Planes and Ships: Fighting Machines of the Battle of Midway
Planes and ships were the tools of war that turned the tide in the Battle of Midway.
The Japanese command geared up for the attack on Midway in the spring of 1942. Yamamoto aimed to capture the atoll and establish a toehold in the Aleutians. Then he would draw out and destroy what was left of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He expected the attack on Midway would surprise the American fleet. He assumed they would take days to respond.
Yamamoto was confident his fleet would win the battle by bombarding Midway from the air and the sea. Then he would launch an amphibious attack with 5,000 troops. Once they had taken the atoll, the Imperial Navy’s superior forces would overwhelm any ships or planes the Americans might throw at them. He assumed the U.S. fleet was vulnerable. He estimated that they had only two to three carriers, fewer than 10 cruisers, and perhaps 20 destroyers.
What Yamamoto didn’t know was that Pacific Fleet Commander Chester W. Nimitz had received the Japanese battle plan several days in advance. Nimitz based his defensive strategy on information he was receiving from U.S. Navy codebreakers.
The First Days of June: The Battle Starts
The Japanese fleet approached Midway with four aircraft carriers leading 162 warships and auxiliaries.
The Midway patrol aircraft spotted the Japanese fleet early in the morning of 4 June. Just as they were reporting what they saw, 108 Japanese aircraft began their attack on Midway’s Sand and Eastern islands.
The U.S. planes were ready. Some took off from Midway; others took to the air from the carriers. The Japanese had no idea that American airplanes were screaming towards them, and they geared up for a second attack. The American planes struck them while they were still re-arming.
By the end of the battle, the U.S. had lost the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and the destroyer USS Hamman. On the other hand, they had sunk all four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser.
The American victory at Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. The Japanese Navy never fully recovered. Japan’s expansion in the Pacific had been stopped, and American naval power in the Pacific was restored. The morale of the American fighters skyrocketed.
“You who participated in the Battle of Midway today have written a glorious page in our history. I am proud to be associated with you.” –Admiral Chester Nimitz, 4 June, 1942
Here’s a closer look at some of the fighting machines on both sides, and the parts they played in the Battle that changed history.
PBY Seaplanes
4 June, 1942 at 0540 hours – Japanese fleet spotted
Midway was fully prepared for a Japanese attack by early June of 1942. Twenty-five PBY Catalina seaplanes were stationed there as scout planes. Early on the morning of June 4, regular PBY patrols were scouring thousands of square miles of ocean, looking for the enemy.
“Plane reports two carriers and Main Body ships bearing 320, course 135, speed 25, distance 180.” – message cabled to Admiral Nimitz at 0600 hours
The crew in front of the PBY shown below found the Japanese carriers. Based on their report, Marine, Army, and Navy bombers attacked the Japanese fleet.
The PBY Catalina was a seaplane produced in the 1930s and 1940s by Consolidated Aircraft. During World War II, these planes were used by every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. They were also used by the air forces and navies of several other Allied countries.
PBYs were flown during anti-submarine warfare, patrol bombing raids, and as convoy escorts. They were used for search and rescue missions and for transporting cargo.
The PBY was used for decades; it was finally retired from military service in the 1980s. Since then, the PBY has continued to serve as waterbomber and airtanker in aerial firefighting operations all over the world.
Japanese Bombers
4 June, 1942 at 0633 hours – Midway attacked by Japanese bombers
This illustration is part of a diorama by Norman Bel Geddes. It shows Japanese bombers and their fighter escorts as they attacked Eastern and Sand Islands. At least ten Japanese airplanes appear in this image.
The Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” was a long-range fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. Japanese Naval commanders considered the Zero the most maneuverable long-range carrier-based fighter in the world. They also used it as a land-based fighter.
Early in the War, the Zero earned a reputation as a deadly “dogfighter,” with a kill ratio of 12 to 1. But by June of 1942, the Allied forces had better equipment and new tactics. They began to engage the Zero on equal terms.
By 1943, the Zero had lost its place as best fighter. It had design weaknesses and its engine was old-school in comparison to newer fighters. It was outshone by newer and more maneuverable Allied fighter planes with greater firepower, armor, and speed.
B-26 Bomber
4 June, 1942 at 0710 hours – America attacks the Japanese fleet
Four Army B-26 bombers armed with torpedoes made the first attack on the Japanese fleet during the Battle of Midway. The crew shown below was one of two crews that returned from that mission.
Pilot 1st Lieutenant Jim Muri (front row, second from the left) dropped his torpedo, then flew his plane down the deck of the carrier Akagi in a gesture of defiance. His nose gunner Lieutenant Russ Johnson (top right) strafed the decks.
Their plane had more than 500 bullet holes when it landed at Midway. This photo was taken after the battle. It does not show the tail gunner, who was still in the hospital at the time.
The Martin B-26 Marauder was a twin-engine medium bomber. It was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company between 1941 and 1945. It was used in the Pacific Theater, in the Mediterranean Theater, and in Western Europe.
Early in its service, the B-26 Marauder was called the “widowmaker.” This was because of its high accident rate during takeoffs and landings. Whenever the pilot of a Marauder tried flying at speeds lower than the prescribed 150 mph, the aircraft stalled and crashed.
The B-26 became much safer after designers modified its aerodynamics. In the end, the aircraft was praised as “the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front.” A total of 5,288 B-26s were produced. Of these, 522 were flown by England’s Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force.
By the time the U.S. Air Force became a separate military service in 1947, the Martin B-26 had been retired from U.S. service.
TBF-1 Avenger
0930 hours, 4 June, 1942 at 0930 hours – American air crews suffer heavy losses
Six brand new TBF-1 Avenger torpedo bombers were brought to Midway from Oahu just days before the battle. They joined four Army Air Corps B-26s as the first American planes to attack the Japanese fleet on 4 June, 1942.
Of the six Avengers that went out, only one returned. That plane, shown below, was riddled with bullet holes and carried a dead crewman. It overshot the runway on landing because the pilot was wounded in the legs and could not apply the brakes.
The plane’s pilot was Ensign Albert K. Earnest. Crewmen were Radioman 3rd Class Harrier H. Ferrier and Seaman 1st Class Jay D. Manning. Manning operated the .50 caliber machinegun turret. He was killed in action.
The Grumman TBF Avenger was a torpedo bomber developed for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps during WWII. Eventually it was used by several air and naval aviation services around the world.
The Avenger was first flown during the Battle of Midway and went on to become one of the outstanding torpedo bombers of World War II.
Japanese Aircraft Carrier Akagi
4 June, 1942, 1026 hours – American dive-bombers successfully attack Japanese aircraft carriers
During a five or six-minute attack, SBD Dauntless dive bombers mortally damaged the Japanese carrier Akagi. As their bombs ignited aviation fuel on deck, the munitions began to explode.
The Akagi was one of three Japanese carriers put out of action during this brief attack. A few hours later, a fourth Japanese carrier was added to the list.
This photo of the Akagi was made two months before the Battle of Midway by a crew member sitting in the rear-facing machine gunner’s seat of a bomber as the plane left the flight deck.
SBD Dauntless
4 June, 1942 at 1348 hours – Lieutenant Commander Leslie forced to ditch at sea
Lieutenant Maxwell Leslie flew his SBD Dauntless from the deck of the USS Yorktown. With the Yorktown disabled, he was forced to ditch his plane in the sea near the heavy cruiser USS Astoria. His wingman ditched at the same time and both were successfully rescued.
USS Yorktown Aircraft Carrier
4 June, 1942 at 1620 hours – The already damaged USS Yorktown hit by aerial torpedoes
This photo taken from the USS Pensacola shows the already damaged USS Yorktown being hit by the second of two aerial torpedoes.
The assault came from the decks of the Japanese carrier Hiryū. At that point, the Hiryū was the only viable carrier left in the Japanese fleet. The assault did not sink the Yorktown, but the carrier was dead in the water.
4 June 1942 at 1700 hours – The USS Yorktown is abandoned
Japan lost four aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway. The U.S. lost only one, the USS Yorktown. The carrier endured multiple torpedo attacks on June 4.
The final attack caused a serious list and the decision was made to abandon ship. In the photos below, crewmen climb down rope ladders from the starboard deck.
Two days later, as the Yorktown was being towed toward Hawai’i, a Japanese submarine found her and sent her to the bottom along with the destroyer USS Hammann.
Japanese Aircraft Carrier Hiryū
4 June, 1942 at 1703 hours – Fourth Japanese carrier bombed
Dauntless dive bombers fatally damaged the Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū on the afternoon of June 4 as planes from her decks were bombing the Yorktown.
The Hiryū had to be abandoned. Rear admiral Yamaguchi and Captain Kaku chose to go down with the ship when she was blown up and sunk the next day.
It is said that the two exchanged the following comments:
“Let us enjoy the beauty of the moon,” Yamaguchi said.
“How bright it shines,” Kaku responded. “It must be in its 21st day.”
Japanese Heavy Cruisers Mogami and Mikuma
6 June, 1942 at 1730 hours – Final action of the Battle of Midway
American aircraft bombed the Japanese heavy cruiser Mogami and her sister ship Mikuma on 6 June. The two cruisers had been damaged in a collision with each other. The bombing inflicted more serious damage.
The Mikuma sank within a few hours; the Mogami remained afloat. The crew of an American photo plane took this picture during a close flyby of the Mogami.
After The Battle
7 June, 1942 – Search and rescue
This photograph shows survivors of the USS Yorktown being checked in on submarine tender USS Fulton after the Battle of Midway.
The Yorktown men were taken to Pearl Harbor. They arrived on June 8, 1941. Search and rescue missions continued for downed fliers and crewmen of sunken American and Japanese ships until June 21.
19 June, 1942 – Prisoners of war
In this photo, crewmen from the scuttled Japanese carrier Hiryū debark to Sand Island after being rescued by the USS Ballard several weeks after the Battle of Midway.
25 June, 1942 – Three weeks later
The damaged F4F “Wildcat” fighter in this photo is probably one of the nine Marine fighter planes to return to Midway. Twenty-six had been sent out to meet the initial Japanese attack.
This image was taken on Sand Island after repairs on the plane had begun.
The Grumman F4F Wildcat began its service with the U.S. Navy in 1940, replacing the Brewster Buffalo in the Pacific Theater after that plane became obsolete.
It was during the Battle of Midway that naval aviator John S. Thach’s first combat tested the maneuver that became known as the “Thach Weave,” when his group of four Wildcats was attacked by a squadron of Zeroes.
Learn more.
Surviving a Ditching
Many navy airmen were forced to ditch at sea during the Battle of Midway. This photograph shows the survival gear each man had with him aboard his plane.
Note the folding bucket for bailing, swim flippers, and medical supplies. The only food was a couple of chocolate bars because they were only supposed to be at sea a day or two before rescue. Rafts weren’t always fully equipped.
The book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand includes several chapters with excellent information on life raft survival.
Code Breakers
The Codebreakers of Station HYPO
Station HYPO in Honolulu housed a team of codebreakers led by Captain Joseph Rochefort. The men of Station HYPO are now famous for deciphering the Japanese Naval communications code.
HYPO was the Navy’s top secret codebreaking center in the Pacific. It was housed in a windowless basement in the administration building at Pearl Harbor.
The men affectionately referred to HYPO as “the dungeon.” It was cold, with concrete floors, and poor ventilation. More to the point, the men only rarely saw the waving palms and sparkling surf just a few steps away.
“You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.” –sign hanging on the desk of cryptanalyst Lieutenant Commander Thomas H. Dyer
Dedication
The men deciphered intercepted messages all day and night, whenever they were received. Rochefort lived in the basement office, stopping to sleep for a couple of hours at a time on a cot in the corner of the room.
His staff followed his example; the communications failure of December 7, 1941 haunted them all. Staying on top of every single message could mean getting vital information about enemy plans in time to take action.
Teamwork
Code-breaking was a team effort. The HYPO team was organized into 4 functions: traffic analysis, ship plotting, “cryptanalysis” or codebreaking, and translation.
Traffic analysts studied radio traffic patterns. They learned about the specific senders and receivers of the code. Ship plotters studied the movements and activities of both friendly and enemy Naval forces. Codebreakers looked at the incoming messages and cracked the codes.
The Japanese Code
The Japanese code was called “JN-25.” It consisted of words and phrases coded into five-digit groups. They looked something like this:
48933 19947 62145 02943 20382 16380
Another five digits were added to the cipher to encrypt each of the phrases. The sums of the code groups and the extra five digits made up the transmitted message.
To make it all vastly more complex, the numbers were based on 48 Kana characters in Japanese – a pictorial language rather than one based on letters.
Complicated mathematics was at the core of successful codebreaking—the HYPO codebreakers were what we would call “math geeks.”
They put the ciphers on an early version of punch-cards and ran them through an electromechanical system. This allowed them to sort thousands of bits of information. Studying the data tables produced by the system helped them do the math to crack the intercepted messages.
The Process
Once a codebreaker knew where in the message the originator had started the code, he could subtract out the extra ciphers from each five-digit group. This left him with the unencrypted numeric codes of the original message.
When he was done, he sent his results to the translators. They filtered the numeric codes through Kana Japanese and from there translated them into English.
This is where it got interesting. The team assembled these translated bits and looked for strategic information.
Cracking the Codes
The codebreakers extracted key phrases out of the translated code. As they pieced these together, they hoped to learn where the Imperial Japanese Navy fleet was heading and what their targets were.
This was not as simple as it might sound. The men sorted, checked, and re-checked. They looked for trends in communications traffic and the critical movements of ships to decide which bits of information were important.
The team didn’t skip steps; they couldn’t afford to make any errors. They worked quickly, since this information literally meant winning or losing the war.
“[Rochefort] reached his verdicts by a combination of deduction and guesswork and an uncommon ability to fill in blanks.” –Elliot Carlson in Joe Rochefort’s War
Big Break – Target “AF”
Yamamoto issued his operation plan for Midway in mid-May of 1942. By then, the HYPO team knew that a major assault operation was being planned at a location code-named “AF.” Rochefort believed “AF” was Midway.
Several in command thought the target was Honolulu, the Panama Canal, or San Francisco. Admiral King thought Midway was too small to require a large Japanese assault force.
To answer the question once and for all, the HYPO team set up a trap for the Japanese. They sent a message to Midway via the secure underwater cable between the atoll and Honolulu. Midway was to openly broadcast a message that they were running low on fresh water.
Two days later after the message was sent, Rochefort’s group intercepted this message:
“AF sent the following radio message: quote, at present time we have only enough water for two weeks. Please supply us immediately.” The message was verbatim what Midway had broadcast.
The Rest of the Story
Knowing Midway was the target, the HYPO team hunkered down, working day and night to fill in the gaps.
On May 27, Rochefort went before a room full of flag and general officers at Pacific Fleet headquarters. He presented what the HYPO team had learned.
He gave them the numbers of carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers the Japanese were planning to use against Midway. He cited their precise bearing and distance. Beginning at around 7:00 a.m. on 4 June, he told them, the Japanese Navy would launch their planes against Midway’s ground and air defenses.
The leaders of the Pacific Fleet reacted with a flurry of questions and doubts. But Nimitz was sure. He used Rochefort’s information to make his strategic plans.
The extraordinarily detailed information decoded from Japanese ciphers by Rochefort and Station HYPO made all the difference to the success of the Battle of Midway. And the men knew it. An officer aboard USS Enterprise joked, “Our man in Tokyo is worth every cent we pay him!”
Learn about Nimitz’s strategic plans at [link to Point Luck]
Long-Delayed Honor
When Joseph Rochefort died in 1976, he had not yet been given credit for the work he did with HYPO. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1986 for his “exceptional meritorious service.”
The citation went on to say that Rochefort’s information “served as the singular basis” for Nimitz to “plan his defenses, deploy his limited forces, and devise strategy to ensure U.S. Navy success in engaging the Japanese forces at Midway.”