Yep, I went to the Wiki
they didn’t make it sound as bad as this article of course
There were actually a couple of Finns that became air aces flying Buffalos. I guess that tells you how bad the Soviet planes were. I’m still trying to figure out how the Finns came to be flying Buffalos. We must have sold them to Finland before the war started.
The article overstates our peril. Those numbers of Japanese vessels were spread around in three different groups. The aircraft that “didn’t reach the carriers, but attacked a battleship” must have been going south, because there weren’t any battleships with the carrier fleet. The Buffalos were Marine aircraft based on Midway, not on the carriers, etc.
Parshall and Tulley’s recent book “Shattered Sword” is probably the most accurate account of the battle, and makes it clear that it was a near thing, but not Gordon Prange’s “Miracle”. Essentially, when our TBD’s jumped them before they could find us, the battle was over.