Midway - May ‘98 World War II Feature

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Midway

Admiral Raymond A. Spruance displayed outstanding leadership and command capabilities during the battle that turned the tide in the Pacific.

By Michael D. Hull

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz called him “a fine man, a sterling character, and a great leader,” and said, “nothing you can say about him would be praise enough.” Admiral William L. Calhoun saw him as a “cold-blooded fighting fool.” Historian Samuel Eliot Morison believed he was “one of the greatest fighting and thinking admirals in American naval history.”

Yet because of his modest, retiring nature, Spruance was never a popular hero in the manner of Admirals Nimitz, William F. Halsey and Marc A. Mitscher. He disliked personal publicity and had a reputation for “freezing” reporters who invaded his privacy.

His entry in Who’s Who in America was only three lines long (including his full name), and a footnote in Morison’s monumental history of the U.S. Navy in World War II testifies to his modesty. Morison’s text refers to “…Spruance, victor at Midway.” In the footnote Morison says, “Admiral Spruance, in commenting on the first draft of this volume, requested that I delete ‘victor at’ and substitute ‘who commanded a carrier task force at,’ but…I have let it stand.”

Recently promoted to rear admiral, Spruance was assigned to command a division of cruisers in the Pacific under Admiral Nimitz in 1941. He was then 55. He was in this post on June 4, 1942, when the Japanese navy attacked Midway Island in force.

The month before, American and Japanese naval units had fought the Battle of the Coral Sea, and both closely matched sides had suffered. The enemy units were forced to withdraw their battered aircraft carrier Shokaku, while the Americans had to abandon the old, cherished carrier Lexington. The other U.S. flattop, Yorktown, escaped with one bomb hit. The Americans lost 74 carrier planes; the Japanese 80. The U.S. fleet lost fewer men, but it lost a fleet carrier while the Japanese lost only the light carrier Shoho.

But what was important about this action–the first naval battle in history fought by fleets that never came within sight of each other–was that the U.S. Navy had thwarted the enemy’s planned capture of Port Moresby in strategic New Guinea. The Coral Sea fight was virtually a warm-up for the Battle of Midway, regarded later as the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

The Japanese planned to outwit the U.S. forces at Midway. They would draw them north to deal with a Japanese invasion in the bleak Aleutian Islands, and then strike at unprotected Midway.

For the main Midway assault, the Japanese force consisted of the main battle fleet under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, composed of three battleships, a light carrier and a destroyer screen; Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s combined fleet of two battleships, two heavy cruisers, destroyers and four fleet carriers carrying more than 250 aircraft; and an invasion task force led by Admiral Nobutake Kondo, consisting of a dozen transport ships carrying 5,000 troops, closely supported by four heavy cruisers, two battleships and a light carrier; and a three-cordon submarine force intended to neutralize U.S. countermoves. To the Aleutians, the Japanese dispatched an invasion task force of three transports carrying 2,400 troops, supported by two heavy cruisers, a two-carrier support force and a covering group of four battleships.

The battle would open in the mist-shrouded Aleutians with airstrikes against Dutch Harbor on June 3, followed by landings at three points on June 6. The Japanese expected no American ships in the Midway area until after the landing there, and they hoped that the Pacific Fleet would dash northward as soon as it received word of the opening strikes in the Aleutians. If this happened, it would enable the Japanese to pinch the Americans between their two carrier forces.

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