Akatsuki no Midway

11. The Tragic Torpedo Bombers

The fate of Waldron's squadron of the USS Hornet was one of the countless tragedies visiting the American side that day. Rear Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, commander of the Hornet, had originally planned to attack the Japanese carriers with dive bombers flying at an altitude of 6.700 meters, torpedo bombers flying at 450 meters, and a formation of fighters flying in the middle to support both. As it turned out, however, this was just a theory that ended up on the table.

At this time, the Akagi's No. 21 radar was working relatively normally, and Waldron's squadron was detected by the radar about two minutes earlier than the Chikuma's lookout could see them. However, the fact that the information was not shared with the entire fleet showed the delay in the Japanese tactic of using the radar. In the end, the fleet only learned of the arrival of a new enemy formation by a light signal from Chikuma.

At the same time, the four carriers of the 1st and 2nd Carrier Divisions simultaneously turned their helm and entered an evasive maneuver called "aft drop," in which they turned their aft fronts toward the enemy. This evasive maneuver had the advantage of allowing the CAP to intercept the planes for a longer period of time by moving away from the enemy aircraft.

Waldron's squadron, which did not have fighter escorts, was attacked by over 30 Zero fighters, a completely one-sided battle. Even with the state-of-the-art TBFs, it would have been foolhardy for the TBFs to fly into a swarm of Zero fighters without being escorted by the fighters. Of course, Lieutenant Commander Waldron assumed that there were friendly fighters in the vicinity and began his assault, but his misjudgment of the situation resulted in a tragedy.

Another tragedy for them was that they were flying at a low altitude of 450 meters and could not take the tactic of accelerating in a dive to escape the Zero fighters. Although the TBF Avenger was a torpedo bomber that was far more robust than the TBD Devastator, it was shot down one after another before it could launch its assault on the carriers under the Akagi due to the concentrated attacks from the Zero squadron.

However, Waldron's men were brave. On the eve of the sortie, Waldron had announced to his men that even if he was the last plane to be intercepted by the enemy, he wanted that one plane to hit a torpedo on the enemy carrier. They dutifully followed the words of their commander. And Waldron himself was faithful to his own words. He was within 700 meters of the aircraft carrier Sōryū when he was shot down and killed just before dropping a torpedo.

As a result, only three TBFs of the flight led by Ensign George Gay succeeded in torpedoing the carrier, and although they dropped torpedoes toward the Sōryū, they were all evaded by the skillful maneuvering of Captain Ryūsaku Yanagimoto. These three planes barely made it to their carrier, despite having their fuselages riddled by 20 mm autocannons, and were among the few survivors of Waldron's squadron.

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Meanwhile, there was a formation wandering over the battlefield. It was the SBD Dauntless squadron of 31 dive bombers (VB-6 and VS-6) led by Lieutenant Commander Clarence McClusky, who had departed from the USS Enterprise. They were flying on their planned course at an altitude of 6.000 meters after leaving the carrier. However, at 09:20 (06:20 on July 5 Japan Time), the scheduled time of the rendezvous, there was not a single naval vessel in sight. There was only the vast expanse of ocean.

"What is the meaning of this...?" in the cockpit, McClusky looked around.

Either the strafing report was wrong, or the Enterprise's flight chief had miscalculated their course, or he had made a navigational error...

He checked the nav board, but could not determine what had caused it.

In fact, McClusky was flying about five degrees south of its intended course. In addition, the 1st Air Fleet was moving eastward to recover the planes that attacked Task Force 17 earlier, so McClusky's squadron could not see any ship even at the planned time. However, they could not just return to the carrier. This battle was to be a decisive battle in which the entire US Navy would be involved. They cannot afford to show their incompetence here. He decided to think about where the Japanese fleet was headed.