...those old piston engines talked to you at low power and sang a beautiful song in flight, very seldom complaining.
Chapter 29
The Battle of Midway
(I shall not attempt to provide a chronology
of the vital turning point in the war in the Pacific—the very illogical defeat
of the Imperial Japanese Navy at Midway Island on 4 June 1942, just six months
after the sneak attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941. I shall, instead, simply relate my own very
small part in the historic action.
To
understand the details of the Battle of Midway, I highly recommend Walter
Lord’s book, “The Incredible Victory”.
Mr. Lord is an unparalleled researcher and his account of the Battle of
Midway is not only accurate, but also captures the atmosphere of the time.
Briefly, we found in later years that
Admiral Yamamoto himself had predicted the fate of Japan after the attack on
Hawaii. His reaction to the apparent
success of the raid which did not include destruction of our American aircraft
carriers was to say, “I fear that we may have awakened a sleeping giant and
filled him with a terrible resolve.” He went on to predict, “We ( the
Japanese naval forces) will run wild in the Pacific for six months—beyond that,
I cannot answer for the consequences.”
The Battle of Midway was intended by the
Japanese to draw out the American aircraft carriers (we were down to only three
in the Pacific—ENTERPRISE, HORNET, and the crippled YORKTOWN) to their
destruction and force the U.S. to sue for peace. All of the Japanese military and civilian
leaders realized that Little Japan could never prevail in a prolonged war with
the might of the United States once its war machine had been activated.
That June of 1942 the U.S. war machine had
barely begun to stir in response to the battle cry, “REMEMBER PEARL
HARBOR!”, which had unified the nation
overnight. Meanwhile, Yamamoto had
assembled the greatest naval armada of all time including Admiral Nagumo’s
elite fast carrier task force, a main battle fleet including the mighty battle
ship YAMATO, and an invasion fleet to take over the island.
We, on the other hand, were literally
hanging on by our fingertips with no battleships, three aircraft carriers (with
few squadrons of F4F “Wildcat” fighters, TBD torpedo planes, and Douglas SBD
dive bombers), a few heavy and light cruisers, several destroyers, and perhaps
three dozen of our slow and clumsy PBY “Catalinas”. There was also a miscellany of a few Army
B-17s, some obsolete Brewster “Buffalo” Marine fighters, and other land-based
aircraft that would play no significant role in the Battle of Midway.
We were clearly outnumbered and
out-gunned. The Japanese pilots had
proven on December 7th, 1941, that they were superbly trained and
our F4F Wildcats were no match for the fast, slashing Mitsubishi Zero
fighters. We had little chance of
victory. Fate had dealt Yamamoto a full
house and the U.S. an inside straight flush.
Thanks to a handful of Douglas SBD dive bombers and some very incredible
coincidences and circumstances, we drew to that busted flush and history
records the outcome. We broke the back
of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The incredible coincidence at Midway was the
timing between an attack of some of our torpedo planes and the arrival of our
first wave of SBD dive bombers. In
short, our initial attacks on the Japanese carriers had failed. The first two or three of our torpedo attacks
resulted in the loss of many of our planes and no hits on the enemy.
Our coordination was so bad that our
covering fighters had lost track of the torpedo and dive bomber squadrons they
were supposed to protect. The dive
bombers had also gotten separated from the torpedo planes with which they were
to make the attack. All squadrons had
difficulty in finding the enemy fleet.
The torpedo planes found Nagumo’s carriers
first and bored in to attack just as the enemy planes on the carrier decks were
being re-armed. Patrolling Zeros above
the carriers promptly came down and had a field day shooting down American
torpedo planes but leaving the higher altitudes without fighter cover.
It was then that the tardy dive bombers
arrived over the enemy carriers at seventeen thousand feet. With the torpedo planes keeping both the
Zeros and the Japanese anti-aircraft fire occupied, the SBDs poured down on
three of the Japanese carriers literally unopposed. The one remaining Japanese carrier, HIRYU,
would suffer the same fate later in the day.
History records that, to Admiral Nagumo and
his staff, it appeared that they had been hit with a beautifully coordinated
attack timed to perfection for just when the Japanese were re-fueling and
re-arming their airplanes for another attack on Midway Island and to seek out
the American aircraft carriers.
Actually, nothing could have been farther
from the truth. The American dive
bombers had been launched from extreme range almost in desperation when it
became apparent that the land-based airplanes and the torpedo attacks were
futile. The SBDs found the enemy barely
before they were down to minimum fuel and would have to turn back.
The whole thing was almost an accident—but
what a glorious accident for the United States Navy! It left the Imperial Japanese Navy creeping
back to the home islands in shame. Japense
survivors of the Battle of Midway were literally smuggled ashore in the dead of
night and were kept in isolation lest the terrible defeat become public
knowledge. The Japanese press claimed a
might victory because of the sinking of the YORKTOWN.
When asked what they would tell the Emperor,
Admiral Yamamoto’s answer was, “Only I must answer to the Emperor.”)
After
early breakfast at Kaneohe on that morning of 5 June 1942, Davenport and I went
to the airplane on the ramp in the pre-dawn darkness to do our pre-flight
checks. When he shined a flashlight on
the wing bomb rack, Dave groaned, “Shee-it!
Yesterday we were a suicide torpedo plane and now look—they’ve made a
DIVE BOMBER out of us!! “ On each wing
rack there were two five hundred pound contact bombs.
As
it turned out, we were not expected to do any dive bombing. When Marcy came to the airplane he stated
that we would ferry the bombs to Midway for the B-17s that were helping pursue
the retreating Japanese fleet, then we would fly rescue and patrol behind the
running battle that was still in progress.
By
the time we were airborne and headed for Midway, still leading the formation of
PBYs , we had heard the scuttlebutt that three Jap carriers had been sunk the
previous morning and a fourth went down in the afternoon. We later learned that they had been four of
the Japanese first-line carriers—KAGA, AKAGI, SORYU, and HIRYU. All had been involved in the attack on
Hawaii. We also learned, to our dismay,
that we had paid a price. Many of our
fighter, torpedo plane, and dive bomber crews had been shot down and survivors
were scattered over the ocean in life rafts.
Part of our job would be to locate and rescue as many as possible. We also heard that our carrier YORKTOWN had
been hit hard and was being abandoned.
During
our approach to Midway that afternoon, we made a wide sweep to the northwest of
the island over the battle area looking for survivors. In the distance we saw a towering pillar of
smoke and flew toward it. It was the
listing hulk of YORKTOWN. Two cruisers
were standing by and two destroyers circled the stricken carrier on
anti-submarine patrol. The destroyer
HAMMAN was alongside YORKTOWN and her pumps were pouring water into the burning
hull of the mighty ship.
(That was the last we were to see of
YORKTOWN. While the HAMMAN was alongside,
a Japanese submarine penetrated the destroyer screen and put two torpedoes into
YORKTOWN and one into HAMMAN. The
destroyer broke in half and sank in minutes.
The depth charges on her stern racks were still armed and two of
HAMMAN’s crew went under water with the stern, still struggling to disarm the
depth charges. They gave their lives in
vain. HAMMAN’s depth charges exploded
beneath YORKTOWN and may have been the final straw. The following morning, 6 June 1942, the big
aircraft carrier slid beneath the surface.)
Midway
was a dismal sight when we came in over the reef to land in the lagoon. Bombs had pulverized most of the buildings
including the PBY hangar at the seaplane ramp.
The water tower was down, the building containing the brig had been a
direct hit, and black smoke was billowing from a large fuel oil storage tank.
The
island looked worse than it was. Having
been warned well in advance by Naval Intelligence, everything had been dug into
the sand. Large underground bunkers were
being used as barracks. The hospital was
under the sand. Only some administration
offices and the island mess hall were relatively intact above ground. The beaches of the island were laced with
barbed wire coils, marine machinegun nests, and anti-aircraft guns. The little island was literally swarming with
steel-helmeted marines, dungareed sailors, and equipment.
When
we were pulled up to the ramp, Davenport and I quickly discovered that we had a
problem. The other PBYs were either from
VP-71 or from the Patrol Wing Two squadrons out of Ford Island. They had sent maintenance ground crews out in
advance. We were “orphans”—the only
flight crew at Midway from VP-11 and would have to service and maintain our own
airplane.
That
was only the beginning of our problems.
The Japanese bombing attack the previous morning had not only shattered
the hangar but had also knocked out the aviation gasoline system. It was necessary to refuel the big wing tanks
with a hand pump from barrels of gasoline delivered by truck from island
reserves scattered in the sparse undergrowth of the island. The entire crew itched in to help but it was
still wearisome and it was nearly midnight when we finished re-fueling. We were to be ready for takeoff at 0500 the
next morning.
The
rest of the crew headed for our assigned barracks but Dave and I discovered
another problem. Both engines needed a
couple of gallons of oil. We found that
the island oil supply also was in barrels scattered in the underbrush. I found the duty officer’s office and finally
procured the services of the duty truck driver.
After nearly getting shot twice by nervous and trigger-happy marines
still expecting a Jap invasion, we finally found a barrel of oil and trucked it
to the airplane. Then we had to pump the
oil up to the engine nacelles with a hand billy pump. It was after 0200 when we were finished and
the airplane was ready for takeoff. We
did not bother to go to the underground barracks bunker. We simply flaked out on bunks in the
airplane.
The
pattern for our sixteen-day stay at Midway was established. Up at 0500, takeoff
at 0600, then ten hours or so of combing the ocean behind the battle searching
for survivors or enemy submarines. Only
once did we stand down for a day so that Dave and I could accomplish our
80-hour engine checks and change the spark plug (twenty-eight plugs per
engine). During that two-week period, we
were in the air a total of more than 180 hours.
(I must pay tribute here not only to
Consolidated for building those sturdy PBY-5 Catalinas but also in particular
to Pratt & Whitney for those always reliable fourteen-cylinder R-1830-92
radial engines. They were the finest and
most faithful airplane engines ever manufactured. Modern jet engines simply scream—those old
piston engines talked to you at low power and sang a beautiful song in flight,
very seldom complaining.)
