Battle of Midway : Four carriers gone

[546] [read-midway-9-146] Battle of Midway is the record of under “Four carriers gone.” The figure to read with it is 4. 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. Theatre: Midway Atoll, central Pacific

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 , “Four carriers gone,” and 4. The figure is not a national score.4

Figures to keep

Year of the action: 4
Figure in the record: 4
Action: Battle of Midway
Line of the front: Four carriers gone

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