Battle of Midway

Background

After expanding the war in the Pacific to include western colonies, the Japanese Empire quickly attained its initial strategic goals of British Hong Kong, the Philippines, British Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, the last of whose oil resources were particularly important to Japan. Because of this, preliminary planning for the second phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942.

Because of strategic disagreements between the Imperial Army (IJA) and Imperial Navy (IJN), and infighting between the Navy's Imperial General Headquarters and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's Combined Fleet, a follow-up strategy was not formed until April 1942. Yamamoto finally won the bureaucratic struggle with a thinly veiled threat to resign, after which his plan was adopted. Yamamoto's primary strategic goal was the elimination of America's carrier forces, which he regarded as the principal threat to the overall Pacific campaign. This concern was acutely heightened by the Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942, in which 16 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) B-25 Mitchell bombers launched from USS Hornet bombed targets in Tokyo and several other Japanese cities. The raid, while militarily insignificant, was a shock to the Japanese and highlighted a gap in the defenses around the Japanese home islands as well as the vulnerability of Japanese territory to American bombers.

This, along with other successful hit-and-run raids by American carriers in the South Pacific, showed that they were still a threat, although seemingly reluctant to be drawn into all-out battle. Yamamoto reasoned that another air attack on Naval Station Pearl Harbor would induce all of the American fleet to sail out to fight, including the carriers. However, considering the increased strength of American land-based airpower on the Hawaiian Islands since the 7 December 1941 attack, he judged that it was too risky to attack Pearl Harbor directly.

Instead, Yamamoto selected Midway, a tiny atoll at the extreme northwest end of the Hawaiian Island chain, approximately 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) from Oahu. Midway was outside the effective range of almost all the American aircraft stationed on the main Hawaiian Islands. It was not especially important in the larger scheme of Japan's intentions, but the Japanese felt the Americans would consider Midway a vital outpost of Pearl Harbor and would be compelled to defend it vigorously. The U.S. did indeed consider Midway vital: following the battle, the establishment of a U.S. submarine base on Naval Air Facility Midway Island allowed submarines operating from Pearl Harbor to refuel and re-provision, extending their radius of operations by 1,200 mi (1,900 km). In addition to serving as a seaplane base, Midway's airstrips were a forward staging point for bomber attacks on Wake Island.

Yamamoto's plan

Typical of Japanese naval planning during World War II, Yamamoto's battle plan for taking Midway (named Operation MI) was exceedingly complex. It required the careful coordination of multiple battle groups over hundreds of miles of open sea. His design was also predicated on optimistic intelligence suggesting that USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, forming Task Force 16, were the only carriers available to the Pacific Fleet. During the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier, USS Lexington had been sunk and USS Yorktown suffered so much damage that the Japanese believed she too had been lost. However, following hasty repairs at Pearl Harbor, Yorktown sortied and ultimately played a critical role in the discovery and eventual destruction of the Japanese fleet carriers at Midway. Finally, much of Yamamoto's planning, coinciding with the general feeling among the Japanese leadership at the time, was based on a gross misjudgement of American morale which was believed to be debilitated from the string of Japanese victories in the preceding months.

Yamamoto felt deception would be required to lure the U.S. fleet into a fatally compromised situation. To this end, he dispersed his forces so that their full extent (particularly his battleships) would be concealed from the Americans prior to battle. Critically, Yamamoto's supporting battleships and cruisers trailed Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's carrier force by several hundred miles. The original plans for the Midway attack are missing, but one school of thought is they were intended to come up and destroy whatever elements of the American fleet might come to Midway's defense once Nagumo's carriers had weakened them sufficiently for a daylight gun battle. This tactic was doctrine in most major navies of the time.

Another theory of Yamamoto's intentions says that he distrusted the effectiveness of battleships in general and had no intention to use them in the battle, but dispatched them only for reasons of Navy politics and morale. He had so far left the battleships out of combat, and he sought to appease the battleship faction on the Navy General Staff by himself sailing on the battleship Yamato.

Unknown to Yamamoto, the U.S. had broken parts of the main Japanese naval code (dubbed JN-25 by the Americans), divulging many details of his plan. His emphasis on dispersal prevented his formations from supporting each other. For instance, although Nagumo's carriers were expected to carry out strikes against Midway and bear the brunt of American counterattacks, the only warships in his fleet larger than the screening force of twelve destroyers were two Kongō-class fast battleships, two heavy cruisers, and one light cruiser. By contrast, Yamamoto and Kondo had between them two light carriers, five battleships, four heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers, none of which saw action at Midway.

Aleutian invasion

To obtain support from the IJA for the Midway operation, the IJN agreed to support their invasion of the United States through the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska, part of the Alaska Territory. The IJA occupied these islands to place the Japanese home islands out of range of U.S. land-based bombers in Alaska. Most Americans feared that the occupied islands would be used as bases for Japanese bombers to attack strategic targets and population centers along the U.S. West Coast.

The Japanese operations in the Aleutians (Operation AL) removed yet more ships that could otherwise have augmented the force striking Midway. Whereas many earlier historical accounts considered the Aleutians operation as a feint to draw American forces away, according to the original Japanese battle plan, AL was intended to be launched simultaneously with the attack on Midway. A one-day delay in the sailing of Nagumo's task force resulted in Operation AL beginning a day before the Midway attack.

Prelude

American reinforcements

To do battle with the IJN, expected to muster four or five carriers, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, needed every available flight deck. He already had Vice Admiral William Halsey's two-carrier (Enterprise and Hornet) task force at hand, though Halsey was stricken with shingles and had to be replaced by Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Halsey's escort commander. Nimitz also hurriedly recalled Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher's task force, including the carrier Yorktown, from the South West Pacific Area.

Despite estimates that Yorktown, damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, would require several months of repairs at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, her elevators were intact and her flight deck largely so. The Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard worked around the clock, and in 72 hours she was restored to a battle-ready state, judged good enough for two or three weeks of operations, as Nimitz required. Her flight deck was patched, and whole sections of internal frames were cut out and replaced. Repairs continued even as she sortied, with work crews from the repair ship USS Vestal, herself damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier, still aboard.

Yorktown's partially depleted air group was rebuilt using whatever planes and pilots could be found. Scouting Five (VS-5) was replaced with Bombing Three (VB-3) from USS Saratoga. Torpedo Five (VT-5) was replaced by Torpedo Three (VT-3). Fighting Three (VF-3) was reconstituted to replace VF-42 with sixteen pilots from VF-42 and eleven pilots from VF-3, with Lieutenant Commander John Thach in command. Some of the aircrew were inexperienced, which may have contributed to an accident in which Thach's executive officer Lieutenant Commander Donald Lovelace was killed. Despite efforts to get Saratoga (which had been undergoing repairs on the American West Coast) ready, the need to resupply and assemble sufficient escorts meant she was able to reach Midway only after the battle.

On Midway, the U.S. Navy had by 4 June stationed four squadrons of PBYs—31 aircraft in total—for long-range reconnaissance duties, and six brand-new Grumman TBF Avengers from Hornet's VT-8. The Marine Corps stationed 19 Douglas SBD Dauntless, seven F4F-3 Wildcats, 17 Vought SB2U Vindicators, and 21 Brewster F2A Buffalos. The USAAF contributed a squadron of 17 B-17 Flying Fortresses and four Martin B-26 Marauders equipped with torpedoes: in total 122 aircraft. Although the F2As and SB2Us were already obsolete, they were the only aircraft available to the Marine Corps at the time.

Japanese shortcomings

During the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier, the Japanese light carrier Shōhō had been sunk and the fleet carrier Shōkaku had been severely damaged and was in drydock for repair. Although the fleet carrier Zuikaku escaped the battle undamaged, she had lost almost half her air group and was in port at the Kure Naval District in Hiroshima, awaiting replacement aircraft and pilots. That there were none immediately available can be attributed to the growing inability of the IJN to properly train pilots faster than they were killed in action. In desperation, instructors from the Yokosuka Air Corps were relieved of their duties to plug the gap.

Thus, Carrier Division 5, consisting of the two most advanced aircraft carriers of the Kido Butai, was not available which meant that Vice-Admiral Nagumo had only two-thirds of the fleet carriers at his disposal: Kaga and Akagi forming Carrier Division 1 and Hiryū and Sōryū making up Carrier Division 2. This was partly due to fatigue; Japanese carriers had been constantly on operations since 7 December 1941 including raids on Darwin and Colombo. Nonetheless, the First Carrier Strike Force sailed with 248 available aircraft on the four carriers: 60 on Akagi, 74 on Kaga (B5N2 squadron oversized), 57 on Hiryū and 57 on Sōryū.

The main Japanese carrier-borne strike aircraft were the Aichi D3A1 "Val" dive bomber and the Nakajima B5N2 "Kate", which was used either as a torpedo bomber or as a level bomber. The main carrier fighter was the fast and highly maneuverable Mitsubishi A6M Zero. For a variety of reasons, production of the "Val" had been drastically reduced, while that of the "Kate" had been stopped completely and, as a consequence, there were none available to replace losses. In addition, many of the aircraft being used during the June 1942 operations had been operational since late November 1941 and, although they were well-maintained, many were almost worn out and had become increasingly unreliable. These factors meant all carriers of the Kidō Butai had fewer aircraft than their normal complement, with few spare aircraft or parts in the carriers' hangars.

In addition, Nagumo's carrier force suffered from several defensive deficiencies: "it could throw a punch but couldn't take one." The carriers' fueling systems consisted of a network of highly flammable fuel-filled lines that allowed fires to spread rapidly. The carrier interiors were composed of wood flooring, internal timber support beams, cotton pipe insulation, and other flammable materials. The firefighting systems were fed by water mains that were vulnerable to bomb or fire damage. The carriers were not even equipped with fire-suppressing foam—firefighting teams had to make do with water alone.

U.S. code-breaking

Nimitz had one critical advantage: U.S. cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code. Since early 1942, the U.S. had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF." It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised the ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea communications cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water." The Japanese seemed unconcerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese was having a water shortage, which Japanese intelligence might have suspected as deception. HYPO was also able to determine the date of the attack as either 4 or 5 June, and to provide Nimitz with a complete IJN order of battle.

Japan had a new codebook, but its introduction had been delayed, enabling HYPO to read messages for several crucial days; the new code, which took several days to be cracked, came into use on 24 May, but the important breaks had already been made. As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a good picture of where, when, and in what strength the Japanese would appear. Nimitz knew that the Japanese had negated their numerical advantage by dividing their ships into four separate task groups, so widely separated that it was essentially impossible for any one group to support another. This dispersal resulted in few fast ships being available to escort the Carrier Striking Force, thus reducing the number of anti-aircraft guns protecting the carriers. Nimitz calculated that the airplanes on his three carriers, combined with support on Midway Island, gave the U.S. rough parity with Yamamoto's four carriers, mainly because American carrier air groups were larger than Japanese ones. The Japanese, by contrast, remained largely unaware of their opponent's true strength and dispositions even after the battle began.

Battle

Initial air attacks

At about 09:00 on 3 June, Ensign Jack Reid, piloting a PBY from U.S. Navy patrol squadron VP-44, spotted the Japanese Occupation Force 500 nmi (580 mi; 930 km) to the west-southwest of Midway. He mistakenly reported this group as the Main Force. Nine B-17s took off from Midway at 12:30 for the first air attack. Three hours later, they found Tanaka's transport group 570 nmi (660 mi; 1,060 km) to the west.

Harassed by heavy anti-aircraft fire, they dropped their bombs. Although their crews reported hitting four ships, none were actually hit and no significant damage was inflicted. Early the following morning, the Japanese oil tanker Akebono Maru sustained the first hit when a torpedo from an attacking PBY struck her around 01:00. This was the only successful air-launched torpedo attack by the U.S. during the battle.

At 04:30 on 4 June, Nagumo launched his initial attack on Midway, consisting of 36 D3As and 36 B5Ns, escorted by 36 Zero fighters. At the same time, he launched his seven search aircraft (2 B5Ns from Akagi and Kaga; 4 Aichi E13A "Jakes" from the heavy cruiser Tone and Chikuma; and 1 short-range Nakajima E8N "Dave" from the battleship Haruna; an eighth aircraft from Tone launched 30 minutes late). Japanese reconnaissance arrangements were flimsy, with too few aircraft to adequately cover the assigned search areas, laboring under poor weather conditions to the northeast and east of the task force. As Nagumo's bombers and fighters were taking off, 11 PBYs were leaving Midway to run their search patterns. At 05:34, a PBY reported sighting two Japanese carriers; another spotted the inbound airstrike 10 minutes later.

Midway's radar picked up the Japanese at 05:53, at a distance of 93 nautical miles, and interceptors were scrambled. Unescorted bombers headed off to attack the Japanese carriers, their fighter escorts remaining behind to defend Midway. Having taken off at 06:00 Midway-based Marine fighters of VMF-221 led by Major Floyd B. Parks, which included six F4Fs and twenty F2As, intercepted the Japanese at 06:20 and suffered heavy losses, though they destroyed four B5Ns and one Zero. Within the first few minutes, two F4Fs and thirteen F2As were destroyed, while most of the surviving U.S. planes were damaged, with only two remaining airworthy. Major Parks was among the lost. From 06:34 onwards, Japanese carrier aircraft bombed and heavily damaged the U.S. base. American anti-aircraft fire was intense and accurate, destroying three Japanese aircraft and damaging many more.

Nagumo's dilemma

In accordance with Yamamoto's orders for Operation MI, Nagumo had kept half of his aircraft in reserve: two squadrons each of dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The dive bombers were as yet unarmed (by standard procedure, dive bombers were to be armed on the flight deck). The torpedo bombers were armed with torpedoes against possible American warships.

At 07:15, Nagumo ordered his reserve planes to be re-armed with contact-fused general-purpose bombs for use against land targets. This was to counter the attacks from Midway, as well as the morning flight commander's recommendation of a second strike. Re-arming had been underway for about 30 minutes when, at 07:40, the delayed scout plane from Tone signaled that it had sighted a sizable American naval force to the east, but did not specify its composition. Later evidence suggests Nagumo did not receive the sighting report until 08:00.

Nagumo swiftly reversed his order to re-arm the bombers and demanded the scout plane to ascertain the type of ships in the American force. Another 20–40 minutes elapsed before Tone's scout finally radioed the presence of a single carrier in the American force. (This was one of the carriers from Task Force 16: the other carrier was not sighted.)

Nagumo now faced a quandary. Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, leading Carrier Division 2 (Hiryū and Sōryū), suggested that he strike immediately with the forces at hand: 16 D3A1 dive bombers on Sōryū and 18 on Hiryū, with half the ready cover patrol aircraft. Nagumo's opportunity to hit the American ships was now limited by the imminent return of his Midway strike force. The returning strike force needed to land promptly or it would have to ditch into the sea. Because of the constant flight deck activity associated with combat air patrol operations during the preceding hour, the Japanese never had an opportunity to position ("spot") their reserve planes on the flight deck for launch.

What few aircraft remaining on the Japanese flight decks at the time of the attack were either defensive fighters or, in the case of Sōryū, fighters being spotted to augment the combat air patrol. Spotting his flight decks and launching aircraft would have required at least 30 minutes. Furthermore, by spotting and launching immediately, Nagumo would be committing some of his reserves to battle without proper anti-ship armament, and likely without fighter escort. Indeed, he had just witnessed how easily the unescorted American bombers had been shot down.

Attacks on the Japanese fleet

The Americans had already launched their carrier aircraft against the Japanese. Fletcher, in overall command aboard Yorktown, and benefiting from PBY sighting reports from the early morning, ordered Spruance to launch against the Japanese as soon as was practical, while initially holding Yorktown in reserve in case any other Japanese carriers were found.

Spruance judged that, though the range was extreme, a strike could succeed and gave the order to launch the attack. He left Halsey's Chief of Staff, Captain Miles Browning, to work out the details and oversee the launch. The carriers had to launch into the wind, so the light southeasterly breeze would require them to steam away from the Japanese at high speed. Browning, therefore, suggested a launch time of 07:00, giving the carriers an hour to close on the Japanese at 25 kn (46 km/h; 29 mph). This would place them at about 155 nmi (287 km; 178 mi) from the Japanese fleet, assuming it did not change course. The first plane took off from Spruance's carriers Enterprise and Hornet a few minutes after 07:00. Fletcher, upon completing his own scouting flights, followed suit at 08:00 from Yorktown.

Fletcher, along with Yorktown's commanding officer, Captain Elliott Buckmaster, and their staffs, had acquired the first-hand experience needed in organizing and launching a full strike against an enemy force in the Coral Sea, but there was no time to pass these lessons on to Enterprise, commanded by Captain George Murray, and Hornet, commanded by Captain Marc Mitscher, which were tasked with launching the first strike. Spruance ordered the striking aircraft to proceed to target immediately rather than waiting for the strike force to assemble, since neutralizing the Japanese carriers was the key to the survival of his own task force.

While the Japanese were able to launch 108 aircraft in just seven minutes, it took Enterprise and Hornet over an hour to launch 117. Spruance judged that the need to throw something at the Japanese as soon as possible was greater than that of coordinating the attack by aircraft of different types and speeds (fighters, bombers, and torpedo bombers). Accordingly, American squadrons were launched piecemeal and proceeded to the target in several different groups. It was accepted that the lack of coordination would diminish the overall impact of the American attacks and increase their casualties, but Spruance calculated that this was worthwhile, since keeping the Japanese under aerial attack impaired their ability to launch a counter strike (Japanese tactics preferred fully constituted attacks), and he gambled that he would find Nagumo with his flight decks at their most vulnerable.

Japanese counterattacks

Hiryū, the sole surviving Japanese aircraft carrier, wasted little time in counterattacking. Hiryū's first attack wave, consisting of 18 D3As and 6 Zeros, followed the retreating American aircraft and attacked the first carrier they encountered, Yorktown, hitting her with three bombs, which blew a hole in the deck, snuffed out all but one of her boilers, and destroyed one anti-aircraft mount. The damage forced Fletcher to move his command staff to the heavy cruiser Astoria. Damage control parties were able to temporarily patch the flight deck and restore power to several boilers within an hour, giving her a speed of 19 kn (35 km/h; 22 mph) and enabling her to resume air operations. Yorktown hoisted a flag signal to indicate a speed of 5 knots. Captain Buckmaster had his signalmen hoist a new 10-by-15-foot American flag from the foremast. Thirteen D3As and three Zeros were lost in this attack (two Zeros turned back early after they were damaged attacking some of Enterprise's SBDs returning from their attack on the Japanese carriers).

Approximately one hour later, Hiryū's second attack wave, consisting of ten B5Ns and six escorting Zeros, arrived over Yorktown; the repair efforts had been so effective that the Japanese pilots assumed that Yorktown must be a different, undamaged carrier. They attacked, crippling Yorktown with two torpedoes; she lost all power and developed a 23-degree list to port. Five B5Ns and two Zeros were shot down in this attack.

News of the two strikes, with the mistaken reports that each had sunk an American carrier, greatly improved Japanese morale. The few surviving aircraft were all recovered aboard Hiryū. Despite the heavy losses, the Japanese believed that they could scrape together enough aircraft for one more strike against what they believed to be the only remaining American carrier.

American counterattack

Late in the afternoon, a Yorktown scout aircraft located Hiryū, prompting Enterprise to launch a final strike of 24 dive bombers (six SBDs from VS-6, four SBDs from VB-6, and 14 SBDs from Yorktown's VB-3). Despite Hiryū being defended by more than a dozen Zero fighters, the attack by Enterprise and orphaned Yorktown aircraft launched from Enterprise was successful: four bombs (possibly five) hit Hiryū, leaving her ablaze and unable to operate aircraft. Hornet's strike, launched late because of a communications error, concentrated on the remaining escort ships but failed to score any hits. A bomb from the Enterprise dive bomber piloted by Dusty Kleiss struck Hiryū on the bow, essentially crippling her.

After futile attempts at controlling the blaze, most of the crew on Hiryū were evacuated, and the remainder of the fleet continued sailing northeast in an attempt to intercept the American carriers. Despite a scuttling attempt by a Japanese destroyer that hit her with a torpedo and then departed quickly, Hiryū stayed afloat for several more hours. She was discovered early the next morning by an aircraft from the escort carrier Hōshō, prompting hopes she could be saved or towed back to Japan. Soon after being spotted, Hiryū sank. Yamaguchi, along with ship's captain, Tomeo Kaku, chose to go down with the ship, costing Japan perhaps its best carrier officer. One young sailor reportedly tried to stay with the officers but was denied.

As darkness fell, both sides made tentative plans for continuing the action. Fletcher, obliged to abandon the derelict Yorktown and feeling he could not adequately command from a cruiser, ceded operational command to Spruance. Spruance knew the U.S. had won a great victory, but he was unsure of what Japanese forces remained and was determined to safeguard both Midway and his carriers. To aid his aviators, who had launched at extreme range, he had continued to close with Nagumo during the day and persisted as night fell.

Finally, fearing a possible night encounter with Japanese surface forces and believing Yamamoto still intended to invade (based in part on a misleading contact report from the submarine Tambor) Spruance changed course and withdrew to the east, turning back west towards the Japanese at midnight. For his part, Yamamoto initially decided to continue the engagement and sent his remaining surface forces searching eastward for the American carriers. Simultaneously, he detached a cruiser raiding force to bombard the island. The Japanese surface forces failed to make contact with the Americans because Spruance had briefly withdrawn eastward, and Yamamoto ordered a general withdrawal to the west. It was fortunate for the U.S. that Spruance did not pursue: had he come in contact with Yamamoto's heavy ships, including Yamato, in the dark, considering the Japanese Navy's superiority in night-attack tactics at the time, there is a very high probability his cruisers would have been overwhelmed and his carriers sunk.

Japanese and U.S. casualties

SBD pilot Norman "Dusty" Kleiss, who scored three hits on Japanese ships during the Battle of Midway (aircraft carriers Kaga and Hiryū and heavy cruiser Mikuma), wrote: "From the experience in the Marshalls, at Wake and at Marcus, I thought our fleet learned its lessons. We could not send TBDs into action unless they had adequate smoke protection and torpedoes that exploded more than 10 percent of the time."

By the time the battle ended, 3,057 Japanese had died. Casualties aboard the four carriers were: Akagi: 267; Kaga: 811; Hiryū: 392 (including Yamaguchi who chose to go down with his ship); Soryū: 711 (including Captain Yanagimoto, who chose to remain on board); a total of 2,181. The heavy cruisers Mikuma (sunk; 700 casualties) and Mogami (badly damaged; 92) accounted for another 792 deaths.

In addition, the destroyers Arashio (bombed; 35) and Asashio (strafed by aircraft; 21) were both damaged during the air attacks which sank Mikuma and caused further damage to Mogami. Floatplanes were lost from the cruisers Chikuma (3) and Tone (2). Dead aboard the destroyers Tanikaze (11), Arashi (1), Kazagumo (1) and the fleet oiler Akebono Maru (10) made up the remaining 23 casualties.

At the end of the battle, the U.S. lost the carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann. Three hundred seven Americans had been killed, including Major General Clarence L. Tinker, Commander, 7th Air Force, who personally led a bomber strike from Hawaii against the retreating Japanese forces on 7 June. He was killed when his aircraft crashed near Midway Island.

Aftermath

After securing a clear victory, and as pursuit became too hazardous near Wake Island, American forces retired. Spruance again withdrew to the east to refuel his destroyers and rendezvous with the carrier Saratoga, which was ferrying much-needed replacement aircraft. Fletcher transferred his flag to Saratoga on the afternoon of 8 June and resumed command of the carrier force. For the remainder of that day and the next, Fletcher continued to launch search missions from the three carriers to ensure the Japanese were no longer advancing on Midway. Late on 10 June a decision was ultimately made to leave the area, and the American carriers returned to Pearl Harbor.

Historian Samuel E. Morison noted in 1949 that Spruance was criticized for not pursuing the retreating Japanese, allowing their surface fleet to escape. Clay Blair argued in 1975 that had Spruance pressed on, he would have been unable to launch his aircraft after nightfall, and his cruisers would have been overwhelmed by Yamamoto's powerful surface units, including Yamato. Furthermore, the American air groups had suffered considerable losses, including most of their torpedo bombers. This made it unlikely that they would be effective in an airstrike against the Japanese battleships, even if they had managed to catch them during the daytime. Also, Spruance's destroyers were critically low on fuel.

On 10 June the Imperial Japanese Navy conveyed to the military liaison conference an incomplete picture of the results of the battle. Nagumo's detailed battle report was submitted to the high command on 15 June. It was intended only for the highest echelons in the Japanese Navy and government and was guarded closely throughout the war. In it, one of the more striking revelations is the comment on Mobile Force Commander Nagumo's estimates: "The enemy is not aware of our plans (we were not discovered until early in the morning of the 5th at the earliest)." In reality, the whole operation had been compromised from the beginning by American code-breaking efforts.

The Japanese public and much of the military command structure were kept in the dark about the extent of the defeat: Japanese news announced a great victory. Only Emperor Hirohito and the highest Navy command staff were accurately informed of the carrier and personnel losses. Consequently, even the Imperial Japanese Army continued to believe, for at least a short time, that the fleet was in good condition.

American prisoners

Three U.S. aviators were captured during the battle: Ensign Wesley Osmus, a pilot from Yorktown; Ensign Frank O'Flaherty, a pilot from Enterprise; and Aviation Machinist's Mate Bruno Peter Gaido, O'Flaherty's gunner. Osmus was held on Arashi; O'Flaherty and Gaido on the cruiser Nagara (or destroyer Makigumo, sources vary); O'Flaherty and Gaido were interrogated and then tied to water-filled kerosene cans and thrown overboard to drown. Osmus was murdered on the Arashi. The report filed by Nagumo tersely states that Osmus, "died on 6 June and was buried at sea"; O'Flaherty and Gaido's fates were not mentioned. The execution of Osmus was apparently ordered by Arashi's captain, Watanabe Yasumasa. Watanabe died when the destroyer Numakaze sank in December 1943; had he survived the war he would have likely been tried as a war criminal.

Japanese prisoners

Two enlisted men from Mikuma were rescued from a life raft on 9 June by USS Trout and taken to Pearl Harbor. After receiving medical care, at least one of these sailors cooperated during interrogation and provided intelligence. Another 35 crewmen from Hiryū were taken from a lifeboat by USS Ballard on 19 June after being spotted by an American search plane. They were taken to Midway and then transferred to Pearl Harbor on USS Sirius.

Impact

The Battle of Midway has often been called "the turning point of the Pacific". It was the Allies' first major naval victory against the Japanese. Had Japan won the battle as thoroughly as the U.S. did, it might have been able to capture Midway Island. Saratoga would have been the only American carrier in the Pacific, as no new ones were completed before the end of 1942. While the U.S. would probably not have sought peace with Japan as Yamamoto hoped, his country might have revived Operation FS to invade and occupy Fiji and Samoa; attacked Australia, Alaska, and Ceylon; or even attempted to occupy Hawaii.

Although the Japanese continued to try to secure more territory, and the U.S. did not move from a state of naval parity to one of supremacy until after several more months of hard combat, Midway allowed the Allies to switch to the strategic initiative, paving the way for the landings on Guadalcanal and the prolonged attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign. Midway allowed this to occur before the first of the new Essex-class fleet carriers became available at the end of 1942. The Guadalcanal campaign is regarded by some as a turning point in the Pacific War.

Some authors have stated that heavy losses in carriers and veteran aircrews at Midway permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy. Parshall and Tully have stated that the heavy losses in veteran aircrew (110, just under 25% of the aircrew embarked on the four carriers) were not crippling to the Japanese naval air corps as a whole; the Japanese navy had 2,000 carrier-qualified aircrews at the start of the Pacific War. The loss of four large fleet carriers and over 40% of the carriers' highly trained aircraft mechanics and technicians, plus the essential flight-deck crews and armorers, and the loss of organizational knowledge embodied in such highly trained crews, were still heavy blows to the Japanese carrier fleet. A few months after Midway, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service sustained similar casualty rates in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, and it was these battles, combined with the constant attrition of veterans during the Solomons campaign, which were the catalyst for the sharp downward spiral in operational capability.

After the battle, Shōkaku and Zuikaku were the only large carriers of the original Pearl Harbor strike force still afloat. Of Japan's other carriers, Taihō, which was not commissioned until early 1944, would be the only fleet carrier worth teaming with Shōkaku and Zuikaku; Ryūjō and Zuihō were light carriers, while Jun'yō and Hiyō, although technically classified as fleet carriers, were second-rate ships of comparatively limited effectiveness. In the time it took Japan to build three carriers, the U.S. Navy commissioned more than two dozen fleet and light fleet carriers, and numerous escort carriers. By 1942 the U.S. was already three years into a shipbuilding program mandated by the 1938 Second Vinson Act.

Discovery of sunken vessels

Because of the extreme depth of the ocean in the area of the battle (more than 17,000 ft or 5,200 m), researching the battlefield has presented extraordinary difficulties. On 19 May 1998, Robert Ballard and a team of scientists and Midway veterans from both sides located and photographed Yorktown, which was located 16,650 ft (5,070 m) deep. The ship was remarkably intact for a vessel that had sunk in 1942; much of the original equipment and even the original paint scheme were still visible. Ballard's subsequent search for the Japanese carriers was unsuccessful.

In September 1999, a joint expedition between Nauticos Corp. and the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office searched for the Japanese aircraft carriers. Using advanced renavigation techniques in conjunction with the ship's log of the submarine USS Nautilus, the expedition located a large piece of wreckage, subsequently identified as having come from the upper hangar deck of Kaga.

The crew of the research vessel RV Petrel, in conjunction with the U.S. Navy, announced on 18 October 2019 that it had found the Japanese carrier Kaga at 17,700 ft (5,400 m). The crew confirmed the discovery of another Japanese carrier, the Akagi, on 21 October 2019. The Akagi was found in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in nearly 18,010 ft (5,490 m) of water.

Remembrances

Chicago Municipal Airport, important to the war effort in World War II, was renamed Chicago Midway International Airport (or simply Midway Airport) in 1949 in honor of the battle. Henderson Field in Guadalcanal was named in honor of U.S. Marine Corps Major Lofton Henderson, the first Marine aviator to perish during the battle.

Escort carrier USS Midway (CVE-63) was commissioned on 17 August 1943. She was renamed St. Lo on 10 October 1944 to clear the name Midway for a large fleet aircraft carrier, USS Midway (CV-41), which was commissioned on 10 September 1945, eight days after the Japanese surrender, and is now docked in San Diego, California, as the USS Midway Museum.

On 13 September 2000 Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt designated the lands and waters of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge as the Battle of Midway National Memorial. Tinker Air Force Base outside Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is named in honor of Major General Clarence L. Tinker, Commander 7th Air Force, who personally led a bomber strike from Hawaii against the retreating Japanese forces on 7 June.

John Ford directed the 18-minute 1942 Movietone News documentary (released by the War Activities Committee) The Battle of Midway, which received the 1942 Academy Award for Best Documentary; and the eight-minute documentary Torpedo Squadron 8, which describes the heroism of Torpedo Squadron 8 of the USS Hornet. Ford, who was a Navy Reserve commander at the time, was present at Midway Atoll's power plant on Sand Island during the Japanese attack and filmed it. He was wounded by enemy fire in his arm during the filming.