Skip to content Skip to a section
A battle record

Battle of Midway (1942): Yorktown sinks

[370] [desk-midway-5] Battle of Midway is the record of 1942 under “Yorktown sinks.” The figure to read with it is 06. Do not arrange states in a league. Fix who moved what, and where, to that year. Do not add a later war into the same total. Battle of Midway: concrete atlas depth on Tool-Lifes.

Code, carriers, and a morning in June Midway was an intelligence success that still had to be converted by dive bombers -- and by luck of timing that historians still argue about. May 1942 left Yorktown damaged and Japan short of a clean win. Yamamoto planned a complex operation with feints at the Aleutians. Complexity was itself a risk.

Nimitz, advised by Rochefort's HYPO, concentrated three carriers northeast of Midway. Nagumo's rearming cycle -- land bombs versus torpedoes after the Midway strike -- is the operational hinge in most English accounts. US torpedo squadrons were slaughtered; their sacrifice pulled Japanese air cover down.

McClusky's Enterprise dive bombers and Leslie's Yorktown group found the carriers in a brief, decisive window. Hiryu's counterstrike fatally wounded Yorktown. US aircraft then found Hiryu. The Japanese surface fleet never got its night battle. Airmen and sailors, not battleships, had decided a fleet action -- a doctrinal shock for both navies' older officers.

Say Battle of Midway with 1942, “Yorktown sinks,” and 06. The figure is not a national score.1942

Figures to keep

Year of the action
1942
Figure in the record
06
Action
Battle of Midway
Line of the front
Yorktown sinks

Military drone (UCAV) (2010s): ROK KUS chapterNext essayAll 1000 essays1000