The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)

by Craig L. Symonds

  21. Interview of J. E. McInerny (1981), Weisheit, “Transcripts,” 7; Weisheit, Last Flight, 17–18.

  22. Interview of S. G. Mitchell (1981), Weisheit, “Transcripts,” 24. See also Mrazek, Dawn Like Thunder, 132.

  23. Interview of J. E. McInerny (1981), Weisheit, “Transcripts,” 11, 13.

  24. Enclosure (H) to Hornet Serial 0018 dated June 13, 1942, by Leroy Quillen, radioman/gunner for Ensign K. B. White, in VB-8, Action Reports, reel 2. Quillen remembered the initial call as “Johnny One to Johnny Two,” but others recalled it as “Stanhope from Johnny One,” which is more logical under the circumstances.

  25. 1926 Lucky Bag, USNA; Gee, “Remembering Midway,” 4; interview of Troy Guillory (March 14, 1983), Weisheit, “Transcripts,” 26; Robert Johnson to Walter Lord, Feb. 21, 1967, Walter Lord Collection, NHHC, box 17.

  26. Gee, “Remembering Midway”; Ring letter of March 28, 1946, in Linder, “Lost Letter,” 32. Clay Fisher, Ring’s designated wingman, sought to stay with him, but Ring had sent him to deliver a visual message to Rodee, and after VS-6 turned, Risher was unable to find Ring again. See Fisher, Hooked, 80.

  27. Weisheit, Last Flight, 28–29.

  28. Interview of S. G. Mitchell (1981), Weisheit, “Transcripts,” 10–11.

  29. “Battle of Midway, Rescues Performed by PBY’s,” PBY Memorial Association Newsletter 41, May 2002; interview of Jerry Crawford (Aug. 28, 1984), Weisheit, “Transcripts,” 7.

  Chapter 13

  1. George Gay recalled later how the moon was centered in the middle of his cowling during the flight, and, based on that and the position of the moon that day, Bowen Wiesheit subsequently calculated that he was flying a course of 234 degrees. See George Gay, Sole Survivor: The Battle of Midway and Its Effects on His Life (Naples, FL: Naples Ad/Graphics, 1979), 117; Bowen P. Weisheit, The Last Flight of Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Junior, USNA, Battle of Midway, June 4, 1942 (Baltimore: Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Jr., Memorial Foundation, 1993), 14. Weisheit’s “plot of moon bearings” on June 4, 1942, is on p. 69.

  2. On Larsen, see Robert J. Mrazek, A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), 25–31; on Owens, see Gay, Sole Survivor, 97.

  3. “Memorandum for the Commander in Chief,” June 7, 1942, Action Reports, reel 2; Gay, Sole Survivor, 119.

  4. Robert J. Cressman et al., “A Glorious Page in Our History”: The Battle of Midway,4–6 June 1942 (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 1990), 91; Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 205.

  5. Gay, Sole Survivor, 119; “Memorandum for the Commander in Chief,” Action Reports, reel 2; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 207.

  6. Gay, Sole Survivor, 120–21. Waldron’s radio broadcasts were overheard by ARM3/c Leroy Quillen of VB-8 and reported in “Enclosure (H) to Hornet Serial 0018 dated June 13, 1942,” in Action Reports, reel 2.

  7. Frederick Mears, Carrier Combat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1944), xiv; “Enclosure (H) to Hornet Serial 0018 dated June 13, 1942,” in Action Reports, reel 2; Gay, Sole Survivor, 121.

  8. Gay, Sole Survivor, 108.

  9. Ibid., 121,125.

  10. Ibid., 125, 128–29; “George Gay’s Fisheye View of Midway,” Naval Aviation News 64, no. 6 (June 1982), 18–21.

  11. Gay, Sole Survivor, 128–29. Gay later claimed that he remained in the middle of the Kidö Butai during the ensuing battle. Time-motion studies by Parshall and Tully and by Dallas Isom have suggested that this was unlikely.

  12. 1927 Lucky Bag, USNA; Robert E. Barde interview of Wade McClusky (June 30, 1966), quoted in Barde, “The Battle of Midway: A Study in Command,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1971), 176; Clarence Wade McClusky, “The Midway Story,” unpublished manuscript in the Gordon Prange Papers, UMD, box 17. See Also Edward P. Stafford, The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 78.

  13. Interview of Clarence Wade McClusky (June 30, 1966) by Gordon Prange, Prange Papers, UMD, box 17.

  14. I am grateful to John Lundstrom for helping me unravel this launch sequence.

  15. Gray to McClusky, June 8, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3; McClusky, “Midway Story”; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 86–87.

  16. Gray’s recollection of Browning’s instructions is from remarks Gray made at a 1988 Midway symposium and are quoted by Alvin Kernan in The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 137; the discussion between Gray and Ely is in CAPT James S. Gray, “Decision at Midway,” USNA Museum, also available as part of the BOMRT archive at www.midway42.org/aa-reports/vf-6.html.

  17. Gray, “Decision at Midway.”

  18. Ibid.

  19. Laub to McClusky, June 4, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3.

  20. The fellow pilot was Dick Best in an interview with Walter Lord (April 13, 1966), in Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18.

  21. Ibid.; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 94–95; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 213. Gray’s remarks were made at a 1988 conference in Pensacola and are quoted in Kernan, Unknown Battle of Midway, 138. Gray’s radio report is quoted in John B. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 256–57.

  22. Laub to McClusky, June 4, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3; Barde, “Battle of Midway,” 179.

  23. Barde, “Battle of Midway,” 183–87.

  24. See the various naval messages from Midway to CINCPAC, plus CINCPAC to Task Force Commanders, all dated June 4 from 8:20 a.m. to 11:01 a.m., in Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 8. As late as the afternoon of June 5, Midway was still reporting to Nimitz, “Our patrols have seen only two carriers.” By then, however, there were no carriers, since all four had been sunk. I thank John Lundstrom for directing my attention to these messages.

  25. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 249–50. Pederson is quoted on p. 249.

  26. Steve Ewing and John B. Lundstrom, Fateful Rendezvous: The Life of Butch O’Hare (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 93; 1927 Lucky Bag, USNA,

  27. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 230–31, U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA.

  28. Pederson to Buckmaster, May 16, 1942, Action Reports, reel 2; Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 249; Lundstrom, The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 340.

  29. Esders was very specific in noting that he sighted the smoke of the Kidö Butai at 9:33, though Machinist Harry Corl, in his report, said it was at 10:00 a.m. Since LCDR Shumway also put the sighting at 10:00, and claims he called Massey at 10:20, the later time is probably more accurate. The reports of Esders and Corl are available at the BOMRT website: www.midway42.org/aa-reports/vt3-esders.pdf and www.midway42.org/aa-reports/vt3-corl.pdf. The radio exchange between Max Leslie and Lem Massey is in Shumway’s squadron report, June 10, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3. The Devastator pilot was Esders, quoted in Stuart D. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway: Going to War with Yorktowns Air Group Five (Bennington, VT: Merriam, 2000), 113.

  30. Commanding Officer Yorktown Air Wing (Pederson), June 14, 1942, Action Reports, reel 2.

  31. Lundstrom, First Team, 351–56; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 223–25.

  32. John S. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 1:245–46, U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA; Machinist Harry Corl Report, June 15, 1942, available at www.midway42.org/aa-reports/vt3-corl.pdf; correspondence of Lloyd Childers to BOMRT, Nov. 8, 2004.

  33. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 1:248; Lundstrom, First Team, 355.

  34. Report W. G. Esders, June 6, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3.

  Chapter 14

  1. Nimitz to King, June 28, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3. Also available at www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/mid1.htm.


  2. 1927 Lucky Bag, USNA.

  3. William H. Brockman, Jr., “U.S.S. Nautilus, Narrative of 4 June 1942,” Action Reports, reel 3. Hereafter “Nautilus Narrative.” Also available at www.hnsa.org/doc/subreports.htm.

  4. Ibid.

  5. John Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War Two (London: Conway Maritime, 1985), 89.

  6. Roy S. Benson (executive officer of Nautilus) Questionnaire, n.d., Walter Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18; John F. Davidson oral history (Sept. 4, 1985), 196, and Slade Cutter oral history (June 17, 1985), 297, both in U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA.

  7. Roy S. Benson Questionnaire, n.d., Walter Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18; “Nautilus Narrative.”

  8. “Nautilus Narrative”; Roy S. Benson oral history (March 18, 1980), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 185.

  9. “Nautilus Narrative.” Brockman gives the time here as 9:00 a.m., but it was more likely around 8:30.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid.

  12. This is compiled from the action reports by McClusky, Gallaher, and Best. It is evident that Gallaher and Best collaborated on their reports, for not only do they agree in every particular, they also used identical language to do so. See Action Reports, reel 3, also available at www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19420604.htm.

  13. Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 39–40; Lew Hopkins interview (Jan. 15, 2004), NMPW, 17.

  14. Clarence Wade McClusky, “The Midway Story,” unpublished manuscript in the Gordon Prange collection, UMD, box 17.

  15. Gordon Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, and Katherine V. Dillon, Miracle at Midway (New York: McGraw-Hill,1982), 260; Best to Walter Lord, Jan. 27, 1966, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18.

  16. Prange et al., Miracle at Midway, 259–60.

  17. Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 42.

  18. Murray to Nimitz (via Spruance), June 13, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3. Also available at www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/mid1.htm.

  19. Gallaher to Walter Lord, Feb. 26, 1967, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18; Penland After-Action Report, Jun 10, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3. Italics added. Also available at www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19420604-vb6.htm. Both carriers turned to the northwest as McClusky approached, which put Kaga slightly ahead of Akagi. See schematic in Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 222.

  20. Best to Walter Lord, Jan. 27, 1966, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18; Dick Best Action Report, June 6, 1942, 3 (also available at www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19420604-vb6.htm); James T. Murray to Walter Lord, Feb. 26, 1967, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18.

  21. Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 41–42; Best to Walter Lord, Jan. 27, 1966, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18.

  22. John S. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 251.

  23. Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 233–34.

  24. Ibid., 234–35.

  25. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 252; Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 17; Norman (Dusty) Kleiss, BOMRT, Sept. 3, 2010; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 250. Subsequently, Jon Parshall estimated that, including the small 100-pound bombs, a total of twelve bombs probably hit the Kaga. BOMRT, Aug. 25, 2010, www.midway42.org/Backissues/2010–28.htm.

  26. Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 19.

  27. Ibid., 42.

  28. Best to Walter Lord, Jan. 27, 1966, Lord Collection, NHHC, box 18.

  29. Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 253–55, 257.

  30. Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW, 42.

  31. Leslie to Murray, June 10, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3 (also available at www.midway42.org/reports.html).

  32. Leslie to Smith, Dec. 15, 1964, in Prange Papers, UMD, box 17; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 264.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Leslie to Smith, Dec. 15, 1964, Prange Papers, UMD, box 17; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 264.

  35. Ibid., 259.

  Chapter 15

  1. The death throes of the three carriers are described in detail in Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully in Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), chaps. 14 and 15. See also Robert Cressman et al., “A Glorious Page in Our History”: The Battle of Midway, 4–6 June 1942 (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 1990), 104–5.

  2. Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 261–62, 268–69.

  3. Ibid., 263.

  4. Ibid., 264, 267.

  5. Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 114–15; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 292–93.

  6. Buckmaster to Nimitz, June 18, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3 (also available at www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/mid7.htm); Stuart Ludlum, They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway: Going to War with Yorktown’s Air Group Five (Bennington, VT: Merriam, 2000), 118.

  7. Ibid.

  8. The message traffic is from Enclosure C of Action Report, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (Nimitz), June 28, 1942, Action Reports microfilm, reel 3.

  9. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 119.

  10. Judson Brodie interview (March 13, 2007), NMPW, 35; John S. Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 1:267.

  11. Enclosure C of Nimitz’s Action Report, June 28, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3.

  12. Jeff Nesmith, No Higher Honor: The U.S.S. Yorktown at the Battle of Midway (Atlanta: Longstreet, 1999), 210–14; Leslie to Smith, Dec. 15, 1964, Prange Papers, UMD, box 17.

  13. Buckmaster to Nimitz, June 18, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3.

  14. Ibid.; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 116–17.

  15. Interview of Richard S. Brown by Ronald W. Russell (March 15, 2007), BOMRT; Buck-master to Nimitz, June 18, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3; Robert E. Barde, “The Battle of Midway: A Study in Command,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1971), 301.

  16. Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 122.

  17. Buckmaster to Nimitz, June 18, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3; Nesmith, No Higher Honor, 220–22; Barde, “Battle of Midway,” 289–90.

  18. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 122; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 128.

  19. Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 267.

  20. Ibid., 285; Peter C. Smith, Midway: Dauntless Victory; Fresh Perspectives on America’s Seminal Naval Victory of World War II (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2007), 185–86.

  21. Yamamoto’s comment is from an interview of Kuroshima Kameto by Robert E. Barde, quoted in Barde, “Battle of Midway,” 285.

  22. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy’s Story (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1955), 193.

  23. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 121; Spruance to Nimitz, June 8,1942, Spruance Papers, NWC, box 2, folder 4.

  24. John Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 1:269; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 130. Tootle was subsequently picked up by the destroyer Anderson. Ensign George Hopper’s flight was even shorter. The last of the eight Wildcat pilots to take off, he had barely cleared the Yorktown s bow when he was hit by 20 mm cannon fire from a Zero.

  25. John Thach oral history (Nov. 6, 1970), 1:268; Craig L. Symonds, Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 254–55; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 314. Thach did not know he had shot down Tomonaga’s plane until it was revealed to him by historian John Lundstrom in 1974. Thach also thought that Tomonaga’s torpedo hit the Yorktown, but a careful study by Parshall and Tully showed that it missed.

  26. It was author Jeff Nesmith who learned the identity of the Japanese flyer who shook his fist at the Yorktown. Nesmith, No Higher Honor, 226.

  27. Author’s interview of Captain John “Jack” Crawford (May 5, 2004); Buckmaster to Nimitz, June 18, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3. That the two torpedoes created a single large hole was discovere
d only after the war when Navy divers explored the wreckage.

  28. Nesmith, No Higher Honor, 232; John Crawford interview (May 5, 2004); Ronald Russell, “A Reunion in the Water,” Veteran’s Biographies (June 2006), BOMRT, www.midway42.org/vets-newberg.html; Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 125.

  29. John B. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway & Guadalcanal (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 275; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 135. As it turned out, two injured men were left aboard ship and were found when the Yorktown was reboarded the next day.

  30. William H. Brockman, Jr., “U.S.S. Nautilus, Narrative of 4 June 1942,” Action Reports, reel 3 (also available at issuu.com/hnsa/docs/ss-168_nautilus?mode=a_p).

  31. Ibid.; Roy S. Benson oral history (March 18, 1980), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 189; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 302–3.

  32. Ibid.; Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 141. The Kaga was not scuttled until 7:25 p.m.

  33. “CINC First Air Fleet Detailed Battle Report No. 6,” ONI Review 5 (May 1947), available online at www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJN/rep/Midway/Nagumo; Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword, 323.

  34. Gallaher to Murray, and Leslie to Murray, both June 10, 1942, Action Reports, reel 3. In the end, only twenty-four planes flew to the target, because one of the planes of Gallaher’s section had engine trouble and had to return. Leslie was picked up and taken to Fletcher’s new flagship, the cruiser Astoria.

  35. Richard Best interview (Aug. 11, 1995), NMPW; Wade McClusky interview (June 30, 1966), Gordon Prange Papers, UMD, box 17.

  36. Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrie Admiral, 270–73.

  37. Ludlum, They Turned the War Around, 117,123,127; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 4, Coral Sea, Midway, and Submarine Actions, May 1942—August 1942 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1949, repr., 1975, 136. John Lundstrom notes that Adams’s report came in “almost to the minute when the Yorktown was torpedoed.” Lundstrom, First Team, 411.

  38. Cressman et al., Glorious Page, 136. Buell attributes the communications failure to poor staff work. See Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 138–39.