The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) (54 page)

The popular and boyish-looking Lieutenant Samuel Adams spotted the
Hiryū
on the afternoon of June 4 and reported her location. (U.S. Naval Institute)

After receiving that news, Spruance ordered
Enterprise
and
Hornet
to “prepare to launch attack group immediately.” For whatever reason, that order never reached the
Hornet.
So far the day had been an unalloyed fiasco for the
Hornet.
It would get no better in the afternoon. Anticipating an order to launch a second strike, Mitscher had spotted Walt Rodee’s scout bombers on the
Hornet’s
flight deck. Then just a few minutes before 3:00, Mitscher learned that the eleven bombers of Ruff Johnson’s VB-8 that had landed on Midway that morning were at last returning. Mitscher decided to “break the spot” (as it was called) and push the planes of Rodee’s strike force forward in order to recover Johnson’s bombers. As a result, when at 3:17 Spruance ordered both carriers to begin launching at 3:30, the
Hornet
was not ready.
Enterprise
began launching at 3:25; the
Hornet
did not get her first plane into the air until after 4:00.
³⁸

That first plane lifted off at 4:03, and one by one, sixteen Dauntless bombers got airborne. Almost at once, however, two of them reported engine failure and had to return. By the time they were back aboard, it was past 4:30, and, deciding it was too late now to continue launching, Mitscher turned the
Hornet
west to the point-option course. That decision stranded fifteen planes of the
Hornet’s
strike force that were still on the hangar deck. Worse, among those fifteen were the planes of Stanhope Ring, the air group commander, and Walt Rodee, the squadron commander. Mitscher’s report is silent on how he learned of this latest snafu. Did Ring and Rodee come running up to the bridge to ask why they had been left behind? Did they then consult the roster to find out who the senior officer with the strike group was? In any case, only after he was in the air did Lieutenant Edgar Stebbins learn that he was in charge of the mission. It was yet another humiliation for the hapless
Hornet
, her frustrated commanding officer, and her even more frustrated air group commander.
³⁹

As for the
Enterprise
, once she had launched her strike group, she began recovering the orphaned Wildcats from the stricken
Yorktown
. Jimmy Thach was the last to come aboard, and when he climbed out of his cockpit, he was told that Admiral Spruance wanted to see him. Thach rushed up to the flag bridge, where the sober-faced admiral was waiting for him. He asked Thach how he thought things were going. “Admiral, we’re winning this battle,” Thach replied. “I saw with my own eyes three big carriers burning so furiously they’ll never launch another airplane.” He told Spruance that he felt that they ought to go after the fourth one. Thach remembered that Spruance “kind of smiled” at that, which was about as demonstrative as Spruance got.
⁴⁰

The
Enterprise
strike force of twenty-four planes (one of Gallaher’s planes had to return because of engine trouble) flew toward the target at 13,000 feet in three squadrons. Each squadron was a mere shadow of what it had been that morning. Earl Gallaher’s VS-6 had only six planes; Dick Best’s VB-6 had four; and Max Leslie’s VB-3 from
Yorktown
had fourteen. Neither McClusky nor Leslie could take part—McClusky because of his shoulder wound and Leslie because his plane had never made it to the
Enterprise. That
made Earl Gallaher the senior man, with Lieutenant Dave Shumway leading the
Yorktown
planes. Gallaher planned to have the ten
Enterprise
planes (his own and Dick Best’s) attack the enemy carrier, and he wanted Shumway’s fourteen planes from
Yorktown
to hit the escorting battleships. This was a curious decision, since battleships—though big and impressive—were of little operational importance compared to the carrier. Very likely, Gallaher was remembering the doctrine that called for two squadrons flying together to select different targets. But with the American squadrons so reduced by battle damage, and with only one enemy carrier left, it would have been understandable in this case for all the planes to attack the primary target. Despite doctrine, that is exactly what happened.

The strike force from
Enterprise
spotted the Kidō Butai just before 5:00. Gallaher led his group of twenty-four planes up to 19,000 feet and around to the west in order to attack out of the setting sun. The Japanese had a handful of Zeros flying CAP at altitude, but they did not discover the threat until Gallaher was nearly ready to push over, and for the second time that day the Japanese were caught by surprise when American dive-bombers came hurtling down on them. Despite that, they put up an impressive curtain of antiaircraft fire. In the growing darkness, the gunfire flashes along both sides of the carrier were clearly visible.
⁴¹

Gallaher began his dive just as the
Hiryū
made a radical turn to port. The
Hiryū
was agile for a big ship, and it turned tighter than Gallaher had calculated. He was already committed to his dive, so he tried to adjust for the
Hiryū
’s sharp turn by pulling up abruptly when he released his bomb, hoping to “throw” the bomb at the rapidly retreating carrier. The bomb missed astern, and Gallaher succeeded only in wrenching his back so badly that after he landed back on the
Enterprise
he had to be lifted bodily out of his cockpit.
⁴²

The next two bombs also missed, and after witnessing that, Shumway decided to forget about the battleships and lead his squadron against the carrier. It was the right decision, though it caused some confusion, since his group and Best’s four-plane section both dove on the
Hiryū
at the same time. Once again, Best had to maneuver at the last moment while he was preparing to dive. That gave the Zeros flying CAP a second chance at him, and they shot down one of Best’s wingmen, Ensign Fred Weber. Then, as Shumway targeted the
Hiryūs
starboard bow, Best led his other three planes against her port bow.
⁴³

The first to hit the
Hiryū
was Ensign Richard Jaccard. His 500-pound bomb struck the forward elevator, blowing a section of it into the air and propelling it back against the
Hiryūs
small island. Three more hits quickly followed, one of them Dick Best’s—his second of the day. Norman “Dusty” Kleiss, who had landed a bomb on the
Kaga
that morning, also got a second hit on
Hiryū.
All four American bombs landed forward of the ship’s island and created a single, massive crater in her flight deck; the
Hiryū
looked as if a giant’s hand had reached down and scooped out her bow section, leaving a gaping cavern. The
Hiryū
suffered less secondary damage than the other Japanese carriers because there was less ordnance to cook off on the hangar deck, but the primary damage was enough. Like her sister ships, she had been wrecked beyond recovery.
⁴⁴

Only then did Stebbins’ fourteen planes from
Hornet
arrive on the scene. Seeing that the Japanese carrier was already smashed and “burning throughout its entire length,” Stebbins led his squadron against the heavy cruisers
Chikuma
and
Tone
. Based on the pilots’ assessments, Mitscher later reported three hits on a battleship and two on a heavy cruiser, though in fact none of the bombs from the
Hornet’s
planes hit home.
⁴⁵

In an epilogue to this very long day, a dozen Army B-17s—six from Midway and six from Barking Sands Airfield on Kauai Island—appeared overhead just at dusk and dropped more than thirty 500-pound bombs on what was left of the Kidō Butai. They scored no hits, though they returned to base claiming one hit on a carrier and the sinking of a destroyer.
⁴⁶

By the time all the Navy planes were back aboard the carriers, it was full dark.
*
Spruance called Fletcher on the TBS to ask if he had any orders. “Negative,” Fletcher replied; “will conform to your movements,” in effect releasing Spruance to operate his task force independently, a vote of confidence that Spruance greatly appreciated. Spruance’s first decision was to turn Task Force 16 to the east, away from the enemy. He was aware that this might allow the remnants of the Kidō Butai to escape during the night. He knew, however, that four Japanese carriers had been hit, and he was sensitive to the possibly of a Japanese night attack by their heavy battleships or by destroyers launching torpedoes. As he put it in his subsequent report to Nimitz, “I did not feel justified in risking a night encounter with possibly superior enemy forces, but on the other hand, I did not want to be too far away from Midway the next morning.” Though Spruance’s decision was subsequently controversial, it was a sound one. Nimitz had told him—and Fletcher—not to risk the fleet.
⁴⁷

As for Nagumo, with his last carrier in flames, and lacking any aircraft beyond the few scout planes on the heavy cruisers and battleships, he at last faced reality and directed the remnants of his command to head west into the setting sun.

*
Altogether, Yamaguchi and the
Hiryū
could count up to sixty-four aircraft. That included twenty-seven Zero fighters from all four carriers, most of them still flying CAP. There were an additional ten Zeros on the
Hiryūs
hanger deck, the eighteen Val dive bombers, and nine Kate torpedo planes, plus one more orphaned Kate from the
Akagi.

*
Though the Zeros failed to shoot down any of Ware’s dive bombers, none of the American planes made it back to the
Enterprise
, presumably because they subsequently ran out of gas. The crew of one of them—Ensign Frank W. O’Flaherty and his backseat gunner, Avation Machinist’s Mate First Class Bruno Gaido—ditched in the water and were subsequently taken prisoner by the Japanese destroyer
Makigumo.
Gaido was the man who had won Halsey’s approbation four months earlier by attempting to fight off a Japanese Nell from the stern of the
Enterprise
during the raid on the Marshall Islands (see
chapter 4
). After the Japanese interrogated the two Americans, they tied weights to their ankles and dropped them over the side.