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Despite a setback in May 1942 in the indecisive Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese
had continued with plans to seize Midway Island and bases in the Aleutians. Seeking a
naval showdown with the numerically inferior U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. Yamamoto
Isoroku sent out the bulk of the Japanese fleet, including four heavy and three light
aircraft carriers, with orders to engage and destroy the American fleet and invade
Midway.
U.S. intelligence had divined Japanese intentions after breaking the Japanese
naval code, however, and the Americans were ready: three heavy aircraft carriers of
the U.S. Pacific Fleet were mustered. These ships were stationed 350 mi northeast of
Midway and awaited the westward advance of Yamamoto's armada. Whereas the
Japanese had no land-based air support, the Americans from Midway and from Hawaii
could commit about 115 land-based planes.
The battle began on June 3, 1942, when U.S. bombers from Midway Island struck
ineffectually at the Japanese carrier strike force about 220 mi southwest of the U.S.
fleet. Early the next morning Japanese planes from the strike force attacked and
bombed Midway heavily, while the Japanese carriers again escaped damage from U.S.
land-based planes.
But as the morning progressed the Japanese carriers were soon
overwhelmed by the logistics of almost simultaneously sending a second wave of
bombers to finish off the Midway runways, zigzagging to avoid the bombs of attacking
U.S. aircraft, and trying to launch more planes to sink the now-sighted U.S. naval
forces. A wave of U.S. torpedo bombers was almost completely destroyed during their
attack on the Japanese carriers at 9:20 Am, but at around 10:30 Am 36
carrier-launched U.S. dive-bombers caught the Japanese carriers while their decks
were cluttered with armed aircraft and fuel. The U.S. planes quickly sank three of the
heavy Japanese carriers and one heavy cruiser.
In the late afternoon U.S. planes
disabled the fourth heavy carrier (scuttled the next morning), but its aircraft had badly
damaged the U.S. carrier Yorktown. On June 6, a Japanese submarine fatally
torpedoed the Yorktown and an escorting American destroyer; that day a Japanese
heavy cruiser was sunk. The Japanese, however, appalled by the loss of their carriers,
had already begun a general retirement on the night of June 4-5 without attempting to
land on Midway.
Courtesy of Britannica.com
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"Battleships"