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ENEMY CARRIERS
It had started.
When the full report came in a minute later, it placed the Japanese strike force almost exactly where the cryptanalysts had forecast. Chuck felt proud--and scared.
The three American aircraft carriers--Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet--set a course that would bring their planes within striking distance of the Japanese ships.
On the bridge was the long-nosed Admiral Frank Fletcher, a fifty-seven-year-old veteran who had won the Navy Cross in the First World War. Carrying a signal to the bridge, Chuck heard him say: "We haven't seen a Japanese plane yet. That means they still don't know we're here."
That was all the Americans had going for them, Chuck knew: the advantage of better intelligence.
The Japanese undoubtedly hoped to catch Midway napping, in a repeat of the Pearl Harbor scenario, but it was not going to happen, thanks to the cryptanalysts. The American planes at Midway were not sitting targets parked on their runways. By the time the Japanese bombers arrived they were all in the air and spoiling for a fight.
Tensely listening to the crackling wireless traffic from Midway and the Japanese ships, the officers and men in the radio room of the Yorktown had no doubt that there was a terrific air battle going on over the tiny atoll, but they did not know who was winning.
Soon afterward, American planes from Midway took the fight to the enemy and attacked the Japanese aircraft carriers.
In both battles, as far as Chuck could make out, the antiaircraft guns had the best of it. Only moderate damage was done to the base at Midway, and almost all the bombs and torpedoes aimed at the Japanese fleet missed, but in both encounters a lot of aircraft were shot down.
The score seemed even--but that bothered Chuck, for the Japanese had more in reserve.
Just before seven the Yorktown, the Enterprise, and the Hornet swung around to the southeast. It was a course that unfortunately took them away from the enemy, but their planes had to take off into the southeasterly wind.
Every corner of the migh
ty Yorktown trembled to the thunder of the aircraft as their engines rose to full throttle and they powered along the deck, one after another, and shot up into the air. Chuck noticed the tendency of the Wildcat to lift its right wing and wander left as it accelerated along the deck, a characteristic much complained of by pilots.
By half past eight the three carriers had sent 155 American planes to attack the enemy strike force.
The first planes arrived in the target area, with perfect timing, when the Japanese were busy refueling and rearming their own planes returning from Midway. The flight decks were littered with ammunition cases scattered in a snakes' nest of fuel hoses, all ready to blow up in an instant. There should have been carnage.
But it did not happen.
Almost all the American aircraft in the first wave were destroyed.
The Devastators were obsolete. The Wildcats that escorted them were better, but no match for the fast, maneuverable Japanese Zeroes. Those planes that survived to deliver their ordnance were decimated by devastating antiaircraft fire from the carriers.
Dropping a bomb from a moving aircraft onto a moving ship, or dropping a torpedo where it would hit a ship, was extraordinarily difficult, especially for a pilot who was under fire from above and below.
Most of the airmen gave their lives in the attempt.
And not one of them scored a hit.
No American bomb or torpedo found its target. The first three waves of attacking planes, one from each American carrier, did no damage at all to the Japanese strike force. The ammunition on their decks did not explode, and their fuel lines did not catch fire. They were unharmed.
Listening to the radio chatter, Chuck despaired.
He saw with new vividness the genius of the attack on Pearl Harbor seven months earlier. The American ships had been at anchor, static targets crowded together, relatively easy to hit. The fighter planes that might have protected them were destroyed on their airstrips. And by the time the Americans had armed and deployed their antiaircraft guns, the attack was almost over.
However, this battle was still going on, and not all the American planes had yet reached the target area. He heard an air officer on the Enterprise radio shout: "Attack! Attack!" and the laconic response from a pilot: "Wilco, as soon as I can find the bastards."
The good news was that the Japanese commander had not yet sent aircraft to attack the American ships. He was sticking to his plan and concentrating on Midway. He might by now have figured out that he must be under attack from carrier-borne planes, but perhaps he was not sure where the American ships were located.
Despite this advantage, the Americans were not winning.
Then the picture changed. A flight of thirty-seven Dauntless dive-bombers from the Enterprise sighted the Japanese. The Zeroes protecting the ships had come down almost to sea level in their dogfights with previous attackers, so the bombers found themselves fortunately above the fighters, and able to come down at them out of the sun. Just minutes later another eighteen Dauntlesses from the Yorktown reached the target area. One of the pilots was Trixie.
The radio exploded with excited chatter. Chuck closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to make sense of the distorted sounds. He could not identify Trixie's voice.
