posted by Philip Nice

June, 1942. The South Pacific Ocean is on its way to becoming a Japanese lake. Since their first smashing surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Navy and Air Fleet have strung together an almost perfectly unbroken chain of Japanese victories and American humiliations. Now the empire of the rising sun has its sights set on a new target: Midway.

American morale is sitting low in the water, and vibrant Japanese confidence couldn’t be flying higher. December 7, 1941, a day which still lives in infamy, had witnessed an astonishing Imperial Air Fleet morning attack that exploded U.S. deterrence and military pride. It sank or almost ruined 350 aircraft and 18 ships, including all eight battleships of the United States Pacific Fleet. Almost 2,400 servicemen were killed. Japanese losses for the day totaled less than 70 men and only 29 of its 353 planes.

“WAR!” Daily newspapers proclaimed the news from the theater—and the news was bad. Since the Pearl Harbor pummeling, every battle has further torpedoed American power and pride in the Pacific. The Japanese Empire has advanced through Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma—brutally.

Now it is Midway’s turn.

Japan’s First Air Fleet plows eastward through the swells at 16 knots. Cruisers and support ships accompany a sailing steel citadel bristling with firepower and multiple victories in a war less than six months old: 11 destroyers; a pair of ironclad heavy cruisers; two gigantic 30,000-ton battleships; and the mightiest, most victorious vessels in the South Pacific: the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu, the ships that blasted Pearl Harbor.

But that’s not all. Another strike force steams for Dutch Harbor, in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, for a diversionary attack in order to draw U.S. ships away from the real battle. But that’s not all. A third squadron of warships is positioning itself between the Aleutians and Midway to provide reinforcements when and where needed. But that’s not all.

About 600 miles behind the First Air Fleet, the main body of the Japanese battleship group cuts toward Pearl Harbor, starring the deadliest, most gigantic battleship in the world: the Yamato. When her survivors nose out of port to help Midway, a total of three enormous Japanese battleships, plus their destroyers and cruisers, will send them to the bottom.

Including support vessels, submarines, and transports for the assault troops who would invade and eradicate Midway’s defenders, the armada adds up to nearly 200 ships. Perhaps most importantly, each of these ships sails under a proud flag. Japanese crews had a habit of triumph. Everywhere they struck, they won; everywhere they sailed, they owned. Since slamming Pearl Harbor, the First Air Fleet has sunk or smashed up five enemy battleships, a carrier, two cruisers, seven destroyers, and scores of smaller ships—without losing a single Imperial ship.

The Japanese warriors know how to win, and they are used to it.

Tiny Midway waits.

Once Japan controls this truly miniscule coral atoll 1,100 miles west of Hawaii—basically two spits of sand with a runway—it will be able to launch offensive actions throughout the Pacific. Ultimately, it could strike the American West Coast, putting the war right into American cities and homes—literally inside your living room, and not just on TV.

But there’s something working for the Americans. They know the Japanese are coming.

Of all the destruction the Japanese wreaked at Pearl Harbor, they missed the code cracker facility. American cryptanalysts there have discovered something big is about to rain down on Midway. Midway’s defenders are digging in.

An unseen hand has also given the Americans another fighting chance. Thanks to Japan devastating Battleship Row, the Americans are now forced to rely on their aircraft carriers. Officers and planners had built the entire navy around battleships. Carriers served more of a support role. However, in this situation, Adm. Chester Nimitz made a bold move and decided to put all his emphasis and resources into his three carriers. He had little choice.

The day before the Battle of Midway, U.S. reconnaissance planes spotted scattered parts of the strike force, dropping bombs and torpedoes, hitting the Japanese only once. The unseen hand also seems to be the only reason no one told Vice Adm. Chinci Nagumo, the victorious commander of the First Air Fleet, that, judging by these attacks, the Americans suspected they were coming.

Even so, it seemed not to matter. On June 4, at 0400, Japanese bombers and fighters fire their engines and shoot off of their carriers. A couple hours later, air raid sirens on Midway are wailing, men rushing to their stations. The complement of combat planes—no larger than an aircraft carrier’s and full of antique and slow-moving Brewster Buffalo fighters, also known as “Flying Coffins”—roared into the air to engage the attackers. It was massacred.

Then Midway disappeared under the bombs. Explosions blasted fuel tanks, guns, ammunition dumps, the powerhouse, fuel lines and buildings.

Meanwhile, Midway’s bombers vectored in on one of their attackers: the Akagi carrier. Its fighters, including the amazing Mitsubishi Zero, cut them to pieces. One B-26 hurtled straight for the ship’s bridge, missing it by mere yards, then crashed into the ocean. Akagi’s sailors literally jumped for joy—one officer exclaiming, “This is fun!”
Meanwhile, U.S. Dauntless dive bombers have found the Hiryu carrier—and they strike. The lengthy flat top disappears in an explosive haze of smoke and waterspouts, and the Akagi crew fears the worst. But Hiryu sails majestically out of the chaos. More than half of the Dauntlesses are gone.

Next, 14 of Midway’s B-17 Flying Fortress bombers appear above the carriers, free from harassment by the Zeros. They miss everything. Japanese contempt for America’s aviation capabilities seems well-earned.

But now the American carriers arrive: the Hornet, the Enterprise, and the recently crippled and resuscitated Yorktown. Having eluded the Imperial Navy’s search attempts, they are the last and only hope for the Battle of Midway. Admiral Raymond Spruance launches everything he has in an urgent attempt to catch the enemy while most of its planes are on their carrier for refueling and rearming. The Japanese have decided to switch from land bombs to torpedoes, the most effective weapon against surface ships, an excellent tactical decision.

Spruance launches 117 planes toward the Japanese carriers.

They’re gone.

One Hornet torpedo plane squadron intuitively heads for the carriers’ new position, but Zeros zoom out of the blue and destroy all 15 planes. Another 14 planes from the Enterprise arrive, but their torpedoes miss the mark. The Yorktown’s planes also are massacred. Zeroes continue to down plane after plane to the cheers of Japanese sailors and pilots on the flight deck who by now feel invincible. “We don’t need to be afraid of enemy planes no matter how many there are!” one crewman says. Out of 41 total American torpedo bombers launched, only three survived the day.

But the pilots of these outdated, outclassed planes did not die in vain.

As the torpedo bombers live out their minutes-long life expectancy, 33 Enterprise dive bombers drone over the empty blue space where the Japanese were supposed to be, miles away. With fuel running dangerously low, the Lt. Cmdr. Clarence W. McClusky, Jr., has to decide whether to patrol this area until—and if—the Japanese arrive or to begin an expanding-box search pattern. He does neither, and instead flies west an extra 35 miles, then banks northwest—his planes won’t have enough fuel to get back, and could be out of the fight completely. It’s an unconventional and possibly foolhardy decision. But possibly the providence of an unseen hand.

Then, in the deep blue depths below, McClusky spots the white wake of a destroyer. He intuitively decides it must be a straggler, and follows it. Minutes tick by. Two, five, ten….

Then, it’s there. Myriad white wakes from Japanese destroyers, cruisers and three carriers.

Not only have they found the Japanese fleet, but the dive bombers also are blessed with intermittent cloud cover. Added to that, by sheer chance, all the Zeros are currently busy, chopping apart torpedo bombers down around sea level around the Hiryu, which is well to the north of its three sisters. Added to that, better than if they had practiced it for weeks, 17 dive bombers from the Yorktown happen to arrive at the same spot within seconds, by sheer chance—or an unseen hand.

Now America’s own mistakes and misfortunes began to work for it. The next few short minutes would change the battle for the Pacific.

From 20,000 feet, America finally strikes back. Yorktown bombers dive toward Soryu. McClusky and Enterprise’s squadron hits Kaga. The first three miss. The fourth explodes among the takeoff-ready planes on the flight deck. More bombs find their mark, one hitting the bridge, and the Kaga is ablaze. Soryu takes three minutes to get hit three times and suffers the worst destruction of all. Akagi scrambles its fighters, and only three American planes dive at her, and one misses. But one hits the midship elevator and explodes among the planes below. Another detonated elsewhere. Normally, two hits would not doom a carrier, but the Akagi, as well as her sisters, was caught with her decks and hangars full of warplanes and their explosive ordnance, much of it haphazardly stacked rather than stored away.

Three carriers. Three minutes.

On the Hiryu, 100 miles away, Rear Adm. Tamon Yamaguchi decides the Hiryu will kill the whole enemy force by itself. He makes a good start of it. He launches dive bombers, which strike the Yorktown 15 minutes later. The resilient ship survives a bomb through the flight deck and one straight down the stack and into the boilers, as well as a third near fore gasoline storage.

By chance, intellect and/or an unseen hand, Spruance resists passionate calls to retaliate immediately. Aboard the Enterprise, he insists on waiting for the scout planes’ reports, to see if the Hiryu had changed position. If he launched planes now, the target might not be there.

It wasn’t.

The Hiryu had launched its first wave, turned north, launched a second attack, then turned northeast. An American retaliation might well have missed the Hiryu altogether.

Now, the second wave strikes the Yorktown. She dodges two torpedoes, but two others find their mark and knock her out of commission. Spruance launches his remaining 24 bombers.

As Hiryu prepares its third strike, the American dive bombers appear in the sky, and come screaming down. Four hits, all at once. Fires start and spread throughout the ship, and before long, amazingly, Hiryu too is burning from bow to stern.

Soon, the Battle of Midway is over. Four of Japan’s most important and proud ships, 332 of its aircraft and 2,155 of its men, its indestructible morale, its dream of an unbounded empire, and the pride of the nation are lost. America has a long road ahead, but Midway will prove to be the turning point of World War II in the Pacific.

Midway is one entry on a long roll call of miracles in which an unseen hand has preserved the independence and power and blessings of the United States of America.

This Independence Day, remember the history, remember the heroism, remember the “luck.” And remember the unseen hand—the reason it’s called “the miracle at Midway.”