What was the a dilemma lol? That’s a no brainer! Montemayor narrates that although Nogumo has taken criticism any other admiral in the Japanese fleet would have made the same call. Of course! But maybe...

This day was to see the most impactful battle in the Pacific theater, one of the most impactful naval battles in the history of warfare. This was not to be Nogumo’s, or Japan’s day. Surprise at Midway was key for the Japanese as it had been for them six months earlier at Pearl Harbor. They tried to run the same trick play. How often do reruns work in football lol? The Japanese assumed that this was going to be Groundhog Day for the Americans too, that the Americans had made no advances now that the war had actually been underway for half a year. You are wrong zero breath. The Americans were not taken by surprise.

The Americans were not taken by surprise because they got the Japanese play book. They cracked the Japanese naval code. They knew when the attack was coming, they didn't know precisely where but look at the map of the Pacific. What is there between the coast of Japan and the coast of the U.S.? Whole lotta blue fucking ocean, bucko! They already had struck Pearl. That left Wake Island, Midway, and sperm whales. The Americans deduced the Japanese would attack Midway. Very good at deduction, we Americans. Highly intelligent. The Japanese chose Midway. So, the Americans got the carriers out of the path and hid them in the expanse of deep blue about 190 miles north of Midway as the Japanese steamed due east 3,000 miles on radio silence (you know, so as not to "give it away"). Noguma sent seven reconnaissance aircraft ahead east trying to confirm that the American carriers weren't loose and were still snug in harbor. Americans and like deep thinkers will recognize that if your carriers are north and the enemy is looking east for them there's a fair chance they won't see 'em. They didn't. Or at least they didn't get confirmation that the force spotted by a lone, late launching, off course, ditzy Japanese pilot contained carriers until it was too late, at 8:20 a.m., way outside Nogumo's Dilemma window for decision. 

Breaking the Japanese code was game, set, and match--if the Americans played it smart. And boy did they ever. The Americans knew Japanese carrier construction and configuration. The Americans knew that the Japanese could not multi-task on their carriers. They either had to launch or recover and they could not do both at the same time. The Americans knew that Japanese anti-aircraft gunnery was ineffective and that therefore the Japanese relied on CAP (Combat Air Patrol) and on maneuverability of their carriers to dodge enemy strikes. We've all seen those dramatic photographs of Japanese carriers desperately turning in circles to avoid getting hit. That was desperation by choice by the Japanese and they were quite good at it. The first three attack waves by the Americans scored zero hits by bomb, torpedo or anything else on the Japanese carriers. 

The Americans were confirming for the Japanese fleet commanders their assumption that the Americans were unskilled, untested bumpkins. And we were. Our torpedoes were a disaster. On the rare occasion when they hit a ship they went clank rather than boom. On far more frequent occasions they simply went far and wide of target. Our pilots couldn't aim their bombs straight. To repeat, not one bomb, not one torpedo hit a Japanese carrier in the first three attack waves.

Sometimes, not frequently, occasionally, Americans realize they are not all broke out with genius and make something of a silk purse out of the sow's ear. Midway was one of those occasions. The American air commanders deliberately sent in their most inexperienced pilots in big lumbering Buffaloes without fighter escort. They were essentially suicide missions, which make the American stomach a little queasy, but that is what they were and that is what they became. Why? Two things: one, to reinforce Japanese prejudice; two, and this was the beauty part, not the queasy part, the American commanders wanted to keep Nogumo from being able to launch his fighters. There were some harrowing near misses by the American kamikazes and what with those violent, hairpin turns the Japanese carriers were so fond of and good at, well you can't safely launch aircraft from a carrier deck that is apt to turn 90 degrees as you're taking off. You know? That's what the Americans did. They threw (quease alert) every disposable asset at the Japanese in the early action to keep Jap CAPs on. 

And then, oh deary me, a thing of beautiful awfulness and of true high tactical intelligence, the Americans launched from the Lexington, the Yorktown, the Hornet, the Enterprise, the best planes they had with the best pilots they had...And...just...overwhelmed...the Japanese fleet. Just overwhelmed them. All four Japanese carriers, the Akagi, the Kaga, the Sōryū, the Hiryū, the best of the entire Japanese fleet, all four were sunk, become food for the whales and plankton and like that. The Americans lost one carrier, the Yorktown. 3,057 Japanese servicemen were killed to 307 for the Americans. The Japanese fleet had been destroyed.

On this one four-day battle command of the Pacific was seized by the Americans and would never be relinquished. It would be three more years before the atomic bomb brought VJ Day but that day would never have come if Midway hadn't come.