The Battle of Midway (69 page)

7
. Lobdell, “Frank Knox,”682; Senate Committee on Naval Affairs,
Nomination of William Franklin Knox: Hearings before the Committee on Naval Affairs, United States Senate on the Nomination of William Franklin Knox to be Secretary of the Navy
, 76th Cong., 3rd sess., 1940, 42; Ickes,
Secret Diary
, 2:717; “Attack Upon Pearl Harbor,” 77th Cong., 2nd sess., 1942, S. Doc. 159, 20. See also Knox’s sycophantic letters to FDR in 1940 in President’s Secretary’s file, box 62, FDRL.

8
. Thomas B. Buell,
Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), 111, Floyd Thorn interview (Aug. 14, 2000), NMPW.

9
. Eric Larrabee,
Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War
(New York: Harper & Row, 1987; reprint Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004), 171; Robert William Love, Jr., “Ernest Joseph King,” in
The Chiefs of Naval Operations
, ed. Robert William Love, Jr. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980), 139–40, Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill,
Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record
(New York: Norton, 1952), 350–51.

10
. B. Mitchell Simpson, “Harold Raynsford Stark,” in Love,
Chiefs of Naval Operations
, 131, 119–20; Samuel Eliot Morison,
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
, vol. 1,
The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939–May 1943
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 41. Stark’s memos to FDR, signed “Betty,” are in the President’s Secretary’s Files, FDRL, box 62. Stark subsequently went to England as commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe. The memo making King both CominCh and CNO is dated March 12, 1942, and is in the King Papers, Series I, box 1. It is also printed in Buell,
Master of Sea Power
as Appendix 4.

11
. Potter,
Nimitz
, 9; King’s comment about Nimitz is quoted in Larrabee,
Commander in Chief
, 356.

12
. A. T. Mahan,
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1890).

13
. Norman Jack (Dusty) Kleiss to the author, July 31, 2009.

14
. Potter, Nimitz, 62, 122–34.

15
. Ibid., 135–61.

16
. Kimmel’s plan for the employment of the carriers is in the “Briefed Estimate,” Dec. 10, 1941, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:13; Stark’s order is Stark to Kimmel, Dec. 15, 1941, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1:49–50; Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
, 23.

17
. Stark to Pye, and Pye to Stark, both Dec. 22, 1941, both in Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1, 72; Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
, 31; Edward Layton oral history (May 30, 1970), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA, 106.

18
. Stark to Pye, Dec. 27, 1941, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1, 120; Knox to Kimmel, Jan. 9, 1941, Kimmel Papers, AHC, box 2; Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
, 39, 45. Circumstantial evidence suggests that that FDR may have subsequently blocked Pye’s appointment to command the South Pacific.

19
. The officer who likened Nimitz’s arrival to opening a window in a stuffy room was Raymond Spruance in an interview with Gordon Prange (Sept. 5, 1964), Prange Papers, UMD, box 17.

20
. Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
, 6.

21
. Edward P. Stafford,
The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise
(New York: Random House, 1962; Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 23–24. Citations are to the Naval Institute Press edition.

22
. Edward S. Miller,
War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991);
Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy
(1940), 27–33.

23
. Stark to Knox, Nov. 12, 1940, original in FDRL; also available online at
http://www.docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box4/a48b01.html
.

24
. Ibid.

25
. Ibid.

26
. Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack,
Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack
, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 1945, part 15, 1505. The text of Rainbow 5 is in Steven T. Ross, ed.,
American War Plans, 1919–1941
(New York: Garland, 1992), 5:100.

27
. Knox to ALNAV (all Navy personnel), Dec. 7, 1941, Nimitz Papers, NHHC, box 1, 5; Joel Ira Holwitt,
“Execute against Japan”: The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009).

28
. Buford Rowland and William B. Boyd,
U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II
(Washington, DC: Bureau of Ordnance, 1953), 90; Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar,
Ship Killer: A History of the American Torpedo
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 102 ff. See also Robert Gannon,
Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 75–76, 89.

29
. Nimitz to Mrs. Nimitz, Dec. 28, 1941, and Jan. 29, 1942, both in Nimitz Diary #1 (serial letters from Nimitz to his wife), NHHC.

1
. The number of planes carried by the Kid
ō
Butai is from Mark R. Peattie,
Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909–1941
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 152. John B. Lundstrom offers the slightly lower figure of 387 airplanes for the Kid
ō
Butai in
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 151. A total of 360 aircraft were assigned to the Pearl Harbor strike, but there were ten aborts; in addition, the Japanese launched two “Jake” floatplanes, though they
did not participate in the attack. I am grateful to Richard Frank, Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, and Lee Pennington for their help with this chapter.

2
. The “feminine delicacy” observation is from Matsunaga Keisuke, who is quoted by Hiroyuki Agawa in
The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy
, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979), 131, 139. The “recent scholar” is Sadao Adasa, in
From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 275. The American officer was Edwin T. Layton, from his oral history (May 30, 1970), U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Collection, USNA. Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony P. Tully discuss Yamamoto’s personality in
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 22–23, Yamamoto’s involvement with carrier aircraft is from Asada,
From Mahan to Pearl Harbor
, 182–84.

3
. Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 139.

4
. Ibid., 124.

5
. Ibid., 95–96, 118; Ronald H. Spector,
Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan
(New York: Free Press, 1985), 36–37; Samuel Eliot Morison,
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
, vol. 3,
The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 13.

6
. The text of the “Fundamental Principles”: is available at
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/144app01.html
. See also Spector,
Eagle against the Sun
, 42.

7
. Asada,
From Mahan to Pearl Harbor
, 164–66, 194–97.

8
. Yamamoto is quoted in Peattie,
Sunburst
, 83. See also Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 46–52.

9
. Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 13.

10
. Yamamoto to Admiral Shimada, Sept. 4, 1939, quoted in Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, eds.,
The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans
(Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1993), 114; Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 13, 124, 186; Matome Ugaki,
Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941–1945
, ed. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, trans. Masataka Chihaya (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 6. To some extent, the Imperial Japanese Navy acquiesced to the pact with Germany in exchange for assurances that it would get an increase in steel allocation in the budget. In effect, therefore, national policy was subordinated to service ambitions. See Asada,
From Mahan to Pearl Harbor
, 243.

11
. Yamamoto to Navy Minister Oikawa, Jan. 7, 1941, quoted in Goldstein and Dillon,
Pearl Harbor Papers
, 115; Asada,
From Mahan to Pearl Harbor
, 238; Peattie,
Sunburst
, 83; Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 192.

12
. H. P. Willmott,
The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), 28–30.

13
. Atsushi Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” in
The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II
, ed. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2004), 16; Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 127, 195.

14
. Peattie,
Sunburst
, 76.

15
. Jisaburo Ozawa, “Outline Development of Tactics and Organization of the Japanese Carrier Air Force,” in Goldstein and Dillon,
Pacific War Papers
, 78–79; Peattie,
Sunburst
, 149, 151.

16
. Agawa,
Reluctant Admiral
, 264; Gordon Prange interview of Genda (Sept. 5, 1966), Prange Papers, UMD, box 17; Ugaki,
Fading Victory
, 13 (diary entry of Oct. 22, 1941).

17
. The quotation is from Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa and is quoted by Hiroyuki Agawa in
The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy
, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979), 191.

18
. Yamamoto to Navy Minister Oikawa, Jan. 7, 1941, quoted in Goldstein and Dillon,
Pearl Harbor Papers
, 116; Parshall and Tully,
Shattered Sword
, 14–15.

19
. Masataka Chihaya, “Concerning the Construction of Japanese Warships,” in Goldstein and Dillon,
Pacific War Papers
, 86.

20
. The “modern expert” is Mark Peattie, in
Sunburst
, 100. See also Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” 22–23.

21
. Peattie,
Sunburst
, 166; Parshall and Tully,
Shattered Sword
, 89; Agawa,
Yamamoto
, 202; Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,”12.

22
. Parshall and Tully,
Shattered Sword
, 130; John Campbell,
Naval Weapons of World War Two
(London: Conway Maritime, 1985); Peattie,
Sunburst
, 95. The Kate was also used as a level bomber against land targets when it carried a heavy (1,760–pound) explosive (fragmentation) bomb whose purpose was to suppress antiaircraft fire from a surface target. Such bombs wrecked the superstructure of the USS
Arizona
in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

23
. Peattie,
Sunburst
, 91–92; Parshall and Tully,
Shattered Sword
, 78; and Spector,
Eagle against the Sun
, 46–47.

24
. Parshall and Tully,
Shattered Sword
, 256; Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” 25.

25
. John B. Lundstrom,
The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 455 (Appendix 1).

26
. Oi, “The Japanese Navy in 1941,” 23; Peattie,
Sunburst
, 133–34; Lundstrom,
First Team
, 455–56.

27
. Ugaki,
Fading Victory
, 48 (diary entry of Dec. 9, 1941). The notion that Nagumo ought to have attacked the U.S. oil-tank farm on Oahu is mostly hindsight. The tank farm was not part of the initial target list, and even if Nagumo had launched a third strike, its purpose would most likely have been to mop up elements of the fleet that remained afloat.

28
. Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney,
Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse
(London: Lane, 1977).

1
. Steve Wiper,
Yorktown Class Carriers
(Tucson, AZ: Classic Warships, 2000); Robert Cressman et al.,
“A Glorious Page in Our History”: The Battle of Midway, 4–6 June 1942
(Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 1990), 202. I am grateful to Bert Kinzey and to Ronald W. Russell for their help with this chapter.

2
. John B. Lundstrom,
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 100.

3
. Thomas Wildenberg,
All the Factors of Victory: Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves and the Origins of Carrier Airpower
(Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), 155.

4
. William F. Halsey and J. Bryan III,
Admiral Halsey’s Story
(New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), 50–55. The quotation is from 52.

5
. Ibid., 14.

6
. The “modern scholar” is John B. Lundstrom in
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
, 21; 1902
Lucky Bag
, USNA; Samuel Eliot Morison,
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
, vol. 3,
The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 211n.

7
. Noel Gayler oral history (Feb. 15, 2002), 4, Naval Historical Foundation.

8
. Stephen D. Regan,
In Bitter Tempest: The Biography of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher
(Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), viii; 1906
Lucky Bag
, USNA. The critic was Lieutenant Richard Best, in an interview (Aug. 11, 1995), 30, NMPW.