American peacetime naval aviation and the Battle of Midway

I

Accounts of the Second World War tend to describe its outcome as the result of what took place after Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 or, in the case of the United States, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Consider Gerhard Weinberg’s, A World at Arms (first published in 1994, then republished in 2005, and reprinted in 2018). From Weinberg’s perspective, the German and Japanese advance is halted between “December 1941 to November 1942.” The Battle of Midway features as a signal event in this chapter, along with Stalin’s defense of Moscow and Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein. All are moments when “the Allies had won a victory that the Axis could hardly reverse.”^[2] Yet, Midway ultimately decides or reveals very little. The more relevant factor is the scale of American industrial power. “As the construction figures indicate,” says Weinberg, “there was no way the Japanese could defeat the United States.”^[3]

Another account to consider is Williamson Murray and Allan Millett, A War to be Won (2000). In this work, an important theme is that the war was a contest to transform “economic resources into military capability.” Five categories of resources are considered: “raw materials,” “foodstuffs,” “national infrastructure,” “labor force,” and “political will.”^[4] Burning such a wide range of fuels meant that the machine of war had a totalizing effect: no one could escape the heat of “mass, industrialized warfare, culminating in the creation of nuclear weapons.”^[5] Concerning Midway, Murray and Millett write that the American victory was the result of several factors. Among other things, Americans had “good intelligence” about Japanese military plans, effective leadership, and dutiful pilots.^[6] The battle does not determine the war overall but concludes its opening act: “the Japanese war of conquest.”

Andrew Roberts in The Storm of War (2009) is equally global in scope, but he finds that the war is lost by the hubris of the Axis Powers as much as it is won by the determination and capability of the Allies.^[7] The United States, for its part, produced important armaments, contributed financing and forces, and fought successful campaigns.^[8] Midway receives prime placement as the event which guarantees the successful American counter-offensive in the Pacific as shown by the chapter titled, “Five Minutes at Midway, June 1942-October 1944.” “Midway,” says Roberts, “deserves its attribution as one of the most decisive battles in military history.” The outcome is the result of American skill and Japanese errors. As with previous accounts, Roberts praises American radio intelligence and the sacrifice of the torpedo bombers. But he also says that “the [Japanese] carriers’ decks were strewn with bombs, fuel, and planes” and that Nagumo’s rearming order is “one of the worst decisions in military history.” Thus, the Battle of Midway is like his view of the entire conflict: determined by Allied virtues and Axis vices.

The final work to mention here is Victor Davis Hanson’s Second World Wars (2017). Hanson finds that the war is not so much global as a series of interconnected conflicts that begin as “border wars.”^[9] The war, when it comes, is “unexpected” and “unforeseen.”^[10] But the Allies triumph because “in almost all aspects of battle they proved superior.”^[11] Regarding Midway, Hanson finds that it was the result of chance American successes and chance Japanese errors. There was “the unplanned sacrifice of the obsolete American Devastator torpedo bombers that diverted Japanese fighters away from the faster, higher flying, and mostly unnoticed Dauntless dive bombers.” But there was also the fact the Japanese “unwisely” divided their fleet and the Americans possessed “superb naval intelligence.” Hanson’s final judgment is that “the Americans took risks to win, the Japanese were too careful not to lose.”^[12]

Taken together, these accounts describe alliances, strategy, and technology which are vital aspects of the war. At the same time, however, they are all heavily influenced by what might be called a narrative of revenge. That is, they all attribute the Allied victory to actions taken after hostilities commenced. What the Allies do is the result of provocation not preparation – especially regarding the Battle of Midway.

A version of the revenge narrative can also be found in some accounts that focus exclusively on the Battle of Midway itself. That is, the victory is not won so much as bestowed by some outside force beyond the control of the participants. One of the earliest accounts of the battle, Midway (1955), co-written by Mitsuo Fuchida, a survivor of Akagi, attributes great weight to a certain “five fateful minutes.” During this interval, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the Japanese carriers, is on the verge of launching his own strike on the American fleet when the Dauntlesses appear. “Five minutes,” Fuchida famously wrote, “who would have dreamed that the tide of battle would shift completely in that brief interval of time?” The five minutes he was referring to were not just the genuinely decisive moments during which the Dauntlesses wrought their destruction, but the completely fictitious five minutes that allegedly separated Nagumo from the launch of his counterstrike. Fuchida then went on to blame the failure not just on bad luck, but national arrogance brought on by succumbing to the “victory disease” after the triumphs of the previous 6 months. The battle was lost by Japan rather than won by America. A version of Fuchida’s argument was then put forward by Walter Lord’s Incredible Victory (1967) and Gordon Prange’s Miracle at Midway (1982). Both accounts attributed the American victory to luck. “They had no right to win,” Lord said of the Americans, “yet they did.”^[13] Prange’s book was similar, calling the American victory a “narrow squeak,” a “miracle.”^[14]

In the 1990s, there was a shift away from the numinous. It began with an interest in the Douglas Dauntless, the US dive bomber used in the battle. This theme was first established by Barrett Tillman’s The Dauntless Dive Bomber of World War II (1993). “The Dauntless,” said Tillman, “remains largely unheralded and perhaps even unappreciated, despite the absolutely critical role it played throughout the Pacific War.” In fact, Tillman argued that the Americans and the Japanese were so reliant on their dive bomber capabilities that it was “the axis around which sea combat revolved in the Pacific.”^[15] Peter Smith, in Douglas SBD Dauntless (1997), reinforced this view.^[16]

A new range of accounts about the Battle of Midway were published at the turn of the century. This included Shattered Sword, a seminal work by Jon Parshall and Anthony Tully (2005) as well as The Unknown Battle of Midway by Alvin Kernan (2005). Both books added important detail and were significant for their attempts to clear away what Parshall and Tully referred to as “the myths of Midway.”^[17] In Parshall and Tully’s case, this included what they believed to be an underestimation of the strength of the American forces in the battle as well an overestimation of Japanese losses. For Kernan, it was the fact that American torpedo planes “never had a chance,” their destruction was “an overwhelming disaster, which, after the battle, was covered up to save careers and avoid tarnishing a big victory at a time when the American public badly wanted good news.”^[18] Several years later, Craig Symonds published The Battle of Midway (2011), a detailed accounting of the American perspective and a view of the battle as a clash of “the culture of both the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy, as well as the politics and technology of the age.”^[19] All of these recent accounts make significant contributions to our understanding of the battle – presenting it as consequential as Fuchida, Lord, and Prange but more complex: as the result of failures as much as successes, culture as much as chance.

The final volume of Midway scholarship that must be mentioned is the autobiography of Jack “Dusty” Kleiss, Never Call me a Hero (2016), co-written with Timothy and Linda Orr. In this account, the Battle of Midway occurs in a realm of risk and decision. It is something lived as well as remembered. And, as Barrett Tillman put forward in the 1990s, the Dauntless features in the victory.

Examining the pilots, therefore, is important for two reasons. The first concerns our understanding of the Second World War. From the American point of view, the war was initiated by the Axis Powers and then concluded by the overwhelming revenge of the Allies in later years. Again, from the American point of view, the signal events in the Pacific were the sacrifice of American lives in Guadalcanal in 1942 and 1943 or the mass production of ships and war materiel that became available from 1943 onward, or the use of the atomic bomb in 1945. The contribution of the Dauntless pilots at Midway in 1942, however, causes us to reconsider the nature of an earlier victory that would have been impossible but for the targeted and small-scale production of the peacetime navy.

The second reason why the American peacetime Navy is important is because it refines our understanding of the Battle of Midway itself. Since the earliest accounts of the battle, certain historians have attributed the American victory to forces beyond the control of the participants. For some, this is because of an importance given to luck. For others, they emphasize the factors already mentioned: American radio intelligence prior to the battle or the mistakes made by the Japanese forces. The narrative of the Dauntless pilots, however, provides a possible counterbalance to these views. Their destruction of the Japanese carriers, particularly on the morning of June 4 when the most decisive blows were dealt, required preparation and skill. However much they were carrying out revenge for an earlier act of war, they were doing what they had been trained to do during a time of peace.

II

The peacetime navy had a profound impact on the upbringing of the most important Dauntless pilots in the Battle of Midway. One of the oldest was Maxwell Leslie, born October 2, 1902, who entered the Naval Academy in 1922. Of the remainder, the majority entered the service in 1940. Their reasons for military service, therefore, had nothing to do with revenge.

Growing up in the aftermath of the Great War, some expected that another war would soon take place. Consider Dusty Kleiss, born in Coffeyville, Kansas, in 1916. While finishing High School in 1933, he opted to write an essay on the famous Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. This idealist measure, which, in Kleiss’ words, “outlawed war,” was hailed by many who remembered the horrors of the trenches. But Kleiss questioned the “idea that savvy diplomacy and moral progressivism would make war obsolete.” “Nations would always go to war,” Kleiss believed, and so “there would always be a need to fight.”^[20] After reading newspaper reports about the launching of new American aircraft carriers, Kleiss decided that he would meet this need by becoming a naval aviator.^[21] By the summer of 1940, Kleiss’ sense of duty had become mixed with a widespread belief that a draft was imminent. Unsurprisingly, many enlisted as pilots in the naval reserves in the fall and winter of that year.

Others joined looking for a way to leave town. Born in Luthersville, Georgia, in 1919, Lewis “Lew” Hopkins joined the Navy because he was looking for a way to visit the World’s Fair in New York City. While working in Georgia, he read a newspaper advertisement that said that his local Naval Reserve Unit would be traveling through New York and so he signed up in the spring of 1940. Later that year, his reserve unit was called up for duty, at which point he was required to choose a formal role. Because he had already graduated university, he was eligible to train as a pilot.^[22]

Money was another reason to join the military. Eldor Rodenburg was born on February 26, 1919, in Davenport, Nebraska. While studying at the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Nebraska, he joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and the Nebraska National Guard “to help pay his way.” After concluding his degree, Eldor realized that “the idea of landing an airplane on an aircraft carrier fascinated him.” He enlisted in the Navy to become a pilot in December 1939. At this point, Pearl Harbor was an island paradise, a remote naval installation – not the site of an attack.^[23]

Similarly, the Dauntless pilots were trained as aviators during peacetime. There were two ways in which a naval aviator was created. Most of the Dauntless pilots at Midway were like Hopkins and Rodenburg – having already earned a degree at a civilian university, they entered the United States Naval Reserve. This began with 10 h of flight instruction followed by a practical exam. If candidates passed, they progressed to flight training.

The other route to pilot training began with the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. This was the path taken by the minority of pilots. Richard “Dick” Best, for instance, graduated from the Academy in 1932. He then served in the surface fleet, a requirement for all Academy graduates, before requesting a transfer to aviation. It was similar for Kleiss, a graduate of the class of 1938. Once the transfer to aviation was approved, officers like Dickinson and Kleiss began flight training in classes alongside their counterparts from the reserves.

By the end of 1939, flight training lasted about 7 months.^[24] Students were tested on a range of materials from the academic to the practical. In ground school, they started with courses “in ignition and engine theory,” which included tearing down and reassembling engines. They also learned how airplanes were built, repaired, and maintained, receiving lectures on “aerodynamics and navigation.” Finally, there were tests on Morse Code, parachute packing, and gunnery.^[25] In flight, they were trained to perform all necessary maneuvers from the basic to the complex. They could fly in formation, dogfight, and land on short or austere runways. They were also familiar with a range of aircraft, including torpedo-bombers, dive-bombers, and fighters.^[26] Upon graduation, they were ready to be assigned to carrier squadrons where they would become proficient in flight at sea.

Most of the Midway pilots also reached their units in advance of the war. For some, especially those who ended up in leadership positions in the Battle of Midway, their peacetime service allowed them to participate in important training exercises. Since 1923, it was common for the Navy to stage a large-scale training exercise each year, known as a fleet problem. Dick Best participated in the fleet problem of 1936, a defense of the Panama Canal. He also participated in the defense of the Hawaiian Islands in the problems of 1937 and 1938. During these exercises, pilots often doubled their monthly flight time “from a normal 20–25 h to 50 or more,” according to one historian.^[27] The importance of airpower, particularly dive-bombing, was also apparent. Dick Best remembered that the exercises, however much they were simulated, were conducted with a view toward real events. “By this time,” said Best, “we recognized the Japanese as our chief enemy.”^[28]

Other pilots arrived later. Kleiss, for instance, reached the Enterprise in May 1941. The Air Group then consisted of “about ninety planes altogether,” including his squadron, Scouting Six which “operated a mix of Douglas SBD-2 and SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers.”^[29] That same month, the Enterprise arrived in Oahu. Training began in earnest. “I studied the intricacies of the SBD relentlessly,” said Kleiss. There was much to learn: he remembered that the aircraft “had a complex arrangement of controls, and its expensive hydraulics required pilots to be trained to fly it blindfolded.” After careful study, he passed his blindfold test. There were also exercises in navigation which required landing at “various airfields around Hawaii… flying by latitude, longitude, and magnetic course.” During the next 2 months, Kleiss “logged fifty-eight hours in the air, sometimes flying three missions in a single day.”^[30]

Other pilots completed a substantial part of their training during peacetime. Rodenburg received orders to complete carrier training in San Diego, California, reporting there in November of 1941. On the 13th, he logged his first flight in a Douglas Dauntless, SBD-3.^[31] Hopkins joined even later. His first assignment had been to the carrier squadron on the USS Ranger, based in Norfolk, Virginia. But the Japanese attack on Pearl took place before he completed his carrier qualification. He was ordered west and immediately transferred to the Enterprise. When Hopkins finally joined the ship, the commander of his squadron was Dick Best. “He was so interested in us becoming proficient,” Hopkins said of Best that “he would go over every dive bombing flight and the dives. We used practice bombs that simulated real bombs. he would go over that with you and talk about your dive, your angle of dive, your speed and release. We were, I guess you’d say, force fed. We would generally fly two flights a day. He was building up our capability.”^[32] Best’s peacetime training paid off. Because of his seniority and experience, he could share his expertise with rookies like Hopkins. The significance here is that peacetime training meant that the American air groups were able to quickly prepare for war. Their leadership had already practiced similar maneuvers and newer pilots like Hopkins were familiar enough with their trade to learn quickly from more experienced pilots like Best.

Having trained during peacetime, these naval aviators were able to immediately participate in combat missions in the early months of 1942. The most important of these, in terms of the development of pilot ability, were raids on island outposts in the Pacific. Four major engagements took place. On February 1, there was an attack on the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Three weeks later, there was an attack on Wake Island. Then, on March 4, there was an attack on Marcus Island. Finally, on March 10, there was an attack on Japanese shipping near the towns of Lae and Salamaua on New Guinea Island. For pilots aboard the Enterprise, like Kleiss and Hopkins, flying into battle was no longer an unknown experience. Kleiss described his preparation for the attack on Marcus by saying the following: “For the third time in five weeks, I rose before dawn” and “enjoyed the hearty pre-battle breakfast.”^[33] Combat had become routine.

Routine combat was important because it improved the squadrons. Inadequate or lower-performing pilots were killed or injured, leading to the promotion of other pilots. Kleiss and another pilot, Wilmer Earl Gallaher, rose through the ranks during the early months of 1942. Their top performance granted them greater responsibility and more influence, increasing the effectiveness of their air group.

Also important was the downtime between raids because the pilots took advantage of these moments to continue training. Dick Best remembered returning to Pearl from the raid on Marcus Island and spending almost 3 weeks practicing his dive-bombing on a land target. “Only on a land target can you really tell your accuracy or lack of accuracy,” Best said. “It was the greatest drawback we had being at sea so much that new pilots couldn’t be adequately trained.” In his opinion, the success of the squadron would have increased fourfold if it had been possible to spend another week in training.^[34] Kleiss’ logbook also shows three flights in late March where dive bombing was practiced.^[35] This additional training was beneficial, however, because a basic amount had been provided already. Peacetime training meant that enough pilots had entered combat at the earliest possible moment.

By late May, Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered three aircraft carriers – the Enterprise, Yorktown, and the Hornet – to station themselves northeast of Midway atoll, in hopes of ambushing the Japanese fleet. Contact with the enemy was expected within one week’s time. On the night of June 2, he wrote in his diary that it had been “another busy day and one of anxious waiting for something to develop and for which we are better prepared than ever before.”^[36]

III

The battle began 2 days later on June 4, and the most critical period was the morning of that day. During this time, three of the four Japanese carriers that would sink during the battle were mortally wounded by American Dauntlesses. However, of the 100 Dauntlesses that attacked during the morning, many were ineffective. The 16 Dauntlesses from the airfield at Midway Atoll glide-bombed rather than dive-bombed their targets. At four miles away, these planes began to descend from cruising altitude, gliding down at about a 30-degree angle.^[37] This angle of approach was preferable for pilots untrained on dive-bombing techniques but it had two major drawbacks. First, it was easily noticed by Japanese sailors and pilots who were then able to focus the fire of their anti-aircraft guns and combat patrol planes. Second, each American pilot had to factor the horizontal motion of his plane into the trajectory of his ordnance. Thus, it was much harder to hit a moving target, especially under fire. Eight of these 16 Dauntlesses were shot down; none of their ordnance struck home.

Five squadrons of Dauntlesses had also been launched from the US carriers. Those from the Hornet – 34 in total – flew too far to the north, missing the Japanese fleet entirely. The Enterprise and the Yorktown, however, launched 50 Dauntlesses, 47 of which arrived on target at nearly the same exact moment (two had crashed in the sea and Rodenburg returned to the Enterprise because of engine trouble).

From the Enterprise, there were two squadrons under the leadership of Clarence “Wade” McClusky of Buffalo, New York. A graduate of Annapolis in 1926, McClusky had earned 2,900 h of experience on a range of aircraft.^[38] His seniority also meant that he had leadership positions in the squadron during the combat missions of February and March: the raids on the Marshall Islands, Wake Island, and Marcus Island.

Following McClusky into battle were many other experienced pilots. Seven were Annapolis graduates: Earl Gallaher of Wilmington, Delaware (1931); Richard “Dick” Best of Bayonne, New Jersey (1932); Charles Ware of Knoxville, Tennessee (1934); Clarence Dickinson of Jacksonville, Florida (1934); Joseph Penland of Kings Mountain, North Carolina (1935); Dusty Kleiss of Coffeyville, Kansas (1938); and Ed Anderson of Claremont, Virginia (1938). All graduated in the 1930s and earned their wings prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. All participated in at least one of the raids on the Marshalls, Wake, and Marcus. By the Battle of Midway, all but Anderson had earned leadership positions within their squadrons. Gallaher, for example, was the commander of Scouting Six, Dick Best was the commander of Bombing Six, and the other pilots were division or section leaders.^[39]

From the planes launched by the Enterprise, the naval reserves supplied 12 more veteran pilots. Foremost among them were Fred Weber of Des Moines, Iowa; John van Buren of Mukwonago, Wisconsin; Tony Schneider of Hillsboro, Missouri; and Norman Vandivier of Edwards, Mississippi. These pilots entered the navy between 1938 and 1939 which meant that they arrived at the Enterprise in time for the defense of Pearl Harbor, the early island raids of 1942, and, for those chosen to participate, the launch of the Doolittle raiders. Other experienced reservists included Reid Stone of Aurora, Illinois; he reached Scouting Six in January 1942 and participated in the first three of the early raids. Several others were able to participate in one or more, such as John “Norm” West of Forest Grove, Oregon; Delbert “Pete” Halsey of Baker, Montana; Tom Ramsay of Magee, Mississippi; Edwin “Bud” Kroeger of Akron, Ohio; and Wilbur Roberts of Detroit, Michigan. Finally, there was John McCarthy of St. Paul, Minnesota; wounded in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he recovered in time to fight at Midway.^[40]

The other 13 pilots following McClusky were rookies. Most enlisted in mid to late 1940 when the draft was expected, including Frank O’Flaherty of Tonopah, Nevada; Lewis Hopkins of Luthersville, Georgia; John Roberts of Boaz, Alabama; Carl Peiffer of Wilmington, North Carolina; Vernon “Mike” Micheel of Davenport, Iowa; George “Bo” Goldsmith of Atmore, Alabama; Richard Jaccard of Troy, Missouri; Bertram Varian of Weiser, Idaho; and William “Bill” Pittman of Pensacola, Florida. Several others joined in early 1941. For instance, Eugene Greene of Smithtown, New York; James Dexter of Seattle Washington; and James “Jim” Shelton of Denton, Montana – all joined in January of that year. John Lough of Geneseo, Illinois, entered as late as March of 1941 and still arrived at the Enterprise in time for Midway.^[41]

The remaining 17 Dauntlesses in the morning attack on the Japanese carriers were launched from the Yorktown. The skipper of this group was Maxwell Leslie, a graduate of Annapolis in 1926, the same year as McClusky. Earning his wings in 1929, Leslie was the commander of Bombing Three by the start of the war. According to one historian, Leslie had “more than four thousand accumulated flying hours” by the Battle of Midway and had become “one of the most experienced dive-bomber aviators in the Pacific fleet.”^[42]

Following him into battle were six veteran pilots. Several entered the navy in the 1930s. DeWitt Shumway of Potsdam, New York, graduated from Annapolis in 1932 and, once he completed pilot training, worked as an aviation instructor at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas. Harold Bottomley of Merchantville, New Jersey, graduated from Annapolis in 1937, the same year as Dusty Kleiss, and served aboard the Saratoga and the Yorktown during the opening months of the war.^[43] Osborne Wiseman of Zanesville, Ohio, graduated from Annapolis in 1938 and reached the Yorktown in time to participate in the Doolittle raid. Robert Campbell of Mildred, Kansas, also entered the Navy in 1938. He participated in the strike on Wake and glide-bombed a target during the Doolittle raid.^[44] Bunyan Cooner of Columbia, South Carolina, entered the navy in June of 1939, after graduating from the University of North Carolina. Soon after Pearl Harbor, he was wounded when he accidentally walked into a spinning propeller on the flight deck of the Saratoga.^[45] He healed in time to fly at Midway. Gordon Sherwood of Salt Lake City, Utah, also joined in September 1939 and likely experienced combat before the summer of 1942.

The rest of the veteran pilots were another seven men. Most joined in mid to late 1940. This included Robert Elder, a Canadian of Lang, Saskatchewan. He attended the University of Washington where he majored in aeronautical engineering and, upon graduating, joined the navy in June 1940. The next month, Roy Isaman of Lewiston, Idaho, enlisted, having just graduated from the University of Idaho. He arrived at Bombing Three in time for the Doolittle raid.^[46] In November of 1940, Alden “Oley” Hanson of Bellevue, Minnesota, and Milford Merrill of Long Beach entered the navy. They reached Bombing Three in time to participate in the strike on Wake and Marcus. Paul Schlegel of Richmond, Pennsylvania, was close behind. He joined in December 1940 and arrived on the Yorktown in time for the Battle of Coral Sea in May of 1942. Two others joined in 1941: John Butler of Liberty, Arizona, and Charles Lane of Leaksville, North Carolina. Both arrived in time for the Doolittle raid.^[47]

The remaining three men were rookies. Paul Holmberg of Stanberry, Missouri, graduated from Annapolis in 1939 but did not arrive at Bombing Three until May 1942. Robert Benson of San Francisco, California, also arrived in the spring, having enlisted in April 1941. Philip Cobb of Saginaw, Michigan, was a graduate of University of Michigan and entered the Navy in time to graduate pilot training from Pensacola Naval Air Station in the same class as Paul Schlegel. Cobb, however, seems to have been a rookie when he launched at Midway.^[48]

The result was that at 1023 on the morning of June 4, 1942, there were 47 Dauntlesses from the Enterprise and the Yorktown that dived on the Japanese carriers. Four of these planes were impotent: their electrical arming switches had not only armed their bombs but also dropped them in the open sea. Another four attacked supporting ships like the destroyer Isokaze. The remaining 39 dove on the carriers: Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu.

Most of these planes, a group of 27 from the Enterprise, converged on Kaga. Only four scored hits: Earl Gallaher, Dusty Kleiss, James Dexter, and Clarence Dickinson. The first bomb landed near the rear elevator, detonating inside the crew quarters. The second smashed the forward elevator, rendering it inoperable. The third destroyed the bridge, killing all officers inside. The fourth landed amidships.^[49] In total, this was a 15% success ratio.

Noticing how many were headed for Kaga, Dick Best broke away and went for Akagi. He brought two planes with him, but he was the only one who landed a direct hit. His 1,000-pound bomb landed amidships, detonating inside the hangar. One of his wingmen scored a near miss, sending up a blast of water that broke off the ship’s antennae.^[50] Overall, these three planes averaged a 33% success ratio.

The Yorktown Dauntlesses, effectively a group of nine, dove on the Soryu. Three scored hits: Paul Holmberg, Harold Bottomley, and DeWitt Shumway. One landed forward on the starboard side; another amidships, penetrating the flight deck and detonating inside the hangar; the third, aft on the flight deck itself.^[51] It was another success ratio of 33%.

All told, these 39 planes finished their attack in a matter of minutes. Mitsuo Fuchida, who was aboard Akagi, described it as “five fateful minutes” during which “the tide of battle would shift completely.” By the end, all three Japanese carriers which had been targeted were ablaze.

IV

During this critical period, only eight Dauntless pilots from the Enterprise and Yorktown hit their targets: Dick Best, Paul Holmberg, Harold Bottomley, DeWitt Shumway, Earl Gallaher, Dusty Kleiss, James Dexter, and Clarence Dickinson. At first glance, their success might seem to be the result of their age. The average age of the Dauntless pilots from the Enterprise and the Yorktown was 25, but the average age of the eight successful pilots was 29. Yet, age does not seem to be the sole factor of importance since there were many pilots of greater seniority who were unsuccessful. Paul Schlegel, for instance, was 32 on the day of battle. Charlie Ware was another – he was 31. Yet, both missed Soryu and Kaga, respectively.

Placement in the dive was also not the determining factor. Dauntlesses would approach a target by cruising in “echelon of echelons” or “echelon of V’s away from the objective.” Approximately two miles away from the target, the leader would give the attack signal and nose downwards. The other planes would “follow behind at about 400-foot intervals in an approximate column, stepped down slightly.”^[52] At Midway, there was confusion as both squadrons from the Enterprise became mixed, diving on the same carrier: Kaga. Yet, the pilots near the front of the line did not necessarily have better results. Clarence McClusky, the overall commander, was the first to attack yet he missed. So did the pilots who were second and third. Earl Gallaher, however, was fourth and scored. Considering the planes from Yorktown who dove on Soryu, the first, tenth, and twelfth in line scored hits. Diving near the front of the line was not a guarantee of success.

A pattern begins to emerge, however, when one ranks the pilots by date of their entry into the Navy. Subtracting those who lost their ordnance or who dived on a supporting ship, the eight successful pilots are in the top 13 places. One might think this is because the more experienced the pilot, the more accurate the aim, but it is not quite that straightforward. Seven of these eight pilots, save one, had been in the Navy longer than average because they graduated from the Naval Academy. They completed 4 years of training at Annapolis before serving in the surface fleet and then attending flight school. Their extra years in the service were not spent flying but doing other tasks, often completely unrelated to flight. The correlation between academy graduates and success in the battle becomes more pronounced when one considers that of the 39 pilots who dived on the carriers, 14 attended Annapolis. Seven of this 14 were the pilots who scored hits.

One can only speculate about the reason for this correlation. In one sense, it might be the result of intelligence. The Academy drew from a national pool of applicants, all of whom had to pass rigorous academic exams and a relatively lengthy examination process. Its graduates were arguably more intelligent than graduates of other universities.

Yet, the distinguishing factor might also be determination. Completing the lengthy application process for the Naval Academy required commitment. A similar kind of determination was necessary to endure the 4 years of midshipman life. Graduates then had to request a transfer out of the surface fleet and into aviation. The job was only reached by those who were willing to endure this process and forego other options. Reserve pilots were different; they enlisted for aviation in the first instance. If they failed the initial stage of flight training, they would then serve out the remainder of their enlistment as a sailor in the navy.^[53]

Another reason for the high performance of academy graduates might also be the rivalry that was fostered by their time at Annapolis. Best, Gallaher, Dickinson, and Shumway would have met while attending the academy during the early 1930s. Kleiss, Holmberg, and Bottomley would have also been acquainted as they were cadets together in the latter half of that same decade. At Annapolis, they would have been continually ranked in order of academic and military merit – a contest that would continue into their careers as aviators. When describing his dive on Kaga during the Battle of Midway, Kleiss referred to Dickinson as “my rival.”^[54]

Regardless of the reason for their performance, these seven Naval Academy graduates were essential to the American victory. Their contribution becomes even more pronounced considering that three of them scored hits during the afternoon attack on Hiryu. These three men – Best, Kleiss, and Shumway – accounted for half of the successful dives on the Japanese fleet during the first and most important day of battle. Every pilot who dived on a Japanese carrier contributed to the victory by distracting the Japanese anti-aircraft guns. Yet, one should also recognize that America won the Battle of Midway because of a handful of pilots, all of whom learned their trade before America formally entered the Second World War.

Of course, many other factors affected the outcome at Midway. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese made mistakes in their preparation for the battle and were hampered by their technological and tactical shortcomings. The Americans also had several advantages, including the element of surprise, which is important to bear in mind. But the American position, for all its peculiarities, would have been ineffective but for the preparation of the peacetime navy.

It may seem evident that pre-war preparation is instrumental to success in battle. However, this is not a common theme in the historiography of the war or the battle itself. Instead, there has been a tendency to focus on the sacrifices made by so many during war. In the case of Midway, it is the deaths of the torpedo-plane squadrons that has attracted attention: “a most gallant and heroic attack,” according to Admiral Chester Nimitz, in which “not a plane survived this magnificent devotion to purpose.”^[55] Indeed, there is certainly something astonishing, even humbling, about their devotion. But it should not obscure the way in which the battle, though it was the end of many lives, was also the culmination of others. Then too the importance of pre-war preparation has been overlooked in some cases because of a tendency to strip the combatants at Midway of their agency. The intelligence gathered by the United States prior to the battle and the confluence of certain events while the battle unfolded has caused some to regard the outcome as the result of luck, at least from the American perspective. The Dauntless pilots, however, demonstrate that skill was essential. It was a skill that was learned and developed prior to the war. It was also a skill that was deliberately put into use on the day of battle.