Before talking about the fatal blows of the U.S. Navy Air Force on Nagashima Takaichi's First Fleet, it is necessary to look back at the decisions of the Americans.

On the morning of June 4, when the first ray of rays in the Pacific appeared on the horizontal line, Fletcher and Spruins were anxiously waiting for the reconnaissance report. Katarina, who took off on the Midway Island, had no update information except to discover Kondo Nobutake to the west. However, the two major generals did not think that the main force of the Japanese fleet was in the direction where Kondo Nobutake appeared, so they could only continue to wait patiently.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, at that moment, Fletcher made a decision and sent a cross SBD to search northeast of Midway. At that time, Fletcher's 17th Tycoon fleet sailed 15 nautical miles northeast of the 16th Tycoon fleet in Spruins.

At around 6 o'clock, Strawberry V on Midway finally sent the first key information: "A large number of enemy planes were discovered!"

Spruins later admitted: "I was relieved. Since Strawberry V could find a large number of enemy aircraft at that location, it means that the Japanese were in that direction!"

Yes, at this time, Strawberry V had not discovered the specific number and exact location of Nagashima Takashi'i's fleet, but said that the position of the enemy aircraft was 320 degrees and 150 nautical miles from Midway. At that time, Spruins immediately ordered Chief of Staff Colonel Max Browning to "send all the planes immediately to attack the enemy aircraft carrier as soon as possible!"

Almost at the same time, Fletcher made a similar decision: "There is only one way to deal with the Japanese, that is, attack them and attack them hard. We cannot miss the opportunity. We must take the initiative and launch an attack with lightning speed and thunderous force!"

Judging from the determination of the commanders of both sides, it is not on the same level. The Americans are trying their best to do their best, while Tadaichi Nagamo is still wasting his time with his mother-in-law and mother.

Not long after the two commanders of the US Navy made up their minds, Midway brought the most important report of Strawberry V: "Two aircraft carriers and two battleships. The azimuth is 320 degrees and the distance is 180 nautical miles, the course is 135 degrees, and the speed is 25 knots!"

Let me put it this way, at that time, Tadaichi Nagamo's fleet was about 200 nautical miles southwest of the US fleet. Two hundred nautical miles were 370 kilometers. Perhaps today, this distance was nothing, but in that year, the distance was a bit awkward.

Yes. It makes the Americans a little embarrassed. Specifically, it makes the TBD look awkward. This very bad torpedo aircraft has a maximum speed of only 330 kilometers per hour. When carrying a Mark13 torpedo, the range is only 700 kilometers. That is to say, unless the TBD is flying at high altitude throughout the entire journey, it can only be barely enough to fly a round trip. If an attack is to be launched immediately, it is very likely that these TBDs will not be able to return to the mothership. It is not an easy decision to let the pilot float on the sea.

Fletcher quickly made a decision in an emergency, and he sent a signal to Spruins: "Sailing southwest, find out the exact position of the enemy ship and attack immediately!" Spruins quickly implemented this order. Although he was quite concerned, his chief of staff, Colonel Browning, helped him to strengthen his determination.

Speaking of Colonel Browning, he is actually Halsey's chief of staff. As we all know, Halsey recommended Spruins to take over as commander of the 17th Special Mixed Fleet, so the chief of staff was also left to Spruins.

In Halsey's opinion, Browning was an amazing person. But to others, this guy's temper was so fucked, he was simply an old man. Later, Spruins joked: "In the Pacific War, everyone hated him to the core!" Of course, the general also admitted: "Browning was smart and agile!"

Browning is a professional aviation expert, and this aspect is not available to Spruins, who was a commander of the cruiser fleet. At that time, Browning estimated that Japanese attack aircraft could complete the attack mission at about 9 a.m. to return to the mothership (the judgment was basically accurate). Before that, Tadaichi Nagamo was unlikely to change his course (otherwise the Tomonaga's cluster would not be able to find the mothership). He suggested that Spruins launch an attack before the enemy aircraft carrier completes its recovery operation, and it is best to launch an attack immediately!

Browning suggested: "I think it is necessary to take the initiative before Nakamoto Takaichi launched a second attack, which can not only prevent further losses from Midway Island, but also ensure our own safety."

This time Spruins did not lose his chain. He quickly decided to let the TBD take the risk and sacrifice his best to attack the enemy. However, the American TBD pilots at that time did not think there was anything wrong with letting them take the risk and sacrifice. For example, the squadron leader of the VT-8 squadron of the Hornet, Navy Major John Waldron. He firmly advocated launching an attack immediately.

At that time, he gave his subordinates the final pre-war instructions: "I don't believe that the Japanese will continue to attack Midway. Once the Japanese discover our reconnaissance plane, they will immediately turn around and deal with us. Our fleet is completely within the enemy's effective strike radius. Guys. We must take the lead and take the initiative. Only by killing the Japanese will our fleet be safe, and it all depends on ours!"

When a pilot asked how to find them if he didn't know the exact location of the Japanese fleet, the squadron leader replied confidently: "Guys, believe in my intuition and just fly with me!"

Believe intuition, this seems nonsense, but it is a joke, because Waldron has been telling his subordinates that he has one-eighth Indian bloodline, which gives him super perception ability and can lead them to find all goals.

However, the Americans still have a lot of trouble at this time. The first thing they are to bear is that the escort fighter jets are really limited. Each US aircraft carrier has only 25 to 27 fighter jets. The number of these fighter jets is too small and they also have to take into account the fleet's air defense, so the number of those who can be sent out to escort the offensive troops is quite limited.

At that time, the Enterprise V-6 squadron had only 10 wildcats to take off and escort, and how many attack aircraft did they have to cover? 33 SBDs and 14 TBDs! Moreover, the cruise altitudes of dive bombers and torpedoes were completely different. The cruise altitudes of SBDs were higher, while the TBD was much lower. How to take into account two different aircraft groups at the same time became a big problem!

At that time, Captain James Gray, the squadron leader of the V-6 squadron, and Captain Arthur Erie, jointly agreed on a liaison method with the VT-6 combat staff. Captain Gray will strive to fly at an altitude that can provide protection for these two types of attack aircraft at the same time. If the torpedo aircraft is attacked by zero war, the VT-6 squadron will call Gray: "James come down!"

This arrangement seems reasonable. Because Gray's 4-4 fighter dives to the combat height of the torpedo aircraft is much easier than climbing to the combat height of the dive bomber (the wildcat's climbing ability is indeed average).

However, the situation later was completely unexpected. The US military's torpedo aircraft actually attacked alone without protection, and naturally it was wiped out. From this point of view, the Red Navy was much stronger than the US Navy at that time. First of all, the Red Navy had more fighter jets. In addition to fighter jets that hold umbrellas for the fleet, it could also distribute a considerable number of troops to cover attack aircraft. Secondly, the Red Navy had only one attack aircraft, and there was no gap in flight performance. The only difference was whether it was loading bombs or torpedoes into the bullet cabin (of course, it was indeed a problem that the RO-2 had no outstanding performance in all aspects, but it was basically enough.)

Around seven o'clock, the two aircraft carriers of the 16th Special Mixed Fleet began to sail against the wind and began aviation operations. As of 7:55, the Hornet completed its aviation operations and moved closer to the Enterprise. In about an hour, the two aircraft carriers released 116 fighter jets.

At this time, I'm afraid some comrades are asking questions. Why is it just the Sixteenth Special Mixed Fleet working? What is Fletcher's 17th Special Mixed Fleet doing? Why not launch an attack together?

Fletcher's idea at this time was actually quite interesting. He ordered Spruins to attack immediately, but left York City as a reserve team at the same time. The reason was that he believed that the previous Strawberry V reconnaissance report only mentioned the discovery of two Japanese aircraft carriers, but with the strength of the Japanese Navy at that time, it was impossible to send only two aircraft carriers to Midway to fight.

Fletcher believed that the enemy had aircraft carriers not discovered. The function of York City was to launch an attack by York City once the enemy's remaining aircraft carriers were discovered. In fact, Fletcher was scared by the Battle of the Coral Sea. At that time, he sent all attack aircraft to attack Xiangfeng in one go, and ended up exposing his fleet to the attack of Xianghe and Ruihe. As a smart man, he believed that one must learn from his mistakes.

But from the perspective of later generations, Fletcher's way of growing wise is a bit of that, because this time his deliberate reservation has led to a disaster! In fact, the four aircraft carriers of Nagamoto were clustered together and concentrated on a wave of full-strength attacks. Maybe he would not have let go of the Tianlong. If he had solved four aircraft carriers in one wave, naturally, York City would not have been injured twice in a row and finally made the submarine attack succeed.

But Fletcher chose to keep it aside. This led to the weakening of the momentum of the first wave of attacks, giving Yamaguchi Daoshi a chance. Of course, this cannot be completely blamed. It is understandable to be cautious from his perspective. Moreover, his aircraft carrier had previously released cross SBDs for reconnaissance, waiting for these aircraft to return and then attack in one wave.

Of course, to be fair, this decision is still problematic, and Fletcher's luck is too bad. How to say it? This future admiral can be said to be the enemy of the American aircraft carrier. During the Battle of Coral Sea, he lost the Lexington and seriously injured York City, and then lost York City in the Battle of Midway. When he arrived at the Battle of Solomon, he injured the Enterprise again. Then when he was cruising in Guadalcanal, Saratoga was attacked and injured by a submarine.

In the words of Admiral Jin, "This man is so lucky that he is not suitable to go to the front line to command the battle!"

Back to the topic, it was about 15 minutes after 8. Spruins, who had just completed aviation operations, received bad news. The Northampton patrol reported to him: "A enemy plane was found with a 185-degree position and a distance of 30 nautical miles. The type of aircraft is a single-engine double-floor-seater!"

It was obvious that this was the 95 water reconnaissance that the Japanese Ligan took off, which made Spruins realize that the position of his fleet had been exposed and was very worried that the advantage of winning by surprise had been lost. But it was too late to think about it now, and the attack cluster had set sail. The only thing he could do was pray that his young men would be lucky.

The combat method that Spruins envisioned was to fighter cover torpedoes and dive bombers to attack together, so he sent a huge cluster of 116 aircraft. The unification was led by Lieutenant Colonel Stanup Lin, the commander of the flight brigade. However, at this time, Tadichi Nakamoto also began to change the direction of the fleet. At 9:17, the Akagi turned to a 70-degree sailing and approached the US special-mix fleet. What was funny at this time was that the US reconnaissance aircraft had been observing the movements of the Japanese fleet, but did not inform his fleet of this important information!

After the war, Bumblebee's aviation combat staff, Navy Major J.G., complained with resentment: "We failed to get enough intelligence support from our own land-based forces. This caused quite undue losses!"

So when the Hornet's dive bombers and fighters arrived in the predetermined airspace, they did not find Nagamo Tadaichi's fleet at all. Moreover, the day was not good. During the flight, because of the sudden clouds, Waldron's TBD and Lieutenant Colonel Lin's SBD quickly lost contact.

In order to search for the fleet of friendly aircraft and enemy, Lieutenant Colonel Lin, who was in the middle command, organized the aircraft into a reconnaissance formation. This formation flight method was understandable at the time, but there were problems. Because to maintain a line-up of reconnaissance formation, it was necessary to continuously adjust the accelerator, and every time the accelerator was adjusted, it would inevitably consume more gasoline. Even worse, Lieutenant Colonel Lin was also very lucky. He turned around the sea and did not find Tadaichi Nagamo. In desperation, he had to take his young man back to the Hornet.

The one who was lucky was not only this Lieutenant Colonel Lin, but also the 13 SBDs led by Major Robert Johnson were even worse. They were unable to find the Japanese fleet and flew around over Midway Island. Because they did not know the correct enemy-to-me recognition signals, in order to indicate that they were their own people, he ordered the bomb to be thrown into the sea. However, at this time, the artillery soldiers on Midway Island had become nervous by Japanese planes, misjudged this friendly signal, and immediately launched a fierce attack on their formation.

The pilot of the Hornet was indeed unlucky. Except for the dive bomber that did not find the Japanese fleet, the fighter troops were even worse. The long-term search and escort exhausted their fuel. Then they all made a forcibly landing on the sea. The squadron leader Mitchell, his combat staff and another naval lieutenant landed close to each other, and was able to share two life rafts and an emergency ration. After four days and 20 hours of sea drifting (and encountered sharks during this period), they were dying and were rescued by a PBY.

Do you still remember Major Waldron, who has one-eighth Indian blood? I have to say that sometimes this talent bonus is really incredible. When all the other comrades on the Hornet were blind, only this one relied on his talent intuition to find the correct position of Nagashima Takaichi's fleet!

"We rushed straight towards the Japanese fleet, as if Waldron had a rope tied to the enemy ship!" Captain George Guy said in a recollection of the scene at that time.

The members of the VT-8 squadron actually have no combat experience at all. For example, Captain Guy above was a student of the Agricultural Machinery Academy before going to Pensacola Naval Flight Academy to train. He took off from the Hornet that morning. It was the first time he took off from an aircraft carrier with a torpedo in his life. According to his own recollection, "I have never seen anyone else do this." It can be seen that there were still problems in the training of the US Navy carrier-based aircraft pilots at that time.

At 9:18, the Chuma discovered this batch of torpedo planes, and at this moment, Captain Tonaga's last plane landed on the deck. At that time, the Chuma immediately released two smoke as a barrier and immediately began to shoot at the air. Then the Akagi also discovered this batch of torpedo planes and began to avoid them. In the words of Shi Jinda, "The enemy planes were like a group of water birds flying from a distant lake."

Captain Guy was looking forward to launching an attack quickly, while Waldron did something he thought was more important. In a limited time, he quickly telegrammed Spruins. Unfortunately, due to the distance too far and the TBD flying too low, Spruins did not receive this important telegram.

Next, Waldron began to attack. He originally wanted to attack Akagi, but under the siege of Zero War, he could not do it at all. He had no choice but to attack the one in the center of the three aircraft carriers. According to Gay's estimate, there were about 35 Zero War attacks on them, and the Japanese ship's anti-aircraft guns also opened fire fiercely.

Although the Japanese side claimed that American aircraft had been shot down, Guy certainly did not have any TBDs hit by anti-aircraft artillery, and his plane was the only aircraft close to the target and entered the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery shooting range. Most of the remaining TBDs were shot down by dense zero battles before they had time to drop torpedoes (including squadron leader Waldron).

A torpedo plane rushed towards Akagi, as if he wanted to bring a bullet to hit the bridge. Kusato Ryunosuke recalled: "I thought it was over at that time, but fortunately he did not hit the bridge, but fell into the sea!"

Obviously, the torpedo aircraft that Kusatar Ryunosuke saw was the one that was the only surviving Captain Guy in history. Later, Guy recalled: "The left fuel tank of the squadron leader's plane caught fire. He stood up and desperately wanted to break free from the flaming cockpit..."

Waldron's squadron disappeared like this, and it seemed like he had contributed no contribution, but history would tell us that he and his young man completed a great assist that could change history! (To be continued.)

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Chapter completed!