. . . Japan still had overwhelming numerical superiority; she still could have succeeded in her first need of destroying the aircraft carrier heart of the Pacific Fleet and winning the Pacific. That she failed can be laid to crucial errors by the Japanese admirals as much as to the genius of leadership of Admirals Nimitz and Spruance and the sacrificial heroism of the resolute air groups of our three lonely available carriers: Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown.
Some of the gross Japanese errors were:
Failure to allow for the unforeseen, the likeliest event of war. They fatuously depended on surprise and lack of fleet opposition as at Pearl Harbor. They did not allow for the possibility of codes being read or submarine reports of fleet sorties. They had no submarines reporting U. S. carrier movements at Pearl Harbor. They stationed submarines south of Midway too late to warn of the passage of Fletcher and Spruance's carrier task forces. Even after being sighted approaching Midway, they did not send out a vigorous search on the fateful morning of 4, June 1942.
Division of force. Despite every other error, Admiral Yamamoto might still have retrieved the day and won Midway had he kept his force concentrated. His main goal was "decisive fleet action" yet he split his strength into many fragments from the Aleutians to Midway in a complex plan. Thus dispersed were four smaller carriers with combined air strength equivalent to two heavies. What a difference they would have made had they been near by on July 4th!
His main force of seven battleships and seven cruisers cruised hundreds of miles from the fast carriers. That deprived him of night engagement chances and deprived the carriers of added sorely needed anti-aircraft protection, for the Japanese were inferior to the U. S. Navy in adequacy of anti-aircraft armament.
Overconfidence. This entered into the foregoing errors. It also caused the Japanese to omit the fine carrier Zuikaku from the Midway operation. On May 20th she reached Japan undamaged from the Coral Sea, except for a depleted air group, but was not used since it was "Impossible to give the replacement personnel enough shipboard training" to make her effective.
On the other hand, Yorktown, with bomb damage estimated to take 90 days to repair, reached Pearl Harbor the afternoon of May 27th, was repaired by 1,400 yard workmen feverishly working day and night, took on a new air group drawn from three other groups, and sailed just in time for Midway on May 31st!
Overconfidence led to the final nail in the Japanese coffin of errors. After launching the Midway strike early on 4, June Admiral Nagumo had ninety-three planes standing by armed for possible ship targets. He had started to rearm them for shore attack when a search plane reported our ships. Although involved in repelling shore-based air attack and recovering his first strike, he could have launched a partial strike against our carriers at any time in the hour between the last attack by Midway shore-based aircraft (fifty-two airplanes, no hits) and that of the first carrier torpedo airplanes . . .
Regardless of their numerous disastrous errors, the Japanese might still have won except for the timely, aggressive, and resolute action of the U. S. Navy. Commentators on the Battle of Midway have ascribed the United States success against much larger forces to breaking and reading the Japanese code. This far oversimplifies. Reading the code was undoubtedly a key; but the Japanese might have been transmitting false information as a ruse.
It took great courage for Admiral Nimitz to pull his first team from the South Pacific where Japanese success ran at flood tide. It took courage to send his ships against numerically overwhelming odds. It took the utmost vigor and audacity in action of the crews that faced the odds. The issue long hung in the balance and was finally tipped to our side by the heroism and skill of a handful of carrier pilots.
A large reason for our victory was the cool, resolute, and unerring leadership on the scene by Admiral Spruance. He has been criticized for retiring to the east during the night of 4, June and for not pushing to the west after 6, June. Those then on Admiral Nimitz' staff know that the "fog of war" hung heavy and dark. For long we were not sure of victory or its extent. An even thicker haze shrouded those in the middl of the mélée.
But in his calm, accurate, daring mind Admiral Spruance weighed all factors and played his strength to the utmost. Twice Admiral Yamamoto tried to trap him. Twice Admiral Spruance outwitted him: "Toward sundown on 4, June," he says, "I decided to retire to the eastward so as to avoid the possibility of night action with superior forces. . . . The Japanese did order a night attack. "When the day's action on 6 June was over . . . we were short of fuel, and I had a feeling, an intrusion perhaps, that we had pushed our luck as far to the westward as it was good for us . . ."
--Rear Admiral Ernest M. Eller
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith
Part III: Chapter 11: The Battle Analyzed
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