[Chainmail]

Interesting article but the author doesn't mention how very close it was: Despite our foreknowledge of the Japanese forces, direction, and timing all of the American air attacks against the carriers were butchered and not one bomb or torpedo hit anything until the arrival of McCluskey's dive bombers. All of the Hornet's attacking force went the wrong way and never found the Japanese except for martyred Torpedo Eight, thanks to stupid leadership.

Even then, the inexperienced pilots almost expended all their efforts on just one carrier - but McCluskey recognized the error at the last second and diverted others to two other carriers.

That victory was a gift from God and razor-thin.

[neodad]

Those 5 minutes changed the world...

[Natty Bumppo@frontier.net]

Don’t forget the “Thatch Weave,” which allowed U.S.pilots in inferior planes to chew up the Japanese Zeros.

Permutations and variations of the “Thatch Weave” are still in use today.

[Jacquerie]

I wonder how much longer the Pacific war would have dragged on if LCDR McCluskey hadn’t pressed on as he did.

[Vigilanteman]

That victory was a gift from God and razor-thin.

Yes it was. While D-Day was planned more than a year in advance, Midway's defense was slapped together in less than a month. Yorktown, badly damaged at the Battle of the Coral Sea, did not even arrive at Pearl Harbor for repairs until May 27. That she could be made battle ready in less than a week was nothing sort of a miracle itself.

But contrast, two Japanese carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku who suffered lesser damage in the same battle took almost three MONTHS to repair and were in repair dock for the duration of the Midway battle as a result.

Side note: My father volunteered to join the naval air force the day after Pearl Harbor. They told him to come back a month later because the recruiting office could not process people fast enough. When he did, he was assigned to NAF training but washed out in May. However, he still did well enough that he was reassigned to OCS and spent the duration of the war in training before being assigned as communications officer on an LST, which saw hot action 1944-45. Had he passed, there is a good chance he would have fought at Midway and not survived.

[sparklite2]

There were 621 bombs dropped from altitude
onto the Japanese fleet at Midway.

Not one so much as left a scratch.

The devastating losses of early attacks by the US on the Japanese fleet served the main purpose of drawing the protection of Japs from their carriers.

Not often mentioned is the contribution of the submarine USS Nautilus. The sub got up into the Japanese fleet formation but was spotted before doing any damage. They depth charged the sub heavily, then moved on, leaving a destroyer behind to try and finish off the Nautilus. After a while the destroyer moved off to catch up with the fleet.

The Nautilus escaped.

The Jap destroyer, in hurrying to catch up, sailed with a bone in her teeth. That’s an expression derived from how a ship looks from the front as she plows through the water at high speeds.

The wings of her twin bow wakes coupled with the turbulence from her stern had the appearance of an arrow from the air. An arrow pointing right at where she was headed.

An American fighter bomber squadron saw this, and flew in the indicated direction, catching the carriers undefended and unaware.