[hchutch]

The thing that won Midway was Wade McCLuskey's refusal to quit looking. He found that destroyer, and followed it to the Kido Butai. Enterprise's SBDs took out two carriers, and then they split Hiryu with the Yorktown SBDs later on June 4.

I wonder if Yorktown would have survived Midway had Fletcher not been in charge of TF 17. Fletcher was NOT exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer and should have been relieved after his poor performance during the Wake Relief Expedition.

[SAMWolf]

Running low on fuel and decided to keep looking knowing there was the possibilty of not mnaking it back to the carriers. Amazing men.

[eeman]

What really could have lost the battle for the Americans and probably did lead to the loss of the Yorktown was the American attack planes not knowing where the Japanese fleet was. This is despite that a US submarine was in constant contact, the Midway Island-based planes were also in contact with the Japanese all morning long. This information was never passed on to the carrier based planes. Except for the skill and initiative of Waldron, McCluskey,et al, the US carrier planes may never have found the Japanese fleet. I don't think this can be blamed on Fletcher.

If you really want to play a "what if" scenario, think about what might have been had Halsey not been sick and Spruance was not given command. Halsey got suckered by the Japanese at Leyte Gulf. He might have got suckered by the Japanese at Midway into a follow up engagement and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.