The Japanese did put out a good scouting line to detect the carriers sailing from Pearl Harbor. And their arrival was based upon the Japanese not expecting the US fleet to depart Pearl Harbor until AFTER their initial strike on Midway.
Unfortunately the subs arrival at their scouting line was after the US fleet had already sailed to “Point Luck” and was “behind” the scouting line.
And that was due to the code breaking at Pearl, thus permitting the US Navy “to get inside the Japanese decision cycle.”
The US received a lot of “breaks” during this battle. From the code interception, the breakdown of one of the Japanese scout planes, the timing of the attacking waves, etc. Many, including me, believe in Devine intervention that day.
I wonder if the lesson that we should consider is whether the US will receive such favorable intervention in our next war given where we are as a nation.
Interesting that for all the strategy behind Midway, it was perhaps still Admiral Nagumo’s tactical errors during the course of engagement that resulted in the heaviest possible losses to the IJN. BTW the recent Midway movie I thought was quite good for a modern Woke Hollyweird production.