The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) (20 page)

Halsey expressed a desire to talk to Doolittle face to face and arranged to fly to San Francisco. There he and his chief of staff Miles Browning met with Doolittle and Wu Duncan in a downtown restaurant. All four wore civilian clothes and took a table toward the back. Leaning forward and keeping their voices low, they discussed the forthcoming raid, later moving to Halsey’s hotel room for greater privacy. They agreed that the carriers would try to get the bombers to within five hundred miles of Japan—four hundred if possible. If they were discovered while still within range of Midway, the B-25s would take off and fly there so that the
Hornet
could bring up its air wing to defend herself. If they were already within range of Japan—even extreme range—the bombers would take off and conduct the raid, flying back out over the Pacific afterward to ditch in the water where there was at least a chance (albeit a slight one) that an American sub might rescue them. If they were discovered in that long stretch of ocean that was out of range of both friendly fields and enemy targets, the ship’s crew would simply push the bombers over the side. In any event, the
Hornet
must not be caught by enemy planes with the B-25s still lashed to her deck.
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Prior to that, Duncan had flown to San Diego to inform Mitscher of the mission. On this, his second visit to the
Hornet
, Duncan told Mitscher that he was going to be taking Jimmy Doolittle and fifteen Army bombers “to hit Tokyo,” to which the laconic Mitscher replied, “That’s fine.” Soon afterward, the
Hornet
proceeded north to San Francisco Bay, tying up at the pier in Alameda on March 20. Doolittle’s bombers flew cross-country from Florida to Sacramento, and then to Alameda, where they taxied from the runway right down onto the pier. There, fifteen of them were hoisted one by one onto the deck of the
Hornet
. By now, most of the pilots had figured out why they had been practicing short takeoffs.
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To make room for the B-25s on the flight deck, the planes of the
Hornet
’s air group had to be lowered into the hangar deck. Those with folding wings were squeezed into the available space. The crew removed the wings of the big Devastator torpedo bombers; the lighter Wildcat fighters were actually suspended from the overhead. It was the only way that the entire air group could be placed inside the hangar deck at one time.
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Lieutenant Miller had accompanied Doolittle’s squadron out to California and was loath to say good-bye. As he and Doolittle discussed which of the crews should be used in the operation, Miller suggested that he might perform one more service by flying an extra B-25, a sixteenth, off the
Hornet
as a demonstration to the Army pilots that it could be done. He would take off one hundred miles out of San Francisco and fly back to South Carolina, then return to his duty post at Pensacola. Doolittle approved the idea immediately. Once all sixteen planes were on board, however, they seemed to fit without any difficulty. Doolittle then suggested to Mitscher that perhaps they could use all sixteen planes in the bombing mission, since there were several extra crews available. Mitscher concluded, “The advantage of having an extra plane for attack outweighed the desirability of demonstrating a proper take-off.” Of course, it also meant that Miller lost his chance to fly a B-25 off a carrier.
²⁶

Lieutenant Miller had instructed the Army pilots about Navy protocol, and he watched with pride as they marched up the gangway of the
Hornet
one by one, saluted the flag on the fantail as well as the officer of the deck, and requested permission to come aboard. Despite that, there was a palpable coolness between the Army men and the crew of the
Hornet
. Much of it derived from the fact that the Army flyers, who had been constantly enjoined to keep quiet about their mission, were not particularly communicative. They had a “defensive aloofness,” in the words of one Navy officer. They kept to themselves, messing together privately, and deflecting all of the crew’s questions about them and their mission. Beyond that, however, some on the
Hornet
thought they were “undisciplined.” Unlike the Navy pilots, who routinely wore neckties with their long-sleeved khaki shirts, the Army pilots wore open collars, short-sleeved shirts, and scuffed shoes. They were casual not only about their appearance but also about shipboard routine. “A briefing would be set for 8:30,” one Navy pilot recalled, and “they would saunter in” around 9:00 or 9:15, and sometimes the meeting couldn’t start until 9:30. Even then, “their attention span was very short, half an hour at the most.” Matters improved after the
Hornet
passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and Mitscher got on the 1MC. the loudspeaker system. Though many on board had suspected what was coming, the announcement that they were off to bomb Tokyo warmed up relations between the two services. “From then on there was complete rapport,” Doolittle reported.
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The
Hornet
and her escorts left San Francisco just after 10:00 a.m. on April 2. It was a foggy day, with visibility limited to one thousand yards, but anyone who cared to look could see the
Hornet
steaming under the Golden Gate Bridge with sixteen Army bombers strapped to her flight deck in a herringbone pattern. Most of those who thought about it, if anyone thought about it at all, probably assumed that she was on her way to deliver those planes to Hawaii or some other American outpost. The
Hornet
had an escort of one heavy and one light cruiser, four destroyers, and the essential oiler. It was designated as Task Force 16.2, because as soon as it rendezvoused with Halsey’s
Enterprise
group it would become part of Task Force 16. That same day, 5,133 miles to the west, Commander Watanabe was traveling by seaplane to Tokyo to present Yamamoto’s Midway plan to the Naval General Staff.
²⁸

Halsey was among those who watched the
Hornet
depart. He was to fly from San Francisco to Honolulu in a few days to reboard the
Enterprise
and take her out to the predetermined rendezvous point northwest of Hawaii. He almost didn’t make it. Struck down by the flu, he was woozy from medication as he finally boarded the plane on April 6. Nonetheless, he arrived in time to take the
Enterprise
group out of Pearl Harbor on April 8. Four days later, the two American carrier groups were approaching the rendezvous coordinates along the international date line. Halsey informed his pilots that there was another American carrier in the vicinity to ensure that they did not bomb her. One of the pilots flying CAP that day was Lieutenant Richard Best. He spotted the approaching
Hornet
, and it seemed to him as if there was something wrong with her. Her deck was encumbered by what looked like “construction equipment … odd shapes, maybe tractors.” As he got closer he was astonished to see that “she had two-engine bombers on board.”

The now united Task Force 16 steamed westward for four more days without incident. On April 17 (Tokyo time)—the day after Nagano presented the Midway plan to Emperor Hirohito—the two carriers and four cruisers of the united Task Force 16 topped off their fuel tanks and, leaving the slower oilers and fuel-guzzling destroyers behind, began a high-speed run in toward the launch point.
²⁹

That night, at ten minutes past 3:00 a.m., the radar on the
Enterprise
picked up a surface contact. In these waters it could only be hostile. The task force maneuvered to avoid it, and the contact soon faded from the screen of the CXAM radar set. The radar could be temperamental, and as soon as there was enough light Halsey ordered an air search, sending out three scout bombers and eight Wildcats from the
Enterprise
. Rain squalls and wind gusts made the launch more precarious than usual, but all eleven planes got off safely. Less than an hour later, at two minutes before 6:00 a.m., Lieutenant Junior Grade Osbourne B. Wiseman flew over the
Enterprise
and dropped a beanbag onto the deck—this was how pilots sent messages back to the ship when the need to maintain radio silence was imperative. The beanbag was rushed up to the bridge, and Halsey read the attached note: “Enemy surface ship—latitude 36–04 N, Long. 153–10 E, bearing 276 [degrees] true—42 miles. Believed seen by enemy.” Should the observers on the contact recognize a carrier plane, they would know an American carrier was nearby. Halsey sent the cruiser
Nashville
to sink the surface craft, which proved to be the
Nitto Maru
, one of the picket boats Yamamoto had ordered out to provide early warning. It took the
Nashville
almost a full hour and nearly a thousand rounds of 6-inch ammunition to send it and another small picket boat to the bottom. By that time, radio operators on the
Enterprise
had intercepted several radio messages coming from them. A Japanese-speaking officer on board had been able to translate the unencrypted message: “Three enemy aircraft carriers sighted at our position, 650 nautical miles east of Inubo Saki at 0630.” On board the
Hornet
, Mitscher turned to Doolittle and said: “They know we’re here.”
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Brigadier General James Doolitt le (left) and Pete Mitscher with the Army pilots and crews on board the USS
Hornet
in April, 1942. Several American officers had medals they had been given by the Japanese government before the war, and this photo depicts them att aching those medals to the bombs to “return” them. (U.S. Naval Institute)

Doolittle and Halsey had discussed this possibility during their restaurant dinner in San Francisco; both knew what to do. Halsey blinkered a message from the
Enterprise
: “Launch planes. To Col. Doolittle and his gallant command, good luck and God bless you.” On board the
Hornet
, the klaxon sounded and a voice called out: “Army pilots man your planes.”
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