Battle of Midway

Post today is being edited for accuracy.  It was a complicated battle so I am mostly going by memory, being a WW 2 buff...but I need to look up some of the facts.   So don't read it all yet.  In fact, it is not done yet.

A different kind of post today.   But I think it is important to honor those who died to protect our freedom.   This year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.  This battle was the turning point in the war in the Pacific.  There is a very good movie called Midway that is a dramatization with lots of fact.  Today I saw an episode of the BYU TV show American Ride.  The  episode was about the Battle of Midway.

First there was a battle down in the Coral Sea when Japan tried to invade Australia.  The Americans sent a task force there and the battle was a draw,  Both sides lost a carrier. . . (aircraft carrier).
The Americans had broken the Japanese radio code so the American commanders knew that the attack was coming.  The good news for Australia and America is that the Japanese invasion force had to turn back.  The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval battle where the ships never saw each other.  It was all an air battle with planes doing the damage to the enemy ships.

Next the US code breakers heard about Objective AF and they suspected it was Midway Island.  To prove it the US Navy or Air Force flew in a false message for Midway to radio out.  It said that the fresh water condenser at Midway was not working.  The Japanese had an intercept station out on a small atol (small volcanic island) and they sent the message to headquarters in Japan, "AF is having trouble with their fresh water condenser."  So the US knew that the Japanese were planning to attack Midway.  So when the Japanese attacked the Aleutain Islands of Alaska as a diversion the US Navy failed to bite on the trap.  Instead the American carriers sailed to a point N E of Midway and waited to the Japanese fleet to arrive.  Several PBY amphibious planes were sent out to search for the incoming Japanese invasion fleet.

When the Japanese were on their way in they sent out their own search planes just in case.  One of their search planes spotted the American Carrier Yorktown.  Two of the American carriers, the Enterprise and Hornet were aircraft carriers that were ahead of the third aircraft carrier, The Enterprise and Hornet were never attacked in the battle.  The Yorktown aircraft carrier was damaged so badly at the Battle of Coral Sea that it was under repair and so it left Pearl Harbor later than the other ships.  In fact, the Yorktown sailed off for the Battle of Midway with many repairmen on board ...who were still working on fixing the battle damage.  The Japanese search plane spotted one of the American carrier forces.  But it had left the fleet later than the other search planes.  So its report came a bit too late.  Later another Japanese search plane had trouble with its radio and could not report the sighting it had made of the American carrier force until it had landed.

Then the American PBYs spotted the Japanese ships too.  So when the Japanese launched their attack on the air field at Midway the US ships were able to launch attacks on the Japanese aircraft carriers.  The attack against Midway failed to destroy  the air field.  Then to the Japanese commanders' surprise American torpedo bombers started their attack runs on the Japanese carriers.  The attacks failed because the Japanese Zero Fighter Planes dived down and shot the American torpedo planes to pieces.   But this left the fighter cover down at sea level so the American Dauntless Dive Bombers were able to attack without having to worry about any Japanese Zeros.  The result was a catastrophe for the Japanese Navy.  They were just getting started to launch an attack on the American carriers so their decks were covered with fueled aircraft all carrying torpedoes or bombs.  Since they had switched from torpedoes to bombs and back again some decks were covered in stacks of bombs.  One carrier had a refueling cart full of high octane gasoline on deck.   Three of the Japanese front line carriers were destroyed by a the American dive bomber bombs setting off explosions of fuel carts, Japanese bombs and torpedoes, and the fuel in their own planes.  

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Dauntless Dive Bomber

The American Carrier planes had launched their attacks very successfully but one Japanese carrier was untouched.  That carrier launched an attack on the Americans and torpedoed the Yorktown.  The Yorktown was damaged, but all those repairman on board had her up and running rather quickly.  

 The Japanese managed to hit the Yorktown in a second attack and it still did not sink.  The Japanese thought they had sunk two American carriers but they had hit the same one twice.  

Soon, as the last Japanese attack planes had landed back on their one surviving carrier more American dive bombers hit.   This forced the Japanese commander, Admiral Yamamoto to call of the invasion.  The Japanese were never able to launch an offensive action for the rest of the war.  This American victory led to the Japanese fighting a hopeless defensive war for the next three years.  

While being towed to Pearl Harbor the American carrier the Yorktown was spotted and torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.  

We should all be grateful for the men and women who fought and still fight to keep us free.  It is interesting that the Japanese are now close allies to the US.  After the war the US helped rebuild the Japanese homeland.  They make wonderful cars etc.  WE drive a Honda CRV and love it.  Some Japanese cars are actually built in the USA.  It is nice that animosity does not always have to be permanent.