Wings.Of.War.S01E07.The.Battle.Of.Midway
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00:00For over a hundred years, battles have raged in the air for command of the skies.
00:09If you don't have air supremacy, you're in trouble.
00:13Since its earliest beginnings in World War I, the airplane is the supreme weapon of the
00:18armed forces.
00:19This was a real battle for civilization, for humanity.
00:24It revolutionized battle and changed the ways war was fought and won.
00:28The F-117 has obviously changed how we design aircraft and air campaigns.
00:34War drove innovation in the skies.
00:36What we hear from the Air Force is, when the F-35 wasn't there, all others died.
00:41When the F-35 was there, they reigned supreme.
00:44Aircraft bred a new kind of hero.
00:46The fate of entire nations depended on the bravery of a handful of men.
00:51An appreciation of the extent to which young men were willing to put their lives on the
00:55line for an ideal is something we need to remember more often than we do.
01:00In this episode, the combat planes that decided the greatest naval encounter the world had
01:05ever seen, the Battle of Midway, including the Japanese Zero that amounted to the most
01:13feared fighter plane of World War II.
01:16A little kind of sports car of a fighter plane.
01:20The Japanese VAL dive bombers that helped sink the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.
01:28The deadly Dauntless SBD torpedo bomber that turned the tide of war.
01:35The SBD is one of the greatest airplanes we had in World War II, bar none.
01:40And the weaving American Wildcats that outwitted the Japanese Zeros.
01:44The Wildcat had one major advantage, and that was a tremendous capacity to climb to great
01:49heights.
01:51The objective?
01:52Sink the enemy's aircraft carriers first.
01:55What you have to do is get your strike in before the enemy has flown off his strike.
02:00This is going to be the key to the Battle of Midway.
02:19It was combat aircraft that determined the outcome of the most decisive naval battle
02:35of World War II.
02:38The epic clash between the Japanese Imperial forces and the United States of America took
02:44place on June 4, 1942, off the tiny island of Midway, a U.S. territory that was dead
02:51center of the Pacific Ocean.
02:54The two sides faced off exclusively in the air.
02:59Midway is the first great fleet battle in which the two sides never saw each other.
03:04The battle was conducted entirely through the air.
03:07The stakes could not have been higher.
03:11Whoever's plane sunk the other's aircraft carriers first would win the battle and wrest
03:16control of the Pacific.
03:19The nearly unique thing about the Battle of Midway was the almost complete destruction
03:24of the main battle force.
03:25Even the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Nelson all but annihilated the combined French and
03:30Spanish fleets in 1805, did not destroy every single ship.
03:34But at Midway, they did.
03:36Every aircraft carrier was sunk.
03:39The events that led to the great naval battle began six months earlier in the Pacific.
03:46Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941.
03:50A date which will live in infamy.
03:57United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
04:06of the Empire of Japan.
04:12The surprise attack on the US, launched by the Japanese Imperial Strike Force, known
04:18as the Kido Butai, included four aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and 353 combat
04:26aircraft.
04:29In just 90 minutes, the Japanese attack sunk or seriously damaged five of the eight US
04:36ships, and killed over 2,400 American soldiers, sailors, and civilians.
04:42The shocking blow brought the US into World War II.
04:47Since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan, a state of war has existed between
05:05the United States and the Japanese Empire.
05:12Just six months after Pearl Harbor, on the morning of June 4, 1942, the Japanese Strike
05:18Force was back.
05:21This time, they were after the three remaining US aircraft carriers that were still intact.
05:27The Japanese commander of the Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, devised a plan to lure those
05:34American carriers out into deep water.
05:37His plan was that his carriers would attack Midway Atoll, some hundreds of miles north
05:43of Pearl Harbor.
05:44The carriers would then come out of that harbor, and then would be pounced on by the Japanese
05:49carrier and destroyed.
05:51The ultimate goal was to rule over the Pacific and expand the Japanese Empire.
05:57To do that, the Japanese first had to wipe the US Navy off the map.
06:05Ground zero for the great naval battle was the island of Midway, a tiny coral atoll.
06:12Midway, as you'll gather from its name, is Midway between everywhere, between east and
06:18west, between north and south.
06:20It's a pivot point in the center of the Pacific, and whoever has Midway moves forward, whoever
06:25loses it moves backwards.
06:27For the Americans, Midway really is the last defense before you get to Hawaii and the main
06:32fleet base at Pearl Harbor.
06:35Spearheading the Japanese charge, the masses of combat aircraft of the Kido Butai.
06:41Over 300 combat airplanes, actually more than 400 combat airplanes if they could get them
06:46all in the air, was the greatest naval striking force on the planet.
06:52In total, there were 72 of the Aichi D3A, the dreaded Japanese Valdai bomber that wreaked
06:59havoc at Pearl Harbor a few months earlier.
07:04It was powered by a 1,300-horsepower Mitsubishi Kinsei piston engine.
07:11It had three 7.7-millimeter light machine guns, two fixed to fire forward and one fixed
07:18to fire back.
07:21But its most important armament was its high incendiary bombs.
07:27The most lethal ship killer in the Japanese aerial arsenal was codenamed the VAL by U.S.
07:33intelligence.
07:34It had a capacity of carrying three bombs, two on wing drops that were really quite small.
07:42The large bomb, 250-kilogram bomb, was capable of taking out almost any vessel.
07:48When you look at the total tonnage of shipping lost during World War II, the Valdai bomber
07:54sunk more ships than any other Axis plane.
07:57Loaded with high explosives, a successful dive bomb mission rested on the skill and
08:03unerring courage of the pilot.
08:05A dive bomber, like a fighter in World War II, depended on speed for effect.
08:12Their best speed when they were in a steep dive.
08:15The dive bomber has one shot, it's like a muzzleloader, he has one chance to do it right.
08:26In the early hours of June 4, 1942, the Japanese strike force launched its attack on Midway.
08:35A squadron of 108 combat planes took off from the decks of the four Japanese aircraft carriers
08:41in the Kido Butai.
08:44Their target?
08:46The runways, aircraft and fuel depots of the American base.
08:52Escorting 72 Japanese bombers in the battle over Midway Island was the most feared attack
08:57plane in the Pacific theatre, the Mitsubishi Zero Fighter.
09:04It was typically armed with two fixed-forward firing 7.7mm machine guns and two 20mm cannons
09:13in its wings.
09:15It could also carry a 132-pound bomb under each wing.
09:21With a 1,330-horsepower air-cooled engine, the Japanese fighter could reach an altitude
09:27of over 37,000 feet and achieve a top speed of 354 miles an hour.
09:35The Japanese had some of the best combat planes in the world.
09:39Everyone knows about the Zero, the Americans called the Zeke.
09:42It was highly manoeuvrable, very light, a little kind of sports car of a fighter plane.
09:47Its weakness was that it had no armour.
09:51One of the reasons it could climb swiftly and manoeuvre so tightly was because it had
09:56very little armour.
09:59And the Americans also faced Japanese pilots who had far more combat experience.
10:07They were in combat over China for a long period of time.
10:11These were the best naval aviators in the world.
10:1436 Zeros led the Japanese attack on the US airbase on Midway Island.
10:21The Japanese Air Force fully expected, as they had at Pearl Harbour, to surprise and
10:26stun the Americans.
10:28But the US Intelligence Gathering Service had been hard at work.
10:33American codebreakers had broken enough of the Japanese operational code so that they
10:39were able to discern not every detail of what the Japanese were planning to do, but the
10:44broad strokes of it.
10:46The Japanese plan was that the Americans would be surprised by this attack.
10:50Instead, of course, the Americans had been at sea for several days already and were well
10:54north not only of Midway, but of the Japanese themselves.
10:58The Japanese had just lost the element of surprise.
11:02But with four aircraft carriers and over 300 combat planes ready to attack, the Japanese
11:08strike force still posed an ominous threat to the outnumbered and untested American pilots
11:14and planes.
11:16At stake was nothing less than control of the Pacific Ocean.
11:21June 4th, 1942, World War II.
11:39Just six months after the strike on Pearl Harbour, the USA faced the might of the Japanese
11:44Empire once again.
11:47This time in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at Midway Atoll.
11:52At the tip of the Japanese spear, the Kido Butai, the massive Japanese strike force that
11:58included four aircraft carriers and over 300 combat planes.
12:04Their plan was to destroy the last three US aircraft carriers, bring American military
12:09to its knees, and drive them out of the Pacific.
12:14The Americans had cracked the Japanese secret code and knew they were coming.
12:20The Americans left Pearl Harbour before the Japanese had anticipated they would do.
12:25And they, in turn, set up an ambush of the Japanese from the northeast quadrant beyond
12:31Midway.
12:32A US PBY Catalina reconnaissance seaplane reported sighting the first wave of 108 Japanese
12:41combat planes heading towards the US base on Midway.
12:46Well, of course, this just electrified everybody back at Midway.
12:55The US garrison scrambled, and in the face of overwhelming odds, the Americans launched
13:02the few fighter planes they had on the island, including 21 aging Brewster Buffalos and seven
13:09Grumman Wildcat strike planes.
13:13It really was the superior aircraft carrier fighter in the world.
13:20Wildcat had four .50 caliber machine guns, two in each wing.
13:25The Wildcat had one major advantage, and that was a tremendous capacity to climb to great
13:30heights or coming down from above.
13:34In addition to those on Midway Island, there were a total of 85 US Wildcats in the battle
13:40zone.
13:42Most of the US fighters flew off one of the three US aircraft carriers, the USS Enterprise,
13:48Hornet and Yorktown, that were steaming toward the Japanese strike force.
13:55With space at a premium on the aircraft carrier, the Wildcats had been specially designed to
14:00fit on deck by New York-born aeronautical engineer and former test pilot, Leroy Grumman
14:06himself.
14:09Grumman famously came up with a way to resolve that problem by having wings that folded,
14:18and not just folded upwards, but folded up and then back, and they developed the first
14:23real movable wing for aircraft.
14:30At first light, the first wave of 108 Japanese combat planes, including Zeros and VAL dive
14:37bombers, had the US airbase on Midway in their crosshairs.
14:42Outnumbered by superior Japanese planes and pilots, 31 American fighters took to the skies
14:48to defend the Midway airbase, leading the charge, five Wildcats.
14:55Very capable aircraft, but it's not as agile or as manoeuvrable as the Japanese Type Zero.
15:02The battle in the sky that morning all went one way.
15:06The Americans put a lot of planes up, but they all got shot down.
15:10These were not the best American planes, and they were not the best trained American pilots,
15:15so a lot of men went up in second-rate aircraft and didn't come back.
15:20By 6.45am, 17 of the 30 American fighters were swiftly taken down.
15:28In defence, the US Midway garrison, including fighters and anti-aircraft gunners, shot down
15:3411 Japanese planes and severely damaged a further 14.
15:40The Japanese lost some planes, but they achieved a large part of their mission, but not everything.
15:45They hadn't finished the job, and as they're coming back, they're reporting back that there'll
15:49be a necessity for a second strike.
15:53As the Japanese Imperial forces prepared a second attack on Midway, the Americans seized
15:59the initiative and mustered their air force to strike back.
16:047am.
16:06Having left Midway prior to the Japanese attack, six brand-new US torpedo bombers were on course
16:12to be the first to find an attack, the Kido Butai.
16:17It carried more than enough munitions to do it.
16:22The American Avenger had the biggest payload of any other single-engine fighter in World
16:27War II.
16:34It's a very special aircraft, it's a very powerful aircraft.
16:37Its main role was a torpedo bomber and a dive bomber.
16:40It was loaded with just about a 1,000-pound torpedo.
16:44You only had one torpedo, which would mean you only had one chance to get it right.
16:48It was very difficult to fly, it's like flying a giant truck.
16:51The Battle of Midway was the Avengers' first-ever combat mission.
16:56Flying at 4,000 feet above the Pacific, the six new torpedo bombers and their freshly
17:01trained pilots spotted the Japanese aircraft carrier, the Akagi.
17:06They dropped to 200 feet for the run-in.
17:09The six Avengers thought, well, we're cutting-edge technology, we'll make mincemeat of these
17:13guys.
17:14But there were only six of them that arrived together.
17:17But protecting the Akagi were 28 Japanese Zeros flying combat air patrol.
17:24The initial attack on the Akagi by six brand-new Avenger torpedo bombers was very brave, it
17:31wasn't very wise.
17:32The Japanese had plenty of fighters up.
17:35The Zeros coming in from great height took them out very quickly.
17:45Flying in formation some minutes behind the Avengers were the Americans' dive and heavy
17:50bombers, including B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-26 Marauders.
17:58They all took off from the U.S. base on Midway.
18:01The Americans would like to have conducted a coordinated strike, that is, all the planes
18:06working together with the dive bombers coming in high and the torpedo bombers coming in
18:09low, protected by the fighter.
18:11None of that happened.
18:12One, they weren't used to cooperating.
18:14Two, they were flying different kinds of airplanes that flew at different speeds.
18:19Unprotected by fighter escorts, the slow-moving American B-26 Marauders plowed ahead.
18:27But the U.S. bombers didn't hit a single Japanese ship.
18:31Land-based aviators who used to bombing things as a stationary often get it wrong.
18:36They misjudge the speed, they misjudge the turning power of these ships, and so a lot
18:40of bombs end up in the ocean.
18:43The first bomb run by the land-based U.S. combat planes dissolved into a suicide mission.
18:50Japanese fighters made short work of all the other planes launched from Midway.
18:55It's around 80 or so planes.
18:58But their sacrifice was not in vain.
19:01The waves of American bombers would play a pivotal role in the ensuing battle.
19:06When the Americans attacked, the Japanese had to take evasive maneuvers, and that came
19:11at a cost.
19:12They have to stop everything else to deal with that threat.
19:16So these attacks from the land at Midway are effective in delaying and harassing the Japanese,
19:23even if they're not actually doing them any damage.
19:26At 7.45 a.m., a Japanese scout plane reported sighting 10 U.S. ships 240 miles northeast
19:34of the Japanese strike force.
19:37Admiral Nagumo was still expecting the U.S. aircraft carriers to be coming from Pearl
19:42Harbor.
19:43He didn't know that the Americans had cracked the Japanese code.
19:47What kind of ships, he asks.
19:49Kind of important.
19:50A few minutes go by and the pilot reports, well, it's five cruisers and five destroyers.
19:55Well, that's okay.
19:56No carriers.
19:57So that's all right.
19:58I can go ahead and finish the attack on Midway.
20:01And so that's what he does.
20:02So he brings up the kind of weaponry you would use to attack an island, explosive bombs.
20:06And then a report comes in.
20:078 a.m., a message comes in from the Japanese scout planes reporting that they had found
20:14the USS Yorktown, and it was heading for the Kido Butai from the northeast.
20:20It was about 200 miles away, and crucially for Admiral Nagumo, just outside of the U.S.
20:26combat plane's range, but within range of his lighter Japanese strike planes.
20:32And the decision which decides everything is how do we respond to finding the Americans?
20:40But Admiral Nagumo was preparing to attack the American base on Midway Island.
20:45A change in battle plan to attack U.S. aircraft carriers would cost Nagumo valuable time because
20:52his planes are carrying the wrong type of bombs to drop on ships.
20:57So Nagumo now goes for the option to rearm his torpedo bombers with torpedoes because
21:02that's the way to sink ships.
21:04So they take the bombs off the torpedo planes and put the torpedoes back on, and this eats
21:09up time.
21:11And that's not all.
21:12The Japanese planes were stored below deck and had to be brought up one by one to be
21:17rearmed.
21:19Rearming planes is a very difficult process.
21:21The bombs are heavy, and they have to be positioned under a plane, fastened, and then cranked
21:26up, hand cranked up into place.
21:28All that takes time.
21:32But with the U.S. aircraft carriers and their strike planes closing in, time was running
21:37out for Admiral Nagumo and the Japanese strike force.
21:42At the time he thought, better to go with a full punch, we'll really win this thing,
21:47give me 30 minutes.
21:499am.
21:50While Nagumo was frantically rearming his planes to bomb the U.S. aircraft carriers,
21:55the Americans launched first.
21:59American Wildcats, Avengers, and Devastators were in the air, aiming for the Kido Butai.
22:05Their fate would decide the Battle of Midway.
22:209am, June 4th, 1942, World War II, the Battle of Midway.
22:28In the Pacific Ocean, the three U.S. aircraft carriers and 233 combat planes were finally
22:35within range of the Japanese Imperial Strike Force.
22:40The Americans and the Japanese knew that the first to knock out the other's aircraft carriers
22:45would win the battle, and tip the scales towards victory in World War II.
22:52The commander of the Japanese strike force, the Kido Butai, Admiral Chuchi Nagumo, was
22:57stationed on his flagship aircraft carrier, the Akagi.
23:02In the Kido Butai on the Japanese side, one man, Chuchi Nagumo, could decide what all
23:08six of the carriers were doing, and what they would launch, and when they would launch it.
23:13But the Americans beat him to the punch, by launching first.
23:20The strike squadron flying off the decks of the U.S. aircraft carriers included Wildcat
23:25fighters and heavy bombers, as well as Avengers, and the longest-serving and most reliable
23:31torpedo bomber in the U.S. arsenal, the Devastator.
23:39But due to poor coordination, the Devastators arrived alone.
23:45The American torpedo planes, the slowest, most lumbering planes in the entire strike
23:51force, arrived ahead of the bombers, much faster, or the fighters, much, much faster,
23:58by themselves, without any protection.
24:02The American plan is to send up all of their planes in one formation, torpedo, dive, bombers,
24:08and fighters, so the fighters can protect the attack and deliver it to the target.
24:13But almost as soon as they take off, this breaks down, and the different parts of different
24:18ship squadrons wander around the sky, taking different courses, and making very different
24:23decisions.
24:249.20 a.m.
24:26A seasoned American pilot from the USS Hornet had made a maverick decision to find the Japanese
24:33aircraft carriers.
24:36Forty-one-year-old Lieutenant Commander Jack Waldron was leading Torpedo 8 Squadron, made
24:41up of 15 Devastators, when he disobeyed orders and changed course, based on his gut instinct.
24:50He was very proud of his Sioux Indian ancestry, claimed he had a sixth sense about such things,
24:55but he had also worked out the coordinates of where the Japanese carriers would be, and
25:00he saw that the group leader was leading them in a different direction, almost due west,
25:05so he broke off and took his 15 planes to the southwest.
25:10With his radio on the whole time, U.S. commanders were able to monitor his journey.
25:15Jack Waldron was so sure that he knew where the enemy was, he'd rather risk his professional
25:20career and certainly his life to get a strike against the Japanese carriers, rather than
25:25fly in what he believed was the wrong trajectory.
25:29The American pilot's instincts proved to be right, and Waldron and his torpedo squadron
25:34successfully located the Japanese aircraft carriers.
25:39But being right cost Waldron and his squadron dearly.
25:45From their perch at 20,000 feet, flying combat air patrol over the Kido Butai, the fastest
25:51and most agile planes in the fight, Japanese Zeros, swooped down on U.S. torpedo squadron
25:57eight with all guns blazing.
26:05His 15-plane squadron was annihilated.
26:08Every plane was shot down, every pilot and backseat gunner was killed except for one
26:14man, and that's the pilot of the tail-end airplane with Ensign George Gay, who was the
26:19squadron navigator.
26:21George Gay had his Mae West life vest on as his only protection.
26:25He was wounded and bleeding, but he, bobbing in the water, was the sole American witness
26:31to what happened next.
26:33What George Gay saw was the American strike by another 14 devastators.
26:39This time, the squadron had been launched from the USS Enterprise.
26:44At this point, the dive bombers arrive over the target, having been led there by a Japanese
26:50destroyer and Japanese smoke.
26:53To warn Admiral Nagumo of the approaching threat from Waldron's torpedo squadron, the
26:59Japanese cruisers nearby sent out smoke signals.
27:03Clouds of smoke go up into the air to draw attention to that quadrant of the compass
27:09so they would see these planes coming, and it seems that some of the torpedo planes from
27:15the other American carriers saw that smoke as well, and that allowed them to find the
27:21Kidobutai.
27:22By ceding airspace at 20,000 feet, it cleared the path for America's newest dive bomber,
27:29the high-flying Scout Bomber Douglas, also known as the SBD.
27:43One of the greatest airplanes we had in World War II, bar none.
27:47The SBD has several affectionate nicknames.
27:51One of course is the slow but deadly, because it wasn't real fast, but it was highly accurate
27:57and very easy to deliver the bomb.
27:59The SBD doesn't look like much when you look at it.
28:02You really don't really think that that could be a potent weapon, but what a punch it could pack.
28:09The SBD is powered by a Wright 1820 cubic inch engine, 1,200 horsepower.
28:17The SBD was designed to roll easily, go into a steep dive, and then release a lethal payload.
28:24When they roll into the dive, they spread the dive flaps or the spoilers, and they come
28:30up and you have this big wedge on the back of the wing that creates drag and keeps them
28:38at a reasonable airspeed so they don't exceed their structural airspeed during the dive.
28:43The pilot uses hydraulic power to open the bay doors and drop the bomb.
28:48When the bomb is released, you move the lever to close the flaps.
28:52With the wind load and the hydraulic power, they just slam shut instantaneously.
28:58They had two forward-firing .50 caliber machine guns.
29:01The rear gunner sat here.
29:03He had two .30 caliber machine guns.
29:07His job was to protect the rear of the airplane.
29:10Behind the pilot is a good-sized sheet of steel plate armor.
29:16The SBD Dauntless earned a reputation as the street fighter of the U.S. Navy.
29:21It definitely got into the alleyways, if you know what I mean, and took the fight straight
29:26to them.
29:27There was no bombing from miles up in the sky, none of that.
29:31It was in your backyard doing it right now.
29:35You had to have that Dauntless frame of mind to carry out that mission into extreme danger
29:42all the time.
29:44The pilot would wait until he was sure of a hit, usually within 2,000 feet of the ship,
29:50before he released the bomb.
29:53Think of the SBD as the rifle that delivered that bomb.
29:56We aimed the airplane at the ship to release the bomb.
30:01It was a phenomenal aircraft with a lot of brave men rolling in those dives to do it.
30:0910.05am, Commander Clarence Wade McCluskey and a squadron of 33 American Dauntless dive
30:17bombers, flying at an altitude of about 20,000 feet, were now fast approaching the Kido Butai.
30:27After the failure of dozens of U.S. bombers to hit the Japanese strike force, this was
30:32the Americans' last hope of sinking the Japanese fleet.
30:40You did not want to be on a ship with SBDs rolling down on you, because it was not going
30:46to be a good day.
30:49As McCluskey's squadron closed in on the Japanese aircraft carriers, on board the Akagi, Admiral
30:55Nagumo was still racing to rearm his bombers, to strike back.
31:01But his Zeros were out of position, down around 1,000 feet in altitude.
31:11Most of their fighters have now come down to low level to shoot down the torpedo bombers.
31:15The challenge for the Japanese was they had not had time between the torpedo bomber strike
31:21and this strike for their Zeros to gain enough altitude to come in from above them.
31:27With the Zeros out of position, the skies were clear and the Americans had a clean running.
31:34You couldn't write this, and if you wrote it as a script, no one would believe you.
31:37It's now, of course, the script of every science fiction movie ever.
31:40It is the script of Star Wars.
31:4310.20am.
31:45The American Dauntless dive bombers now had all four Japanese Imperial aircraft carriers
31:51in their sights.
31:54In the span of just five furious minutes, the fate of the Battle of Midway would be
31:59decided.
32:00And with it, Domain over the Pacific.
32:14The Pacific Ocean, June 4, 1942, World War II.
32:21The aerial duel that would determine the Battle of Midway between the U.S. and the Japanese
32:26Imperial Navy was in full force.
32:3010.20am.
32:32Squadrons of U.S. dive bombers were fast closing in on the Japanese aircraft carriers.
32:38But success for the Americans was still elusive.
32:42So far, nearly 100 combat planes had been lost in seven separate strike waves.
32:48The Americans' Dauntless dive bomber, officially called the Scout Bomber Douglas, was the next
32:54plane into the fray.
32:56That morning, it was the American plane's scout role that proved vital.
33:01They would run 10-degree arcs all over the Pacific out in advance of the carriers on
33:07patrol looking for enemy action.
33:11As radar technology was new at the beginning of World War II, finding enemy targets was
33:17an inexact science.
33:20Once again, it was one pilot's bold individual decision that allowed the Americans to find
33:25the Japanese strike force.
33:28In this case, it was U.S. Squadron Commander Clarence Wade McCluskey who trusted his instincts.
33:35He led 32 Dauntless dive bombers into the fight against the Japanese strike force,
33:40the Kido Butai.
33:42McCluskey's squadron came across a Japanese destroyer that was hunting a U.S. submarine.
33:49There was an American submarine out there, the USS Nautilus.
33:53Nagumo ordered a destroyer to go over there and keep him down, you know, drop depth charge
33:58on him, keep him down so he can't hurt us.
34:01And meanwhile, the Kido Butai steamed off to the northeast.
34:05Right on attacking the U.S. fleet, the Kido Butai left the Japanese destroyer unprotected
34:11to take out the U.S. submarine.
34:13Well, when the destroyer finished that job, he then sought to catch up with them as fast
34:18as he could go.
34:19And when the bombers from the Enterprise arrived, what they found was that destroyer.
34:25On the surface of the sea, 20,000 feet below, that bright white hyphen on a blue sea pointed
34:32the way for them to find the Kido Butai, which they did.
34:3610.21 a.m., McCluskey had followed the trail of the Japanese destroyer all the way to the
34:42Kido Butai and was now ready to strike.
34:46Unlike the waves of attacks that came before, this time an American squadron had a sky free
34:52of zeros.
34:54He found that because of the sacrifice of the torpedo planes, the Japanese fighter planes
35:01were not up at 20,000 feet.
35:02He could line up on the carriers.
35:05About 20,000 feet down below the SBDs were all four Japanese aircraft carriers, the Hiryu,
35:12the Soyu, the Kaga, and the flagship of the strike force, the Akagi.
35:18On board the Akagi, Admiral Nagumo and his crew were still consumed with refueling and
35:24rearming their bombers.
35:26Planes are being refueled.
35:27There's aviation fuel, avgas all over the place.
35:30They are running furiously to get this done, sweating, as you can imagine.
35:35Because of that, they don't take the time to lower the ammunition taken off the planes
35:41down to the magazine.
35:42They just leave it stacked there.
35:4410.22 a.m., time for the Japanese admiral and his crew had run out.
35:50The tipping point in this battle can be identified very, very clearly.
35:54It comes at 10.22 on the morning of June 4th.
35:57That's the moment when Wade McCluskey gives the order to tip over and dive on the Kaga
36:01and the Akagi.
36:04But there was a problem.
36:05All of McCluskey's 32 bombers were about to dive on just one aircraft carrier.
36:11He had two squadrons of bombers.
36:14Clearly he didn't want all to go after the same ship.
36:16But there was confusion over the radio, and the bulk of the SBDs had already dived onto
36:21the Kaga.
36:23McCluskey's trusted cohort, Richard Best, reacted.
36:26Richard Best saw that it was happening and signaled as fast as he could to his squadron,
36:32don't dive, hold up, wait.
36:34The only ones who saw it in time were his two wingmen, one on each side of his airplane.
36:40Everybody else dove on the Kaga.
36:41Best and his two wingmen rolled around, tipped over, and aimed their three SBDs at the Akagi
36:49and dived in.
36:50I can't imagine rolling into that dive with all that anti-aircraft coming right back at
36:56you and not knowing if one of them has your name on it or not.
37:01Imagine being the guy in the back, being the gunner, riding that dive backward, diving
37:06down into a hell of anti-aircraft fire to deliver a bomb, getting that close.
37:15From about 1,500 feet above the Akagi, Richard Best released just one bomb.
37:24Richard Best's bomb hit right square in the middle of the flight deck on the edge of the
37:29elevator, penetrated to the hangar deck where all the Japanese planes were being refueled
37:34and rearmed, exploded, and created a dozen secondary explosions that turned the ship
37:41into an inferno.
37:43One bomb, and this should have done very little damage, but in fact, the Japanese hangars
37:48were full of fuel, aviation spirit, munitions.
37:51It proved to be a fatal blow.
37:53Very seldom does one bomb sink something like an aircraft carrier or a battleship,
37:57but this one did.
37:59Just as the Akagi was going down, a second Japanese aircraft carrier was also obliterated.
38:09The rest of McCluskey's dive bombers had successfully struck the Kaga.
38:15At the same time, a squadron of 17 slow but very deadly Dauntless dive bombers from the
38:22USS Yorktown struck the third of the four Japanese aircraft carriers.
38:29They find the Soryu, the third of the Japanese, and attack it.
38:36They're all hit essentially by one bomb, and this should have done very little damage,
38:41but in fact, it was devastating because Japanese fire safety and damage control procedures
38:47were very poor.
38:48So the ships didn't sink, they were burnt out.
38:54With just a handful of bombs, the American SBD planes had effectively decided the Battle
39:00of Midway.
39:04That's what turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.
39:07SBD sank more enemy shipping, tonnage-wise, than any other US airplane in World War II.
39:14At 1027am, it took the Dauntless bombers and their brave pilots just five furious
39:20minutes to swing the balance of power to the US in the Pacific.
39:26Once the United States swooped in, in that five or six minutes of battle action, three
39:32carriers out of four were put out of action.
39:35I would say at 1020 in the morning, the Japanese were clearly winning not only the battle,
39:41they were winning the war.
39:43At 1022, when the dive bombers arrived, history pivoted so quickly and so spectacularly.
39:50But there was one more Japanese aircraft carrier afloat, and it wasn't ready to surrender.
39:56Hidden in a rain cloud during the attack on the other three Japanese aircraft carriers,
40:01the Heiyu was still afloat.
40:04Down but not out, the last Japanese aircraft carrier and her crew decided to fight on.
40:11It's interesting that the Japanese, with a single carrier, they didn't say,
40:14oh my gosh, we've lost 75% of our strike force, let's retreat.
40:18He said, we've lost 75% of our strike force, let's attack.
40:22And they did.
40:2311am, the Heiyu launches an airstrike against the USS Yorktown.
40:31The strike force was made up of 18 Aichi D3A VAL dive bombers and six Mitsubishi Zero fighters.
40:41At this point, they fly off and they hit the Yorktown very hard.
40:44It's a torpedo hit and several bomb hits, and the Yorktown is left stopped dead in the water.
40:51But the Yorktown didn't go down.
40:54At 1.30, the Japanese launched a second strike.
40:59This time, however, the Americans were waiting.
41:03Led by Lieutenant Commander John Jimmy Thatch, a squadron of Wildcats had prepared with a
41:08tactical maneuver designed to take down the superior performance Zeros.
41:14It was called the Thatch Weave.
41:17Commander Thatch has produced a tactical solution to the problem of this very agile maneuverable
41:24enemy plane.
41:25Basically, the two American fighters will work as a pair so that one of them is always
41:29covering the other one's back.
41:32Also known as the Beam Defense Position, the two US planes would weave intersecting flight
41:37paths to lure the enemy to attack one of them.
41:41If the Japanese plane goes for the lead plane, it will be shot down by the second plane and
41:46vice versa.
41:47The aerial maneuver is still used to this day by US pilots.
41:52Everybody who's watched Top Gun knows that American Navy fighters go out in pairs, and
41:57they have since 1942.
41:59At midway, the Thatch Weave helped defeat Japanese fighter pilots.
42:04By the end of the day, the Japanese would lose over 240 aircraft, compared to the American
42:11loss of about 150 planes.
42:162.55pm.
42:18The American Wildcat fighters, however, couldn't save the USS Yorktown.
42:25She was hit by two Japanese strikes, and effectively finished off.
42:31At 5pm that afternoon, the American bombers found and struck the fourth and final Japanese
42:37aircraft carrier.
42:40Planes from the other American carriers find the Hiryu and put several bombs into its flight
42:45deck and send it to the bottom.
42:48So before the day was over, all four of the Japanese carriers had been sunk.
42:52For the Japanese fleet, the sinking of the Hiryu was the final nail in the coffin.
42:58By June 7th, 1942, the USA had won the battle, and now they had control of the Pacific.
43:05It would take three more years, but on September 2nd, 1945, the Second World War ended in victory
43:12for the Allies.
43:14And it was all made possible by airpower that won the day at midway.
43:20In just five fateful minutes, robust combat planes, combined with the skill and the courage
43:25of US pilots, decided one of the greatest naval encounters the world had ever seen.