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Central Pacific Campaign (1941-43)/Battle of Midway
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Description The Battle of Midway in the Pacific Theater of Operations was one of the most important naval battles of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy (USN), under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.
The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.
The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.
The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions.Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—and a heavy cruiser were sunk at a cost of one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories VP-44 was (and had been) operating off the Eastern Island airstrip at Midway Atoll for the Midway operation. On 4 June the squadron had 13 PBY-5As of VP-44 (8), VP-24 (3), and VP-55 (2), all operating under the command of VP-44. The squadron contributed 11 of these to flight 55, making up half of the 22 plane the dawn search on 4 June. The search spaned the Southwestern quadrant from 204.5° to 288°. PBY-5A BuAer 04975, marked 44-P-12, and using call sign 8V55 drew the "hot" 264° sector [Hot beacuse that is where the Japanese Transport forces had been spotted the day before.]. The aircrafdt was armed with two 500 pound bombs, and four defensive machine guns (bow, left waist, right waist, and tunnel). The PPC (Patrol Plane Commander) was Lt.(jg) Whitman. The entire 10 man aircrew was:
LT(jg) Robert S. "Scottie" Whitman, (PPC) KIA (Crash)
ENS William H. Mosley (Co-Pilot) KIA (Shot)
ENS Lee Coleman McCleary (Navigator) WIA (Exposure)
ENS Jack Hill Camp (Extra Observer) DOW 7 June 1942 (Shot)
Philip L. Fulghum, AOM2c (Bombardier/Bow Gunner) WIA (Exposure)
James W. Adams, ACRM(AA) (Radio Operator) KIA (Drowned)
"...I have been researching material on the death of my cousin on 4 Jun 44. I have Mark Horan's article. If anyone has additional info on the death of my cousin James W. Adams who was radioman on PBY-5A BuAer 04975, marked 44-P-12 please let me know. Thanks. Charles Humphrey CharlesH73@aol.com..." [25NOV2002]
Virgil R. Marsh, AMM1c (Flight Engineer) WIA (Exposure)
Clarence J. Nordy, Jr., AMM2c (Gunner) KIA (Shot)
William H. O'Farrell, RM3c Gunner) KIA (Shot)
John C. Weeks, AMM?c (Gunner) WIA (Shot)
The aircraft sighted the Japanese Transport Force that morning. In response, the Seaplane Carrier Chitose launched a single Shotai of three "Pete" two-place float plane fighters. This Shotai caught the lone PBY and shot it down into the sea in flames from an altitude of approximately 500 feet. Mosley was killed by gunfire before the crash, while Whitman, struggling to straighten the burning plane out, was killed in the crash. O'Farrell and Nordy, both hit by gunfire, did not clear the wreckage. Adams did get out of the tail, but drowned shortly thereafter. Camp, hit in the abdoman, was badly off, while Weeks had a minor gunshot wound. McCleary, Fulghum, and Marsh had only minor injuries.
The surviving aircrew were rescued at 1455 on 6 June by LT(jg) Norman K. Brady's PBY-5 of VP-23, call sign 4V56 at a position 380 nm from Midway on a bearing of 255°. Camp died the next day.
44-P-12 was the only PBY lost in combat during the Battle of Midway, though one other (PBY-5A BuAer 05025 marked 24-P-11) was lost after force-landing because of fuel exhaustion.
