The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) (69 page)

29
. E. B. Potter,
Bull Halsey
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985), 84.

30
. Ibid., 118; Gordon Prange interview of Spruance (Sept. 5, 1964), Prange Papers, UMD, box 17; C. J. Moore interview (Nov. 28, 1966) in Spruance Papers, NWC, box 2, series 4, folder 1; John B. Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 225.

31
. Quoted in Thomas B. Buell,
The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 122.

32
. Ashford to Walter Lord, Feb. 26, 1966, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18; Potter,
Bull Halsey
, 78.

33
. Nimitz to Navy Yard, Pearl Harbor, May 28, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8, no page, date-time group 280233.

34
. Potter,
Bull Halsey
, 79; Nimitz to Navy Yard, Pearl Harbor, May 28, 1942, and Fletcher to Nimitz, May 11, 1942, both in Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8, no page number, date-time group 280233 and 092102; E. B. Potter,
Nimitz
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1976), 85.

35
. Craig L. Symonds,
Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 202.

36
. Nimitz to King, May 10, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8, no page number, date-time group 092219.

37
. King to Fletcher, March 30, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:322; King to Dudley Pound, May 21, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2; King to Nimitz, May 11, 1942, and Fletcher to Nimitz, May 15, 1942, both in Nimitz Papers, NHHC., box 1:468, 469. See Lundstrom,
First South Pacific Campaign
, 68–70; and
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
, 116–17.

38
. Fletcher to Nimitz, May 28, carbon copy in King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2; Potter,
Nimitz
, 86.

39
. Nimitz to King, May 29, 1942, King Papers NHHC, Series I, box 2.

40
. Examples of King’s use of the phrase are in King to J. H. Ingram, March 14, 1942, and King to Freeman, March 17, 1942, both in King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2. Nimitz’s use of it (italics mine) is in Nimitz to King, May 29, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2.

41
. Nimitz to Commander Striking Forces, May 28, 1942, Action Reports, reel 2, pp. 1, 6. See also Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., “Clear Purpose, Comprehensive Execution: Raymond Ames Spruance (1886–1969),” in
Nineteen-Gun Salute: Case Studies of Operational, Strategic, and Diplomatic Naval Leadership during the 20th and Early 21st Centuries
, ed. John B. Hattendorf and Bruce A. Elleman (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2010), 52.

42
. Nimitz to Spruance, May 28, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8/280105.

43
. Interview of Captain John W. “Jack” Crawford, USN (Ret.) by the author (May 5, 2004).

44
. Nimtiz’s visit is discussed in a questionnaire completed by LT Clarence E. Aldrich, in Walter Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18.

Chapter 10

1
. Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully,
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 90–91.

2
. Beardall to King, Jan. 12, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 1; King Secret File, Feb. 1, 1942, Gruening to Ickes, Feb. 14, 1942, and Ickes to FDR, Feb. 18, 1942, all in King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2.

3
. Nimitz to Theobald, May20, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, 1:496.

4
. Marshall and King Memo, April 16, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2; Nimitz to King, May 20, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:496.

5
. Robert Theobald, “Memorandum for Whom it May Concern,” July 2, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2, p. 8 (hereafter Theobald Memorandum); Samuel Eliot Morison,
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
, vol. 4,
Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942–August, 1942
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1949), 170.

6
. Theobald Memorandum, 9; interview of VADM William D. Houser by the author (May 5, 2004).

7
. Morison,
Coral Sea
, 175–76; Gordon Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, and Katherine V. Dillon,
Miracle at Midway
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 153.

8
. J. W. Reeves to King, June 13, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2; Theobald Memorandum, 4.

9
. Theobald Memorandum, 11.

10
. Ibid., 11–12.

11
. J. W. Reeves to King, June 13, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series, I, box 2. In a handwritten comment on this message, King wrote: “The basic trouble was that CTF8 [Theobald] did not set up a Joint Air Command until about 20 June.”

12
. Morison,
Coral Sea
, 178.

13
. It was Commander Miyo who proposed Operation K at the April 5 conference with the Naval General Staff in Tokyo. See Robert E. Barde, “The Battle of Midway: A Study in Command” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1972), 41–42, 41n.

14
. Alec Hudson, “Rendezvous,”
Saturday Evening Post
, Aug. 2 and 9, 1941, quotation from the Aug. 9 issue, 32; Steve Horn,
The Second Attack on Pearl Harbor: Operation K and Other Japanese Attempts to Bomb America in World War II
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), 73–74.

15
. Horn,
Second Attack on Pearl Harbor
, 65–90.

16
. Edward T. Layton, with Roger Pineau and John Costello,
“And I was there”: Pearl Harbor and Midway—Breaking the Secrets
(New York: Morrow, 1985), 374.

17
. The Hypo intercepts are in the Layton Papers, NWC, box 26, folder 5.

18
. Horn,
Second Attack on Pearl Harbor
, 175–77.

19
. Prange interviews with Watanabe (Sept. 26 and Oct. 6, 1964), Prange Papers, UMD, box 17. See also Barde, “Battle of Midway,” 42, 45–46.

20
. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya,
Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy’s Story
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1955; repr., 1992), 155; Prange et al.,
Miracle at Midway
, 145.

21
. Nimitz to Midway garrison, June 2, 1942, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:550. The “criminal waste” passage is from John S. McCain to “Frog” Low, March 14, 1942, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2. See also King to Marshall, March 19, King Papers, NHHC, Series I, box 2.

22
. Prange et al.,
Miracleat Midway
, 160–61.

23
. Ibid., 162–63.

24
. Ibid.

25
. The details of the sighting come from a letter from Reid to Gordon Prange dated Dec. 10, 1966. It is cited in Prange et al.,
Miracle at Midway
, 162–64. See also Potter,
Nimitz
, 91; Symonds,
Decision at Sea
, 225.

26
. Layton to Walter Lord, Feb. 10, 1967, Walter Lord Collection, NHHC, box 17; Nimitz to Mrs. Nimitz, June 2, 1942, Nimitz Diary # 1, NHHC; Layton,
And I was There
, 436; Potter,
Nimitz
, 92.

27
. Quoted in Prange et al.,
Miracle at Midway
, 170.

28
. Prange et al.,
Miracle at Midway
, 173.

29
. Dick Knott, “Night Torpedo Attack,”
Naval Aviation
News, June 1982, 10–13; Gerald Astor,
Wings of Gold: The U.S. Naval Air Campaign in World War II
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), 87–88; and Prange et al.,
Miracle at Midway
, 174–76.

30
. James C. Boyden to Walter Lord, Jan., 24, 1966, Walter Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18; Lieutenant Junior Grade Douglas Davis interview (Oct. 1, 2000), NMPW; and Stuart D. Ludlum,
They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway: Going to War with Yorktowns Air Group Five
(Bennington, VT: Merriam, 2000), 106.

31
. John B. Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea
,
Midway, and Guadalcanal
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 236.

Chapter 11

1
. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya,
Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy’s Story
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1955), 75; Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully,
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 123.

2
. The numbers used here are from Parshall and Tully,
Shattered Sword
, 90–91.

3
. Fuchida and Okumiya,
Midway
, 184–85.

4
. Fuchida and Okumiya,
Midway
, 185. The discovery that the Japanese did not bring the second strike force onto the flight deck is a particular contribution of Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, who were the first to combine an analysis of Japanese carrier doctrine with the battle photos of the Kidö Butai to conclude that the decks of the four Japanese carriers were largely bare throughout the morning. They note that “at no time during the morning prior to 1000 was the reserve strike force ever spotted on the flight decks.”
(Shattered Sword
, 131.) Another important contribution is the time-motion study, based on interviews of Japanese crewmen, done by Dallas Isom to determine both the process and the time needed to arm (and rearm) the Japanese planes. See Dallas Woodbury Isom,
Midway Inquest: Why the Japanese Lost the Battle of Midway
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 116–28.