Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942

  A few minutes before 11 a.m., eighteen Vals and six Zeros took off and began climbing to attitude. The strike, led by Lieutenant Michio Kobayashi, stayed below the cloud cover to maintain visual contact with the ocean. The American carriers were now less than 100 miles away. Not long after the strike had departed, Chikuma’s No. 5 floatplane reported: “The enemy is in position bearing 70 degrees, distance 90 miles from our fleet’s position.” Kobayashi made a slight course correction south. Some of his airmen spotted a group of Enterprise dive-bombers at lower altitude, commanded by Lieutenant Charles Ware. The six Zeros peeled off and dived to engage them. Ware’s Dauntlesses acquitted themselves well, maintaining tight formation and firing back at the Zeros, damaging two. (Both returned to the Hiryu, and one was forced to ditch at sea.) The encounter weakened Kobayashi’s strike by depriving it of one third of its fighter protection.

  Task Force 17’s radar screens picked up the incoming Japanese strike at a range of thirty-two miles, bearing 255 degrees. Yorktown’s radar set managed to establish that the bogeys were gaining altitude, which seemed to confirm that they were enemy dive-bombers. Lieutenant Commander Oscar Pederson, the Yorktown fighter direction officer (FDO), vectored the Wildcats out to intercept at an altitude of “angels 10” (10,000 feet). The radio circuit rang with excited voices speaking in their specialized lingo. Altitude was given in 1,000-foot units—“angels.” Bearings were given as “vectors” or “arrows.” Unidentified aircraft were “bogeys”; if they were confirmed as enemy, they were “bandits.” Yorktown was “Red Base.” F4F patrol divisions were “Red” (Yorktown), “Blue” (Hornet), and “Scarlet” (Enterprise). A pilot acknowledged the FDO’s commands with “Roger” (“I understand”) or “Wilco” (“Will comply”). When an American pilot spotted enemy planes, he cried: “Tally Ho!” Excerpts from the Yorktown’s fighter control transcript for June 4 reflect the confusion and false alarms that were endemic at this early stage of the war:

  “Red 17, arrow 265 from your present position. Acknowledge.”

  “Red 17. Wilco.”

  “Red 17, bandit in your vicinity ahead, keep sharp look.”

  “Red 17. Roger.”

  “This is Scarlet 17. One bogey, angel 4, distance 20.”

  “This is Scarlet 17. Just a minute. Friendly.”

  “Scarlet 17. Resume patrol overhead, report on station.”

  “This is Scarlet 17, on station.”

  “Red 26, Red 23. Arrow 295, 20 miles, 5,000 feet. Acknowledge.”

  “This is Red 23. Wilco.”

  “This is Red 26. Wilco.”

  “Red 26, Red 23. You better make that about 8,000, unidentified bogey.”

  “This is Red 23. Wilco.”

  “Red 26, Red 23. Arrow 180. Acknowledge.”

  “This is Red 23. Wilco.”

  “This is Red 26. Repeat.”

  “Red 26, Red 23. Arrow 180. Step on it. Acknowledge.”

  “This is Red 26. Wilco.”

  “Red 26, Red 23. Bogey a bandit in cloud. Step on it.”

  “Red 21. 270. Cloud level acknowledge.”

  “This is Red 21. Wilco.”

  “Red 13 and 11. Bandit in your vicinity, keep good lookout above and below.”

  “This is Red 13. Plane has been identified as friendly.”

  “Roger. Return to combat station.”

  “This is 13. Wilco.”

  “All Scarlet planes keep a sharp lookout for a group of planes coming in at 255 unidentified.”

  “Scarlet 9, take your group and look for bogeys bearing 255. Appears to be a large group.”

  “This is Scarlet 9. Roger.”

  “Scarlet 23 from 19. What is your position?”

  “Scarlet 23. Many bogeys, angels 10, arrow 305. Step on it.”

  “20 bandits approaching 305. 30 miles, large group of bandits.”

  “Scarlet 19. What information have you on bandits?”

  “Bandits above me heading for ship. Appear to be 18.”

  “About 12 miles away from ship, 255.”

  “All Scarlet planes, bandits 8 miles, 255, angels 10.”

  “Bandits bearing 255, distance 8.”

  “This is Scarlet 19. Formation seems to be breaking up. Planes still same course.”

  “OK, break ’em up.”

  “Scarlet 19, going to attack 3 enemy bombers about 5 miles.”

  “Tally Ho!”

  At noon, Lieutenant (jg) Elbert S. McCuskey, flight leader of the York-town CAP, spotted Kobayashi’s incoming strike at 7,000–8,000 feet. He flew directly into the oncoming enemy formation, firing as he passed, forcing the Japanese planes to veer right and left to avoid a collision. “With my six .50-caliber wing guns blazing, I literally sawed my way through the lead division,” he said later. “I didn’t use my sight; it was all done at point-blank range.” Two more planes, right behind him, made good firing passes and scored several hits. In the ensuing aerial melee, the American fighters shot down seven enemy bombers and damaged three others. The four escorting Zeros attacked the Wildcats and got the worst of it—three were splashed; only one of the American fighters was shot down.

  From the deck of the Yorktown, the crew studied the distant air battle and saw burning airplanes spinning into the sea. Each left an incandescent trail of flaming aviation fuel which turned to black smoke after a few seconds. But from that distance there was no telling which side was prevailing. As the first black puffs of flak blossomed around the incoming planes, Jimmy Thach shouted to his VF-3 pilots: “Get back in the ready room! You cost Uncle Sam too much money to be out here!” The aviators could see nothing of the air battle from inside that sealed, windowless chamber, but they could track the approach of the enemy planes by listening to the antiaircraft fire. “The bark of the five-inch guns signaled the approach of each attacker,” said Tom Cheek, “followed in sequence by the pump-pump of the 1.1-inch mounts, the chattering 20 millimeters, and finally the rattle of the .30 and .50 caliber machine guns as the enemy approached his drop point.” As the enemy planes drew close, the frequency and intensity of the firing rose until “the AA fire became a constant roar.”

  Only seven dive-bombers got through the American fighters to attack the Yorktown, but those seven pilots were among the first team of the Japanese carrier air force, and they knew their business. They came in from several different directions and peeled off to make steep dives, apparently unperturbed by the barrage of antiaircraft fire thrown up by the gunners. In maneuvering to evade the plummeting attackers, the Yorktown turned hard to port and heeled sharply to starboard. The first Aichi to dive was hit by flak right as it dropped its bomb—it exploded and broke into three flaming pieces that splashed into the ship’s wake. But the pilot’s aim was true—the cartwheeling bomb struck the deck just aft of the Yorktown’s island structure. The blast decimated the crew of the 1.1-inch antiaircraft mount that had just splashed the same plane that had dropped the bomb. The explosion tore a hole in the flight deck and ignited fires on the hangar deck. The second plane was also hit and torn apart by antiaircraft fire; and its bomb missed narrowly, exploding right at the fantail. The third came roaring down in a 75-degree dive; its drop was another near miss, and a towering water spout erupted just off the Yorktown’s stern.

  Seconds later the second chutai (three-plane formation) came screaming down on the starboard side. The first plane missed again off the stern. The second, piloted by Iwao Nakazawa, parked a 250-kilogram bomb near the center of the ship; the blast punched a broad hole in the flight deck. The third and final blow, delivered by a plane that had dived at a shallower angle off the Yorktown’s starboard bow, hit and disabled the forward elevator. Raging fires on the hangar deck threatened to consume the aviation gasoline tanks and perhaps even to spread into the magazine, which would put the Yorktown in the same unenviable position as the three Japanese carriers hit that morning. But the Yorktown’s hangar deck was better fireproofed than those of her Japanese counterparts. Importantly, the fueling hoses had bee
n drained and filled with CO2 gas.

  The first bomb had penetrated into the ventilation system and flooded the bridge and other island spaces with acrid black smoke and noxious fumes. Admiral Fletcher and his staff were compelled to leave their battle stations and seek fresh air on the deck, and the admiral immediately considered the need to transfer his flag, saying, “I can’t fight a war from a dead ship.” He made arrangements to transfer with several members of his staff to the cruiser Astoria. Tom Cheek and his fellow airmen of VF-3 were forced out of their ready room: “Gasping and teary eyed, we looked around in the fresh air on the open flight deck.” The ship’s boilers cut out, and she went dead in the water. A heavy plume of jet black smoke spewed from the hole in her flight deck. Sailors—coughing, bleeding, faces blackened—clambered up the steel ladders to reach the open air. The 1.1-inch mount aft of the island, which had been struck directly, was a terrible sight. Cheek saw “a bloody splotch on the gray painted side of the superstructure” and a “mass of bloody flesh encased in shredded denim.” On the 20mm battery on the catwalk, the gunner’s head had been blown off but his body remained strapped securely into the chair.

  YAMAMOTO’S “MAIN BODY”was some 600 miles west, churning through the same heavy fog that the carriers had passed through three days earlier. Operating in fog conditions, with radio silence, required that the ships of his force slow their progress and post sharp-eyed lookouts to guard against collisions. The foghorns sounded constantly. Yamamoto had passed the last few days in his customary stoic silence, standing on the Yamato’s spacious bridge and gazing out into the wet, gray gloom. He had been suffering a stomach ulcer, and was pale and queasy.

  The need for radio silence limited what Yamamoto and his staff officers could know about the progress of the battle, but they monitored the Japanese aviators’ radio chatter. Confidence remained high on the Yamato’s bridge, even after the sighting of the American carriers. But at 10:50 a.m., a signal officer handed the commander in chief a radio message from Rear Admiral Hiroaki Abe, commander of the screening force: “Fires raging aboard Kaga, Soryu, and Akagi resulting from attacks by enemy carrier and land-based planes. We plan to have Hiryu engage enemy carriers. We are temporarily withdrawing to the north to assemble our forces.” One officer recalled that Yamamoto “groaned” as he read the message, then handed it back without a word. He and the other officers were dumbstruck, and their mood turned to “black despair.”

  The admiral’s yeoman, Mitsuharu Noda, recollected that the officers “bent their heads together in confusion” and stared at one another with “their mouths shut tight. . . . The indescribable emptiness, cheerlessness and chagrin did not bring forth tears.” There was no word from Nagumo, who was then shifting his flag from Akagi to a cruiser. Was he dead? The staff, reluctant to acknowledge that the battle was already lost, brainstormed. Some of their proposed gambits were far-fetched, others foolhardy; all were desperate.

  The Main Body was too far to render direct and timely assistance, and its lack of air cover would have probably rendered it useless in any case. But the force raised its speed to 20 knots and began a high speed run to the east. The Yamato’s towering antennae transmitted new orders to the various elements of the Japanese fleet. The smaller force of carriers which had covered the Aleutian landings, far to the north, was ordered to race southward to fall in with Kido Butai. The troop transports were ordered to peel off to the north, out of range of Midway’s attack planes. The surface fleet accompanying the transports was to make speed for Midway and bombard the atoll. The Main Body and the surface vessels of Kido Butai were to seek a surface engagement that night with the American carriers.

  Tameichi Hara, skipper of the destroyer Amatsukaze, was badly shaken by the news that three carriers were hit. “What was I reading?” he wondered. “Was I dreaming? I shook my head. No, I was wide awake! . . . The horrifying reports continued until there was no room for doubting their accuracy.” To Hara, it seemed clear that the invasion could not go forward without the covering airpower provided by the carriers, but without orders to turn around, his column could do nothing but surge onward toward Midway, drawing ever closer to the atoll’s air-striking range. “What was our high command doing?” Hara thought. “My grief over our carrier losses abruptly turned into black anger. Were we to fall into the trap as the main task force had done? Damn! Damn!” Not until 9:20 a.m. (on his clock) did they receive Yamamoto’s orders for the transports to withdraw to the “northwestward temporarily” and for the destroyers to attack Midway.

  Five surviving dive-bombers returned to the Hiryu, where the exhausted hangar crews had been racing to prepare the carrier’s torpedo planes for another sortie against the American fleet. Admiral Yamaguchi came down to the flight deck and spoke to the pilots before they climbed into their cockpits. By about 1 p.m., scouting reports had confirmed that there were not two but three American carriers, correctly identified as the Hornet, Yorktown, and Enterprise. “There are three enemy carriers; you got that,” he told them. “The kanbaku-tai [dive-bombers] hit one of them, so there are two left. Try to hit a new carrier, which was not damaged, if you can, as a priority. If you do that, we can do a one to one fight.”

  The new strike lifted off the flight deck: ten Nakajima Type 97 kanko (“Kate”) torpedo planes accompanied by six Zeros, commanded by Joichi Tomonaga, who had led the air attack on Midway that morning. Tomonaga’s aircraft had been shot up in the action over Midway, and was leaking fuel from the left wing tank. He knew that his damaged aircraft would probably never return to land on the Hiryu, but he gallantly insisted on going nonetheless, and refused offers to exchange planes with his subordinates. The Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu were plainly visible, spread out across the horizon. This was the last opportunity to hit the American carriers, to exact some retribution for the mortal punishment suffered by the Hiryu’s three burning sisters, and Tomonaga’s aviators were conscious that the hopes of the entire Japanese navy now rested on their shoulders. Taisuke Maruyama, an aircrewman in one of the damaged planes, recalled a “sense of desperation.”

  The sixteen-plane formation made a long slow climb, eventually reaching 13,500 feet. They did not have far to fly—the American fleet had been sighted only ninety miles from the Hiryu. At 2:30 p.m., Lieutenant Toshio Hashimoto, who had been scanning the sea through his binoculars, caught sight of a pattern of wakes on the sea ahead. He conveyed a sighting report to Tomonaga with hand signals, cockpit to cockpit, and the flight leader corrected their course southward to take them directly into the heart of the enemy carrier group. Fatefully, they had stumbled on the injured York-town, rather than the Enterprise or Hornet. Her fires had been brought under control, and she no longer trailed a telltale column of smoke. She was underway at good speed. Detecting no sign of her injuries, the Japanese flyers assumed she must be one of the two American flattops that had not yet been attacked. As the task force came fully into view, spread out beneath them under scattered clouds, Tomonaga radioed: “Zengun totsugeki seyo!”—the order for the two five-aircraft shutais of torpedo planes to separate and begin their coordinated runs on Yorktown’s bows.

  The carrier’s radar operators picked up the incoming bogeys well before they came into view. Despite the damage she had sustained, the Yorktown was still a fighting ship. Her fires had been brought under control, and the holes in her flight deck had been patched. She could still conduct air operations. When Tomonaga’s planes were forty-five miles off, the fueling system on the hangar was shut down and the hoses purged with CO2 gas. Only six Wildcats were aloft over the task force; all were vectored out to intercept the intruders. Lieutenant Scott McCuskey intercepted the incoming planes, but had to turn and dive from altitude. The Nakajimas, rendered sluggish by the 800-kilogram torpedoes fixed to their bellies, pushed their noses down in a shallow dive, trading altitude for speed, and flew through a curtain of antiaircraft fire thrown up by the screening vessels. When they leveled off at 200-feet altitude, they were traveling at 200 knots, almost twice
the speed of the American Devastators.

  Yorktown launched five more Wildcats into the teeth of this attack. Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Thach, commander of VF-3, banked right and pointed the nose of his Grumman right into the first plane in Tomonaga’s incoming shutai. He held down his .50-caliber firing button and drove several rounds into the left wing of Tomonaga’s plane, setting it ablaze. Thach later said that he could not help admiring Tomonaga’s determination:

  The whole left wing was burning, and I could see the ribs showing through the flames, and that devil still stayed in the air until he got close enough and dropped his torpedo, and that one almost hit the Yorktown. He was a dedicated Japanese torpedo plane pilot. Even though he was already shot down, he went ahead and dropped his torpedo. By that time, the whole airplane looked like it was on fire, the top surface of both wings was burned away, everything but the ribs. He must have had some wing surface underneath to hold him up, but he was obviously sinking all the time and he fell in the water right after he dropped his torpedo. They were excellent in their tactics and in their determination. . . . Nothing would stop them, if they had anything to say about it.

  The second plane in Tomonaga’s shutai, also on fire, released its fish and then tried to crash into the Yorktown, but the tracers continued to slam into the incoming plane and it cartwheeled into the sea just off the port bow.