Midway: Breaking the Spot
By David H. Lippman
March 2008

With Midway's facilities damaged but not destroyed, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's mission is under way but not complete. At 7:15, Nagumo and his air officer, Cdr. Minoru Genda, signal the fleet, “"Planes in second wave stand by to carry out attack today. Re-equip yourselves with bombs."

Nagumo orders the second attack wave to swap its torpedoes with contact bombs, while the dive-bombers replace their armor-piercing ordnance with high-explosive missiles. This order means Hiryu and Soryu deckhands have a fairly simple chore: Those two carriers have their dive-bombers spotted, but on Akagi and Kaga, the Kate torpedo bombers are spotted. Each plane has to be lowered to the hangar deck, where mechanics remove the torpedoes, roll them to the armored magazines, and roll out bombs — an exhausting and time-consuming evolution that takes about an hour. It has to be accomplished before the strike led by Hiryu's Lt. Joichi Tomonaga gets back, so they can launch the second wave and have decks empty to recover the first.

	Carrier Kaga in heavy North Pacific seas.

Viewed years later, Nagumo’s decision to “break the spot” on his four flight decks is an error of the first order. But at the time he makes the decision, it is based on the information he has: There is no sign of the American fleet. Tokyo has assured him (the previous day), “There is no sign that our intention has been suspected by the enemy.” The two groups of land-based American planes have just attacked Nagumo, and his first wave strike leader is requesting a second attack on AF. In the context of the moment, Nagumo is making a correct decision. In the context of the complete situation, he is making an uninformed one.

At 7:28, scout plane No. 4, the Tone bird that got off late, is finally wrapping up its outward leg and swinging back on its 300-mile northeastern search arc. The pilot achieves his moment in history, by spotting what he reports as “Sight what appears to be 10 enemy surface ships, in position 10 degrees distance 240 miles from Midway. Course 150 degrees, speed over 20 knots.”

Scout No. 4 has done his job. At 7:28, Spruance’s radar picks up the approaching recce bird, and Enterprise’s forward gun director’s range finder identifies the bogey as a Japanese seaplane on the southern horizon. Surprise is lost. However, Capt. Miles Browning, the acerbic air staff officer, points out that the Japanese are still locked into their present course until they recover the Midway strike. If the Americans move fast, they can catch the Japanese with half their planes away. Spruance sees the point — and his planes circling, gulping fuel.

Scout No. 4’s message takes several minutes to be decoded on Tone, digested, and then flashed to Akagi (presumably by blinker light), but when it arrives about 7:40, it is an incredible shock. “Like a bolt from the blue,” Cdr. Mitsuo Fuchida describes it. “There they are!” thinks Rear Adm. Kusaka, the chief of staff. Nagumo and Genda are “at a loss how to make an accurate judgment of the situation.” Cdr. Kenjiro Ono, the staff intelligence officer, reaches for his chinagraph pencil, and locates the American position on the big map. The American force is 200 miles away, within strike range for carrier aircraft.

However, the report of “10 enemy surface ships” is not a masterpiece of accuracy. Nagumo and Kusaka peer down upon their map and ponder the situation. There is an irony that the report has come from a plane that launched half an hour late. Had it launched on time, Nagumo would have had this information before Tomonaga requested his second attack — and Nagumo would have a powerful strike force spotted on his flight deck, armed with torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs, ready to attack. Now he has his planes below, being loaded with contact bombs and high explosives.

Kusaka notes that “there couldn’t be an enemy force without carriers in the area reported and there must be carriers somewhere.” But he doesn’t believe that Nagumo can cancel the second attack on Midway. The island’s aircraft still pose an immediate menace to Nagumo’s force, and the island is the primary target of the entire operation.

Nagumo has not reached flag rank by passing the buck. At 7:45 he signals his force: “Prepare to carry out attacks on enemy fleet units. Leave torpedoes on those attack planes which have not as yet been changed to bombs.” Two minutes later, he orders Tone plane No. 4, “Ascertain ship types and maintain contact.”

At the precise time Nagumo changes his orders, Spruance does the same. Giving up the plan for the coordinated strike, he blinkers his squadrons to “Proceed on mission assigned.” McClusky and his Enterprise bombers head southwest. Then Jim Gray and Fighting 6, followed by Torpedo 6, which gets airborne at 8:06. At the same time, Hornet’s Torpedo 8 is the last group to leave its carrier — but the first to head in. The delays and inexperience result in the Americans sending in an uncoordinated attack, led by Torpedo 8 and Torpedo 6. Torpedo 6 Lt. Cdr. Gene Lindsey follows Course 240 as ordered, while Torpedo 8 Lt. Cdr. John Waldron tells his men to simply follow him.

Down below Akagi and Kaga’s flight decks the “airedales” are about halfway through the original swap-out procedure, and the Kates are going back up the lifts to the flight deck. The hangar deck bosses stop the evolution in its tracks, and haul the Kates back down to the hangar deck again. The Japanese need more information and a little time to prepare and plan. They get neither. At 7:48, Soryu’s fighters report “about 15” single-engine dive-bombers heading in from the southeast — Midway.

A pair of Marine Vindicators head out to find the Japanese, 4 June 1942.

The attackers are the leading edge of VMSB-241, some 16 SBD Dauntless dive-bombers led by Maj. Lofton R. “Joe” Henderson. They are followed by 11 SB2U Vindicators in a second wave. Of the 16 American pilots swinging in on the Japanese, 10 have been with the squadron for a week, fresh out of training. Gasoline shortages have not given them only an hour of air time each, seven of them in the Vindicators. Only three pilots are familiar with the navy’s “hell-diving” technique. So Henderson has to use the more dangerous “glide-bombing” technique, a slower approach to 500 feet or less, and an angle of 45 degrees instead of the normal 70.

The Dauntlesses roar in at 9,000 feet in tight formation, with Henderson weaving amid them, herding them along. At 7:50, Lt. Daniel Iverson flies by Capt. Richard Fleming’s SBD, and points down to the left. Fleming’s gunner, Cpl. Eugene Card, doesn’t see anything below. Fleming says, “We’ve made contact. There’s a ship at 10 o’clock.” Card glances over, and sees a Japanese ship cutting through the water, heading for Midway.

The SBDs break through the clouds and Card sees four Japanese carriers sailing toward Midway, also in tight formation. At 7:55, Henderson orders his planes to “Attack two enemy CV on the port bow.” As the SBDs swoop in, so does Soryu’s combat air patrol, guns blazing. Lt. Harold G. Schlendering sees the Zeros attack, white smoke rings popping from their guns. Shell fragments rip up Lt. Tom Moore’s plane, and Moore thinks to himself, “Here comes a chunk of the Sixth Avenue El.” He’s right: Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue Elevated Line, made redundant when the Sixth Avenue Subway was opened beneath it in 1936, was demolished that year, and its structural steel was sold as scrap iron to Japan.

Lt. Iyozo Fujita and his fellow Japanese pilots display their expertise quickly. They let the Americans open up with their machine-guns, and wait until the Marine gunners have used up their 100-round ammunition belts. Then the Zeros charge in. Their first target is Henderson, and the Zeros set Henderson’s left wing ablaze. The squadron leader’s plane spins off, out of control, and into the sea. Capt. Elmer G. Glidden takes over, and leads the squadron into cloud cover. The Zeros chase the SBDs into the clouds. Cpl. McFeeley fires his guns and stitches up the tail of his own plane. Pvt. Charles Huber’s gun jams, but Moore orders his gunner to keep swinging it. At least they can frighten the Japanese, Moore thinks.

Lt. Doug Rollow’s gunner, Pvt. Reed Ramsey, has a different idea. He knows the Japanese will wait until an American gunner flips his empty ammunition can overboard before closing in to attack. It takes a gunner 30 seconds to reload his weapon, and in that time, an aggressive Zero pilot can score a kill. Ramsey flips out a beer can, and a Zero dashes over, fooled. Ramsey opens fire, shreds the Zero, and sends it hurtling away.

Japanese anti-aircraft guns open up on the Americans, and Card hears shells go “Wuf!” He looks around to see black balls of smoke all over the place. Glidden leads the surviving attackers down on the Japanese. He sees a massive rising sun painted on the carrier’s yellow flight deck, and is astonished that nobody has attempted to camouflage the flight deck with paint. As the SBDs swoop in, so do Fujita and two of his pals, who slice up the Marines. Fujita flies right under one bomber and fires at it. It crashes into the sea.

Glidden releases his bombs, pulls up, looks back and thinks he has hit a carrier. Actually, he’s just missed Hiryu. Rollow, Moore and Fleming attack, too. Rollow sees crewmen scattering on the enemy flight deck. Moore is frozen by the big Rising Sun. Iverson sees Kaga’s anti-aircraft guns blazing away. Iverson’s bomb just misses Kaga. As he pulls out, Japanese bullets shred his plane. Fleming and Card try their luck at 300 feet but miss Kaga. However, the Japanese damage Fleming’s plane. Rollow drops his bomb at 400 feet, Schlendering at 500 feet.

On Akagi, civilian newsreel photographer Teiichi Makishima watches Hiryu disappear into black smoke created by the explosions of a bracket of four bomb misses. Everyone stares in fear, wondering if the carrier has been hit. After a long interval, Hiryu pops out of the vast cloud at full speed, unharmed. The Akagi men shout in relief.

	Hiryu under air attack, 4 June 1942.

On Hiryu, Capt. Tomeo Kaku sweats out the attack. The near-misses shake up the big carrier. Even Ensign Hiso Mandai, down in the engine room, feels the shaking. American strafing claims four killed and several more wounded. Other than that, there is no damage to Nagumo’s force.

Moore’s plane’s fuel pump fails, so Huber reaches for the hand pump, to keep the SBD’s nose up. Somehow Moore manages to escape the Zeros. Fleming’s plane also takes more hits yet manages to escape. Capt. R.L. Blain and his gunner, Pfc. Gordon R. McFeely, are less lucky. Their plane conks out and Blain makes a water landing. In the three minutes before the SBD sinks, Blain saves a flare pistol, first aid kit, and parachute to use as a sea anchor. However, the CO2 bottle’s emergency inflation valves have been left open, so the two Marines spend the rest of the day bailing water.

Eight of the 16 SBDs are lost in this engagement, with no hits. Among the dead is Maj. Henderson. As a person he is an obscure hero. But the Marines remember his name and valor, and when they capture the unfinished airstrip on Guadalcanal in August, they will call it “Henderson Field.” Sixty years later, that muddy airstrip is Henderson International Airport, with concrete runways and a modern terminal. But Henderson the man remains obscure.

Next: Enemy in Sight.

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