The battle of Midway culminated today, 75 years ago.
Though badly stricken with severe battle damage, USS Yorktown refused to die. When the Americans found their carrier still afloat on the morning of 5 June, they hoped to tow her back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. The tug Vireo took Yorktown under tow. Despite efforts to lighten the carrier, the old tug could barely make headway. At daybreak on 6 June more destroyers arrived with Yorktown’s crew members, who set to work jettisoning heavy moveable objects and taking counter-flooding measures to reduce the list. The destroyer USS Hammann tied up alongside Yorktown to provide the crippled carrier with power and other assistance.
(Crippled by Japanese torpedoes, the USS Yorktown has been abandoned, but refuses to sink).
However, the angry Japanese had other ideas. On the morning of 5 June, a seaplane from the Japanese cruiser Chikuma had spotted the derelict carrier and reported that Yorktown was still afloat. When the Japanese discovered that Yorktown was still afloat, they were determined to exact revenge for the loss of four of their best fleet carriers. The Japanese submarine I-168 was ordered to sink the crippled aircraft carrier. Yorktown was being towed slowly back to Pearl Harbor on the afternoon of 6 June when torpedoes from the Japanese submarine hit the carrier and the USS Hammann. Both American ships received fatal damage in this attack, and many of the crew of Hammann were killed or severely injured.
American destroyers kept a respectful vigil over the stricken USS Yorktown during the night of 6-7 June. At 0458 on 7 June, as day was breaking, Yorktown finally succumbed to her massive battle injuries. Those members of her crew, who had remained to assist with the salvage operation, manned the rails of the carrier’s guardian destroyers and many wept as their proud ship rolled over and slipped beneath the grey waters of the Pacific with her battle flag still flying.
(There are few sights that are sadder than the death of a proud ship. USS Yorktown is about to slip beneath the grey waters of the Pacific. Young Australians and Americans should know that this ship and her gallant crew helped to save Australia, Hawaii and the chain of islands between them from Japanese occupation in 1942).
The Cost of Japan’s Midway Offensive
The Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers, one heavy cruiser, and 322 aircraft. Another heavy cruiser was severely damaged. The Japanese lost at least one hundred highly skilled airmen, and hundreds of skilled air group support staff. Exact numbers are not known because the Japanese Navy went to extraordinary lengths to conceal the magnitude of its defeat at Midway, even to the extent of isolating survivors from their families.
The Americans lost Yorktown and its escort destroyer Hammann in the same torpedo attack by a Japanese submarine. The Americans lost 307 servicemen. The American dead included airmen who were recovered from the sea by the Japanese. After interrogating these American survivors of the battle, the angry Japanese promptly and brutally executed them. The damage to Midway installations was quickly repaired.
Station NEGAT, the codebreaking station in North West Washington, DC, had been correct about one thing. The Japanese had indeed occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians for nearly another year.
But the tide of war had changed, and nothing would ever be quite the same again. Two years later, on this day, the armada crossed the English Channel and began to root out the other evil. D-Day.
Remember.
Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com