When the threat to Midway developed, the American carriers were not waiting together beside a fully prepared island. Nimitz’s later action report describes forces scattered between the South Pacific and the American west coast. Lexington had been lost in the Coral Sea; Yorktown was damaged, and the surviving air groups aboard her needed reorganisation and rest. Enterprise and Hornet were also far to the south. M01
The immediate task was to bring usable strength into the right place before the attack arrived. A list of ships was only the beginning.
Yorktown’s narrow window
Operation Plan 29-42, dated 27 May, still made Task Force 17’s availability dependent on Yorktown’s condition. It provided for further instructions if she could not take part. The third American carrier was not yet an assured resource. M26
Task Force 17 reached Pearl Harbor on 27 May and sailed again on 30 May. Nimitz reported that Yorktown and her aircraft had been brought into “reasonable fighting condition” in three days, crediting the navy yard, the Service Force and supporting organisations. That careful description matters: readiness for an urgent operation is not a claim that every defect had disappeared. M01
Enterprise and Hornet, in Task Force 16 under Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, had already arrived on 26 May and departed on the 28th. The two forces would have to complete their preparation and meet at sea. M01
An island preparing for two kinds of attack
Midway needed aircraft to search and strike, but also men and weapons to resist a landing. Nimitz’s report describes new gun positions, underwater obstacles and mines, additional Marines, and small patrol craft. Reinforcement meant work on the ground and around the approaches as well as on the airfield. M01
The operational plan’s personnel table recorded 141 officers and 2,886 enlisted men. These figures included aviation personnel and several kinds of unit; they must not be presented as a count of infantry available to meet a landing. They are also a dated planning return, not a final roll for the morning of battle. M26
Aircraft continued to arrive close to the engagement. The action report describes Marine fighters and dive bombers supplemented by Navy TBF torpedo aircraft and Army B-26s equipped to carry torpedoes. Long-range Navy and Army aircraft increased the ability to find an approaching force and attack it at a distance. Nimitz nevertheless described little reserve against losses. M01
Keeping the aircraft flying
The plan required searches over the greatest practicable arc and distance, while warning against aircraft being destroyed on the ground or water. Long-range aircraft could withdraw to Oahu when necessary; patrol aircraft could use support at French Frigate Shoals. More aircraft at Midway created both an opportunity and a problem of protection. M26
Fuel imposed another practical boundary. Midway held aviation gasoline and limited fuel for cruisers and smaller vessels. Fleet fuel oil was available at Pearl Harbor and in the attached oilers, which were instructed to accompany Task Force 16. The island was not an unlimited refuelling base for every ship in the operation. M26
Meeting at sea
After refuelling at sea, Task Forces 16 and 17 met north-east of Midway on 2 June. Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher then took the combined forces towards their operating area north of the island. M01
Warning had now become a deployed force. It had taken repairs, reinforcement, transport, refuelling and difficult choices about where limited resources should go. The next question was how the opposing fleets intended to use the strength they had assembled.
The action report was written on 28 June, with the outcome known. Here it supplies the preparation sequence; its preliminary enemy loss claims are not adopted. The operational plan gives a view from before the battle, and its provisions should be kept distinct from the forces that actually arrived.