Japan's entire carrier fleet was sunk in a single morning — thanks to broken codes, one fatal moment of indecision, and dive bombers that arrived at exactly the wrong moment for Japan.
Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan's navy was the most powerful in the Pacific — a string of victories had left them in control of vast stretches of ocean. Admiral Yamamoto planned to finish the job by luring the remaining American carriers into a trap at Midway Atoll, a tiny island 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii, and destroying them.
The trap was already sprung before Japan knew it. American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code and knew exactly when and where the attack would come. Admiral Nimitz positioned his three carriers — Enterprise, Hornet, and the newly-repaired Yorktown — in ambush, waiting for a fleet they weren't supposed to know was coming.
On June 4, 1942, Japan launched a massive airstrike against Midway's airfields. It was successful but not decisive — the island's defenses survived. Japanese commander Nagumo then faced a fateful choice: his planes were armed with torpedoes for sinking ships, but reports from the Midway raid suggested he needed bombs to finish the island. He ordered his aircraft to switch weapons. They began re-arming.
While the Japanese flight decks were covered with planes, fuel hoses, and loose ordnance, American dive bombers found them. In roughly five minutes, three Japanese fleet carriers — Akagi, Kaga, and Sōryū — were set ablaze by bombs that ignited the unsecured fuel and weapons on their decks. All three sank by the end of the day. A fourth carrier, Hiryū, was sunk the following day.
The human cost was staggering. Japan lost approximately 3,000 men and 248 aircraft. Critically, around 100 of Japan's most experienced and irreplaceable naval aviators — the same pilots who had trained for years and executed Pearl Harbor — were killed. This pool of expertise could not be quickly replaced.
Torpedo Squadron 8, flying slow and obsolete TBD Devastators, attacked the Japanese fleet in a single wave. All 15 aircraft were shot down; only one pilot, Ensign George Gay, survived — floating in the water on a cushion, watching the rest of the battle unfold from the surface. Their sacrifice drew the Japanese fighter cover down low, leaving the fleet decks unprotected when the dive bombers arrived minutes later.
Midway is considered the turning point of the Pacific War. Japan never recovered its carrier advantage and was forced onto the defensive for the rest of the conflict. The United States, with its enormous industrial capacity, went on to build dozens of new carriers over the following years. Midway didn't end the war, but it ensured Japan could not win it.