The Japanese strike approached a defended island. Marine fighters went out to meet it; gun crews waited below. Colonel Harold Shannon’s report records a stream of warnings, bearings and distances reaching the Sixth Defense Battalion as the aircraft closed. At 0631 in its chronology, the antiaircraft batteries had opened fire. M31
The first-warning times differ between this local report and Nimitz’s later summary. They are not forced into a single minute-by-minute sequence here. What the accounts establish is that Midway had warning and launched aircraft before the bombing began. M31 M01
The fighters meet the raid
Midway’s Marine fighter force included F2A-3 Buffalos and F4F-3 Wildcats. The surviving pilots’ accounts, collected in the Marine Aircraft Group 22 report, describe attacking the bombers and then struggling to escape the escorting Japanese fighters. Some used cloud cover or steep dives to break contact. Their combat experience is more useful here than treating their estimated performance differences as measured aircraft specifications. M32
The cost was severe. At 0730, the group’s executive officer recorded eight fighters on the field, only two in flyable condition. Those two were serviced, rearmed and placed on alert. This was a report of what could fly at that moment, rather than a final total of aircraft permanently lost. M32
The Japanese report describes the strike under Hiryū’s air officer, Lieutenant Jōichi Tomonaga, with fighters, dive bombers and attack aircraft contributing to the assault. Its account acknowledges air combat on the approach and losses during the mission. The two sides’ claims of enemy aircraft destroyed cannot simply be added together as confirmed results. M14 M06
Under the bombs
High-level bombing was followed by dive bombing and strafing. Shannon’s chronology records fires at the hospital, canteen and hangar, and damage on both Sand and Eastern Islands. Burning oil tanks near the Marine dock produced smoke that hindered observation and gunfire. M31
The defenders used several kinds of weapon. The battalion report lists 3-inch antiaircraft shells alongside 37 mm and 20 mm ammunition and machine-gun rounds. When a battery’s heightfinder was put out of action, its 3-inch guns used improvised open sights against dive bombers. The defence depended on crews adapting as equipment was damaged, as well as on the weapons installed before the attack. M31
On Eastern Island, the power house was hit and electricity failed. Auxiliary power restored radio and command-post service, but telephone connections were badly disrupted. Bombs broke fuel lines, damaged buildings and scattered debris across the airfield. A direct hit on a rearming pit detonated stored ammunition. M32
Keeping the airfield working
The raid had not made the airfield unusable. Crews cleared debris with a bulldozer and road scraper and filled a crater beside a runway. The executive officer’s chronology records runway number two fully operational at 0745. Five minutes later, five fuel outlets were working from reserve storage through an engine-driven pump, although fuel in the main storage remained unavailable. These are the local report’s times, retained as such. M32
Shannon also credited men from the Raider companies with handling drums of petrol after the normal refuelling facilities were damaged. Repair, fuel delivery and rearming were part of the battle: an intact stretch of runway alone could not keep aircraft operating. M31
Midway had therefore survived as an air base while suffering a serious loss of immediate fighting strength. Its ability to receive aircraft and support further operations should not obscure the men killed, the damaged machines or the shortage of usable fighters.
The island strikes back
Aircraft from Midway were already carrying the battle towards the Japanese carriers. Six Navy TBFs and four Army B-26s carried torpedoes. Marine SBD-2 and SB2U-3 scout bombers also attacked, while Army B-17s made high-altitude bombing runs. Different aircraft and attack methods did not automatically produce a coordinated blow. M01 M32
Japanese fighters and antiaircraft fire inflicted heavy losses. Nimitz’s report records only one of the six TBFs returning, badly damaged; two of the four B-26s returned, both unserviceable. The Marine SBD attack used glide bombing, with insufficient time to train on the recently received aircraft given as the reason in the report. M01
American accounts claimed hits on carriers and other ships. Those claims do not establish that the early island attacks disabled a Japanese carrier. The Japanese narrative records the force continuing to operate through these attacks, before the later carrier-launched dive bombers struck. The island’s effort had not removed the threat at sea. M01 M14
Another attack required
Tomonaga’s command aircraft reported that Midway needed a second attack. The First Air Fleet report records the decision to prepare one and an order to replace torpedoes on the standby attack aircraft with land bombs. The request shows that the first raid had not satisfied the strike commander’s assessment of what was needed. It was not a second raid already on its way. M14 M06
Nagumo still had to support the island operation while responding to new reports of American ships. The Japanese report uses a different date and clock convention from the American accounts; its times are not mixed into the island chronology. The next chapter follows the searches and decisions that brought the American carriers into the centre of the battle.