'Midway': Everything you need to know about the decisive World War 2 battle of Midway that inspired the movie
'Midway', the big-budget action film directed by Roland Emmerich, is based on one of World War II's most decisive battles. The Battle of Midway saw US Naval forces defeat Japan's forces, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour.
It is a story that highlights the triumph of American intelligence, sheer luck, a scramble to make the most use of limited resources by Admiral Chester Nimitz, and all the subterfuge involved with ambushing another ambush.
The attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, was devastating to the American people, and to the US Naval fleet, as four out of their eight aircraft carriers were destroyed. A fifth carrier, the USS Yorktown, was heavily damaged some months later at the Battle of the Coral Sea, while a sixth ship was taken out entirely.
Japanese Commander-in-Fleet Isoroku Yamamoto developed a plan to take out the rest of America's aircraft carriers with an ambush on the island of Midway. Midway was a strategic refueling station for planes.
Taking Midway out would give Japan a strong foothold in the Pacific, but Midway wasn't the main target. Luring the American Naval fleet was.
This is where the American cryptographer unit — Station Hypo — comes into play. The team, led by the infamously eccentric Joseph Rochefort, was tasked with decoding Japanese radio messages.
The team intercepted a report that Japan was preparing to attack target "AF", and Joseph Rochefort was able to identify "AF" to be Midway.
Washington dismissed Rochefort's report, but a determined Rochefort used a back channel to contact the newly appointed Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, Admiral Nimitz, directly.
Admiral Nimitz demanded proof that target "AF" actually did refer to Midway, so Rochefort had a fake emergency call sent out from Midway, declaring that its water systems were broken.
In less than 24 hours, code breakers picked up a Japanese message declaring that "AF was short on water" — which is all the proof Nimitz needed.
He began preparing a counter-plan for the Japanese's ambush immediately, and pushed for the repairs to the Yorktown carrier — estimated to take about three months — to be completed within three days. With Herculean effort, the repair crew managed to do just that, according to a report.
When Japan attacked Midway, on June 4, 1942, they expected to find a minimally defended Midway. Instead, what they found were pilots prepared to face them, and the American fleet already in place when it should have taken them three or four days to respond to Midway's attack.
The man in charge of the Midway assault, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, was caught by surprise. He had been refitting the planes on his ship, which were armed with torpedoes for naval combat, with bombs meant for a secondary attack on Midway.
When the American fleet was discovered, he immediately ordered his decision reversed — but it would take two hours before the planes would be ready for naval combat again. Nagumo would not send any of the planes out until all of them were ready, as he was an extremely by-the-book man following Japanese military doctrine.
Meanwhile, the US sent their own torpedo squadron as their dive bombers, in an attack led by Admiral Raymond A. Spruance. It did not go well.
The torpedo squadrons were massacred by Japan’s anti-aircraft guns and the highly maneuverable planes that had been part of the Midway attack. The torpedo squadron's attack was a major loss for the Americans that did almost no damage to the Japanese fleet.
Things were looking bad for the Americans. There were no backups if they lost their carrier ships in this battle, and losing now would essentially mean Japan would have control over the entire Pacific.
What's more, the dive bomber squads that had been sent from the Hornet and the Enterprise had gotten lost. They were running low on fuel, and in those days, did not have satellite radio or GPS navigation.
Taking a huge risk considering their dwindling fuel supplies, they followed a lone Japanese destroyer, the Arashi. The gamble paid off, as it led them to the entire Japanese fleet. Out of sheer luck, this coincided with the dive bomber squadron from the Yorktown carrier arriving at the exact same time.
In an instant, the tide of the battle was turned around completely. The Japanese were being attacked by super-accurate dive bombers from two directions. Japanese aircraft carriers Soryu, Akagi and Kaga are immediately destroyed.
The remaining carrier, the Hiryu, manages to make a final attack that cripples the Yorktown before the Hiryu is destroyed as well. The Americans scored a major win.
By the battle's end, while the USS Yorktown was crippled, Japan lost four of its aircraft carriers — a major loss for their navy. American casualties were estimated at 307, while the Japanese lost almost 10 times that at an estimated 3,057 casualties reported.
It was a loss so devastatingly complete that the Japanese government covered it up entirely. In America, however, the PR victory was enormous.
It was the Allied Power's first naval victory against the Japanese, despite the fact that the Japanese had superior firepower in the battle.
The Battle of Midway has been called "the turning point of the Pacific" — in fact, Japan never launched a major offensive in the Pacific again.
The Battle of Midway’s story will be retold on 'Midway', which releases in cinemas on November 8, 2019.