…Though the multicarrier attack was a brilliant tactical innovation, it did not challenge the concepts underlying the IJN’s overall strategy of overpowering the U.S. Navy by destroying its battle line at sea. When the Combined Fleet sailed for Midway at the end of May 1942, the battleship remained the centerpiece of Yamamoto’s strategy for dominating the Pacific. “For all his lip service to the principle of the offensive and to naval air power,” he “still . . . visualized the battleship as the queen of the fleet.” As part of the operation, Yamamoto hoped to draw out remnants of the U.S. Pacific Fleet so that it could be engaged in the “decisive battle” that still remained the focus of Japanese naval strategy. Instead of using his battleships in direct support of his carriers (as suggested by Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi), Yamamoto stationed the three powerful dreadnoughts of the Combined Fleet far to the rear, to surprise and destroy any American surface force bold enough to attempt to interfere with the invasion of Midway
Langley’s crew invented the deck park, the crash barrier, flight-deck teams in jerseys of various colors, and a host of other innovations that radically changed the way operations were conducted.
While the First Air Fleet (designated the “Mobile Force” in this operation) was steaming in what would prove to be its highly vulnerable box formation toward Midway, the three carriers (Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet) available to the commander in chief of the Pacific Ocean Area at the end of May 1942, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, sortied from Pearl Harbor. They steamed in two task forces, the tactical units that had come to dominate U.S. naval operations since 7 December 1941. Unlike its adversary across the Pacific, the U.S. Navy’s love affair with the battleship now rested in the mud of Pearl Harbor, where a number of its cherished “battlewagons” were being laboriously salvaged. Though Nimitz still had a strong force of battleships (Task Force 1 comprised Pennsylvania, Maryland, Colorado, Idaho, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Mississippi), he chose not to deploy them; they would only slow the carriers down and would require screening ships that were needed more elsewhere. Nimitz also deployed a number of submarines for the defense of Midway; however, they too would not be a factor in the battle, the outcome of which would be determined by airpower alone.
The outcome of the battle of Midway was decided, and the fate of the IJN was sealed, at precisely 10:22 AM on 4 June 1942, when the first of three squadrons of American dive-bombers from Yorktown and Enterprise attacked the First Air Fleet as it was preparing to launch its own planes against the U.S. carriers. The American planes struck the Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu in quick succession, setting all three ablaze within three minutes. The surviving Japanese carrier, Hiryu, quickly retaliated. After an exchange of air strikes that afternoon, Hiryu was burning from stem to stern, while its opponent, Yorktown, was dead in the water, without power. Hiryu sank the next day. Yorktown survived long enough to be taken under tow but then was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.
The different paths of carrier development taken by the Japanese and American navies led to differences in carrier doctrine—differences that had a tremendous impact once the two forces were engaged. First and foremost of these was the American airmen’s obsession with locating the enemy’s carriers first so they could be struck first. This principle became sacrosanct in U.S. carrier doctrine as soon as commanders realized that the best way to achieve air supremacy was to attack the opposing carrier before it had a chance to get its own planes in the air. Once launched, such a strike would be almost impossible to fend off, since (prior to the introduction of radar) there was virtually no way to detect approaching enemy planes or direct fighters to intercept them. Although the Japanese understood this principle, they made no attempt to find an adequate means of locating the enemy’s carriers. As Mark Peattie aptly points out, success “depended not only upon the time required for carriers to launch their attack squadrons but, even before that, upon finding the enemy first.”
That the lack of a carrier-borne capability for scouting (reconnaissance, in Japanese naval parlance) contributed greatly to the demise of the Japanese carriers was affirmed by Akagi’s former air officer, Mitsuo Fuchida. As Fuchida explained, writing in 1955, Japanese carrier forces were devoted entirely to the attack mission. There were no organic scouting units of any appreciable size in the Japanese navy, and very little emphasis was placed on this important aspect of carrier warfare: “In both training and organization our naval aviators [devoted] too much importance and effort . . . to attack.” Reluctance to weaken the carriers’ striking power led to a single-phase search plan that was insufficient—in Fuchida’s opinion—to ensure the carriers’ security. “Had Admiral [Chuichi] Nagumo [the commander of the Mobile Force] carried out an earlier and more carefully planned two-phase search . . . the disaster that followed might have been avoided.”
The second doctrine-based difference was the predominance of the scout/dive-bomber on the American side. This type was unique to the U.S. Navy and could both locate and attack an enemy carrier. The effectiveness of the scout/dive-bomber (particularly the superb SBD, which outflew, outdove, and outbombed the Japanese Val) was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt at Midway.
Last, but certainly not least, was the adoption of the deck park and the associated handling procedures devised by American airmen to maximize the number of aircraft that could be operated at one time from an aircraft carrier. This system enabled the U.S. Navy to operate more aircraft per carrier than its Japanese counterparts and thus to fly almost as many aircraft as the Japanese at Midway, with one less carrier. The deck park allowed a second dive-bombing squadron (though bearing the VS designation) to be added to each carrier’s air group. It was one of these squadrons, VS-6 from the Enterprise, that made up for the lost planes from the Hornet, which failed to locate the enemy carriers. The extra squadron allowed the United States to strike three carriers at once, leaving just one. The outcome at Midway would have been very different had VS-6 not been present.
