear them still.

The families back home never learned the truth during the war.

They received notices that their sons died gloriously for the emperor in a great victory.

Mothers hung gold stars in their windows, proud of their sacrifice, never knowing it was for a defeat that sealed Japan’s fate.

The truth would only emerge after the war, adding betrayal to grief.

Many families refused to believe it even then, so complete had been the deception.

Petty Officer Tanaka, who survived Soryu’s sinking, recalled the morning before the battle.

We were so confident.

We joked about which American ship we would sink.

Yamada said he would sink a battleship.

Suzuki claimed he would shoot down five American planes.

They were both 18 years old.

Both died when the bombs hit.

Their bodies were never recovered.

Sometimes I wonder if they’re still down there, standing at their posts, waiting for orders that will never come.

Today, the four Japanese carriers rest in over 17,000 ft of water.

Their exact locations only recently discovered by deep sea explorer Robert Ballard and subsequent expeditions.

They are war graves, monuments to the price of hubris and the cost of war.

The aircraft that once launched from their decks to spread destruction across the Pacific lie crumpled in their hanger bays.

The bones of their crews remain at their battle stations.

Eternal guardians of ships that will never sail again.

From the Japanese perspective, Midway represents the moment when dreams of empire collided catastrophically with reality.

It was proof that spiritual strength alone cannot overcome material weakness.

that courage without intelligence leads to disaster, that rigid thinking cannot adapt to fluid situations.

It was Japan’s appointment with destiny, and destiny proved merciless.

The Midway defeat shattered more than ships and lives.

It shattered illusions.

Continue reading….
Next »