June 3, 1943. Although it was a year later than in history, this naval battle destined to go down in history broke out. On June 3rd, Spruance's Task Force 16 had arrived at its intended position and was operating northeast of Midway, a slight deviation from history in that they were located further north than easterly, meaning that they were north of Midway, closer to the Japanese First Air Fleet than historically.

And while Spruance was actively preparing for war, in the west-southwest direction of Midway, the Red Navy task force was also waiting for him. According to the pre-war deployment, the Red Navy was supposed to operate southwest of Midway, which historically did not have the main Japanese fleet, but was relatively close to the Japanese Second Fleet, the landing force attacking Midway.

To be honest, such a start disrupted Nimitz's arrangement from the beginning, and the main reason why the Red Navy was originally allowed to go to the southwest of Midway was to think that the main force of the Japanese aircraft carriers would appear directly west of Midway, and the Red Navy in the southwest could be closer to the enemy, so that the short-legged Yak-3K could cover the attack group and attack the Japanese aircraft carriers.

In fact, Nagumo Tadaichi's fleet was inserted from the northwest of Midway, and it was far from the Red Navy task force in the southwest. In other words, the naval war has not yet begun, and in the layout stage, in order to take care of the needs of all aspects, the Allied navy is actually fighting on its own. And this coordination will continue throughout the Battle of Midway.

Historically, Catarina (PBY), who took off from Midway, was the first to discover the Japanese fleet, but the Strawberry 9 reconnaissance plane did not know whether it was too excited or a mistake in its busyness, so it only informed Midway that the main force of the Japanese fleet had been discovered, but did not explain what kind of ships the so-called main fleet was. This caused great trouble for battlefield decision-making at that time.

Whether it's Spruance or Fletcher, they have only one mission. It is to destroy the Japanese aircraft carriers. This is the most central thing, and all their actions can only revolve around the Japanese aircraft carriers. Once this so-called Japanese main fleet, discovered by the Strawberry Nine due west of Midway, had no aircraft carriers, it would be a lot of fun!

Why? Because Fletcher and Spruance were operating northeast of Midway at this time, it was too far away from the so-called "main force" of the Japanese fleet directly west of Midway, and if they wanted to attack this so-called "main force" fleet, Fletcher and Spruance had to accelerate westward, and according to estimates at the time, it would take the 16th and 17th task forces to reach the attack position at sunset if they were to advance at full speed.

Of course. This is not the most important thing, but more importantly, what if this so-called main force is nothing? What if this so-called "workhorse" is a complete misunderstanding? What if the real main force of the Japanese fleet was in other directions, for example, in the northeast of Midway?

Once Fletcher and Spruance listened to this information and moved westward, there would be only one consequence, and it would be right under the nose of Nagumo Tadaichi's mobile fleet, which would be equivalent to delivering food to the door.

History also proves that the report of the Strawberry Nine is really a fool, because he found Kondo Nobutake's Second Fleet, the same fleet that was about to capture Midway. At this time, the real Japanese main fleet was still in the storm to the northeast.

Of course. We can look at this decisive battle in hindsight with the benefit of hindsight, and the battlefield commander at the time was not so easy when making decisions.

Is the enemy's aircraft carrier still behind? This question plagued Nimitz as well as Spruance and Fletcher. Is there a way to figure this out? The only way is to continue reconnaissance.

Nimitz sent the reconnaissance report of the Strawberry 9 to Kuznetsov, hoping that the Red Navy fleet would send reconnaissance aircraft to the sea area for reconnaissance. As mentioned earlier, the location of the Red Navy task force at this time was north-southwest, about 150 nautical miles from Midway. They are relatively close to the place of the incident, and the Ro-2 with a large range can completely surpass the Strawberry 9 to see if there is really an aircraft carrier behind the so-called "main force".

Note that this was an inflection point, as the Red Navy's reconnaissance would be very important and could determine the outcome of the naval battle, to put it mildly.

At the same time, several notable things happened, the first was that Nobutake Kondo also discovered the existence of Strawberry Nine, and immediately broke the radio silence and reported to Yamamoto that his fleet had been exposed.

At the same time, Fletcher, who was operating in the northeast waters of Midway, was also quite hesitant, and the intelligence of the Strawberry Nine was too painful, and it was quite difficult for him to make up his mind whether to move southwest to attack the enemy's so-called "main force" or continue to stay in the northeast sea and standby.

After the egg hurt for a while, Fletcher felt that it was better to reconnoiter first, and the Yorktown immediately took off ten SBDs to reconnoiter in the northeast direction, in order to be on the safe side, Fletcher also specially ordered: "This batch of reconnaissance planes can only reconnoiter two hundred nautical miles to the northeast, and once Catarina on the Midway side gets the movement of the enemy's aircraft carrier first, she must return to the mothership immediately!" ”

The third thing is that Nagumo Tadaichi finally got in touch with Yamamoto, and according to the Mi plan, the Type 2 boat, which was supposed to be used to reconnoiter Midway, had to return because it could not meet the submarine in the predetermined sea area for refueling. That is, at this time, the Japanese were not sure that the American aircraft carriers were still in Pearl Harbor. And this caused great trouble to Nagumo Tadaichi's decision-making. So at that time, on the one hand, he ordered to attack Midway Island according to the plan, and on the other hand, he also catapulted a water reconnaissance plane to conduct reconnaissance

Judging by the results later, this decision is terrible. Why? Because the maritime reconnaissance at that time was all fan-shaped, a number of reconnaissance planes took off at the same time, each of which searched a small sector, thus covering a large sea area. However, there are requirements for such reconnaissance operations, that is, it is better for this group of reconnaissance planes to take off at the same time, and if the time difference between take-off is too long, there will be only one result, that is, the target will be missed.

At this time, Nagumo Tadaichi encountered this kind of painful situation, the catapult of the heavy cruiser Tone failed, and the two water reconnaissance planes were delayed for half an hour before taking off. At the same time, one of the Tsukumo's reconnaissance planes was also forced to return due to engine failure, and the pit was that the sea area where the three reconnaissance planes went was closely related to the US fleet, especially the sea area covered by the Tsukumo. Exactly the area of activity of the US Navy.

Of course. From the perspective of the latecomer. Nanyun actually has a bigger problem in this decision-making. It stands to reason that since we know that Nobutake Kondo has been exposed, and since we know that the Type II Fleet has not completed reconnaissance, it is not certain whether there is a US task force in the waters off Midway. At this time, as the commander of the mobile fleet, the first thing he should do should not be to attack Midway, even if he only sent a small number of fighters and left a considerable number of elite pilots.

Why? Because from that moment on, Nagumo Tadaichi fell into a pit. Whether to hit Midway or the American aircraft carrier, he is in a repeated passive struggle. From the point of view of his decision, it seems that he is as prepared as the Mi operation, but the problem is that the Japanese Navy does not have the ability to do everything.

It seems that it is a good idea to keep more than half of the elite pilots and load the remaining fighters with torpedoes, so that once the reconnaissance planes discover the US Navy, they can immediately attack, and at the same time do not delay the air attack on Midway. But if you think about it, are 36 ship explosions and 36 Type 97 ships enough to deal with Midway?

I am afraid that there will be difficulties, and the air raids later proved it, and Captain Toonaga Sho later reported that Nagumo needed a second wave of strikes against Midway. Let's ask. If Nagumo had attacked with all his might from the beginning, I'm afraid there would be no need to make up for Midway, right?

And Nagumo's half-folded combat strategy later proved to be quite a pain in the ass. When the first wave of attack on Midway returned, the problem exploded. Previously, in order to combat the possible American fleet, Nagumo Tadashi ordered to hang torpedoes and armor-piercing shells, but with Midway not being defeated, he had to carry out a second wave of attacks, which had to be changed to high-explosive shells. That's the first toss.

After the reconnaissance plane reported the discovery of the US aircraft carrier, Nagumo was in pain, and in order to hit the US aircraft carrier, he could only dismantle the high-explosive bombs and re-hang the torpedoes and armor-piercing shells. At the same time, the first wave of carrier-based aircraft attacking Midway was about to land, and unless these planes were left to let them all fall into the sea, Nagumo could only stop the take-off operation and prioritize the recovery of carrier-based aircraft. At this time, a lot of precious time will be delayed, and more importantly, the Japanese air crew will be exhausted, and they will have no choice but to temporarily forget the safety operation regulations and drop a large number of high-explosive bombs on the deck.

It can be seen that Nanyun made a wrong move, and he couldn't change it if he wanted to. As the commander of the mobile fleet, he should not have to attack Midway with all his might from the start, or simply wait for the results of the reconnaissance before making a decision. Whichever one he chooses is better than his compromise method.

Of course, Nagumo Zhongyi not only had a problem with his decision-making, but also had quite bad luck, not only because of the unfortunate fact that the reconnaissance plane took off late as mentioned earlier. To make matters worse, at the same time as its first wave of attacks on Midway, his fleet was spotted by the Strawberry V taking off from Midway, and the Americans seized the lead!

And our story about Midway begins at this moment, as mentioned earlier, when the Strawberry Nine sent that misleading telegram, Nimitz asked the Red Navy to send reconnaissance planes to the relevant waters to conduct reconnaissance. Sukhoi immediately carried out this order, and immediately took off four Ro-2s to the area where the incident occurred.

The four Ro-2s filled up their tanks and rushed to the area of the incident at maximum speed (to save time), and when they arrived at the area, they quickly spotted Kondo's Second Fleet.

The fleet was also quite large, with one aircraft carrier (Zuiho), two seaplane carriers (Chitose and Kamigawa Maru), two battleships (actually the Battle Cruiser Kongo and Hiei), eight heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, 21 destroyers and 14 transports.

In terms of fleet size, it is larger than Nagumo's First Air Fleet, and of course, in terms of real combat effectiveness, Nagumo is a street away from Kondo. It would be fun to imagine that the pilots of the Red Navy discovered such a large fleet and were convinced that there were at least three aircraft carriers in it (only the other two transports were mistaken for aircraft carriers except for the Ruifeng).

Yes, when Kuznetsov and Sukhoi received this information, Strawberry 5 in the north had not yet discovered Nagumo Tadaichi's fleet, and naturally thought that the main forces of the Japanese fleet were in the west. So they immediately informed Midway and Hawaii - the Japanese aircraft carrier formation was found!

At this point, it was Nimitz's turn to wax and make a choice, and he quickly relayed this important information to Fletcher and Spruance, although there was no clear order on what to do. But the meaning is also quite clear - it must be that they want to move westward quickly. The two aircraft carriers of the Red Navy alone may not be the match for the main fleet of the Japanese army.

And not long after this telegram was sent. The reconnaissance report from the Strawberry V also came, saying that four aircraft carriers had been found! Now it's a big problem, three plus four equals seven, and then contact the previous Holland port (Aleutian Islands) reported that it was attacked by the Japanese army, and there must be Japanese aircraft carriers there, so this is not right, where did the devil come with so many aircraft carriers? It's not scientific!

So Nimitz realized at the time that there must be something wrong with one of the two pieces of information, and he himself was more inclined to the Red Navy's inaccurate information. Because according to his prediction, the main force of the Japanese fleet is still more likely to appear in the northeast direction, and the fleet to the west should be a cover!

However, on the battlefield, you can't say what you estimate you guess, everything has to be based on evidence, so Nimitz immediately gave an order to both ends: "Confirm again!" ”

It's just that when Nimitz's order was transmitted, something went wrong, and the Strawberry 5 hid in thick clouds in order to avoid the attack of Japanese carrier-based aircraft, and when they came out of the clouds, they could no longer find the shadow of Nagumo Tadaichi. Naturally, there is no way to confirm anything. At the same time, the Ro-2, which the Red Navy went to reconnoitre, was also discovered by Nobutake Kondo. Immediately took off to attack the Zero, and in order to avoid the attack, the Ro-2 naturally could not get close to Kondo's fleet, and it was also impossible to confirm the accuracy of the information.

At this time, the critical moment on the battlefield has arrived, and this time it is the turn of the allies to make a choice, a very simple choice question, whether it is the northeast or due west, pick one! Pick the right one, win the big win, pick the wrong one, and die without a place to be buried, it's as simple as that!

The first to make the choice was Spruance, the somewhat indecisive admiral who was very active this time, and ordered the attack to begin at the first opportunity. Just after 7:06 a.m., 117 fighters, torpedo planes, and dive bombers roared off from the decks of the Enterprise and the Hornet, and slammed into the Japanese fleet two hundred nautical miles away.

Of course, Spruance wasn't the first wave to attack. The air force on Midway was even quicker than he moved, sending TBD and B17 to return fire at the same time as the air attack. By the time Spruance attacked, 10 TBDs had already arrived over Nagumo's formation, and their next action played an important role - that is, it really clarified the location of the main Japanese fleet.

But let's not mention their story for now, when Spruance ordered the attack, Nimitz was more concerned about the Red Navy's choice. Are the Russians going to fight the fleet they discovered, or are they going to attack Nagumo Tadaichi with the U.S. Navy?

If the Red Navy attacked Kondo Nobutake, even if they could completely annihilate Kondo Nobutake's fleet, their role in the Battle of Midway would really be minimal, and it could almost be said that it would have no impact on the situation of the war.

So how exactly did Kuznetsov and Sukhoi choose? In fact, upon receiving the first report from the Strawberry Nine, the two men ordered the fleet to sail northwest at full speed. At that time, they thought that if the target discovered by Strawberry Nine was indeed the main force of the Japanese fleet, judging from their position, it was properly heading for Midway, and its carrier-based aircraft would definitely go straight to attack Midway.

At this time, allowing the fleet to move northward can be closer to the Japanese attack route, which is convenient for the Yak-3K to intercept and reduce the air pressure on Midway. Not only is it convenient for the Yak-3K to intercept, but more importantly, sailing north can shorten the distance with the enemy, which is convenient for the next attack operation.

Of course, there are comrades who will ask. What if the Strawberry Nine was not found to be the main force of the Japanese fleet? So what's the point of sailing north? Sukhoi and Kuznetsov thought so, and they basically agreed with Nimitz's judgment that the Japanese fleet could only approach Midway from the southwest or northeast, either southwest or northeast. If it is not the main forces of the Japanese fleet in the southwest, then the northeast is very likely. Sailing northward can also shorten the distance with the enemy, which will facilitate the next attack.

And then, after receiving the report of the Ro-2 and the report of the Strawberry V, Sukhoi and Kuznetsov were also entangled, but they soon agreed again - now they can only sail north!

Why? The reason is very simple, or the problem caused by the short legs of the Yak-3K, yes, the range of the Ro-2 is enough to attack Nobutake's Second Fleet of Kondo, but the Yak-3K cannot provide full escort, and it is too reluctant for the Ro-2 to break through the defense of the Japanese air force alone, on the contrary, although the Ro-2 is in danger of attacking the enemy in the northeast direction, if the enemy is really in that direction, and the American air force disrupts the sight of the Japanese first, maybe it can succeed in a surprise attack?

So, the two immediately made the decision to take off all the Ro-2s to try their luck while continuing to sail at full speed in the northwest direction! (To be continued.) )

PS: Bow and thank you to the fat man Fly and Fly, read the world's books, Southern Rangers and Comrade Juventus!