‘Knute Rockne’ tactics and ‘horse sense’ lick Japs off Midway
Blackboard work at Pearl Harbor helps cripple enemy; call for aid intercepted
By Robert J. Casey
With the Pacific Fleet off Midway Island – (June 7)
The naval-air battle off Midway Island probably will be an architect’s model for sea engagements for some time. The weirdest thing about it is that you can’t base my predictions for the future on its results.
We broke off the battle today after having won. We have smashed the Japs until the carrier strength is much reduced. We have taken away from the Japs the mechanism for any immediate mass offensive.
But the Japs are not prevented from trying on us the sort of thing we worked on them. It appears there aren’t going to be any superior or inferior fleets – just those with smart commanders and those that lose.
Knute Rockne strategy
The Battle of Midway was the sort of performance Knute Rockne used to think up – a perfectly executed trick that depended for its effect on the perfect timing that comes of long drill.
About the time our returning planes had been taken aboard and were maneuvering around to smash up what had not already been smashed of the Jap fleet, we were ready to figure that from now on victory would always follow the strategist who could do the best blackboard and chalk talk, back in Pearl Harbor.
However, we are a little shocked to discover that despite the dynamite, the basis for success was old-fashioned Navy savvy, plus common horse sense.
The enemy strike force was actually not located until the critical moment when it was necessary to fight him. Whatever may have been figured out on the blackboards of Pearl Harbor, the time came in the last hours before the battle when a lot of mental adaptability entered into the tactics.
Patrol planes made contact with the enemy about noon Wednesday, June 3, and picked up what seemed the main battle fleet 700 miles almost due west of Midway. In the morning, we had received word of the attack on Dutch Harbor, Alaska. We had kept on our westerly course. During the morning, the Japs would have come about 350 miles east. We would have traveled about the same distance.
Chief uses head
Everything was working well until a second look by observers showed no carriers.
There were four heavy ships in the group, at least two of them battleships. And the planes bombed the ships leaving one battleship “burning furiously” and the other badly damaged. But it was apparent from the makeup of this force that it did not represent the main body of the Jap fleet. Somewhere near Midway was more of the Jap fleet and nobody knew where that was.
Here the ingenuity of the United States commander became a factor. He looked at the map and location of enemy units west of Midway and he concluded there was only one line of attack for the invaders. They would have to come down from the north because they would have been spotted if approaching from any other direction.
You can figure that the Japs will attack in the logical place because they expect you will think they will attack in the illogical place.
Japs come over Midway
So we steamed north and early in the morning of June 4, Navy patrol planes at Midway picked up a Jap carrier and planes inbound from the north. We moved over toward the line on which these planes were coming in.
We kept on toward the north and slightly west and then shortly there was no doubt about the position of the enemy. The Jap planes came over Midway. Then our force commander sent his planes up and started them toward the direction whence the attackers would come to Midway.
Now for the first time in naval warfare, big ships had to hold back and wait for the war to come to them, if they were to fight it at all. They had to stay in the background vulnerable to the same sort of attacks as the one they were supporting, looking realistically upon terrific risk without relief of definite action.
An awful wait
We watched the planes go off over the northwestern horizon and then settled back to the most harrowing few hours in our recent experience.
But time went on and the Japs didn’t come. We had no way of telling why the delay or what was happening.
The gun crews stood at their posts bent into the wind, or propped against the stanchions, like figures in a broken film.
The planes reached their objective finally. It was not as simple as it sounded later in the communiqués. The attack squadron had to hunt for targets and hunting used up gasoline. The length of time they could afford to lose smashing up the fleet was a serious consideration.
But the Japs, instead of scouting for possible air opposition, had gone straight for Midway. Not only had bombers gone to Midway, but fighters also. So our attack swooped out of the thin clouds onto carriers completely without air cover. They moved in about noon just about the time when the adventurous Japs, a bit tired from their morning’s work, were due back.
From that point on, this battle became more and more difficult to follow. Yet our pilots knew what they were doing.
Knew we won
They were accurate in their descriptions. They knew they had attacked the Kaga and Akagi and a couple of carriers of the Sōryū class. By 3 p.m., we knew we had won some sort of battle and that the Japs were trying, without too much success, to save what they could out of complete disaster.
We knew about 4 o’clock that of 300 planes the Japs had brought to attack, all had been destroyed, save those in the air. And we knew time was running out for those that had left their carriers before our bombs came down. They had no place to land and their gasoline must be nearly gone.
It was a group of those planes whose pilots were face to face with a death due in a few minutes no matter what they might do that came over to make two attacks on one of our carriers about 4 o’clock. Most were shot down after they had done a spirited and effective job of bombing. But they didn’t sink the ship.
After the attack on our carrier, word from scattered fronts began to come in in dizzy profusion. Army planes were reported attacking a battleship. Our plans had seen no battleship. Army planes were reported dropping some bombs on a carrier. But that carrier was not in the same position as the one our squadrons had worked upon at noon.
Three Jap forces
The evidence was pieced together to show that the Japs had come to Midway in three groups – a striking force, which was the one we had most to do with – a covering force operating to the south, one carrier (perhaps two), a couple of battleships and some cruisers and the third, an attack occupation force farther west consisting of about 20 ships, four large transports, three or four seaplane tenders, supply ships and escorting cruisers and destroyers. So as the afternoon finished and the rearmed dive bombers went out to finish off the work they had started in the morning, two battleships, one or two carriers and the bulk of the cruiser contingent were missing somewhere. Navy patrol reports indicated that some of these units would be spotted in the morning.
The first day ended with at least four Jap carriers “badly damaged”. What that amounted to was this. Our bombers returning for attack late in the afternoon found only one carrier left of the original group of four and that one was burning. They worked on it briefly and dropped what remained of their eggs on a battleship which was also afire when they left. The Army had previously reported hits on two battleships. Three ships were afire between us and the island – at least one of them was a heavy cruiser. We considered the score in surprise and puzzlement.
All day long or at least until we saw the poor fragment of the Jap Air Force that came briefly to plaster our carrier, we had kept to the idea that at any moment the fight might conform to precedent.
Within 50 miles of isle
But darkness came and the gun crews secured and relaxed. Men fell asleep where they were sitting all over the ship and by 9 o’clock, save for the lads eternally on guard, the crew was out of action.
Nobody had any doubt by that time that the Jap attack had been smashed. As a matter of fact, the only person on record who seems to have been unconvinced by the demonstrations was the Jap admiral. With his planes lying all over the Pacific, his carriers sunk or burning and his battle force considerably smashed, he continued on his mission.
He had been ordered to attack Midway. And believe it or not, he was within 50 miles of the island and heading straight for the zone where his annihilation could have been made complete and well authenticated when most likely somebody in Tokyo heard what had already happened to him. About that time, anyway, he decided to withdraw.
Desert cripples
The U.S. task force planes took up the pursuit on Friday, June 5, and found two minor subdivisions of the attacking force travelling close together on their way to Tokyo. They worked on one carrier and one battleship and sank two heavy cruisers of the Mogami class. The Army, meanwhile, reported that Flying Fortresses had damaged two Ise-class battleships. By nightfall, it began to look as if all the carriers were down including possibly one in the covering unit on which the Army operated.
It looked as if the chase might continue all across the Pacific to the old bombing ground about Marcus Island. But on Saturday morning, scouts discovered that the Japs had found a way to increase their speed by deserting cripples. Ships still able to make knots had been turned loose such as were left of them. A lot of limping craft such as battered cruisers and destroyers remained to meet the last American attacks. The line of retreat for the southern force had turned by this time toward Wake where the crocks and hulks could get some protection from land-based planes. The faster ships, however, had headed straight for Tokyo.
There were three bombing attacks on the third day. One carrier, probably something left over from the covering contingent, was given a good shellacking and was definitely in a sinking condition when the bombers left. On a second flight, the squadron couldn’t find the carrier but they did discover one of the more durable of the battleships and they dropped 18 bombs on it.
During the second attack, our communications picked up a call from a Jap admiral stating that he was being bombed. He was asking for help which apparently he never got. Returning pilots reported that after their attacks, they had seen Jap crews getting ready to abandon a couple of ships and even at that time hundreds of men were in the water.
A third flight of our bombers and torpedo planes on the last day found few targets save destroyers. By morning, the waterlogged fleet was gone. The battle was over on the morning of the fourth day and we gave up the chase and turned our attention to comments of headquarters.
Strategists had pointed out that the Japs had escaped with a considerable strength of surface craft, that their retirement might not yet be classed as defeat since they might be able to rearm, assemble airplane reinforcements and come back to battle with a sort of reverse technique. The idea, apparently, is that some people are hard to convince.
