Midway: First Defeat
By David H. Lippman
June 2008

Near the battered carrier Hiryu, the battleship Kirishima stands ready to tow Hiryu if the carrier’s engines close down. But Hiryu is immobile, and her fires are blazing, making the carrier and her escorts highly visible targets. Kirishima Capt. Sanji Iwabuchi radios Nagumo, pointing out the danger to the battleship. At 6:37, Nagumo orders Kirishima to break off and rejoin the flag. The battleship sails northwest. Her XO, Capt. Honda, stares back at Hiryu, black against the evening sky, fires burning in every porthole. The pinpoints of flame, he says later, remind him of lanterns strung on holidays at home.

Admiral Chuichi Nagumo.

All four Japanese carriers are facing disaster now. At 7 p.m., the fires ripping up Soryu seem to be easing up. The carrier has an audience of two destroyers and an American PBY. With the fires dying, the ranking survivor rounds up a firefighting party, intending to reboard the carrier. Then a massive explosion from Soryu sends a spear of ruby flame into the evening sky. Everybody knows what this means. On Makigumo, someone starts singing “Kimigayo,” and Soryu starts to sink, at 30° 38’N, 179° 13’W. A sailor yells, “Soryu banzai!” The 18,000-ton aircraft carrier’s stern quietly dips below the water at 7:13 p.m. About 10 minutes later, an undersea explosion rumbles the waves around the destroyers. Seven hundred and eighteen men perish with Soryu.

At 7:05, Nagumo gives up. He orders what’s left of the Striking Force to flee northwest, an order without precedent in the history of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He is fleeing the scene of battle.

At 7 p.m., two massive explosions rip Kaga, and she leaps out of the sea. Then she plops back into the water, slowly sinking. At 7:25, still on an even keel, she goes to the bottom, at position 30° 20’N, 179° 17’W. 800 of her men go down with her. Her escorts race off with their wounded. Sixteen minutes later, Nautilus surfaces, batteries and crew exhausted from 42 depth charges, to find the water empty.

On the American ships, exhaustion has finally taken over. Yorktown still stands drifting and deserted, guarded by Hughes. If enemy ships turn up, Hughes is to sink Yorktown to prevent her capture. The abandoned carrier looks bizarre to Hughes’ bridge crew. They see what looks like lights flickering from the wreck, and think they can hear voices coming from the abandoned carrier. Hughes’ Cdr. Ramsey considers lowering a boat to find out, but thinks that would just create trouble. The mysterious noises give rise to later legends that the ghosts of Yorktown crewmen who never escaped haunt her successor’s engine room.

Task Force 16 is also enduring a sad and spectral evening. Aviators shuffle down to Hornet’s wardroom for dinner, and stare at 29 empty chairs belonging to Torpedo 8. On Enterprise, Ensign Charles Lane, a Yorktown orphan, is offered the cabin of a Torpedo 6 pilot who hasn’t come back. Lane walks in and immediately sees the aviator’s family pictures and a Bible lying on his desk. It’s almost too much to bear.

RM3 John W. Snowden, of Scouting 6, also scans the empty bunks in his berthing compartment, feeling overwhelmingly depressed, having lost so many good friends.

Up on the flag bridge, however, Spruance has no time to contemplate his losses. His staff—mostly Halsey’s—want him to sail west, and be in position to either deliver a night torpedo attack or a dawn dive-bomber attack, to polish off the remaining Japanese strength.

Spruance disagrees. He is extremely aware that his depleted task force is the only American combat strength standing between the Japanese and Hawaii. Despite Japan’s fearful losses, they still have a vast and powerful fleet, including seven battleships, led by Yamamoto himself. Spruance is certainly aware that his air strength has been badly depleted by the day’s action, with crushing losses to his torpedo squadrons.

Spruance is probably aware that his ships and men are technically and tactically inferior to the Japanese in a surface night engagement. His carriers are useless in a surface battle. While his cruisers have TBS radio and radar, Japanese binoculars and well-trained lookouts outrange American radar. Japanese cruisers pack the deadly Long Lance torpedo, the world’s finest, which outranges the often ineffective American Mark 14s. Japanese night-fighting tactics are well-developed and have been tested in battle. None of the American ships have fought a surface action yet.

To head west, Spruance believes, is folly. In his report to Nimitz, Spruance writes, “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 next morning. I wished to be in a position from which either to follow up retreating enemy forces, or to break up a landing attack on Midway.”

Most importantly for Spruance: His mission is not to pursue the Japanese fleet, but to protect the island. He fears that if he continues his chase of wrecked carriers, the Japanese invasion fleet will simply sneak up and land on the battered island anyway. Spruance wants to be position to protect the island with his aircraft. Spruance is under orders to hold Midway, and not to jeopardize his fleet, particularly the irreplaceable aircraft carriers.

At 7:09 p.m., Spruance orders Task Force 16 east until midnight, keeping his distance from Yamamoto’s ships.

	Admiral Raymond Spruance.

At 7:15 p.m., Cdr. K. Tampo, Akagi’s chief engineer, finishes a brave climb from the engine room through burning, smoking decks, to inform Aoki that there is no hope of operating the carrier under her own power. That’s it, then. Aoki orders Tampo’s engine crew topside, and sends a messenger. The messenger never returns. Neither does the black gang.

Next, Aoki asks Nagumo for permission to evacuate his ship. Nagumo grants it at once. The crew starts evacuating at 8 p.m., finishing around 10 p.m. 500 evacuees are jammed onto Arashi and 200 on Nowake.

While all this is going on, Yamamoto fires off a morale-boosting message to his entire fleet at 7:15 p.m. It reads as follows:

The enemy fleet, which has practically been destroyed, is retiring to the east.

Combined Fleet units in the vicinity are preparing to pursue the remnants and at the same time, to occupy AF.

The Main Body is scheduled to reach 32° 08’ N, 175° 45’ E at 0300 on the 5th, Course 90°; speed 20.

The First Carrier Striking Force, Invasion Force (less Cruiser Division 7) and Submarine Force will immediately contact and destroy the enemy.

Nagumo starts digesting these words just as he receives the message that Soryu has gone down.

The ocean where four mighty Japanese aircraft carriers lie blazing is also full of swimmers. Most are orphaned combat air patrol pilots who have lost their ships: Raita Ogawa from Akagi treads water in his life jacket. Tatsuya Otawa from Soryu clutches a piece of timber. Takayoshi Morinaga of Kaga hangs on to a floating hammock. Some are hauled in by destroyers, but others are not, and can only watch as the destroyers give up their search and race off in the dark.

One other swimmer is trying to avoid being picked up—George Gay, trying to hide under his black cushion. With a burned leg and bleeding hand, he is in no shape for an extended stay in the water. At darkness, he finally inflates his yellow life raft, and struggles into it to rest, watching searchlights to the north, around the wrecked Hiryu.

Hiryu is struggling to survive. At 9 p.m., the destroyer Makigumo radios Nagumo, “Hiryu can attain 28 knots.” However, nobody on the bridge can see where the ship is going, because the forward elevator is lying against it. A burning hammock mantelet forces Kaku, Yamaguchi, and their staffs down to the flight deck, port side aft of the bridge. They can see the fires on the forward flight deck melting steel rivets like snow.

Around the same time, the destroyer Kazagumo moves alongside Hiryu, and the destroyer crews unload firefighting equipment and the first food the crew has seen since breakfast, hardtack and water. The destroyer Yugumo brings up fire hoses from Chikuma. Next, Makigumo arrives to take the wounded.

At 9:30, Nagumo radios Yamamoto with the report about the vast enemy force Chikuma has reported. “Total enemy strength is five carriers, six heavy cruisers, and 15 destroyers. We are steaming westward. We are retiring to the northwest escorting Hiryu. Speed 18 knots.” No answer.

Shortly after 10 p.m., Aoki radios Nagumo, asking permission to scuttle Akagi. Yamato picks up this message, and Yamamoto and Ugaki are reluctant to scuttle the great carrier, which is Yamamoto himself once commanded. Akagi is more than a name (“Red Castle” in Japanese). She is the embodiment of Japanese naval and air power, the flagship of the carrier fleet. Huge, unwieldy, and converted from a battlecruiser hull, Akagi’s funnel smoke constantly seeps into crew quarters. She is one of two carriers in the world with her bridge structure on the port side (Hiryu is the other). But she is a sentimental favorite in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Yamamoto orders Nagumo at 10:25 to hold off on scuttling Akagi. Aoki reacts by lashing himself to the anchor chain, so that he won’t float away when Akagi sinks.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, architect of Pearl Harbor.

At 10:50, Nagumo amplifies his message to Yamamoto. This time, Nagumo gets an answer in five minutes. He’s relieved of command. Kondo and his battleships will take over. Ugaki’s reaction is similar to those of Yamamoto’s staff: “The Nagumo Force has no stomach for a night engagement!”

Nagumo takes the message calmly. He probably has little emotional strength left. Nagumo’s staff, having had time to do little but brood over catastrophe, does react. Senior staff officer Captain Oishi goes to Kusaka, and says, “Sir, we staff officers have all decided to commit suicide to fulfill our own responsibility for what has happened. Would you please inform Admiral Nagumo?”

Kusaka is outraged. He hauls the whole staff into his tiny cabin on Nagara, and bellows at them, “How can you do such a thing? You go into raptures over any piece of good news; then say you’re going to commit suicide the first time anything goes wrong. It’s absurd!”

Then he takes a piggyback ride to Nagumo to report the incident. The boss is considering seppuku himself. Kusaka tries the same argument, in a more deferential tone. Nagumo listens, and broods. “What you say is certainly reasonable, but things are different when it’s a question of the chief.”

“Not at all,” Kusaka says. He repeats his point: It is nothing but weakness to commit hara-kiri right now.

“Very well,” Nagumo says. “I will not commit any rash act.”

While rescue efforts go on, Hiryu loses power. Most engine rooms are blazing. In Engine Room No. 4, Cdr. Aisume takes a phone call from the bridge (more likely damage control central, as the bridge has been abandoned). Can the engineers get out? Aisume looks up at the red-hot steel overhead and says no. After a long pause, the bridge asks if the men have any last messages. Aisume is infuriated. He tells the bridge not to give up. Doesn’t help. The phone goes dead.

In all likelihood, Aisume is talking to Cdr. Takeo Kyuma, the staff engineering officer, who actually wants to get his men out. He yells down through a voice tube, “Hold on, hold on!” Someone answers, “Nothing particular to be reported.” Then nothing more. Kyuma assumes everyone is dead. Actually, they’ve just moved to a compartment without a voice tube.

Gloomy, Kyuma stumps back to the flag staff and suggests to Senior Staff Officer Ito that they get Yamaguchi off to safety, by force if necessary.

“Even if we take him off the ship by force now, I am sure the strong-willed admiral would kill himself later, as he has so firmly made up his mind to remain with the ship,” replies Ito. “The thoughtful way would be to let him do as he wishes.” So all the staff officers volunteer to stay behind, and ask Ito to inform Yamaguchi of this collective decision.

Yamaguchi refuses. “I am very pleased and touched by your staff’s desire to remain with me,” he says, “But you young men must leave the ship. This is my order.”

At 11:58, something sets off a major explosion, which in turn flares up the fires. Hiryu cannot last much longer.

Meanwhile, Kondo and his battleships and cruisers charge northeast. At 11:40, Kondo radios that he expects to be in position at 3 a.m., and that his line of ships will sweep for the American fleet. Neither side knows it, but if Spruance had continued west, he would run straight into Kondo’s battleships and cruisers.

However, Yamamoto is concerned about the timing. If Kondo can’t attack until 3 a.m., then he’ll only have two hours until dawn. At that time, Kondo’s whole force will be open to American air attack and more slaughter. Kurita’s cruisers, set to bombard Midway, won’t be in position until nearly dawn.

There is no advice—or orders—from Tokyo. The Naval General Staff is listening to the battle on their radios, but Adm. Osami Nagano, the Chief of Staff, will not overrule Yamamoto. The battle is Yamamoto’s to fight, and Yamamoto’s alone.

	Midway's islands, the battle's goal.

Yamamoto orders Kuroshima and Watanabe to start drafting an order to recall the fleet, cancelling Operation AF. All forces will retreat to a point 350 miles northwest of Midway to rendezvous with Yamamoto, transfer casualties, and return to Japan.

The staff is stunned. Defeat is a catastrophe that has never befallen the Imperial Japanese Navy until this day. Watanabe suggests that the Main Body’s battleships sail up to Midway, bombard the island with their 16-inch and 18-inch guns, and pound it into submission. Kuroshima agrees, and the two put the scheme to Yamamoto and Ugaki.

Yamamoto absorbs the presentation, and says, “I am sure you have studied in the Naval Staff College that Navy history teaches us not to fight against land forces with naval vessels.”

“Yes, I know,” says an embarrassed Watanabe.

“Your proposal is against fundamental naval doctrine,” Yamamoto continues, “and it is too late now for such an operation. This battle is almost coming to an end. In shogi too much fighting causes all-out defeat. One can lose everything.”

Ugaki pipes up, “You ought to know very well the absurdity of attacking a fortress with the guns of a fleet. Even powerful battleships would be defeated by enemy air forces and submarines before they could make an effective bombardment in a situation such as exist where there are quite strong land-based air forces operating from an undamaged base, as well as a still powerful carrier air force. We had better wait for the Second Carrier Striking Force, if the Invasion Force can stay long enough."

“Furthermore, we can have hopes for subsequent operations, because we will have eight carriers, including those expected to be completed soon, though we have lost four carriers in this operation. It is the plan of a fool without a brain, to challenge a hopeless game of go again and again out of desperation."

Watanabe and Kuroshima are out of ideas. For a few minutes, all the staff officers argue possible hare-brained solutions. Yamamoto says nothing. Finally, someone asks, almost hysterically, “But how can we apologize to His Majesty for this defeat?”

Yamamoto speaks up, cold and firm. “Leave that to me. I am the only one who must apologize to His Majesty.”

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