THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY - US INTELLIGENCE PREPARATION

It was 14 May 1942, a little over five months after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbour. US Signals intelligence received “several significant indications of future
enemy action” that included: “an attack in force in the Central Pacific somewhere on
the Midway/Oahu Line the first week of June”.

The US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Chester Nimitz, knew that, although his
fleet had been badly mauled by the Japanese, with superior tactical intelligence and
enough time to concentrate the force needed, he could still take back the operational
initiative and defeat his adversary, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

To achieve this, he needed to know exactly where, when and from which direction
the Japanese fleet would strike. To help him target his tactical intelligence assets he
needed to understand Yamamoto’s strategic and operational level objectives.

Apart from the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7-8 May 1942, the Imperial Navy of Japan
had swept aside all of its enemies from the Pacific and Indian oceans. At the Battle
of the Coral Sea, the Japanese won a tactical victory, but suffered an operational-
level defeat. It did not invade New Guinea and set up a base from which its land-
based planes could dominate the skies over northern Australia. However, the overall
military initiative was still in the hands of the Japanese. Their carrier striking force
was still the strongest mobile air unit in the Pacific, and Admiral Yamamoto intended
to use it to smash what remained of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet in a final decisive
engagement.
Yamamoto’s strike force comprised four A/C Carriers, two light carriers, three
seaplane tenders, ten battleships, 16 cruisers and 45 destroyers, 16 submarines
plus support and landing vessels to deliver a land component of 5,000 marines.

Nimitz could only muster three A/C Carriers (one not fully operational due to battle
damage from the Coral Sea), eight cruisers, twenty destroyers, 19 submarines. In
terms of maritime assets, Nimitz was outnumbered two to one, however he could
match the number of Japanese combat aircraft (around 230), he could use the atolls
held by US Marines as ‘unsinkable’ carriers, he had better ISR capabilities and
therefore believed he had information advantage.

Nimitz knew that Yamamoto was seeking this decisive engagement, and he knew
that Yamamoto was very capable of destroying the US Pacific fleet, if the battle was
on Yamamoto’s terms. But Nimitz also knew that great advantage could be gained
by early and precise detection of the enemy carrier strike force.

Although the U.S. Navy was relatively inexperienced, it was technologically

advanced and its tactics had evolved through regular exercises prior to 1940.
Several of the exercises involved “duels” between the carriers Lexington and
Saratoga. The exercises revealed that the force that located and attacked the enemy
carrier first generally won, demonstrating the importance in carrier warfare of getting
in the first blow.

STEP 1: DEFINE THE BATTLESPACE ENVIRONMENT

Sub-Step 1: Review the Situation

Time Available to Develop the JIPB Expecting a major Japanese strike force of
4-5 carriers with around 230 aircraft in the first week of June, Nimitz needed to
concentrate and deploy his strike groups, deploy a Submarine and air ISR screen by
01 June, and reinforce whichever island was identified as the Japanese objective.
Therefore Warning Orders needed to be issued immediately and a full OPLAN
issued early in the last week of May. He therefore had no more than seven days to
complete his intelligence preparation, plan the operation and issue the OPLAN.
Nimitz would likely have given his staff very little time to complete an initial JIPB.
Through his initial scoping and based on available intelligence, he understood the
Japanese operational intent, which was to threaten Hawaii and force a decisive
engagement. He knew the approximate area and time of the Japanese assault, and
also the likely composition of Yamamoto’s Strike Force, which was, in radio silence,
concentrating from around the Pacific. He would therefore have sufficient information
to commence force concentration and logistic preparation. Ground and air assets to
reinforce the objective were placed reduced on notice to move, even though their
objective was not yet confirmed, and tactical ISR assets were immediately forward
deployed, pending further guidance.

The Level of JIPB Detail Achievable The key problem for Nimitz, and the key to
success, was to refine his understanding of the Japanese intended manoeuvre in
sufficient detail that his tactical ISR could be most effectively deployed. With that,
and some good fortune, he could ambush the Japanese carriers before his own were
detected. His JIPB would almost certainly have focused on how to find the enemy.
How to engage the enemy would be the business of his Strike Force commanders.
Nimitz just needed to locate Yamamoto’s fleet early, predict its manoeuvre, position
his own force elements appropriately and allow his subordinates to exploit the
advantage achieved.

Guidance from the Superior Commander His strategic guidance was to deny
further Japanese expansion and, in doing so, to accept risk of attrition in order to
achieve his mission. It was well known that strategically, US industrial power would
overwhelm Japan if the war in the Pacific became a protracted, attritional campaign.
Pacific Fleet OPLAN 29-42, released on 27 May 1942 included a letter from Nimitz to
his Strike Force commanders explaining his acceptance of risk:

“In carrying out the task assigned in Operation Plan 29-42 you will be governed by
the principle of calculated risk which you shall interpret as to mean the avoidance of
exposure of your force to attack by superior enemy forces without the good prospect
of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, greater damage to the enemy.” What he
meant was, “it is worth getting thumped if we can hit harder”.

Availability of ISR Assets Station Hypo was the team of U.S. signals intelligence
(SIGINT) analysts led by then-Commander Joseph “Joe” Rochefort. Immediately
after Pearl Harbor, Station Hypo began attempting to decode messages transmitted
using the JN-25 code. By late April, Rochefort’s team assessed that the Japanese
were planning major operations against the central Pacific. Nimitz would use this
superior capability further understand the Japanese manoeuvre plan and therefore
identify NAIs for his tactical ISR Assets.

Rochefort was confident that the main objective was Midway. In order to verify this,
Nimitz approved a ruse proposed by Rochefort that saw the American garrison at
Midway send a fake message “in the clear” (on open channels) regarding broken
water evaporator units on the island. Almost immediately afterward, American
listening posts intercepted Japanese transmissions mentioning the water shortage
on the objective. The identity of the Japanese objective was conclusively determined
as Midway.

Task force 7 deployed 12 submarines in a patrol screen against the likely Japanese
direction of approach. The screen had a frontage of around 300 miles and a depth of
200. It is not known how effective this screen was, although its presence alone
certainly did unsettle the Japanese.

As a result of inter war exercises and lessons learned, the US Navy had invested in
long range reconnaissance aircraft such the SBD Dauntless “scout bomber,” a
carrier-borne aircraft with long range and ample payload for heavy ordnance
designed to both find and attack enemy ships. These aircraft, along with land based
B17s conducted round the clock patrols against the likely Japanese approach routes
from late May. This was probably the only aspect of tactical superiority the Nimitz
had over Yamamoto, who did not employ such aircraft.

In terms of human factors, Japanese culture was an important and well understood.
The penetrating knowledge and understanding of the Japanese demonstrated by
Rochefort resulted both from technical proficiency in intelligence collection as well as
an institutional and individual commitment to understanding Japanese culture. He
was a graduates of a program that detailed dozens of officers to study Japanese
language and culture in Japan (with others similar studying China and Russia) during
the interwar years. This is sometimes known as “Phase Zero” or just in case
Intelligence preparation.

Sub-Step 2: Identify Significant Environmental Characteristics

The most critical environmental characteristic that Nimitz could exploit was the
Midway itself as an additional fortified, unsinkable carrier. His mission was to prevent
the capture and occupation of Midway, but it was to his advantage to allow the
Japanese to commence their assault. With good timing he could launch his first
aerial assault against Yamamoto’s carriers while their aircraft were attacking
Midway.

Sub-Step 3: Scope the Threat

SIGINT and cultural awareness allowed Nimitz to make very accurate assessments
of Yamamoto’s battle plan, which was to assault the two islands that make up the
Midway atoll with areal and naval bombardment and a landing force of 5,000
marines. In doing so, intended to extend Japan’s defensive perimeter into the Pacific
and set conditions for the capture of Fiji, Samoa and possibly even Hawaii. Most
importantly, Yamamoto believed that the US Navy could not tolerate such a threat to
Hawaii and would be forced onto the offensive and expose itself to the power of his
carrier force and his most powerful battleships. The final phase of Yamamoto’s plan
was the destruction of the US Pacific fleet. He planned a sequential operation which,
due to surprise, would allow two days to neutralise Midway before turning to face the
US Pacific fleet as it sortied from Hawaii.

Nimitz aimed to turn that surprise around, force Yamamoto to fight the island and the
Pacific Fleet simultaneously and to strike the first blow against the superior
Japanese carrier force.

Sub-Step Four: Determine Battlespace Limitations

The Pacific AO was extensive. Even for this one engagement the AIR would have
extended right up to Alaska, where the Japanese were conducting diversionary
operations. Although the AO was so large, for Midway Nimitz was able to narrow
down his areas of interest to fairly specific approaches (from the North West) to the
Japanese objectives. Also, because he was confident of the Japanese timelines he
could concentrate his ISR assets when needed rather that exhaust them with
random long range sweeps.

By the time the OPLAN was released his PIRs and CCIR were likely to be limited to
fine adjustments.

As far as FFIR were concerned, we know that Yamamoto remained unaware of US

plans until his carriers were first struck. US OPSEC was highly effective. There was
concern at increased American radio traffic on the morning of the first assault, but by
then it was too late.

Pacific Fleet Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Commander Edwin “Eddie” Layton

recounted presenting the intelligence estimate on 27 May at the Pacific Fleet staff
conference where the U.S. plans to ambush the Japanese force near Midway were
approved, giving Nimitz a stunningly predictive assessment:
“Summarizing all my data, I told Nimitz that the carriers would probably attack on the
morning of 4 June, from the northwest on a nearing of 325 degrees. They could be
sighted at about 175 miles from Midway at around 0700 local time.”

On the morning of the battle, as the initial American reports sighting the Japanese
force began to trickle in, Nimitz remarked to Layton with a smile, “well, you were only
five minutes, five degrees, and five miles out.”

Battle Timelines

04.30am The First Japanese planes from the First Mobile Force, Carrier Strike Force under
Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi take off from Japanese Aircraft Carriers to the US
Air base at Midway Islands. The Japanese attack force consisted of 108 war
planes
05.34am Japanese ships are detected by a US patrol aircraft from Midway Islands

06.30am The Japanese begin bombing Midway. The Fleet Marine Force defense battalion
(U.S. Marine Corps) suffered heavy losses, but shot down significant numbers of
enemy warplanes
07.10am 1st US TBF Avengers (Grumman Torpedo Bombers) and B26's mount the US
attack on the Japanese Fleet

08.37am Aircraft from 2nd wave of the Japanese start to return from Midway to their aircraft
carriers to refuel and to rearm

10.20am Japanese carriers are spotted while their aircraft are refueling and trying to get
rearmed – Three Japanese carriers by now hit

12.00pm Japanese planes from the Hiryu attack U.S. carrier Yorktown (later sunk)

05.00pm Planes from the Yorktown join the Enterprise attack on the final Japanese carrier,
the Hiryu. The Bombing raids against the Hiryu are successful and the Japanese
ship sinks