The Battle of Midway (59 page)

As for the
Hornet
, thanks to the “flight to nowhere,” her air group had not been in action at all that day save for Waldron’s martyred Torpedo Eight. Despite that, ten Wildcats had been lost, and only three of Ruff Johnson’s planes from Bombing Eight had returned.
Hornet
still had all eighteen dive-bombers of Walt Rodee’s squadron, plus the three planes of Johnson’s squadron, so that altogether Spruance had more than forty bombers that he could commit to a second strike.

Certainly the pilots were eager for it. After landing on the
Enterprise
, Dick Best climbed out of his cockpit and hurried up to the flag bridge to convince Spruance to send out another strike at once. Miles Browning intercepted him, and Best made his case. “There are three carriers aflame and burning,” he told Browning. “But there’s a fourth one up to the north. He requested that he be “rearmed and sent out right away.” Before Browning could reply, McClusky came up to make his report. Commander Walter Boone noticed that blood was running down McClusky’s arm and dripping onto the deck: “My God, Mac, you’ve been shot!” he exclaimed. In fact, McClusky had parts of five bullets in his arm and shoulder, and he was hustled off to sick bay.
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Browning and Spruance were surprised to learn of a fourth undamaged carrier. At 2:04, Spruance had notified Nimitz, “All four CV believed badly damaged.” Yet Best’s report, and the attack on
Yorktown
, proved that at least one undamaged enemy carrier was still operating. Even so, Spruance did not launch at once. The losses among the American strike aircraft that morning had been “horrific,’ and he was aware that if he launched a second
strike now, the planes would probably have to return in the dark. Most important, he didn’t know with any certainty where that fourth carrier was other than, in Best’s words, somewhere “up to the north.” He therefore rejected Browning’s suggestion to launch at once and decided to wait until he had more information.
³⁶

It came in at 2:45. That morning, as we’ve seen, Fletcher had kept the planes of Wally Short’s Scouting Five back from the strike in anticipation of finding the presumed second group of Japanese carriers. At 11:30, just twenty minutes before Kobayashi’s attack, he sent ten of them off on a combination search and attack mission. Short’s ten planes flew in five two-plane sections in order to cover an arc of the sea from 280 degrees (almost due west) to 020 degrees (almost due north)—see map, p. 334. They were to fly two hundred miles out, turn left for sixty miles, then fly back. At 150 miles, most of them encountered a thick fog bank. “We’d fly through thick fog for five or ten minutes,” one pilot recalled, “and then break out into the open for a few miles, then back into a fog bank again.” Nevertheless, at 2:45 p.m., just as Tomonaga was attacking the
Yorktown
, Lieutenant Samuel Adams called in a sighting. Adams was in a buoyant mood, for he had received word just that morning that his wife had given birth back in the States. Perhaps somewhat giddy as a result, he had flown off the
Yorktown
still wearing his blue pajamas under his flight jacket. Now, however, he was all business. Finding no enemy ships in his assigned sector, he took the initiative to fly further south and at 2:45 reported “One carrier, two battleships, three heavy cruisers, four destroyers. Course north, speed 20 knots.” The enemy ships bore 278 degrees from Task Force 16 and they were only 110 miles away. Adams’s radioman/gunner, Joseph Karrol, sent in the sighting report, and when Adams asked him to send it again, Karrol interrupted him: “Mr. Adams, would you mind waiting a minute. There’s a Zero on our tail.” Karrol transferred from the radio to the twin .30-caliber machine guns to fend off the Zero, then went back to the radio to send the voice message.
³⁷
*

The popular and boyish-looking Lieutenant Samuel Adams spotted the
Hiry
ū
on the afternoon of June 4 and reported her location. (U.S. Naval Institute)

After receiving that news, Spruance ordered
Enterprise
and
Hornet
to “prepare to launch attack group immediately.” For whatever reason, that order never reached the
Hornet.
So far the day had been an unalloyed fiasco for the
Hornet.
It would get no better in the afternoon. Anticipating an order to launch a second strike, Mitscher had spotted Walt Rodee’s scout bombers on the
Hornet’s
flight deck. Then just a few minutes before 3:00, Mitscher learned that the eleven bombers of Ruff Johnson’s VB-8 that had landed on Midway that morning were at last returning. Mitscher decided to “break the spot” (as it was called) and push the planes of Rodee’s strike force forward in order to recover Johnson’s bombers. As a result, when at 3:17 Spruance ordered both carriers to begin launching at 3:30, the
Hornet
was not ready.
Enterprise
began launching at 3:25; the
Hornet
did not get her first plane into the air until after 4:00.
³⁸

That first plane lifted off at 4:03, and one by one, sixteen Dauntless bombers got airborne. Almost at once, however, two of them reported engine failure and had to return. By the time they were back aboard, it was past 4:30, and, deciding it was too late now to continue launching, Mitscher turned the
Hornet
west to the point-option course. That decision stranded fifteen planes of the
Hornet’s
strike force that were still on the hangar deck. Worse, among those fifteen were the planes of Stanhope Ring, the air group commander, and Walt Rodee, the squadron commander. Mitscher’s report is silent on how he learned of this latest snafu. Did Ring and Rodee come running up to the bridge to ask why they had been left behind? Did they then consult the roster to find out who the senior officer with the strike
group was? In any case, only after he was in the air did Lieutenant Edgar Stebbins learn that he was in charge of the mission. It was yet another humiliation for the hapless
Hornet
, her frustrated commanding officer, and her even more frustrated air group commander.
³⁹

As for the
Enterprise
, once she had launched her strike group, she began recovering the orphaned Wildcats from the stricken
Yorktown
. Jimmy Thach was the last to come aboard, and when he climbed out of his cockpit, he was told that Admiral Spruance wanted to see him. Thach rushed up to the flag bridge, where the sober-faced admiral was waiting for him. He asked Thach how he thought things were going. “Admiral, we’re winning this battle,” Thach replied. “I saw with my own eyes three big carriers burning so furiously they’ll never launch another airplane.” He told Spruance that he felt that they ought to go after the fourth one. Thach remembered that Spruance “kind of smiled” at that, which was about as demonstrative as Spruance got.
⁴⁰

The
Enterprise
strike force of twenty-four planes (one of Gallaher’s planes had to return because of engine trouble) flew toward the target at 13,000 feet in three squadrons. Each squadron was a mere shadow of what it had been that morning. Earl Gallaher’s VS-6 had only six planes; Dick Best’s VB-6 had four; and Max Leslie’s VB-3 from
Yorktown
had fourteen. Neither McClusky nor Leslie could take part—McClusky because of his shoulder wound and Leslie because his plane had never made it to the
Enterprise. That
made Earl Gallaher the senior man, with Lieutenant Dave Shumway leading the
Yorktown
planes. Gallaher planned to have the ten
Enterprise
planes (his own and Dick Best’s) attack the enemy carrier, and he wanted Shumway’s fourteen planes from
Yorktown
to hit the escorting battleships. This was a curious decision, since battleships—though big and impressive—were of little operational importance compared to the carrier. Very likely, Gallaher was remembering the doctrine that called for two squadrons flying together to select different targets. But with the American squadrons so reduced by battle damage, and with only one enemy carrier left, it would have been understandable in this case for all the planes to attack the primary target. Despite doctrine, that is exactly what happened.

The strike force from
Enterprise
spotted the Kid
ō
Butai just before 5:00. Gallaher led his group of twenty-four planes up to 19,000 feet and around to the west in order to attack out of the setting sun. The Japanese had a handful of Zeros flying CAP at altitude, but they did not discover the threat until Gallaher was nearly ready to push over, and for the second time that day the Japanese were caught by surprise when American dive-bombers came hurtling down on them. Despite that, they put up an impressive curtain of antiaircraft fire. In the growing darkness, the gunfire flashes along both sides of the carrier were clearly visible.
⁴¹

Gallaher began his dive just as the
Hiry
ū
made a radical turn to port. The
Hiry
ū
was agile for a big ship, and it turned tighter than Gallaher had calculated. He was already committed to his dive, so he tried to adjust for the
Hiry
ū
’s sharp turn by pulling up abruptly when he released his bomb, hoping to “throw” the bomb at the rapidly retreating carrier. The bomb missed astern, and Gallaher succeeded only in wrenching his back so badly that after he landed back on the
Enterprise
he had to be lifted bodily out of his cockpit.
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The next two bombs also missed, and after witnessing that, Shumway decided to forget about the battleships and lead his squadron against the carrier. It was the right decision, though it caused some confusion, since his group and Best’s four-plane section both dove on the
Hiry
ū
at the same time. Once again, Best had to maneuver at the last moment while he was preparing to dive. That gave the Zeros flying CAP a second chance at him, and they shot down one of Best’s wingmen, Ensign Fred Weber. Then, as Shumway targeted the
Hiry
ū
s
starboard bow, Best led his other three planes against her port bow.
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The first to hit the
Hiry
ū
was Ensign Richard Jaccard. His 500-pound bomb struck the forward elevator, blowing a section of it into the air and propelling it back against the
Hiry
ū
s
small island. Three more hits quickly followed, one of them Dick Best’s—his second of the day. Norman “Dusty” Kleiss, who had landed a bomb on the
Kaga
that morning, also got a second hit on
Hiry
ū
.
All four American bombs landed forward of the ship’s island and created a single, massive crater in her flight deck; the
Hiry
ū
looked as if a giant’s hand had reached down and scooped out her bow section, leaving a gaping cavern. The
Hiry
ū
suffered less secondary damage than the other Japanese carriers because there was less ordnance to cook off on the hangar deck, but the primary damage was enough. Like her sister ships, she had been wrecked beyond recovery.
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