Battle of Midway (1942): The day

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.

Japan could still win local fights; it could not replace those four air groups quickly. The US could replace Yorktown and more. That industrial sentence is the rest of the Pacific war in miniature. After the turn stays dated: 1942-06-04-am (Midway strike) in Midway Atoll, central Pacific. Raymond A. Spruance (TF 16) is a named witness -- Took the fight when Halsey was ill; later the cautious-or-wise debate of US naval memory. Cost band: about 3,000 Japanese and about 300+ US dead, usual published band. Encyclopedia, not a method.