The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) (32 page)

The USS
Yorktown
(CV-5) undergoing repairs in the massive drydock at Pearl Harbor on May 28, 1942. Though some thought those repairs would require three months or more, Nimitz insisted that she be patched up in three days. (U.S. Naval Institute)

Nimitz authorized shore liberty for the
Yorktown
’s crew, partly as a reward for their long cruise and partly to get them out of the way of the yard workers. Soon, some fourteen hundred fabricators, shipfitters, and welders were swarming over the big carrier. They went to work with a purpose and intensity that suggested every minute counted, which it did. Whereas Yamamoto assumed that the loss of the
Shōkaku
and
Zuikaku
only narrowed the Kidō Butai’s margin of superiority, Nimitz knew that if the Americans were to have any chance against the oncoming juggernaut, they would need all three of their carriers.

The work continued around the clock. Though Honolulu was still blacked out for fear of enemy air raids, the dockyard at Pearl Harbor was lit up by giant floodlights and acetylene torches that burned through the night. The demand for electricity became so great that some districts in Honolulu endured power outages so that the yard could get all the power it needed. Pushed to make quick fixes rather than permanent repairs, the men did not bother with blueprints or plans. They cut plywood templates on board to match the gaping holes, sent the templates ashore to be duplicated in steel, then welded or bolted the patches into place. Deep inside the ship, work parties shored up sagging bulkheads instead of replacing them.
³⁵

When Fletcher met with Nimitz in his Pearl Harbor headquarters, he thought the normally placid Nimitz seemed uncharacteristically tense. Nimitz asked how he felt, and Fletcher acknowledged that he was “pretty tired.” After all, he had just completed a 101-day deployment, fought a major battle, and ridden the crippled
Yorktown
back across 3,500 miles of ocean. Fletcher thought he and the crew of the
Yorktown
had earned a respite; he had even stopped for a quick drink en route to Nimitz’s headquarters. Nimitz agreed that Fletcher and his crew would ordinarily be entitled to a long refit on the West Coast. But these were not ordinary times. “We have to fix you up right away and send you out to Midway.” He explained what he knew of the Japanese plan. The
Yorktown
’s air group, depleted by the Battle of the Coral Sea, would be brought up to full strength with squadrons from the
Saratoga.
*
The
Yorktown
would be repaired and refloated by the next day (May 29) and go to sea again the day after that.
³⁶

There was more, of course. Nimitz revealed that Halsey would be unable to participate in the forthcoming engagement because of his skin condition, and that Spruance would take over Task Force 16. Then, to Fletcher’s growing perplexity, Nimitz began to ask him pointed questions about various aspects of his command tenure in
Yorktown
. The roots of this awkward interrogation reached back to Ernie King’s suspicions about Fletcher’s timidity. King remained disappointed that Fletcher had not attacked the shipping at Rabaul. His disappointment had sharpened into anger when he had read Fletcher’s March 29 message informing Nimitz that he was retiring to Noumea to refuel; King had dashed off an angry and almost insulting blast to Fletcher that his message was “not understood.” Indeed, King seemed ready to write off Fletcher as an operational commander, and a few days after sending that missive he had proposed that Fletcher be moved into a shore billet as the acting commander of the South Pacific. Nor had the Battle of the Coral Sea eased King’s doubts. King acknowledged to his British counterpart that “we had rather the better of it” in the Coral Sea, but after reading the battle reports, he wrote to Nimitz (with a copy to Fletcher) that while he was “not familiar with all the circumstances,” he had “a feeling that destroyers might have been used in the night attacks” on May 7. Now, before Nimitz handed Fletcher the command of all of America’s remaining carriers in what was shaping up to be the decisive battle of the Pacific War, King wanted Nimitz to interrogate Fletcher sharply to determine his suitability for such an important job.
³⁷

The conversation was as embarrassing for Nimitz as it was for Fletcher, and the discussion became increasingly stilted. Finally, Fletcher said he would have to consult his log to respond in detail, and Nimitz, probably relieved, said that that was reasonable and they moved on to other topics. That night, after a second meeting that included Ray Spruance, Fletcher stayed up late to compose a typed thirteen-page single-spaced letter that began, “My dear Admiral Nimitz,” in which he explained all his command decisions in detail, especially in the Coral Sea. He had not attacked Rabaul, he wrote, because he did not have timely intelligence about suitable targets and it would have revealed his presence to the enemy. He did not order a destroyer night attack on May 7 because the location of the enemy carriers was uncertain. The airplane seen on the radar scope circling only thirty miles away was very likely a lost friendly. “All things considered,” he wrote, “the best plan seemed to be to keep our force concentrated and prepare for battle with enemy carriers next morning.”
³⁸

Nimitz forwarded Fletcher’s letter to King, along with one of his own (“Dear King”), in which he wrote that he had “finally had an opportunity to discuss with Fletcher … his operations in the Coral Sea area, and to clear up what appeared to be lack of aggressive tactics of his force.” As far as Nimitz was concerned, “these matters have been cleared up to my entire satisfaction, and I hope, to yours.” Fletcher, Nimitz wrote, “is an excellent, seagoing, fighting naval officer and I wish to retain him as task force commander.” Fletcher had passed the test, though if King had been grading it instead of Nimitz, the outcome might have been different.
³⁹

Nimitz ended his letter by quoting King’s own words back to him. In the days before Pearl Harbor, when King had commanded the Atlantic Fleet, he had frequently reminded his subordinates that despite shortages, “we will do the best we can with what we have.” King had used it so frequently that it had become the semiofficial slogan of the Atlantic Fleet. Now Nimitz used that phrase to close his letter of May 29: “We are actively preparing to greet our expected visitors with the kind of reception they deserve,” he wrote, “and
we will do the best we can with what we have
” In this context, though, it had a double meaning. It meant not only that they would make do with the ships and equipment they had—Halsey’s two carriers (though without Halsey), and a patched-up
Yorktown
carrying planes and pilots from the
Saratoga
—it also clearly meant that they would make do with the commander that was available.
⁴⁰

Nimitz gave Fletcher his orders later that same day. Though Fletcher would command the entire American carrier force, Nimitz wanted him to keep the
Yorktown
group separate from Task Force 16. Spruance’s two carriers were to launch the first strike while Fletcher held the
Yorktowns
air group back as a reserve until all of the Japanese carriers had been definitely located. Nimitz also reiterated “the principle of calculated risk,” and, using King’s language, he cautioned Fletcher not to “accept such decisive action as would be likely to incur heavy losses in our carriers and cruisers.” If defeat seemed likely, he was to break off the engagement and retire. After all, as Commander Miyo had repeatedly but fruitlessly pointed out at the conference in Tokyo at which Watanabe had pitched Yamamoto’s original plan, Midway was too far from Tokyo to make its occupation by Japan sustainable. Even if the Japanese took it now, the Americans could always get it back later.
⁴¹

Early the next morning (May 29), Drydock Number One was reflooded, the
Yorktown
floated off her blocks, and the gates were opened. The big flattop backed gingerly out into the main harbor and over to a loading dock, where she began to take on board the fuel, ammunition, and provisions she would need over the next several days. By then, Spruance was already at sea. Elements of Task Force 16 had begun to leave Pearl Harbor on the morning of May 28. The destroyers had gone out first and set up a screen. Then the cruisers followed, one at a time, at five-minute intervals. Finally, the two carriers departed. They were naked of airplanes—the planes and their crews were still at Kaneohe Air Station and Ewa Field and would fly out to the carriers only after the task force was well out to sea.
⁴²

As the work on the
Yorktown
progressed, an ensign named Jack Crawford, only six months out of the Naval Academy and fresh from radar school at MIT, reported his arrival in Pearl Harbor. He had orders to report to the
Yorktown
for duty and was eager to get aboard his first ship. The personnel officer at Pearl told him that there was no rush, since the
Yorktown
was likely to be in drydock for several months, but the young ensign was in a hurry. Told he would need the signature of the chief of staff to effect the transfer, Crawford went to the captain’s house and knocked on his door. The Filipino steward who answered told him that the captain was watching a movie. With the impatience of youth, Ensign Crawford told him to get the captain out of the movie; he needed a signature. The obviously irritated captain signed the orders, but he warned Crawford that his attitude did not bode well for his future career. “Son,” he told him, “you’re headed for trouble.” He was more right than either of them knew. Crawford went aboard the
Yorktown
at ten o’clock that night.
⁴³

The next day, Nimitz came aboard and talked to Fletcher and Buckmaster. He had no more instructions; he merely wished them “good luck and good hunting.” Soon afterward, the
Yorktown
was under way. Once in open water she joined the ships of her escort for the cruise northward to a rendezvous with Spruance’s Task Force 16 at a predetermined point 1,400 miles north of Oahu and 325 miles north of Midway that had optimistically been designated as “Point Luck.” There, the American carriers would be on the flank of the Kidō Butai as it approached. Ironically, it was very near the spot where the Japanese commander of the Red Team during the shipboard War Games at Hashirajima had put them, and where Rear Admiral Ugaki Matome had insisted they could never be.
⁴⁴

*
It is interesting that for war-gaming purposes, both the Americans and the Japanese made their own forces “Blue” and the enemy “Red,” though in a bow to the defunct Plan Orange, Americans most often referred to the Japanese as “Orange.”