The Akagi, with 40 planes refueling on deck, sustained three hits within two minutes; one of the bombs fell on a hangar containing stored torpedoes and another struck the fueling planes on the flight deck. At 1047 hours Nagumo reluctantly transferred his flag to the light cruiser, Nagara; by 1915 hours that evening the fiercely burning carrier had been abandoned. The Kaga took four hits; one killed everyone on the bridge, including the captain, while others started fires in the bomb and gasoline storage areas. She, too, was soon abandoned and sank at 1925 hours.  

While the planes from the Enterprise were attacking Akagi and Kaga, 17 dive bombers from Yorktown were swooping down on the Soryu. Despite starting out nearly an hour and a half later than the other attack groups, they had arrived at the same time, thanks to smart navigating advice from Hubie Strange (the weatherman) and Oscar Pederson (the air group commander) aboard Yorktown. Attacking in three waves at one-minute intervals, they dropped three 1,000 lb bombs on Soryu’s flight deck. The ship burst into flames and had to be abandoned within twenty minutes. Damage control parties had the fires under control by 1145 hours, but then the submarine Nautilus re-entered the fray and put three torpedoes into the carrier, re-starting the fires. At 1610 hours the Soryu broke in half and slipped beneath the waves.

After the attacks the dive bombers headed back to their carriers. Most made it — some on literally their last gallon of gasoline — but a few had to ditch, owing to a miscalculation of the carriers’ position. Three Japanese carriers had been left in flames, but the Enterprise had lost 14 of 37 dive bombers, ten of 14 torpedo bombers, and one Wildcat. The Hornet had lost all her torpedo bombers and 12 Wildcats, while her dive bombers had missed the battle entirely. Yorktown was down seven of 12 torpedo bombers, two dive bombers, and three Wildcats. Fletcher launched a search mission to find the fourth carrier; the Hiryu had been far ahead of the other three carriers, and had been missed by the first wave of American dive bombers.

Since he still had Hiryu, with a full complement of planes, Nagumo decided to carry on the battle, reasoning that the Americans had only one or two carriers which had already used most of their planes. He sent a message to Yamamoto: ‘Sighted enemy composed of one carrier, five cruisers, and six destroyers at position bearing ten degrees 240 miles from Midway,’ then he headed for the Yorktown.

The first Japanese attack group, composed of 18 Vals and six Zeros, was launched at 1100 hours, followed by a second group of ten Kates and six Zeros at 1331 hours. At the same time Admiral Kondo, who had intercepted the message to Yamamoto, signaled that he was coming north to support the carrier force, while Yamamoto ordered the light carriers Ryujo and Junyo south from the Aleutians to help.

By flying low, the Japanese planes managed to stay under the straight line beam of the Yorktown’s crude radar, and were not detected until they were only 46 miles from the ship. At noon the carrier began taking evasive action; the heavy cruisers Astoria and Portland, as well as the destroyers Hammann, Anderson, Russell, Morris, and Hughes, formed a defensive ring around her; the 12 Wildcats that were airborne as combat air patrol went out to intercept, joined by several Wildcats rushed over from Hornet. The first wave of 24 Japanese planes arrived at 1210 hours. In a dogfight to end all dogfights, the badly outnumbered interceptors knocked out ten Vals and three fighters, while anti-aircraft fire accounted for two more dive bombers. But three of the remaining six planes managed to score a hit. The first bomb damaged the boilers, the second started a fire that was put out by flooding, and the third exploded on the flight deck, resulting in another fire and many casualties. Fletcher transferred his flag to the Astoria, since Yorktown’s communications equipment had been knocked out; but by 1340 hours repair parties had the carrier running at 18 knots again. The fighters were on deck refueling at 1630 hours when the second attack group was picked up on the radar. There were 12 Wildcats on combat air patrol, but the Kates and Zeros slipped by them and scored two torpedo hits which ruptured most of the fuel tanks on the port side, cut of all power, jammed the rudder, and caused a 17-degree list. Afraid that the Yorktown would capsize, and unable to repair the damage, Captain Elliott Buckmaster gave the order to abandon ship at 1500 hours.

‘Old Yorky’ stayed afloat, however, and on 6 June Fletcher sent a salvage party over on the destroyer Hammann to attempt to get her back to port. But the Yorktown had been sighted by a Japanese reconnaissance plane, and Submarine I-168 commanded by one of Japan’s great daredevil sailors, Commander Yahachi Tanabe, slipped through the destroyer screen. I-168 put one torpedo into Hammann, which sank within four minutes, and two more into the Yorktown before escaping through a heavy depth charge attack to wind up what had been one of the greatest submarine exploits of the war. The Yorktown finally sank at 0500 hours on 7 June.

The Hiryu was finally spotted by one of the planes Fletcher had sent out just prior to the attack on the Yorktown and at 1630 hours 24 dive bombers from Enterprise, including ten refugees from the Yorktown, took off — without fighter cover, since all operational Wildcats were flying defensive formations. The group found the Hiryu at 1700 hours and scored four solid hits, losing only three of their number. B-17s from Midway made another attack about an hour later, but — with their usual bad luck — made no hits. Another group of five Vindicators and six dive bombers took off from Midway at 1900 hours, but could not locate the carrier. The Hiryu was abandoned by all hands except her captain at 0230 hours the next morning, and finally sank at 0900 hours.

For all intents and purposes, the Battle of Midway was over. Yamamoto, who had been several hundred miles northwest of Nagumo during the carrier battle of 4 June, considered joining up with Kondo’s Midway Occupation Force and the Aleutian force and engaging the Americans in a traditional naval battle. Nagumo, who disagreed, was summarily relieved of command. But as reports came in revealing that the Americans still had two operational carriers, while all four Japanese carriers were either sunk or abandoned, Yamamoto realized that a dawn air attack was more probable than a night gun battle. He therefore reluctantly ordered his forces to turn west.

Spruance, meanwhile, had quite rightly decided that a night engagement with a large Japanese force, far better equipped than he for night fighting, would not be to his advantage. He turned east and headed away from the battle area until midnight.

Midway was the first defeat ever suffered by the Japanese Navy, and news of the debacle was completely suppressed in Japan. All papers concerning the event were classified top secret and destroyed in 1945, so that the Japanese public only learned of the events at Midway in the 1950s when published accounts began to appear.

Japan lost four heavy carriers, one heavy cruiser, 322 planes, and 3500 men at Midway, against one heavy carrier, 150 planes, and 307 men for the Americans. Though Yamamoto blamed the disaster on the failure of his advance screen of submarines to locate and harass the Americans, in fact the responsibility for deploying the submarines in the wrong place was his. It was also Yamamoto who divided his huge fleet and then devised for it a rigid, highly complicated battle plan that was entirely based on what he assumed the Americans would do. The Americans did not follow the script, and the Japanese commanders were not trained to adapt rapidly to radically different situations.

But without the complete and accurate intelligence reports gathered by the Americans, the Japanese plan might well have succeeded. These reports, which gave Nimitz the time and the knowledge to correctly dispose his forces, were probably the crucial factor in the American victory.

The Battle of Midway is worthy of note in the history of naval warfare, in that it marks the end of the transition period between the eras dominated by battleships and by carriers. Even more than Coral Sea, Midway demonstrated the central role of the carrier plane. Despite a fleet that remained largely intact and immeasurably superior fire power, Yamamoto was forced to retire without firing a shot once he lost his air cover.

Midway saw the debut of the Zeke, or Zero-3 fighter plane. The original Zero had been far more maneuverable and had a rate of climb three times greater than its American counterparts, and the new Zero was a vast improvement. But the Japanese pilots proved to be inferior to the Americans, an indication of the deterioration of the Japanese air arm and the growing shortage of well-trained pilots since Pearl Harbor. On the American side, the Dauntless dive bomber, which was to become the most successful carrier plane of the war, performed superbly, while the Devastator torpedo bomber proved so disappointing that it was taken off the list of naval combat planes and replaced by the new Avenger.

The Battle of Midway did not decide the entire course of the Pacific War in a moment, nor did it end with the utter destruction of one of the combatants. Its importance lies in the fact that it broke Japan’s naval superiority and restored the balance between the two navies. Once that had happened, as Yamamoto foresaw, it was only a matter of time until economic mobilization allowed America to overwhelm Japan.

The End