July 11, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, here’s Stephen Ambrose telling the story of America’s payback for Pearl Harbor—Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo—and the Japanese response, the Battle of Midway.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we love to tell
stories about our nation's history. Stephen Ambrose was one of
America's leading historians. At the core of his success was
his belief that history is biography, that history is about people.
Ambrose passed away in two thousand and two, but his
storytelling accounts can now be heard here in Our American Stories,
(00:31):
thanks to those who run his estate. Here's Ambrose telling
the story of America's payback for Pearl Harbor, Jimmy Doolittle's
raid on Tokyo, and the Japanese response the Battle of Midway.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
The first good news to come to the American people,
the first good news produced by the American armed forces,
came on April eighteenth, nineteen forty two, almost five months
into the war, before there was any kind of an
American counter strike against the Japanese.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It came on.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
April eighteenth, and it came in the form of Jimmy
Doolittle's famous raid over Tokyo. But it was a very
risky operations for the Americans to mount again using that
what were now was now becoming recognized as the wholly
new weapon of war at sea, the aircraft carrier and
(01:27):
the aircraft carriers that we had, the Hornet and the Enterprise,
and the Lexington and New York Town. The only ones
we had in the fleet had escaped Pearl Harbor because
they weren't there. They were used to mount this raid,
which meant they had to sail pretty close to Tokyo,
within about three hundred miles, which is for them a
(01:51):
very high risk operation in order to carry out a
raid that had no meaning to it other than the
moral and morale and psychological aspect to it. What they
did was to mount a operation. Under the command of
the Army Air Force's most famous pilot, General James Doolittle.
(02:14):
He'd been training his men for a couple of months
for this how to take B twenty five's off of
the deck of an aircraft carrier. It seemed impossible to
Kate to get a big two engine bomber fully loaded
with fuel and bombs off of the aircraft carrier. But
they practiced down in Florida and got pretty good at it,
and then practiced at See and got so they could
do it. And on April eighteenth, they launched too far
(02:34):
away from the target, but the carriers had been spotted
by a Japanese fishing boat that had been blown out
of the water, but you couldn't be sure they hadn't
gotten a radio message off already. So the decision was
made to launch do a little way too far away,
and then they were going to have to come over
to Tokyo drop their bombs, and then too far to
(02:54):
fly back to the carriers, so they'd have to continue
on into China to try to get to as far
into China as the unoccupied parts and make their landings. Well,
it isn't the best way to go into action, to
be told, go hit your target and then fly on
as far as you can and pray God that you
can get to friendly territory, and then pray God you
(03:14):
can find a place to land when you get there.
In fact, it worked out pretty well. The raid itself
caused some fires in Tokyo and did some damage, by
no means enough to justify even the expenditure of fuel
that had gone into this raid. Better to cause some
physical damage. Some pilots were shot down over Japan, others
(03:37):
were not able to make it to chang Kai Shehex China.
They came down and occupied China.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
These pilots were put on trial.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
By the Japanese and executed, which infuriated the American people
as much as the Baton Death March did. A majority
of the pilots, however, did get into unoccupied China and
eventually got back into the war, including Doolittle.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Him self who was on the raid.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But for all that, the raid was terribly expensive and
a big diversion of resources and a major portion of
the resources available in the Pacific at the time, and
did so little damage as to be just negligible.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Oh, it was a great triumph.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It lifted spirits in the United States as nothing else
could do. It was the perfect time, and it was
the perfect act to help American morale at a time
when you desperately needed some kind of a lift where
we struck back. It also had a terrific psychological effect
on Yamamato and the Japanese leadership in general, because Yamamato
(04:41):
had promised the emperor that no American bombs would ever.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Fall in Japan, and it had a big effect.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
This little pinprick raid had a big effect on the
strategy of the war.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Because it was in response to.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The disgrace of American planes having bombed Tokyo that Yamamato
and his staff began working on the plans for what
was to become the Battle of Midway, a battle that
Yamamado sought in order to drive the Americans further east
in the Pacific so that they could never again launch
a carrier based rate against Tokyo. And let's take a
(05:27):
look at the Japanese Empire at its peak. At the
beginning of May of nineteen forty two, most of Burma
was in Japanese hands. Thailand was a neutral but supporting
Japan and somewhat the same relationship to Japan as Franco
and Spain were to Hitler.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Indo.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
China, of course, had been occupied by the Japanese. The
eastern two fifths of China was in Japanese hands, as
was Manchuria, as was Korea to the south, the Dutch
East Indies today's Indonesia, British Malaya, the Great Fortress of Singapore,
(06:15):
all of the Philippines, most of New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands and out here to the Gilberts and the Marshalls,
and the Carolines had all been taken by the Japanese.
The Americans had managed to hold onto Wake Island, through
to Christmas time of nineteen forty one, and then had
(06:35):
lost the little tiny island called Wake, so that the
Japanese lining extent are all the way to Midway Island,
which is a pretty grand sounding name for what's actually
a very small little island without much in the way
of capacity at all. And eventually the Gapmeese were to
take some American territory up here at the westernmost tip
(06:58):
of Alaska in the Aleutian Islands at too in Kisko.
So this is an enormous area that Japan had overrun
more than Japan was capable of defending. And in this
and at about the same time it happened with Hitler
who in nineteen forty two launched another offensive into the
(07:19):
Soviet Union. They had conquered more than they could defend,
but they had caught in both cases the victory disease,
that is, having won a long string of victories, they
figured these would go on until they had taken the
whole world. The Japanese also had the problem of every
time they would take a new position, say the Gilberts
(07:42):
for example, or Wake Island, then they would think, well,
we ought to go just a little bit further East
and take that next island group out there in order
to defend this one. And they had taken that one
in the first place in order to defend this one,
so that the whole logic of events kept them expanding
a time when they should have been contracting and digging
(08:02):
their trenches. So it was what they didn't have was
peace of the United States, and they had the United
States very angry, very determined to press on with this war.
So the Japanese thought, we got to take the rest
of New Guinea, we got to take part Moresbeed, and
then we got to go down and take Australia. And
(08:24):
once we've got Australia, the Americans are going to be
so far away and it's sech distances to get to
any part of our.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Empire that they're going to have to give up the war.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So they began to gather another task force to come
down down here between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
and to come on down into Australia and take Australia.
The naval forces that were preceding this invasion force came
through on May fifth of nineteen forty two into the Corps,
(09:02):
and on May eighth, were found by American carrier based
planes and the Battle of the Coil Sea that ensued
the first battle in history. No one in the opposing
fleet saw each other. It was entirely an aircraft battle
between carrier based planes from the Japanese and from the Americans.
(09:24):
The battle was tactically a draw. The Japanese sank the Lexington,
which is twenty five percent of America's carrier strength in
the Pacific, and they very badly damaged the York Town.
But the Japanese lost a carrier themselves. More important, they
(09:46):
lost their momentum.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
They had been checked.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And you're listening to the great Stephen Ambrose, and now
you know why I call him great. This is our
American stories. More with Steven Ambrose after these messages, and
(10:09):
we continue with our American stories and with Stephen Ambrose.
We just heard how the Doolittle raid on Tokyo checked
the Japanese and forced them into, let's face it, some
unforced errors. Let's continue with Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
The Japanese, who had up until this time looked as
much like supermen in Asia as the Germans that looked
like supermen in Europe until the Battle of Moscow, in
December of nineteen forty one.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
The Japanese now suddenly looked vulnerable human people who.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Made mistakes, people who overreached themselves. And this all leads
us up to the Battle of Midway.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yar Motto, as I said, was.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
A man who had lost face because of the Doolittle raid.
It was determined to make that up. I wouldn't want
to make it quite that personal. This battle in Midway
is one that the two fleets, the Japanese and American,
have been planning really since nineteen nineteen. This great naval
battle was going to take place in the Central Pacific
that was going to decide the fate of the Pacific.
(11:23):
Ya Alamado decided this is pretty good thing on his
part to draw the Americans out into this all out
battle before the Americans could repair the damage done at
Pearl Harbor, and certainly before the Americans, who were now
in a feverish building program in the States, could produce
a new fleet. The Americans would never be weaker, japan
(11:45):
would never be stronger, was a young Motto's attitude. If
we can draw them into this great climactic battle, now
we'll win it, and then we can take Hawaii and
then we can dare the man take Australia and New Zealand,
and we can dare the.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Americans to try to come back.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
The plan that he came up with was exceedingly complex
and called for the whole of the Japanese fleet to
be involved in it. He called Japanese cruisers and destroyers
and aircraft carriers back from Japan's far flung frontier to
gather together in the Home Islands to get ready for
(12:23):
the movement out to Midway Island. He sent one part
of this and then he divided his fleet up. He's
been much criticized for this, and maybe rightly so. So
many little things went wrong for Yama motto in this battle.
You really have to give him a lot of credit
for what he was able to accomplish. And wonder if
(12:43):
maybe God, I mean, just keep this in mind as
I talk about this battle, maybe God doesn't sometimes really
does take sides, because this American victory at Midway in
some ways was just dumb luck. Anyway, Yama model has
been much criticized for way too complex a plan. One
group with destroyers and an aircraft carrier going up here
(13:04):
to the Aleutians to carry out a bombing attack on
Dutch Harbor up here at un Alaska, and to actually
occupy the islands of Attu and Kiska.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
This was a diversionary attack.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Designed to make the Americans think that there was a
serious threat to Alaska or the possibility that this was
a staging operation for an attack into Siberia. Meanwhile, three
different task force would come out of the Home Islands
headed for Midway. The first would be the main carrier
task force, four carriers strong. Then would come a battleship
(13:45):
aircraft carrier mixed task force with one full size and
two small aircraft carriers in it. And then finally the
main battle fleet, and that second task force would carry
I don't know a dozen or more transports, a few
thousand men who were going to occupy Midway Island army troops.
And then the main task force under Yamamado himself, which
(14:07):
would have the most of the battleships, and another and
yet another aircraft carrier following along behind, and submarines spread
all across the Pacific to watch for the American fleet
spread out between Midway and Honolulu in a semi circle,
so that these submary and also flying reconnaissance missions from
(14:30):
the aircraft carriers in this area to watch the American fleet,
which yam Moatto assumed was in Hawaii and on receiving
news in an attack, and their Midway was underway, which
Yamamato thought they would never get until the attack actually started,
the Americans would have to come out to defend Midway,
and he could have his whole fleet there to meet him,
(14:52):
battleships with fourteen inch guns, six aircraft carriers, all of
these cruisers and destroyers to meet this American fleet that
was really down to three aircraft carriers and a few destroyers,
and American seapower Pacific would be gone at the conclusion
of the day. Won the bad plan, but things began
(15:13):
to go wrong even before.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It got started.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
The first thing that went wrong goes back to this
business of the Japanese.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That conquered more than was good for them.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Their empire had become so large that it was very
hard to communicate between Tokyo and the outer most fringes
of their empire's frontier. That meant, for example, very practical,
very small thing. Nations in the period of the radio
of the wireless transmission have learned to make codes, because
(15:49):
obviously you send out a message over the radio, anybody
can pick it up, so you put it in code
so that anybody who picks it up can't read it.
Anybody can break code. I mean, if you can make
a code, you can break a code. Never been a
code yet that can't be broken. Germans thought they had one,
turned out they didn't. Japanese thought they had one. They're
(16:10):
so called purple code. They thought was unbreakable, especially if
you take proper precautions, one part of which is you
change the code every month, change your settings, so that
the cryptoanalysis teams that are looking at this stuff have
to start as almost brand new each month.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
But the Japanese Empire had gotten so big they couldn't
get the new code books.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Out to the units out on the edge of the
empire in time, so that the code change it should
have come on April first, nineteen forty two, was not
put into effect. And that meant that all the work
that the American code breakers in Hawaii had been putting
(16:57):
in on the Japanese code in Mars didn't just come
to an end at the end of March. They could
go right on into April. Because the Japanese were still
using the same code.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It was obvious from the flow of traffic after the
Coral Sea Battle that the Japanese fleet was concentrating the
younger model was bringing him in from everywhere and putting
the whole of his fleet together, and it was much
bigger than anything the Americans had in the Pacific.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The question was where are they going to attack?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
The code breakers were reading it dependent and in some
cases you could read even half of a message, and
other cases all you could make out was that a
message had been since very very seldom that you could
read as much as ninety percent in a message. But
you put the whole thing together, this is extremely difficult work.
(17:50):
You put it all together and you can come up
with some patterns and some hard information. The patterns and
hard information they came up with. Whereas I've said that
the fleet is gathering, now where is it going to strike?
They even knew what the target was. X Y was
the Japanese designation of the target. They just didn't know
(18:11):
where XY was. The man in charge of code breaking
in Hawaii, a naval officer named Rochefort, said, I think
it's Midway that they're after. But his Sappiors. It can't
be Midway. They can't be bringing their whole fleet together
for so small an objective as that. It's got to
(18:33):
be something bigger. They must be after Hawaii itself. And
therefore we ought to prepare the defenses in Hawaii and
forget about Midway.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose tell one heck of
a story, one of the great naval battles in history,
certainly the turning point in World War Two. And now
we're hearing the stories of these remarkable code breakers. And
what a job that was, what a responsibility? Without that information?
(19:04):
How do we act? How do we know what to do?
And to have our best and brightest going to work
every day to try and out smart their best and brightest.
It does not get better than this, the great Stephen
Ambrose taking us home after these commercial messages. This is
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories.
(19:40):
And when we last left off, Stephen Ambrose was telling
the story of naval Commander Joseph Rochfort's code breaking prediction
that Japan's next attack would be on a small Pacific
island called Midway. Is Superiors thought the Japanese would try
to invade the Hawaiian Islands. Let's return to Ambro.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Roche Fort was certain that he was right, and he
came up with an ingenious way of proving it. He
persuaded his bosses to have the garrison on Midway Island
send out a low level coded message saying that they
were out of fresh water and their desolemnization plant had
(20:24):
broken down and they needed fresh water. And then, sure enough,
doesn't Rochfort pick up a message three or four days
later from Tokyo to Yamamado's fleet saying, X, Y is
out of fresh water. You better put some more water
on those transports, and he had them. So the Americans
(20:44):
had an advantage that the defense almost never has in battle.
The side of the offense always has this great advantage.
They know where and when the battle is going to
be fought.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Ah, but this time we knew too.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Even better, Nimmet's knew, and Yamamato didn't know that he knew.
So Yamamato and the Japanese admirals proceeded with their plans
on the assumption that surprise was going to be achieved,
and after all, they had done it so well at
Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
They were the experts at this.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Bull Halsey was commander of the American aircraft carriers. He
was one of the legendary heroes of the war. But
he came down with a severe attack of shingles at
this time, and so Admiral Nimitts had to replace him
with Admiral Spruans, who took command then for the Battle
of Midway. Spruans had three aircraft carriers for really two
(21:39):
and a half.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
He had the Enterprise, the Hornet, and the York Town.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Now, the Yorktown had been so badly damaged, and Carl
c that the Japanese had listed it as sunk, and
in fact it had been towed back to Honolulu and
arrived in Honolulu at the very end of May. The
naval officers who went on board to look at the
damage to the York Town, which was put into dry dock,
(22:09):
estimated that we can have this baby fixed up and
ready to go to see again in ninety days.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Realan said, you.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Got three You got three days for the next three days,
and they worked twenty four hours a day through all
precautions to the winds, turned on the floodlights at night.
The welders worked twenty four hours a day. Three days later,
the Yorktown sailed on the third of June, with still
(22:37):
a lot of carpenters and welders and civilians on board
who were not at all happy to be going into
a middle of a battle. But they got the York
Town there and got her out in time. The American fleet,
the three carriers got up to the north.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
To the west of Midway.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
When the Japanese began the attack on Midway on the
morning of June fourth, with their dive bombers.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And their fighter aircraft.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
They did considerable damage to the facilities at Midway, but
they didn't put the airfield out of operation, and they
took some pretty heavy losses themselves. Through the rest of
the morning and on into the afternoon, the various airplanes
on Midway undertook strikes against this Japanese carrier fleet that,
(23:33):
as I said, was out in front. B seventeens went
after him, B twenty fours went after him. Marine fighter
planes went after Marine dive bombers went after him, and
not a single hit was.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Scored, not one.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
This was primarily because the Japanese had a very effective
air cover over their carriers, and the Zero was just
a much better plane than anything the United States had,
and more maneuverable and could attain higher altitudes. So the
attempt on the part of the people on Midway to
(24:10):
defend themselves failed utterly. However, the pilots came back and said,
we need to hit Midway again. That airfield is still usable.
They still got strength on Midway. We need to hit
it again.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
The Japanese admirals were worried about where are the American carriers.
That was always their biggest s worry, where are the
American carriers. They had sent scout planes out towards Hawaii
to watch for the American carriers, expecting them to come out.
That never occurred to the American carriers were laying out
(24:44):
there north of Midway Island. The plane, although there were
cautious enough to ascent planes in every direction, the plane
that was going in this direction, which would have taken
them right over the top of the American carrier fleet,
developed engine trouble and was an hour late getting off,
(25:04):
so that the Japanese didn't know that the American carriers
were in the area. Now the call came for let's
hit Midway again Japanese planes had landed. The lead pilot
had gone up onto the deck of the carrier and
talked to the admirals up there and said, we need
to hit them again now. At this time, the Japanese
(25:26):
were reloading their planes with torpedoes for the torpedo planes
and putting iron.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Bombs on their bombers.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
They're light one engine bombers, putting on armor piercing bombs.
Thinking now we've hit Midway, we've knocked it out. Now
the Americans are going to attack us sooner or later,
probably sooner. When they do, they'll have revealed their positions
or we'll find them, and we're going after those carriers.
And we're going to go after those carriers where torpedoes
and armor piercing bombs.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Now they change their mind, we're gonna go back and
hit me again.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So it was unload all those torpedoes and unload all
those armor piercing bombs and load them up with bombs
that are appropriate to hit the airfield at Midway. This
process took about an hour, and it left the Japanese
for some period of time without any fighter air cover,
which would Jon Modo quickly made up for by getting
(26:23):
some zeros down and gassed up and re new loads
of ammunition and got those zeros up for fire cover again. Meanwhile,
Admostpruance now had word as to where the Japanese were,
and although he was at the extreme limits of the
range of his fighters, he ordered everyone that could fly
into the air and go out after that Japanese fleet
(26:45):
and put it in the bottom of the ocean. Some
planes never did find the Japanese fleet. The torpedo planes did,
and they came in, two squadrons of them, and they
took the first squadron one hundred percent losses, the next
nine percent losses, and were unable to score any hits
at all. Probably that was because those torpedoes ran too deep.
(27:08):
That is, there were pilots who did everything right and
then had to walk helplessly as the torpedoes just went
underneath the Japanese aircraft carriers. A squadron from the York
Town carrying bombs dive bombers, the last in the air
that had any chance at all of inflicting any damage
whatsoever in the Japanese fleet was just about at the
(27:30):
absolute limit.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Of its range.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
We're going to have to turn around and fly back
to the aircraft carriers that there's going to be any
hope at all of recovery that day. McCluskey was the
guy's name was half Indian, the squadron leader and the ten.
McClusky was just about to get the order when there
was breaking the clouset. He looked down and here were
the four Japanese carriers, all of them at.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
This time intact.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I wait, the United States have thne everything it had
at him from Midway and from the other carriers, and
hadn't done the slightest damage.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
And here they were, the four carriers down there.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Let's go, he said, and these dive bombers began coming
down on him. The Japanese zeros were all down at
water level fighting off torpedo bombers unmolested. These dive bombers
came in and dropped their bombs right down the stacks
and the Japanese carriers, and within five minutes the Japanese
fleet was gone, not quite literally, one aircraft carrier was
(28:23):
still afloat, but in those five minutes the history of
the Pacific was changed forever. That was the great Battle
of the Pacific that for fifty years people had been
on both sides, been anticipating and looking forward to and
it was just went that quick. Three carriers to the bottom.
(28:44):
That fourth carrier, the plane that had gone out on
the search mission for Yorktown and Hornet Enterprise finally did
get off, finally found him, sent back word that he
had found him, gave the coordinates the Japanese off their
last remaining carrier able to get a flight out, that
went out and sank Yorktown.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That carrier itself was caught.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
The next day by American planes and was sunk, so
that the n SCAR was four Japanese carriers gone, one
American carrier gone, and the Japanese had been turned back.
This was the end of the Japanese offensive in World
War Two. They were never again to undertake a serious
offensive by sea. The Japanese Navy hadn't quite ceased to exist.
(29:30):
The boy, it was nothing like what it had been
five minutes before McCluskey broke through that cloud barrier.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And you've been listening to Steven Ambrose tell the story
of Midway, the backstory, the whole story. And a special
thanks to Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to the
Ambrose Estate for allowing us to keep these stories coming. Regrettably,
they're not taught in school anymore, and they should, because,
my goodness, would young boys and girls be riveted to
this story. People close to their age, if they're in
(29:58):
high school, were doing these things, They were running these missions,
they were going into battle. What a time to be
young and old to be living through something like this,
for better and for worse, the battle for Midway and beyond.
Here on our American stories
This is our American Stories, and we love to tell
stories about our nation's history. Stephen Ambrose was one of
America's leading historians. At the core of his success was
his belief that history is biography, that history is about people.
Ambrose passed away in two thousand and two, but his
storytelling accounts can now be heard here in Our American Stories,
(00:31):
thanks to those who run his estate. Here's Ambrose telling
the story of America's payback for Pearl Harbor, Jimmy Doolittle's
raid on Tokyo, and the Japanese response the Battle of Midway.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
The first good news to come to the American people,
the first good news produced by the American armed forces,
came on April eighteenth, nineteen forty two, almost five months
into the war, before there was any kind of an
American counter strike against the Japanese.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It came on.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
April eighteenth, and it came in the form of Jimmy
Doolittle's famous raid over Tokyo. But it was a very
risky operations for the Americans to mount again using that
what were now was now becoming recognized as the wholly
new weapon of war at sea, the aircraft carrier and
(01:27):
the aircraft carriers that we had, the Hornet and the Enterprise,
and the Lexington and New York Town. The only ones
we had in the fleet had escaped Pearl Harbor because
they weren't there. They were used to mount this raid,
which meant they had to sail pretty close to Tokyo,
within about three hundred miles, which is for them a
(01:51):
very high risk operation in order to carry out a
raid that had no meaning to it other than the
moral and morale and psychological aspect to it. What they
did was to mount a operation. Under the command of
the Army Air Force's most famous pilot, General James Doolittle.
(02:14):
He'd been training his men for a couple of months
for this how to take B twenty five's off of
the deck of an aircraft carrier. It seemed impossible to
Kate to get a big two engine bomber fully loaded
with fuel and bombs off of the aircraft carrier. But
they practiced down in Florida and got pretty good at it,
and then practiced at See and got so they could
do it. And on April eighteenth, they launched too far
(02:34):
away from the target, but the carriers had been spotted
by a Japanese fishing boat that had been blown out
of the water, but you couldn't be sure they hadn't
gotten a radio message off already. So the decision was
made to launch do a little way too far away,
and then they were going to have to come over
to Tokyo drop their bombs, and then too far to
(02:54):
fly back to the carriers, so they'd have to continue
on into China to try to get to as far
into China as the unoccupied parts and make their landings. Well,
it isn't the best way to go into action, to
be told, go hit your target and then fly on
as far as you can and pray God that you
can get to friendly territory, and then pray God you
(03:14):
can find a place to land when you get there.
In fact, it worked out pretty well. The raid itself
caused some fires in Tokyo and did some damage, by
no means enough to justify even the expenditure of fuel
that had gone into this raid. Better to cause some
physical damage. Some pilots were shot down over Japan, others
(03:37):
were not able to make it to chang Kai Shehex China.
They came down and occupied China.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
These pilots were put on trial.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
By the Japanese and executed, which infuriated the American people
as much as the Baton Death March did. A majority
of the pilots, however, did get into unoccupied China and
eventually got back into the war, including Doolittle.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Him self who was on the raid.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But for all that, the raid was terribly expensive and
a big diversion of resources and a major portion of
the resources available in the Pacific at the time, and
did so little damage as to be just negligible.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Oh, it was a great triumph.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It lifted spirits in the United States as nothing else
could do. It was the perfect time, and it was
the perfect act to help American morale at a time
when you desperately needed some kind of a lift where
we struck back. It also had a terrific psychological effect
on Yamamato and the Japanese leadership in general, because Yamamato
(04:41):
had promised the emperor that no American bombs would ever.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Fall in Japan, and it had a big effect.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
This little pinprick raid had a big effect on the
strategy of the war.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Because it was in response to.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The disgrace of American planes having bombed Tokyo that Yamamato
and his staff began working on the plans for what
was to become the Battle of Midway, a battle that
Yamamado sought in order to drive the Americans further east
in the Pacific so that they could never again launch
a carrier based rate against Tokyo. And let's take a
(05:27):
look at the Japanese Empire at its peak. At the
beginning of May of nineteen forty two, most of Burma
was in Japanese hands. Thailand was a neutral but supporting
Japan and somewhat the same relationship to Japan as Franco
and Spain were to Hitler.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Indo.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
China, of course, had been occupied by the Japanese. The
eastern two fifths of China was in Japanese hands, as
was Manchuria, as was Korea to the south, the Dutch
East Indies today's Indonesia, British Malaya, the Great Fortress of Singapore,
(06:15):
all of the Philippines, most of New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands and out here to the Gilberts and the Marshalls,
and the Carolines had all been taken by the Japanese.
The Americans had managed to hold onto Wake Island, through
to Christmas time of nineteen forty one, and then had
(06:35):
lost the little tiny island called Wake, so that the
Japanese lining extent are all the way to Midway Island,
which is a pretty grand sounding name for what's actually
a very small little island without much in the way
of capacity at all. And eventually the Gapmeese were to
take some American territory up here at the westernmost tip
(06:58):
of Alaska in the Aleutian Islands at too in Kisko.
So this is an enormous area that Japan had overrun
more than Japan was capable of defending. And in this
and at about the same time it happened with Hitler
who in nineteen forty two launched another offensive into the
(07:19):
Soviet Union. They had conquered more than they could defend,
but they had caught in both cases the victory disease,
that is, having won a long string of victories, they
figured these would go on until they had taken the
whole world. The Japanese also had the problem of every
time they would take a new position, say the Gilberts
(07:42):
for example, or Wake Island, then they would think, well,
we ought to go just a little bit further East
and take that next island group out there in order
to defend this one. And they had taken that one
in the first place in order to defend this one,
so that the whole logic of events kept them expanding
a time when they should have been contracting and digging
(08:02):
their trenches. So it was what they didn't have was
peace of the United States, and they had the United
States very angry, very determined to press on with this war.
So the Japanese thought, we got to take the rest
of New Guinea, we got to take part Moresbeed, and
then we got to go down and take Australia. And
(08:24):
once we've got Australia, the Americans are going to be
so far away and it's sech distances to get to
any part of our.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Empire that they're going to have to give up the war.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So they began to gather another task force to come
down down here between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
and to come on down into Australia and take Australia.
The naval forces that were preceding this invasion force came
through on May fifth of nineteen forty two into the Corps,
(09:02):
and on May eighth, were found by American carrier based
planes and the Battle of the Coil Sea that ensued
the first battle in history. No one in the opposing
fleet saw each other. It was entirely an aircraft battle
between carrier based planes from the Japanese and from the Americans.
(09:24):
The battle was tactically a draw. The Japanese sank the Lexington,
which is twenty five percent of America's carrier strength in
the Pacific, and they very badly damaged the York Town.
But the Japanese lost a carrier themselves. More important, they
(09:46):
lost their momentum.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
They had been checked.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And you're listening to the great Stephen Ambrose, and now
you know why I call him great. This is our
American stories. More with Steven Ambrose after these messages, and
(10:09):
we continue with our American stories and with Stephen Ambrose.
We just heard how the Doolittle raid on Tokyo checked
the Japanese and forced them into, let's face it, some
unforced errors. Let's continue with Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
The Japanese, who had up until this time looked as
much like supermen in Asia as the Germans that looked
like supermen in Europe until the Battle of Moscow, in
December of nineteen forty one.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
The Japanese now suddenly looked vulnerable human people who.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Made mistakes, people who overreached themselves. And this all leads
us up to the Battle of Midway.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yar Motto, as I said, was.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
A man who had lost face because of the Doolittle raid.
It was determined to make that up. I wouldn't want
to make it quite that personal. This battle in Midway
is one that the two fleets, the Japanese and American,
have been planning really since nineteen nineteen. This great naval
battle was going to take place in the Central Pacific
that was going to decide the fate of the Pacific.
(11:23):
Ya Alamado decided this is pretty good thing on his
part to draw the Americans out into this all out
battle before the Americans could repair the damage done at
Pearl Harbor, and certainly before the Americans, who were now
in a feverish building program in the States, could produce
a new fleet. The Americans would never be weaker, japan
(11:45):
would never be stronger, was a young Motto's attitude. If
we can draw them into this great climactic battle, now
we'll win it, and then we can take Hawaii and
then we can dare the man take Australia and New Zealand,
and we can dare the.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Americans to try to come back.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
The plan that he came up with was exceedingly complex
and called for the whole of the Japanese fleet to
be involved in it. He called Japanese cruisers and destroyers
and aircraft carriers back from Japan's far flung frontier to
gather together in the Home Islands to get ready for
(12:23):
the movement out to Midway Island. He sent one part
of this and then he divided his fleet up. He's
been much criticized for this, and maybe rightly so. So
many little things went wrong for Yama motto in this battle.
You really have to give him a lot of credit
for what he was able to accomplish. And wonder if
(12:43):
maybe God, I mean, just keep this in mind as
I talk about this battle, maybe God doesn't sometimes really
does take sides, because this American victory at Midway in
some ways was just dumb luck. Anyway, Yama model has
been much criticized for way too complex a plan. One
group with destroyers and an aircraft carrier going up here
(13:04):
to the Aleutians to carry out a bombing attack on
Dutch Harbor up here at un Alaska, and to actually
occupy the islands of Attu and Kiska.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
This was a diversionary attack.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Designed to make the Americans think that there was a
serious threat to Alaska or the possibility that this was
a staging operation for an attack into Siberia. Meanwhile, three
different task force would come out of the Home Islands
headed for Midway. The first would be the main carrier
task force, four carriers strong. Then would come a battleship
(13:45):
aircraft carrier mixed task force with one full size and
two small aircraft carriers in it. And then finally the
main battle fleet, and that second task force would carry
I don't know a dozen or more transports, a few
thousand men who were going to occupy Midway Island army troops.
And then the main task force under Yamamado himself, which
(14:07):
would have the most of the battleships, and another and
yet another aircraft carrier following along behind, and submarines spread
all across the Pacific to watch for the American fleet
spread out between Midway and Honolulu in a semi circle,
so that these submary and also flying reconnaissance missions from
(14:30):
the aircraft carriers in this area to watch the American fleet,
which yam Moatto assumed was in Hawaii and on receiving
news in an attack, and their Midway was underway, which
Yamamato thought they would never get until the attack actually started,
the Americans would have to come out to defend Midway,
and he could have his whole fleet there to meet him,
(14:52):
battleships with fourteen inch guns, six aircraft carriers, all of
these cruisers and destroyers to meet this American fleet that
was really down to three aircraft carriers and a few destroyers,
and American seapower Pacific would be gone at the conclusion
of the day. Won the bad plan, but things began
(15:13):
to go wrong even before.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It got started.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
The first thing that went wrong goes back to this
business of the Japanese.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That conquered more than was good for them.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Their empire had become so large that it was very
hard to communicate between Tokyo and the outer most fringes
of their empire's frontier. That meant, for example, very practical,
very small thing. Nations in the period of the radio
of the wireless transmission have learned to make codes, because
(15:49):
obviously you send out a message over the radio, anybody
can pick it up, so you put it in code
so that anybody who picks it up can't read it.
Anybody can break code. I mean, if you can make
a code, you can break a code. Never been a
code yet that can't be broken. Germans thought they had one,
turned out they didn't. Japanese thought they had one. They're
(16:10):
so called purple code. They thought was unbreakable, especially if
you take proper precautions, one part of which is you
change the code every month, change your settings, so that
the cryptoanalysis teams that are looking at this stuff have
to start as almost brand new each month.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
But the Japanese Empire had gotten so big they couldn't
get the new code books.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Out to the units out on the edge of the
empire in time, so that the code change it should
have come on April first, nineteen forty two, was not
put into effect. And that meant that all the work
that the American code breakers in Hawaii had been putting
(16:57):
in on the Japanese code in Mars didn't just come
to an end at the end of March. They could
go right on into April. Because the Japanese were still
using the same code.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It was obvious from the flow of traffic after the
Coral Sea Battle that the Japanese fleet was concentrating the
younger model was bringing him in from everywhere and putting
the whole of his fleet together, and it was much
bigger than anything the Americans had in the Pacific.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The question was where are they going to attack?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
The code breakers were reading it dependent and in some
cases you could read even half of a message, and
other cases all you could make out was that a
message had been since very very seldom that you could
read as much as ninety percent in a message. But
you put the whole thing together, this is extremely difficult work.
(17:50):
You put it all together and you can come up
with some patterns and some hard information. The patterns and
hard information they came up with. Whereas I've said that
the fleet is gathering, now where is it going to strike?
They even knew what the target was. X Y was
the Japanese designation of the target. They just didn't know
(18:11):
where XY was. The man in charge of code breaking
in Hawaii, a naval officer named Rochefort, said, I think
it's Midway that they're after. But his Sappiors. It can't
be Midway. They can't be bringing their whole fleet together
for so small an objective as that. It's got to
(18:33):
be something bigger. They must be after Hawaii itself. And
therefore we ought to prepare the defenses in Hawaii and
forget about Midway.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose tell one heck of
a story, one of the great naval battles in history,
certainly the turning point in World War Two. And now
we're hearing the stories of these remarkable code breakers. And
what a job that was, what a responsibility? Without that information?
(19:04):
How do we act? How do we know what to do?
And to have our best and brightest going to work
every day to try and out smart their best and brightest.
It does not get better than this, the great Stephen
Ambrose taking us home after these commercial messages. This is
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories.
(19:40):
And when we last left off, Stephen Ambrose was telling
the story of naval Commander Joseph Rochfort's code breaking prediction
that Japan's next attack would be on a small Pacific
island called Midway. Is Superiors thought the Japanese would try
to invade the Hawaiian Islands. Let's return to Ambro.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Roche Fort was certain that he was right, and he
came up with an ingenious way of proving it. He
persuaded his bosses to have the garrison on Midway Island
send out a low level coded message saying that they
were out of fresh water and their desolemnization plant had
(20:24):
broken down and they needed fresh water. And then, sure enough,
doesn't Rochfort pick up a message three or four days
later from Tokyo to Yamamado's fleet saying, X, Y is
out of fresh water. You better put some more water
on those transports, and he had them. So the Americans
(20:44):
had an advantage that the defense almost never has in battle.
The side of the offense always has this great advantage.
They know where and when the battle is going to
be fought.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Ah, but this time we knew too.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Even better, Nimmet's knew, and Yamamato didn't know that he knew.
So Yamamato and the Japanese admirals proceeded with their plans
on the assumption that surprise was going to be achieved,
and after all, they had done it so well at
Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
They were the experts at this.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Bull Halsey was commander of the American aircraft carriers. He
was one of the legendary heroes of the war. But
he came down with a severe attack of shingles at
this time, and so Admiral Nimitts had to replace him
with Admiral Spruans, who took command then for the Battle
of Midway. Spruans had three aircraft carriers for really two
(21:39):
and a half.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
He had the Enterprise, the Hornet, and the York Town.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Now, the Yorktown had been so badly damaged, and Carl
c that the Japanese had listed it as sunk, and
in fact it had been towed back to Honolulu and
arrived in Honolulu at the very end of May. The
naval officers who went on board to look at the
damage to the York Town, which was put into dry dock,
(22:09):
estimated that we can have this baby fixed up and
ready to go to see again in ninety days.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Realan said, you.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Got three You got three days for the next three days,
and they worked twenty four hours a day through all
precautions to the winds, turned on the floodlights at night.
The welders worked twenty four hours a day. Three days later,
the Yorktown sailed on the third of June, with still
(22:37):
a lot of carpenters and welders and civilians on board
who were not at all happy to be going into
a middle of a battle. But they got the York
Town there and got her out in time. The American fleet,
the three carriers got up to the north.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
To the west of Midway.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
When the Japanese began the attack on Midway on the
morning of June fourth, with their dive bombers.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And their fighter aircraft.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
They did considerable damage to the facilities at Midway, but
they didn't put the airfield out of operation, and they
took some pretty heavy losses themselves. Through the rest of
the morning and on into the afternoon, the various airplanes
on Midway undertook strikes against this Japanese carrier fleet that,
(23:33):
as I said, was out in front. B seventeens went
after him, B twenty fours went after him. Marine fighter
planes went after Marine dive bombers went after him, and
not a single hit was.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Scored, not one.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
This was primarily because the Japanese had a very effective
air cover over their carriers, and the Zero was just
a much better plane than anything the United States had,
and more maneuverable and could attain higher altitudes. So the
attempt on the part of the people on Midway to
(24:10):
defend themselves failed utterly. However, the pilots came back and said,
we need to hit Midway again. That airfield is still usable.
They still got strength on Midway. We need to hit
it again.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
The Japanese admirals were worried about where are the American carriers.
That was always their biggest s worry, where are the
American carriers. They had sent scout planes out towards Hawaii
to watch for the American carriers, expecting them to come out.
That never occurred to the American carriers were laying out
(24:44):
there north of Midway Island. The plane, although there were
cautious enough to ascent planes in every direction, the plane
that was going in this direction, which would have taken
them right over the top of the American carrier fleet,
developed engine trouble and was an hour late getting off,
(25:04):
so that the Japanese didn't know that the American carriers
were in the area. Now the call came for let's
hit Midway again Japanese planes had landed. The lead pilot
had gone up onto the deck of the carrier and
talked to the admirals up there and said, we need
to hit them again now. At this time, the Japanese
(25:26):
were reloading their planes with torpedoes for the torpedo planes
and putting iron.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Bombs on their bombers.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
They're light one engine bombers, putting on armor piercing bombs.
Thinking now we've hit Midway, we've knocked it out. Now
the Americans are going to attack us sooner or later,
probably sooner. When they do, they'll have revealed their positions
or we'll find them, and we're going after those carriers.
And we're going to go after those carriers where torpedoes
and armor piercing bombs.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Now they change their mind, we're gonna go back and
hit me again.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So it was unload all those torpedoes and unload all
those armor piercing bombs and load them up with bombs
that are appropriate to hit the airfield at Midway. This
process took about an hour, and it left the Japanese
for some period of time without any fighter air cover,
which would Jon Modo quickly made up for by getting
(26:23):
some zeros down and gassed up and re new loads
of ammunition and got those zeros up for fire cover again. Meanwhile,
Admostpruance now had word as to where the Japanese were,
and although he was at the extreme limits of the
range of his fighters, he ordered everyone that could fly
into the air and go out after that Japanese fleet
(26:45):
and put it in the bottom of the ocean. Some
planes never did find the Japanese fleet. The torpedo planes did,
and they came in, two squadrons of them, and they
took the first squadron one hundred percent losses, the next
nine percent losses, and were unable to score any hits
at all. Probably that was because those torpedoes ran too deep.
(27:08):
That is, there were pilots who did everything right and
then had to walk helplessly as the torpedoes just went
underneath the Japanese aircraft carriers. A squadron from the York
Town carrying bombs dive bombers, the last in the air
that had any chance at all of inflicting any damage
whatsoever in the Japanese fleet was just about at the
(27:30):
absolute limit.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Of its range.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
We're going to have to turn around and fly back
to the aircraft carriers that there's going to be any
hope at all of recovery that day. McCluskey was the
guy's name was half Indian, the squadron leader and the ten.
McClusky was just about to get the order when there
was breaking the clouset. He looked down and here were
the four Japanese carriers, all of them at.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
This time intact.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I wait, the United States have thne everything it had
at him from Midway and from the other carriers, and
hadn't done the slightest damage.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
And here they were, the four carriers down there.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Let's go, he said, and these dive bombers began coming
down on him. The Japanese zeros were all down at
water level fighting off torpedo bombers unmolested. These dive bombers
came in and dropped their bombs right down the stacks
and the Japanese carriers, and within five minutes the Japanese
fleet was gone, not quite literally, one aircraft carrier was
(28:23):
still afloat, but in those five minutes the history of
the Pacific was changed forever. That was the great Battle
of the Pacific that for fifty years people had been
on both sides, been anticipating and looking forward to and
it was just went that quick. Three carriers to the bottom.
(28:44):
That fourth carrier, the plane that had gone out on
the search mission for Yorktown and Hornet Enterprise finally did
get off, finally found him, sent back word that he
had found him, gave the coordinates the Japanese off their
last remaining carrier able to get a flight out, that
went out and sank Yorktown.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That carrier itself was caught.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
The next day by American planes and was sunk, so
that the n SCAR was four Japanese carriers gone, one
American carrier gone, and the Japanese had been turned back.
This was the end of the Japanese offensive in World
War Two. They were never again to undertake a serious
offensive by sea. The Japanese Navy hadn't quite ceased to exist.
(29:30):
The boy, it was nothing like what it had been
five minutes before McCluskey broke through that cloud barrier.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And you've been listening to Steven Ambrose tell the story
of Midway, the backstory, the whole story. And a special
thanks to Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to the
Ambrose Estate for allowing us to keep these stories coming. Regrettably,
they're not taught in school anymore, and they should, because,
my goodness, would young boys and girls be riveted to
this story. People close to their age, if they're in
(29:58):
high school, were doing these things, They were running these missions,
they were going into battle. What a time to be
young and old to be living through something like this,
for better and for worse, the battle for Midway and beyond.
Here on our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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