“The efforts and sacrifices of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps forces involved in the Battle of Midway have been crowned with glorious success and I firmly believe have already changed the course of the war.”
—Admiral Chester Nimitz
June 7 was a Sunday morning, and it dawned on a changed world. It was six months to the day after that other Sunday morning when the Japanese had surprised the world by attacking the American battle fleet in Pearl Harbor. Now the instrument of that attack had been smashed beyond recovery. Japan still had the Shokaku and Zuikaku, as well as a number of smaller carriers, plus her large battleship and cruiser fleet, but the concentrated Kidō Butai that had dominated the Pacific for half a year was no more. The only prize the Japanese had won for their massive effort and astounding losses was the occupation of the tiny islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian archipelago, and, as Commander Miyo had prophesied back in April, those outposts proved more of a burden than a benefit. The living conditions were horrible. The Japanese occupiers spent most of their time huddled in poorly insulated barracks trying not to freeze to death. Rear Admiral Theobald could not figure out why they wanted the islands in the first place, or why they stayed there. “There is no manner in which a force could be made self-sufficient in this area,” he wrote. “Food, ammunition, and military supplies … have to flow to the Japanese forces in a steady stream and in considerable volume.” It just made no sense. He wondered whether the Japanese wanted to fish the surrounding waters. More likely they remained simply because it was all they had to show for the loss of five capital ships,1 hundreds of combat airplanes, and thousands of men.2
The full extent of the American victory at Midway became evident only gradually. In a cable to Stalin, Roosevelt described the outcome of the battle as “indecisive” as late as June 6. Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance did not learn that all four of the Japanese carriers had gone down until the seaplane tender Ballard rescued the last of the Hiryūs survivors from their small cutter on June 19. In fact, the Battle of Midway was the most complete naval victory since Horatio Nelson’s near annihilation of the Spanish and French fleets at Trafalgar in 1805, and, like that battle, it had momentous strategic consequences. The previous April, the Japanese had been in a position to choose from among half a dozen strategic options. Now those options had narrowed to one: a perimeter defense designed to wear out the Americans and force them to the negotiating table. The war had three more years to run, but the Japanese never again seized the strategic initiative; their only hope was to hold out long enough for the Americans to tire of the struggle.3
The battle had the opposite effect on the Americans. They had suffered too, of course. The loss of the Yorktown on June 7 was a severe blow. Nonetheless, the return that same day of the repaired Saratoga gave Nimitz three carriers—soon to be four, since the Wasp was at that moment on her way to the Pacific. With four carrier task groups, Nimitz and the Americans had operational superiority over their foe for the first time in the war, and that encouraged Ernie King to renew his push for an early offensive against the Japanese. He wrote to Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, insisting, “It is urgent, in my opinion, that we lose no time in taking the initiative.” Once it became evident that there would be no cross-channel invasion of occupied France in 1942, King pushed even harder for a Pacific offensive that would begin no later than August 1 “or shortly thereafter.”4
MacArthur, too, saw the victory at Midway as opening the door for an offensive. He insisted that it “should be exploited at the earliest possible date.” Given Roosevelt’s commitment to the Germany First concept, a complete reorientation of the war to the Pacific was unlikely. The president made it clear that he was “opposed to an American all-out effort in the Pacific.” MacArthur nonetheless sought 40,000 soldiers to begin an offensive against Rabaul and appealed to Marshall for support. Marshall was more receptive to such an appeal than he might have been a month earlier, for he was disappointed—even angered—by British unwillingness to accept the American proposal for a cross-channel invasion of occupied France in 1942.5
King was as eager as anyone to obtain more resources for an offensive in the Pacific, but he was adamant that the Navy and not the Army should have direction of what he conceived of as a naval war. Instead of advancing directly to Rabaul from Australia, as MacArthur envisioned, King proposed approaching the Japanese citadel along the axis of the Solomon Islands, beginning with landings on Tulagi and Guadalcanal, where the Japanese were building an airstrip. Moreover, he insisted that such amphibious operations were the provenance of the Navy and Marine Corps. “In my opinion,” he wrote to Marshall, “this part of the operation must be conducted under the direction of the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet [Nimitz], and cannot be conducted in any other way.” In a kind of preemptive strike, on June 25 he ordered Nimitz to assemble the forces needed “for commencing offensive operations about one August.”6
King’s move forced Marshall to choose between MacArthur and the Navy. Marshall had great respect for MacArthur, who had been Army Chief of Staff back when Marshall was a mere colonel. King, on the other hand, was a powerful advocate of the argument that since the Army had control of the European theater, the Navy should have oversight in the Pacific. In a kind of compromise, Marshall agreed to move the theater boundary between Nimitz’s and MacArthur’s commands one degree (sixty miles) to the west in order to put Guadalcanal within Nimitz’s theater. As a result of that decision, on August 7, just two months after the Battle of Midway, ten thousand U.S. Marines went ashore on Guadalcanal to seize the airfield (which they named for Major Lofton Henderson, the martyred VMSB-241 commander at Midway) and to inaugurate what turned into a savage fourteen-month campaign of attrition.
During those fourteen months, American soldiers and Marines fought their way westward from Guadalcanal to other places with exotic names: Rendova, Kolombangara, Vella Lavella, and Bougainville. The Japanese fought ferociously, but they lost more than they could afford in a futile defense of these sparsely populated jungle outposts. In their prewar plan, their defense of the empire’s perimeter was supposed to diminish the American battle fleet as it moved westward. Like a wave running up a sloping beach, the Americans would lose power and momentum as they advanced. Instead, the longer the campaign lasted, the stronger American forces became.
In May 1943, the new-construction carrier USS Essex (CV-9) joined the Pacific fleet, the first of an eventual twenty-four ships of her class. The foolishness of the Japanese decision to launch a war against an industrial juggernaut like the United States was thus fully revealed. The second Essex-class carrier had been prospectively named the Bonhomme Richard in honor of John Paul Jones’s flagship during the American Revolution, but after Midway she was rechristened Yorktown (CV-10). The existence of two carriers both named Yorktown still causes confusion for some students of the Second World War, but there is something symbolic about it. Three times the Japanese believed that they had sunk the Yorktown: once in the Coral Sea and twice at Midway. Even after she finally succumbed, she reemerged again only months later in a newer and bigger form. To the Japanese, the Americans must have seemed like the mythical Hydra, which grew two new heads whenever one was decapitated.
For their part, the Japanese never recovered from the loss of the four big fleet carriers sunk at Midway. They simply did not have the industrial capacity to produce a score of new carriers in the midst of war. Even more critically, Japan never recovered from the loss of so many of her airplanes and trained carrier pilots. The battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and especially the grinding Solomons campaign claimed hundreds of frontline aircraft and the lives of a disproportionate number of her frontline pilots. Genda Minoru later observed despondently, “One after another, our best pilots were lost, and green, inexperienced men came in as replacements.” The Japanese had no option but to rely on these young and untested pilots who, however earnest and determined, lacked the training, and especially the experience, of their predecessors.7
By the time the Solomons campaign came to an end in the fall of 1943, the United States boasted seven new Essex-class aircraft carriers whose hanger decks were packed with a thousand new planes from American factories, and which were manned by thousands of new pilots who streamed out of American training programs. In November of 1943, the United States began an island-hopping campaign that led them to the Gilberts, the Marshalls, the Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and finally to the very doorstep of Japan’s home islands. The Japanese continued to fight courageously, and they inflicted heavy casualties, but they never succeeded in halting the American advance. In hindsight, it is evident that the course of the war—and with it the course of history—had tilted on the fulcrum of the Battle of Midway.
Chester Nimitz remained as CinCPac for the duration of the war and directed the Pacific campaign right up to the signing of the instrument of surrender on the deck of the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. In December of 1944, President Roosevelt promoted him to the newly established rank of five-star fleet admiral, and he remains one of only nine men ever to hold that rank. At war’s end, he relieved King as chief of naval operations and retired from the Navy two years later. He died at his quarters on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay in February 1966.
Frank Jack Fletcher never received the credit he deserved for the victory at Midway; some accounts of the battle even imply that it was Spruance and not Fletcher who commanded the American carrier forces in the battle. For the most part this was the result of subsequent events. Two months after Midway, Fletcher commanded the fleet protecting the Guadalcanal landing force. He initially expected to keep a three-carrier task force there for three days, but because the landings were proceeding well, he recommended that the carriers be withdrawn after two days in order to limit their exposure in the confined waters around the Solomon Islands. That provoked angry criticism from the American amphibious commander, Richmond Kelly Turner, and reignited questions in the mind of Ernie King about Fletcher’s determination. Later that month, after his flagship, Saratoga, was torpedoed by a Japanese sub, Fletcher brought her back to Pearl Harbor for repairs and Nimitz sent Fletcher Stateside for two weeks’ recuperation. Afterward, rather than return him to the front, King sent Fletcher to command the Thirteenth Naval District at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington State. It was the end of Fletcher’s sea service. After the war, Fletcher headed the Navy’s General Board, a largely ceremonial post. He retired from the Navy as a four-star admiral in 1947 and died at his farm in southern Maryland in 1973 at the age of 87.
Raymond Spruance became Nimitz’s chief of staff after the Battle of Midway. Over the next thirteen months, he worked closely with his boss, living with him under the same roof and walking to work with him every day. In the process he learned the nuances of theater command. Nimitz came to admire Spruance’s quiet work ethic, which closely resembled his own. In the fall of 1943, as the United States geared up for the islandhopping campaign that would take it to the shores of Japan, Nimitz tapped Spruance for command of the Fifth Fleet, essentially the offensive arm of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. In that capacity, Spruance directed operations against Tarawa in the Gilberts, Kwajalein in the Marshalls, and Saipan in the Marianas. When Nimitz became CNO in 1945, Spruance took over as CinCPac. After the war, he served as president of the Naval War College from 1946 until he retired in 1948. He died in 1969 at his home in Pebble Beach, California, at age 83.
William Halsey recovered from his skin condition and returned to active duty in September of 1942, replacing the disappointing Robert L. Ghormley in command of the South Pacific. After that, Halsey and his former subordinate Raymond Spruance took turns commanding the “Big Blue Fleet,” which was called Third Fleet when Halsey commanded it and Fifth Fleet when Spruance did so. Halsey never lost his pugnacious edge, though it got him into trouble at least twice: once during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October of 1944, when he charged off after an enemy carrier fleet, leaving a critical strait unguarded, and once when he failed to take adequate precautions against a powerful typhoon in December 1944. That latter incident resulted in the deaths of eight hundred men and the loss of 146 airplanes. After a subsequent encounter with another typhoon, a board of inquiry recommended that Halsey be reassigned, but Nimitz intervened on his behalf. In December 1945, Halsey joined Nimitz as a five-star fleet admiral and retired two years later in 1947. He died in 1959 at the age of 86.
Marc “Pete” Mitscher was never officially called to account for his error-plagued performance at Midway. Spruance knew that Mitscher’s report was flawed, however, and he very likely suggested to Nimitz that Mitscher should no longer command a carrier task force. After the battle, Nimitz transferred Mitscher to the command of Patrol Wing Two, a shore-based billet, and Mitscher remained there in a kind of exile until December. In April 1943 he became commander of air assets in the Solomons and gradually worked his way back into Nimitz’s good graces. In January of 1944 he received command of the Fast Carrier Task Force, called Task Force 58 since it was associated with Spruance’s Fifth Fleet. Based on his success in that role, he was promosted to vice admiral in March. With overwhelming superiority over the enemy, Mitscher emerged as “the Bald Eagle” and “the Magnificent Mitscher,” winning several decorations. After the war, he became the deputy CNO for Air, and then, as a four-star admiral, commander of the Atlantic Fleet. Mitscher’s health was never good; he died in February 1947 at the age of 60 while still on active duty.
Miles Browning’s postbattle career was as rocky and uneven as his performance at Midway. Aware of Browning’s many lapses during the battle, Spruance did not recommend him for a medal. When Halsey returned to active duty that fall, he made up for it by putting Browning in for a Distinguished Service Medal. The citation claimed that Browning was “largely responsible” for the American victory at Midway, an assertion that some historians have taken seriously but which is manifestly untrue. Halsey brought Browning back onto his staff, but after problems continued during the Solomons campaign, including a messy and public affair with the wife of a fellow officer, Secretary of the Navy Knox insisted that he be replaced. Browning got another chance as the commanding officer of the new-construction USS Hornet (CV-12), a replacement for the original Hornet (CV-8) which was lost in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942. Once again, however, Browning’s volatility drew criticism, and he was removed for cause in May 1944. His only child, a daughter, gave birth to Cornelius Crane, who became a comedian and changed his name to Chevy Chase. Browning retired as a captain in 1947 and died in 1954.
Stanhope Ring went ashore with Pete Mitscher when Mitscher became Commander of Patrol Wing Two. His punctiliousness and loyalty continued to win him promotions, and as the war neared its end in May of 1945 he got command of the new escort carrier USS Siboney (CVE-112), though by the time that ship arrived in Pearl Harbor, the war had ended. Ring also briefly commanded the USS Saratoga, but only long enough to steer her to Bikini Atoll where, in July of 1946, she performed her last service as a target ship for an atomic bomb test. Ring proved to be an excellent peacetime officer, and won promotions to rear admiral and then vice admiral before he died in 1963.
Clarence Wade McClusky was granted leave back to the States to recover from his multiple wounds and was replaced as CEAG by Max Leslie. He returned to active duty later in the war and commanded the escort carrier USS Corregidor (CVE-58). He also served in the Korean War and commanded the Glenview Naval Air Station near Chicago. He was promoted to rear admiral upon his retirement in 1956 and died in 1976.
Richard Best, who put bombs into two enemy carriers on the same day, had the most curious postbattle experience of anyone. After landing his airplane following his successful strike on the Hiryū, Best began to feel queasy and started vomiting. He went to see the ship’s doctor and told him that during the morning flight, when he had first put on his oxygen mask, he had smelled “caustic soda.” He thought that might be the cause of the problem. Best became weaker by the minute and had to be carried back to his room on a stretcher. He could not hold down any food and lost weight dramatically. Eventually he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and by August he was in a Navy hospital, where he stayed for two years. Best never flew again, and he retired on full disability in 1944. The disease was not fatal, however, and he lived in Santa Monica, California, until 2001, when he died at the age of 91.
John S. “Jimmy” Thach returned to the United States to formulate a new set of air tactics for the fleet. Afterward, he served as operations officer for Vice Admiral John S. McCain (grandfather of the Arizona senator) and ended the war as a captain. He commanded the escort carrier Sicily(CVE-118) during the Korean War and afterward the full-sized carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42). He was promoted to rear admiral in 1955, to vice admiral in 1960, and ended his career as a four-star admiral in command of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe. He died in 1981 just short of his 76th birthday.
Joseph Rochefort’s singular contributions to the American victory at Midway went unacknowledged for many years. The work of the codebreakers was necessarily secret. (After the battle, the Chicago Tribune ran a headline proclaiming: “NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA”; King wanted to arrest the publisher for treason.) But Rochefort’s work went unacknowledged officially as well. Though Nimitz recommended him for the Distinguished Service Medal, King, after consulting with John Redman, turned down the nomination, justifying his decision by saying that Rochefort had been simply doing his job and that it was unfair to single out any one person for work performed by a team of cryptanalysts. Of course, by that standard, no one would ever receive a medal. Rochefort was as prickly as King. When King reassigned him to duties unrelated to cryptanalysis, Rochefort refused the assignment. Despite that, he ended up in California, supervising the construction of a floating drydock in Tiburon. In the spring of 1944 he went to Washington to work under Joe Redmond, John’s brother and the director of Naval Communications. There, his job was to run the Pacific Strategic Intelligence Section, assessing Japan’s naval and military capabilities as part of the planning for an invasion of the home islands. He retired as a captain in 1953. Only when the role of the code breakers was declassified in the 1970s did Rochefort begin to get his due. He died in 1976, and, a decade later, he was posthumously awarded the President’s National Defense Service Medal.
Yamamoto Isoroku tried to be philosophical about the outcome of the Battle of Midway. Whatever he may have felt privately, he accepted full responsibility for its outcome. He remained at the head of the Combined Fleet mainly because replacing him would require public disclosure of the defeat—news of which the government kept secret. But the defeat at Midway cost Yamamoto his leverage with the Naval General Staff, and in any case his options were severely limited by the crippling of the Kidō Butai. After the string of defeats in the Solomons in late 1942 and early 1943, Yamamoto decided to tour the front to bolster morale. His itinerary was transmitted in code to the various bases he was to visit, and the message was intercepted and decrypted by the code-breakers. The question of what to do with that information went all the way to the desk of President Roosevelt. FDR told Frank Knox that if they had a chance to get Yamamoto, they should do it. As a result, long-range Army Air Corps P-38 Lightning fighters intercepted him, and Yamamoto died when his plane was shot down on April 18, 1943. Yamamoto was 59.
Nagumo Chūichi, who was not by nature a cheerful man, became positively morose after Midway. Yamamoto had promised him a second chance and kept his word, appointing Nagumo commander in chief of what was called the Third Fleet, which included both Shokaku and Zuikaku, now redesignated as CarDiv 1. In August he tangled with Fletcher again in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (August 24–25, 1942). Though Nagumo’s pilots inflicted significant damage on the Enterprise, they failed to put Henderson Field out of action, and the Americans sank the small carrier Ryūjō. After another battle off the Santa Cruz Islands in October, which cost the Americans the Hornet, Nagumo retuned to Japan to command the naval bases at Sasebo and Kure. Then in March of 1944 (the same month that Mitscher got command of the Fast Carrier Task Force), Nagumo was charged with the defense of Saipan in the Marianas, which was about to be targeted by Spruance’s Fifth Fleet. By now the disparity of forces between the two sides was overwhelming, and Nagumo’s only prospect was to make the Americans pay a heavy price for their conquest. American Marines went ashore on Saipan on June 15, 1944, and quickly drove inland. The Japanese fought furiously, as they did everywhere in the Pacific, but they were soon forced back into a tiny enclave where they fought from a number of small caves. Two years before, Nagumo had commanded the most powerful naval striking force ever assembled, effectively the ruler of the vast Pacific Ocean. Now, at age 57 and suffering from arthritis, he sat in a cave as his world collapsed around him. In a dark recess of that cave, he put his pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.