Fate intervenes at Pearl Harbor and Midway

By WILLIAM H. STEWART
Military Historical Cartographer

The only good luck is the ability to overcome bad luck.”

If any fortuitous events occurred during the bleak early weeks and months in the war with Japan that ultimately worked to the advantage of the United States the following three circumstances would have to be at the top of the list. These three crucial events all happened within the first six months of the conflict and led in no uncertain terms to the war’s eventual outcome.

The first of these lucky happenings occurred on the very day the Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor—America’s carriers were at sea and thus escaped destruction.

The second turn of fate happened when the battleships that were attacked and sunk at anchor in port settled in relatively shallow water there-by making future salvage operations possible. Had they been sunk while operating at sea they could have never been refloated and repaired.

Third, barely six months after the crushing blow at Oahu in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway the Japanese lost several major aircraft carriers. The successful attack by U.S. carrier based aircraft was a result of the discovery of the Japanese fleet as it steamed toward Midway Island and subsequently an American surprise attack. This severely injured the Imperial Japanese Navy.

All this occurred during the early months of the conflict at a time when America was ill prepared to wage total war in two theaters of conflict at the same time.

When the strike force of six Japanese aircraft carriers, the Akagi, (Red Castle); Kaga, (Increased Joy); Hiryu, (Flying Dragon); Soryu, (Green Dragon); Zuikaku, and the Shokaku, (Soaring Crane) attacked the slumbering American fleet at Pearl Harbor, fortunately for the United States, and by some fantastic stroke of good luck, all of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers were away from the Hawaiian Islands and escaped damage or destruction. On December 7, 1941 the U.S. Navy had seven aircraft carriers (CVs) in commission. In addition to these seven vessels, the keels of five other carriers had been laid. As would soon become obvious as the war years unfolded, it would be the carriers and not the battleships that would carry the war to the enemy.

The carriers absent from Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack were: USS Lexington (CV-2) which left Hawaii on December 5th for Midway to deliver aircraft to strengthen the island’s air defenses.

The very day the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor the USS Saratoga (CV-3) was entering San Diego harbor after an interim dry docking at Bremerton, Washington. The USS Enterprise (CV- 6) was returning to Pearl Harbor on December 7th and some of her aircraft flying to Hawaiian shore bases were caught in the attack.

The remaining four U.S. carriers were in the Atlantic and were soon transferred to the Pacific. These were the USS Ranger (CV-4) returning to Norfolk, Virginia, the USS Yorktown (CV-5) and the USS Hornet (CV-8) already at Norfolk on December 7th and the USS Wasp (CV-7) at anchor in Grassy Bay, Bermuda.

In addition to the commissioned vessels listed above, the keels of five Essex Class carriers had been laid down. These five ships, all of which would survive World War II, were: USS Essex (CV-9); USS Yorktown (Bon Homme Richard (CV -10) renamed Yorktown in September 1942 to commemorate the loss of USS Yorktown (CV-5), sunk at the Battle of Midway; USS Intrepid (CV-11); USS Lexington (CV-16) and USS Bunker Hill (CV-17).

The second bit of luck, if it could be called that, resulted when it was learned that most of the ships sunk on the day of the attack could be salvaged. The refloating and repair effort required thousands of hours underwater and thousands of dives working in dark, oily ship interiors.

Barely three months following the Japanese raid, salvage and repair work was such that the battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee and the cruisers Honolulu, Helena, and Raleigh together with several smaller vessels were able to be transferred to the mainland for final repairs.

Several other battleships were so severely damaged as to represent almost nearly total losses. The battleships California, Nevada and West Virginia were righted and refloated. The battleships Oklahoma, Utah and Arizona were not returned to service, and the hulls of the last two remain in Pearl Harbor to this day.

Following the successful sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and over the next six months of the war and up to the Battle of Midway the Japanese juggernaut swept across Asia.

Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaya, Burma, Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Java, Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea, Solomon and Gilbert Islands, Wake, Guam, Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians were all invaded or attacked.

The third fortuitous event occurred in early June, 1942 as Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo was preparing his battle group for an attack on Midway Island about 1,300 miles northwest of Oahu. American code breakers by intentionally transmitting a deceptive message for the Japanese to intercept, learned of the Imperial Navy’s plans to invade Midway. This was accomplished by decoding Japanese naval signals related to the American’s purposely misleading transmission. This intelligence was passed on to Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance on the Enterprise and to Captain Marc Mitscher commanding the Hornet, as both vessels steamed to rendezvous with the Yorktown under the command of Captain Elliott Buckmaster at a position in the vast expanse of the Pacific auspiciously designated “Point Luck”—there to wait at invisible ocean coordinates to spring a trap on the unsuspecting Japanese invasion force.

It was a Midway based Navy PBY Catalina ‘flying boat” that finally spotted part of the advancing Japanese invasion force and sounded the alarm. Shortly thereafter the American attack began, first with frustrating failure as wave after wave of attacking Avenger and Devastator torpedo bombers, Wildcat fighters and Dauntless dive bombers were destroyed before achieving a single hit. Then, all of a sudden, unrestrained success as Dauntless dive bombers from the Enterprise and Yorktown scored hits on flight decks causing the Japanese carriers to erupt in flames and devastating explosions.

The Akagi, flagship of Admiral Nagumo, was hit first. A bomb exploded torpedoes in the hanger deck while another ignited fueling aircraft on the flight deck—a fireball of immense size erupted.

The Kaga was the next to die when four bombs set the ship ablaze among a torrent of explosions.

Then the Hiryu was attacked and hits detonated below deck erupting in a inferno.

The Soryu was struck causing a series of devastating explosions and a fountain of flames. The great ship had been damaged severely and later was sunk by a torpedo from the submarine Nautilus.

The successful portion of the attack was all over in six minutes. Only minutes earlier Japan had four carriers to America’s three, then the score was America three—Japan one. Only the Hiryu remained and it was aircraft from her flight deck that attacked the Yorktown which was finally sunk by the Japanese submarine I-168. Later the Hiryu was attacked and abandoned as a flaming hulk.

The hope that the Japanese could lure the American carriers into a “Great All-Out Battle” failed and ended in disaster. The American Navy prevailed. Rear Admiral Spruance who had been given tactical command of the carriers in mid-battle by Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher had won the day. Japan lost about 3,500 men, four major carriers and some 300 aircraft. The U.S. lost 300 men, the Yorktown and more than 100 aircraft

Until the Battle of Midway and during the first six months of the war there was no good war news as the United States and its allies suffered one crushing defeat after another. The Battle of Midway changed all that and raised the morale of the American people and “turned the tables” by placing the United States on the offensive for the first time with the Japanese on the defensive.

The tide of war had been reversed and from that point onward there was no doubt in the minds of the American people that the United States would eventually win the war. After the devastating blow at Pearl Harbor and the fall of Guam a few days later, it would be another three years and nine months before the conclusion of hostilities. The world was forever changed and the United States emerged as the undisputed world power, a position it has sustained to the present day.

As a resource poor nation the reasons Japan initiated the war were largely economic resulting in the need to acquire sources of raw materials as well as Asian markets for its home industries. In this quest it viewed the United States, and the U.S. Navy in particular, as an obstacle to its expansionists policies. The United States imposition of a trade embargo finally convinced the Japanese military to go to war, first in China and later throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Rising from the ashes of defeat in September, 1945 over the short span of a generation Japan achieved in peace what it failed to gain in war. Barely twenty five years after the conclusion of hostilities Japan became a world economic power.