Marine fighters and dive bombers on Midway were airborne within ten minutes of the alert. Major Floyd Parks led seven Buffaloes and five Wildcats directly toward the Japanese aircraft. Captain Kirk Armistead led the remaining Wildcat and a dozen Buffaloes to a position ten miles away, where it was believed another flight of Japanese would be found.
Thirty miles off Midway, Parks found a 108-plane Japanese force, divided into three waves of thirty-six planes each, and attacked. Several minutes later, Armistead joined up. They shot down sixteen horizontal bombers of the first Japanese echelon, and eighteen of the second echelon of dive bombers.
Fifteen of the twenty-five Marine fighter pilots were shot down, including Major Parks. Only three of the pilots with Parks survived the attack. Thirteen Buffaloes and two of the four Wildcats went down. For all practical purposes, Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-221 has been wiped out.
The Japanese force, although weakened, continued onto Midway and dropped its bombs. They destroyed the powerhouse on Eastern Island and the PBY hangars and some fuel tanks on Sand Island. Thirteen Americans were killed and eighteen wounded.
Meanwhile, the Marine dive bombers sent to attack the Japanese aircraft carrier approached their target. Major Lofton R. Henderson led the first, faster, echelon of SBD Dauntless Dive Bombers, and Captain Elmer C. Glidden led the slower Vought SB2U-3 Vindicators.
Apparently because neither he nor any of his pilots were really proficient in the Dauntless, Henderson ordered that greater accuracy would be obtained by glide (as opposed to dive) bombing. At 0800, from 8,500 feet, he began a wide "let down" circle. At 8,000 feet, Japanese fighters from the carriers attacked his force.
Henderson' s plane was the first to take fire and begin to burn.
Captain Glidden's echelon, arriving shortly afterward, began to dive bomb at five-second intervals. Of the sixteen planes in both echelons, eight were lost. Damage to the enemy was minimal.
Fifteen B-17s from Midway arrived at 0810, somewhat naively trying to hit now wildly maneuvering warships from 20,000 feet.
We believe that on learning that he had lost about a third of his attacking force, Admiral Nagumo ordered a second attack. This required that he put his aircraft carriers into their most vulnerable condition, as they were refueled and rearmed. He apparently decided the prize, the neutralization and capture of Midway, was worth the risk.
At 0940 the first torpedo bombers from American aircraft carriers arrived above the Japanese carriers, whose decks were crowded with aircraft being rearmed and refueled.
Fifteen Devastator torpedo bombers from Hornet attacked first. They were all shot down. Fourteen Devastators from Enterprise attacked next. Ten of these were shot down. Next came a dozen Devastators from Yorktown. Eight of them were shot down.
It was a slaughter, and little damage was done to the Japanese fleet.
Thirty-seven Dauntless dive bombers from Enterprise under Lieutenant Commander Clarence McCluskey remained available. McCluskey led half in an attack on the carrier Kaga, and ordered Lieutenant Earl Gallagher to attack the carrier Akagi with the remainder. They sank both Japanese carriers.
Next, seventeen Dauntlesses from Yorktown dive bombed the carrier Soryu, causing severe damage, and she was later sunk by the submarine Nautilus. Finally, the fourth, and last, Japanese aircraft carrier, Hiryu, was successfully attacked and sunk.
I regret to inform you that Kate torpedo planes broke through the defenses of Yorktown and sank her, with great loss of life.
The entire Japanese fleet has withdrawn beyond range of our land- and sea-based aircraft. We believe that Admiral Nagumo has transferred his flag to the cruiser Nagara.
KLW
Pickering strongly suspected that the two "we believe" statements, that Nagumo had ordered a second attack on Midway and that he had transferred his flag to the cruiser Nagara, meant that "we"-almost certainly a Naval Intelligence officer in Hawaii-had obtained the information from interception and decryption of Japanese radio messages.
Navy cryptographers had broken several important Japanese codes. Keeping that knowledge from the Japanese was of great importance. Reference would not be made to it even in documents which would be hand carried by officer couriers.
He considered briefly, and then forced from his mind, the painful images of the terrible loss of American life, and wondered what he should do with the information he had been given.
It took him just a moment to decide to give it to General MacArthur. Commander Nameless certainly was carrying with him, among other things, the official Navy after-action report. But that was certain to be wordy, and written in the knowledge that in addition to being at war with the Japanese, the Navy felt itself to be at war with the Army.
What he had in his hand was what General MacArthur wanted-and certainly was entitled to have-a concise, unvarnished description of the first major Japanese naval defeat of the war.
He picked up the telephone.
"Yes, Sir?" a male American voice answered. The hotel's Australian switchboard operators had recently been replaced by U.S. Army Signal Corps soldiers.
"Six One Six," he said. That was MacArthur's private number. It wasn't much of a secret, but there were few who dared to call it directly and run the risk of annoying The General.
"Six One Six, Sergeant Thorne speaking, Sir."
"This is Captain Pickering, Sergeant. I'd hoped to speak to The General."
"Sir, the General is in his quarters, and will go from there to the Briefing Room. Shall I switch you, Sir?"
"No, thank you," Pickering said. "I'll try to see him at the briefing."
He quickly pulled up his tie, shrugged into his uniform jacket, tucked the onion skin sheets of paper in the side pocket, and left his suite.
(Two)
The Briefing Room, once one of the Menzies Hotel's smaller "Function" Rooms, was on the mezzanine floor. Pickering momentarily debated going down the stairs, which would almost certainly be quicker, but decided against it. Around Supreme Headquarters, SWPOA, it would not be considered good form for a Navy Captain to race down five flights of stairs three steps at a time, when an oak paneled elevator was available.
His hope was to meet MacArthur as The General strode off the elevator reserved for his use and marched toward the briefing room. With a little luck, he would be able to ask for a couple of minutes.
Luck went against him; MacArthur was nowhere in sight. So he had no choice but to get in line with the others waiting to pass the muster of the MPs guarding the door to the Briefing Room. Once inside, he took a seat at the rear, beside the door. The man in the seat beside him was a Cavalry Colonel who nodded coldly at him.
Pickering wondered what the Cavalry Colonel's function was. The only U.S. Cavalry in the Orient had been the 26th Cavalry in the Philippines. They had been dismounted and their horses butchered and issued as rations fairly early on in the war.
The door beside him was flung quickly open, hitting Pickering on the shoulder. An officer stepped inside; he was wearing a tropical worsted uniform and the golden fourrag?re and four-starred lapel insignia of an aide-de-camp to a full general.
"Gentlemen," Lieutenant Colonel Sidney L Huff announced with a shade more than necessary pomp, "The Supreme Commander."
The thirty-odd men in the room quickly rose to their feet and came to attention.
The Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, strode into the room and marched down the aisle between rows of folding metal chairs. He was wearing an Army Air Corps leather flight jacket with a zipper front, the four silver stars of his rank pinned to its epaulets; a somewhat battered brimmed cap with faded gold ornamentation around the headband that he had designed for himself when he had been Marshal of the Philippine Army; and wash-faded khakis. Another four stars were pinned to each collar of the shirt. He was tieless, and he had a long, thin, black cigar in his hand.
The corncob pipe he was famous for was most often seen when the Supreme Commander was in public. This gathering was the antithesis of public. Every man in the room-from the three sergeants functioning as orderly, stenographer, and handler-of-the-maps, through the assorted majors, wing commanders, and colonels, to the dozen general and flag officers of five different nations-not only held a TOP SECRET security clearance, but appeared on a list, updated daily, of those authorized to be present at what the schedule called "THE SUPREME COMMANDER'S MORNING BRIEFING."
An Australian Military Police Captain had checked each man against the list before permitting him to enter the room.
The front row was furnished with two blue leather armchairs. There was a table at each end of the row and between the chairs. The center table held a silver thermos of water, two glasses, a telephone, and an ash tray. The table at the left held a coffee cup and saucer; a cigarette box; an ash tray; a lighter; and another telephone. The table at the right held a coffee cup and saucer; a larger (big enough for a corncob pipe) ash tray; a small cigar box; a sterling silver lighter; a glass holding four freshly sharpened pencils; and a small notepad in a leather folder on which was stamped "Douglas MacArthur" and four silver stars.
When he reached his chair, General MacArthur looked around the room at his senior officers, all standing to attention. He found the face he was looking for, toward the rear.
"Captain Pickering," he said. "May I see you, Sir?" He smiled at everyone else. "Good morning, gentlemen," he added. 'Take your seats, please."
He sat down.
Captain Pickering came down the aisle to MacArthur.
"Have a seat, Fleming," MacArthur said cordially, gesturing at the other blue leather armchair. The second chair was ordinarily reserved for Mrs. MacArthur. Although she had no official function and no security clearance, she went anywhere in HQSWPOA The General felt like taking her. When she was not present, The General awarded the privilege of sitting beside him to whichever of his officers was at the moment highest in his favor.
To the barely concealed disappointment and displeasure of his generals and admirals, that officer had very often been Captain Fleming Pickering. There were a number of reasons for their annoyance, starting with Pickering's relatively low rank. For another, the initials following his name were USNR; he wasn't even a professional Navy Man. And neither was he actually a member of the staff. Technically, he was assigned to the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, half a world away in Washington, D.C.