War Stories II (25 page)

As they had with the Marine raiders from Midway, the Japanese gunners and pilots in their more maneuverable Zeros blasted plane after plane out of the sky. Not one of the Devastators' “fish” found their mark. All fifteen of the
Hornet
's TBDs of “Torpedo 8” were downed, as were ten of the fourteen launched by
Enterprise
. But the bravery of the torpedo bomber pilots was not wasted. Their low-level attack drew the Japanese combat air patrols down to the wave tops—making it impossible for their fighters to gain enough altitude to engage the
Enterprise
's Dauntless dive-bombers, led by Lt. Commander Clarence McClusky, Jr., when they appeared over the
Akagi
and the
Kaga
at 1025.

At almost the same moment, the
Yorktown
's aircraft found the
Soryu
. The
Yorktown
's torpedo bombers fared no better than those of the
Enterprise
or the
Hornet
, but the American dive-bombers scored hits on the decks of all three ships among the clutter of Japanese planes that were being fueled and re-armed. Not one of the U.S. Navy dive-bombers was engaged by a Japanese fighter until after it had dropped its bombs. In under six minutes, all three of the Japanese carriers were hit and awash in burning fuel, an inferno that spread as aircraft with live ordnance caught fire and exploded on the flight and hangar decks.

By 1030 on 4 June, the entire balance of naval power in the Pacific had shifted dramatically. Three of Japan's biggest carriers were fiery wrecks heading for the ocean floor. Hundreds of the best pilots in the Japanese navy were perishing in the flames, and scores more would die before the day was done, for the battle was not yet over.

Lewis Hopkins was a twenty-three-year-old ensign from Georgia, flying a Douglas Dauntless SBD dive-bomber from the deck of the USS
Enterprise
during the Battle of Midway. To Hopkins and his squadron-mates, the initials SBD stood for “Slow But Deadly.” He recalls hoping that the planes would live up to the second part of their name on 4 June 1942.

The hair-raising battle wasn't over yet. The USS
Yorktown
was the farthest from the Japanese fleet and the last of the three carriers to launch its strikes. It was only because the
Yorktown
's squadrons flew a more direct route to their targets that they had hit the
Soryu
at the same time that Ensign Lewis Hopkins and his shipmates from the
Enterprise
were attacking the
Kaga
and the
Akagi
. And unfortunately for Rear Admiral Jack Fletcher and the
Yorktown
, his were the last aircraft to leave the area where the three Japanese carriers were on fire.

As his aircraft returned with stories of three Japanese carriers sunk, Admiral Fletcher had cause for concern. He knew from Station Hypo intercepts that there were four big carriers in Admiral Nagumo's force—so there was a very strong likelihood that aircraft from the surviving carrier might have followed his aircraft home. If that was the case, the
Yorktown
was in trouble. She and her Task Force 17 escorts were closer now to the
Hornet
and the
Enterprise
, but if they had to run for it,
Yorktown
, with her Coral Sea damage, wouldn't be able to keep up.

Fletcher's concerns were valid. At 1000—while the American aircraft were en route to attack the
Akagi
, the
Soryu
, and the
Kaga
—the undamaged
Hiryu
had launched eighteen bombers escorted by six fighters. At 1100, while her three sister carriers were burning, the
Hiryu
also launched ten torpedo bombers and six more fighters. The bombers must have seen the
Yorktown
's SBDs heading back to the east, for at 1205, while Fletcher was refueling the
Yorktown
's combat air patrol, the ship's radar detected the
Hiryu
's planes fifty miles out and closing.

While the
Yorktown
hastily launched the planes on deck and waved away the bombers returning from the attack on the
Soryu
, Fletcher called for help. Fighters from the
Enterprise
and the
Hornet
joined his—making a twenty-eight-plane combat air patrol—and they headed west to intercept the attackers. Only eight of the Japanese aircraft succeeded in getting through to the
Yorktown
, but three of their bombs hit home. One blew another hole in her patched flight deck, a second detonated deep inside, causing flooding, and the third knocked out her boilers.

Despite the new damage, the
Yorktown
was under way again, making twenty knots, when the
Hiryu
torpedo bombers came skimming over the waves at 1425. Two of the Japanese torpedoes struck her amidships on the port side, and she immediately lost power and took a twenty-degree list to port. With fires raging belowdecks and without power for her pumps or generators, her list increased to twenty-six degrees, and the ship was in imminent danger of capsizing. Her skipper, Captain Elliott Buckmaster, ordered abandon ship.

Admiral Fletcher shifted his flag to the cruiser
Astoria
and turned over tactical command of the two task forces to Admiral Spruance. Many of
Yorktown
's aircraft were able to make it to Midway or to the deck of one of the other two American carriers.

As for the crew of the
Yorktown
, it was the second time in a month that their ship had taken a terrible beating from the Japanese. To Bill Surgi, it felt like déjà vu.