The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) (29 page)

In spite of that, the Japanese were generally pleased with the outcome. They believed that they had sunk
both
of the American carriers. Newspapers in Japan trumpeted the Battle of the Coral Sea as a major victory. When the pilots of Carrier Division 1 heard the results of the battle, they mocked the surviving pilots of CarDiv 5 good naturedly by declaring that if the “sons of the concubine” could win a victory over the American carriers, imagine what the “sons of legal wives” would do. Within the Japanese high command, however, there was disappointment. Yamamoto was furious that Inoue had called off the action without ensuring the destruction of the American carriers. His chief of staff confided to his diary that “a dream of great success has been shattered.”
⁴⁴

In post-battle evaluations, the Americans, too, had a mixed response to the battle. The loss of the
Lexington
was a major blow. On the other hand, the Japanese invasion force had been turned back. Fletcher had fulfilled the strategic objective assigned him by Nimitz “to assist in checking further advance by [the] enemy … by seizing favorable opportunities to destroy ships, shipping, and aircraft.” As it happened, the Japanese never did take Port Moresby, and the complex timetable of their several interdependent operations was irredeemably wrecked. The damage to the
Shōkaku
, though not fatal, was enough to convince the Japanese to keep her out of the forthcoming Midway operation. Though the
Zuikaku
was not damaged at all, the loss of so many of her planes and pilots led to a decision to keep her out as well. At the time, it hardly seemed to matter. With the loss of two American carriers, the Japanese believed that the odds had actually improved. Over time, the assessment of historians has been that the Battle of the Coral Sea was a tactical victory for the Japanese but a strategic victory for the Americans.

There was one more way in which the Americans benefited from this confrontation. Before the battle, Japan’s experienced pilots had given them a great tactical advantage. Now, with the loss of so many of those pilots, and with the experience gained by the Americans, that advantage had diminished.

*
Some historians have criticized this decision, pointing out that had Fletcher won the carrier battle, the Japanese would have had to call off Operation MO, and had he lost it, Crace’s few cruisers and destroyers would not have been strong enough to stop them anyway, so that Fletcher’s decision simply took Crace’s surface force off the battle map. But Crace himself sought an independent role in the campaign, and, as it happened, he had a completely unforeseen role to play.

*
Point Zed was a predetermined location that could be used as a reference point in radio transmissions so that the radio reports did not give away the location of the American task force.

*
Sixty-eight members of the crew of the
Neosho
abandoned ship into four life rafts. The rest (123 men) stayed on board and were subsequently rescued by the destroyer USS
Henley
. Most of those who went into the life rafts did not survive. On May 16, the USS
Helm
found one of the rafts with two life jackets in it but no men. After the rescue operation, the
Henley
sank the
Neosho
with torpedoes and shellfire.

9

The Eve of Battle

O
n the same day that Fletcher and Fitch effected their rendezvous in the Coral Sea, a score of Japanese admirals lined up in their barges alongside the massive hull of the Combined Fleet flagship
Yamato
in Hashirajima Harbor near Hiroshima. They came aboard one by one, glittering in their dress uniforms, each of them trailed by a gaggle of earnest young staff officers. They saluted the quarterdeck smartly and made their way forward to the mess area, which had been cleared of all furniture, and where the crew had assembled a huge square wooden table. Around the perimeter of that table were all the senior officers who would execute Operation MI. There were so many admirals that little room remained for “mere captains,” who, during the lunch breaks, had to eat standing up on the open deck. Yamamoto’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral Ugaki Matome was the host, responsible for ensuring that all went smoothly during the “table maneuvers” that would take place over the next four days.
¹

The purpose of such war games was to fine-tune operational plans by exposing any weaknesses, so that the planners and operators could make whatever adjustments were necessary. A senior Japanese officer was assigned to command the enemy force (the “Red Force”), while another commanded the Japanese (“Blue”) Force.
*
Tokens representing ships and fleets were moved across the huge table with long poles similar to those employed by a croupier at a Las Vegas roulette or craps table. When the forces came into contact, a roll of the dice determined battle damage, giving the exercise the element of chance. On board
Yamato
, however, the players and observers seemed disinclined to expose any defects of the plan. Most were veterans of the astonishingly successful campaigns of the first six months of war, and their attitude was, as one put it, “This is a necessary drill, but don’t worry, we’ll take care of anything that comes along.” Nagumo Chūichi, who would command the force that would execute it, should have been asking the toughest questions. Instead, aware that he was not in favor at Combined Fleet headquarters, he remained mostly mute throughout the exercises. Rather than try to expose flaws in the plan, most of the participants seemed determined to demonstrate that the plan had no flaws at all.
²

No one was guiltier of this than Ugaki himself, who was not only the official host, but the chief judge. At least twice during the games, Ugaki intervened to change the outcome. On one occasion, the Japanese officer commanding the Red (American) Force sent his carriers to sea ahead of the predicted moment and positioned them on the flank of the approaching Kidō Butai. Ugaki ruled that such a move by the Americans was so improbable that it could not be allowed. The Red Force commander protested, according to one witness, with “tears in his eyes.” He was less concerned about not being allowed to employ this gambit during the war games than he was about the planners ignoring “the chance of American task forces appearing in the seas near Midway.” Like nearly every other senior Japanese naval officer—the Red Force commander notwithstanding—Ugaki simply did not believe that the Americans had the kind of fighting spirit necessary to attempt such a bold maneuver. This was especially curious in light of the fact that the entire Japanese plan was premised on the assumption that when the Americans learned of the Japanese threat to Midway, they would sortie with their carriers to try to stop it. No one seemed to notice that these assumptions were contradictory. The official “Estimate of the Situation” decreed: “Although the enemy lacks the will to fight, it is likely that he will counterattack if our occupation operations progress satisfactorily.” No one offered an explanation as to why an enemy who lacked the “will to fight” would “counterattack” during a successful Japanese operation.
³

An even more egregious example of this kind of wishful thinking—or denial—was evidenced later when the same Red Force commander launched an air attack on the Kidō Butai. The table judge rolled the dice to see what damage had been inflicted. The result was dismaying: the dice decreed that the Americans had scored nine hits and sunk both the
Kaga
and the flagship
Akagi
, Once again Ugaki intervened. Such an outcome was impossible, he declared. He ruled that the Red Force had scored only three hits, and that the
Akagi
had not been sunk—merely damaged. The
Kaga
was taken off the gaming table, though Ugaki later allowed it to be returned in order to participate in the invasion and occupation of Fiji and New Caledonia.
⁴

After two days of war gaming, the brass on board the
Yamato
learned that while they were thus engaged, the Americans—the real Americans, not the Red Fleet at the gaming table—had conducted a carrier attack on Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. This, of course, was Fletcher’s raid on May 4. If nothing else, it proved that the Americans had at least one carrier in the Coral Sea, some 3,500 miles from Pearl Harbor, where, it was assumed, the American carriers would be passively waiting. The news did not interrupt the games, however, or in any way alter Japanese assumptions, nor did the fact that several of the Japanese units scheduled to take part in Operation MI were not in a condition to do so. These were mere distractions to a high command determined to remain on schedule. That night, Ugaki wrote in his diary, “Although some forces haven’t enough time to make ready, we have decided to carry it out as originally planned.”
⁵

Toward the end of the games, Yamamoto himself interjected a question that implied that he, at least, was willing to consider that it was possible not everything would go exactly according to plan. What would happen, he asked, if American carriers suddenly showed up in an unexpected place while the Kidō Butai was engaged in operations against Midway? Here was an opportunity for a genuine discussion about contingency planning. Instead, Genda Minoru, the resident strategic genius, replied with a boast:
“Gaishu Isshoku”
Literally this means “One touch of the armored gauntlet”; idiomatically, it connotes an easy victory. Perhaps unwilling to dampen the mood of confidence and high morale, Yamamoto did not openly chastise Genda for his dismissive attitude. But the question continued to bother him. Two years earlier, before the war, he had told a group of schoolchildren, “It is a mistake to regard the Americans as luxury-loving and weak. I can tell you Americans are full of the spirit of justice, fight, and adventure.” He did not say anything of the sort now. Nonetheless, he ordered Nagumo to keep half of his bombers and torpedo planes armed and ready at all times.
⁶

In general, the table exercises for Operation MI held on board
Yamato
from May 1 to May 5 were all but useless. The most knowledgeable scholars of the Japanese side of the action at Midway describe it as “four days of scripted silliness.”
⁷

The day after the games ended, Combined Fleet issued the official orders for the invasion of Midway. The timing implied that the table maneuvers had exposed no weaknesses and demonstrated the certain success of the operation. That same day, the ships of Japanese Battleship Divisions 1 and 2 engaged in a routine training mission off the coast. At the seventh salvo from the
Hyūga
, the flagship of BatDiv 2, the breechblock on the left gun in turret number 5 blew off, killing every man in the gun crew. The canopy of the turret flew high into the air and landed on the port side, killing a half dozen sailors. Flames ignited more charges and penetrated to the shell magazine. But for the quick flooding of the magazine, the entire ship might have exploded. It was not a happy augury for the forthcoming operation.
⁸

News of the Battle of the Coral Sea arrived at Hashirajima almost as soon as the table maneuvers ended. Inoue reported that Hara’s pilots had inflicted severe damage to a “Saratoga type” carrier and “another of the Yorktown type,” both of which, he reported, were very likely destroyed—very likely, but not definitely. The news triggered official celebrations throughout Japan. Yamamoto and those in his immediate circle joined in the celebrations, though privately they were disappointed and angered that Inoue had not followed up on his victory. Instead of pursuing the defeated enemy, he had called off the invasion of Port Moresby and sent Hara’s carriers northward. As a result, the fate of the two American carriers was not known for sure. “Their sinking was not confirmed,” Ugaki confided to his diary, “but is considered certain.” If true, it would mean that the American carrier force in the Pacific had just been reduced by half, achieving 50 percent of the objective for which the Midway plan had been crafted.
⁹

Gratifying as this news was, Yamamoto was disgusted that Inoue had apparently been intimidated by the sinking of the
Shōhō
and the damage to the
Shōkaku
. Inoue also continued to worry—unnecessarily in Yamamoto’s view—about those Allied air bases in Australia. Yamamoto’s eager young staff officers were equally outraged by Inoue’s timidity. They recalled Inoue’s apostasy concerning the importance of aircraft carriers, and suspected him of lacking a true warrior’s instinct. Partly in response to pressure from them, Yamamoto authorized Ugaki to send a message to Inoue’s chief of staff, demanding to know “the reason for issuing such an order [to retire] when further advance and attack were needed.” This revealed, yet again, the ability of junior officers to intimidate their seniors into bellicose behavior. Yamamoto remained unsure just how many U.S. carriers—if any—had been sunk, and how many were left. “God only knows what is true,” Ugaki wrote in his diary. “I regret that I don’t know myself.”
¹⁰

A week later, on May 17, the
Shōkaku
limped into port at Kure. She could not moor at her regular buoy because of the battle damage that was still visible on her deck, and simply dropped anchor among the fleet. Yamamoto went on board the same day and conducted an inspection of the damage. It was worse than he thought, and this may have muted his anger at Inoue for not pursuing the enemy more aggressively. He thought the
Shōkaku
“was very lucky to have gotten off lightly with such damage,” and fairly quickly concluded that she could not be repaired in time to take part in Operation MI.
¹¹

Much more consequential was the assessment that the
Zuikaku
, too, would have to be withheld from the coming operation. Though entirely undamaged, she had lost so many of her planes and pilots that she was deemed not battleworthy. The historians Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully have conducted a careful analysis of the number of airplanes that were available to the
Zuikaku
. She came into port at Kure with all of the planes—from both carriers—that had survived the battle. Relatively few were fully operational attack planes—merely nine bombers and six torpedo planes—through there were twenty-four Zero fighters. In addition, however, there were eight bombers, four torpedo planes, and one more fighter that were only lightly damaged and could have been repaired in time to take part in Operation MI. That would have given the
Zuikaku
a total of fifty-six airplanes, which was only seven short of her normal complement.

An alternative would have been to assign air squadrons from other carriers to the
Zuikaku
, though that violated not only Japanese doctrine but also their sense of propriety. It would be like sending eight baseball players out on the field, dressed in mismatched uniforms. Parshall and Tully conclude that
“Zuikaku
could have been made available if her presence had been considered vital.” But it was not, and that reflected Japanese overconfidence as well as their assumption that the Americans had lost two carriers in the Coral Sea, so that as a result the superiority of the Kidō Butai over the Americans had actually been increased even without CarDiv5.
¹²

There was another consequence of the Battle of the Coral Sea that should have given the Japanese, and Yamamoto in particular, pause. Although the Americans had failed to sink either of the big Japanese carriers, their dive-bomber pilots had put three 1,000-pound bombs onto the flight deck of the
Shōkaku
—the newest and fastest of Japan’s carriers. This alone should have diminished the smugness within the Combined Fleet staff that the Kidō Butai was so vastly superior to its opponent that the outcome of a confrontation was a foregone conclusion—that all it would take to eliminate the American carriers was “one touch of the armored gauntlet.”
¹³