The Flight to Nowhere

The 'flight to nowhere' is the name often given to the main mission flown by the USS Hornet's air group during the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942.  It is arguably the second most controversial part of the battle (second only to Admiral Nagumo's rearming decisions, but that is a story in itself).  In an already tight battle, the failure of the Hornet dive bombers to find and attack the Japanese force of aircraft carriers known as Kido Butai (KdB) weakened the American attack by fully one third of its striking power.  The results would disasterous on both the macro and micro levels. 

A quick backstory: The Battle of Midway was the major naval engagement of World War Two in the Pacific theater of operation.  The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) brought their 4 operational fleet carriers, 250 planes and a slew of support forces to take Midway atoll.  The idea was to lure out the American navy's aircraft carriers for a decisive battle.  Due to outstanding intelligence work by the US Navy the American side was able to prepare an ambush with its three Yorktown class fleet carriers.  By battle's end the American navy had sunk 4 Japanese fleet carriers and a heavy cruiser, destroyed over 230 enemy planes and inflicted 3,057 casualties on the Japanese navy.  This was done at the loss of one American fleet carrier (Yorktown), the destroyer Hammann and 307 american lives.  By June 7th, The American navy had gone from a position of weakness to relative parity with the IJN.  So what happened to the Hornet's planes?

The US Navy had little practice using their aircraft carriers in concert with each other as a unified force (a forte of the IJN).  Each carrier sent its air groups off as the local commander deemed best.  Once American PBY Catalina search planes had located both Kido Butai (KdB) and the airborne Japanese strike force headed toward Midway, the U.S. aircraft carriers began launching their attack forces.  The carrier Yorktown had to delay its launch in order to recover 10 SBD scout planes that had been seearching to the north of the fleet but the carriers Enterprise and Hornet began launching immediately. 

Before angle decks were invented an aircraft carrier could either launch, recover or spot aircraft but they could not do more than one of these things at a time.  This meant deck planning the deck operations was an art form.  Only half of a carriers air group could be put on the deck at one time and the old TBD torpedo plane needed a full length deck run.  The Hornet Air Group had what looked like a good plan on paper.  They put 20 Wildcat fighters at the head of the line  as they had the shortest required take off run.  This also got the Combat Air Patrol (CAP) off teh deck and frovided air cover during this vulnerable time.  The first 10 Wildcats were the CAP and the next 10 were the escorts for the strike force.  This was followed by the bombing and scouting squadrons (VB-8 and VS-8).  Once this armada was airborne the TBD torpedo planes were brought up from below, spotted at the rear of the carrier, wings unfolded and launched.  

                                               USS Hornet CV-8


The first wave went off smoothly with all planes launched in about 9 minutes.  But the spotting and launching of the TBDs took longer than planned.  While this was going on the short ranged Wildcats fighters were burning up precious fuel orbiting the carrier.  It took 54 minutes to get the air group launched and the Commander Hornet Air Group (CHAG), Commander Stanhope Ring, had the entire squadron form up in what one pilot called 'parade formation' and head off together.  All in all 58 Hornet aircraft headed out to attack the Japanese.  There were 15 TBD torpedo planes at flying alone 2,500 feet.  Up at 20,000 feet there were 33 SBD dive bombers (16 SBDs of VS-8 with 500 pound bombs and 16 SBDs with 1,000 lb bombs of VB-8 plus Ring's SBD with a 500 pounder) and 10 F4F-4 Wildcat fighters of VF-8.

According to VS-8 commander LCdr. Walter Rodee, they headed off on a heading of 265 degrees (almost due west) even though the Japanese fleet had been reported south of that location.  This would later become one of the most hotly contested issues of the battle and still is in historical circles today.  About 30 minutes out LCdr John C. Waldron, commanding VT-8, was arguing with CHAG Ring that they needed to turn left about 30 degrees,  Ring disagreed and kept the Honet's planes on a westerly heading.  Waldron was convinced they would find nothing but open ocean and took his low flying torpedo squadron on a 235 degree heading.  This 30 degree left turn seperated him from the rest of the air group and stripped VT-8 of any fighter support.

                                   Commander Stanhope Cotton Ring


As Ring headed west into the open expanse of tractless ocean his fighters began to run low on fuel.  Eventually the pilots used hand signals to indicate their concerns but were waved back into formation.  In ones and twos, and without permission, they began to turn back for the carrier.  Due to the movements made by Hornet, she was not where they expected her to be and the fighters ended up flying south of her.  When the saw her Hornet well off to the north they thought her task force was the Japanese fleet and continued southeasterly.  Eventually the Wildcats began to run out of fuel and ditch at sea.  All 10 went in the water.  8 pilots were eventually recovered (1 was killed ditching and 1 was lost at sea).

                                                          LCdr. John C. Waldron, VT-8



About 0920 hours Ring heard Waldron and VT-8 on the radio.  Waldron had found KdB and attacked.  Here is where reports begin to vary.  Ring claimed that he turned south to find KdB fearing that it was nearing Midway (in fact Kbd had turned northeast when IJN spotter planes found the American fleet).  Ruff Johnson, commanding bombing 8 (VB-8) made a southward turn and Ring went after him to have form back up.  Ring was unable to catch him and even had trouble trying to rejoin VS-8.  By this time Ring's command had all but disintegrated.  Other pilots claim VS-8 turned back on its own and Ring flew off almost alone until he had to turn back.  He must have been near panic as he had flown an entire air group and a full third of the strike force's ordnance into empty ocean.

VT-8 was the only part of the air group to find KdB and they were massacred.  All 15 planes were shot down and 29 men were killed.  The sole survivor, Ens. George Gay, was the only one who got close enough to use his torpedo and it did not do any damage.  He spent 30 hours in the ocean before he was picked up by a PBY.

VB-8 was probably too far west to see the Japanese and due to low fuel they eventually turned for Midway.  They came a cross a patrolling PBY that gave them a good heading for Midway but they were critical on fuel.  One plane had engine trouble and ditched.  One 4 plane section let by Lt. Alfred Tucker did start receiving the 'Zed Baker' navigation signal from Hornet and those four planes turned back for Hornet.  They just barely made it.  The remaining SBDs made it to Midway but when they ditched theit bombs on the reef the local marines thought it was a Japanese second wave and opened fire.  Critically low on fuel the SBDs had to go around until the mistake was rectified.  3 planes were damaged but none critically.  Another plane ran out of gas and ditched in the lagoon.  Finally, the remaining planes of VB-8 landed safely at Midway.

While this was going on the planes from Yorktown and Enterprise had found KdB and attacked.  They had crippled 3 of Japan's 4 carriers and secured an American victory.  When Hornet's remaining planes (those of VS-8 and Ring) headed back east to the saw smoke to the south.  So weak was their navigation that they thought the rising columns of black smoke were from Midway (which had been bombed and was smoking).  It appears much more likely that it was smoke from the burning Japanese carriers.  When the air group returned to Hornet, RAdm Mitscher, the ships commander, was horrified.  He sent out 58 planes and only 21 returned, STILL CARRYING THEIR BOMBS!

Ring was the first man to land back on Hornet but he was so distraught that according to the book Shattered Sword (Tully and Parshall) he sequestered himself in his cabin despite naval regulations that required the commander to give a strike report to the captain upon arrival.  That left LCdr Walt Rodee with the unenviable task of reporting the boondoggle to Mitscher.  The Airplanes that had recovered to Midway would return that afternoon but at least 27 planes and 31 aircrew were lost for no gain (except that the attack of VT-8 did buy some time for the Americans as the Japanese could not conduct air operations while under attack. This is important in the larger scheme).

Why is this so important (beyond the obvious).  The IJN carrier Hiryu ecaped the initial attack unscathed.  Of course we are soothsaying at this point but had Hornet's dive bombers found KdB they would have had a chance to kill it.  It was two attacks by the planes of Hiryu that doomed Yorktown.  She was crippled and had to be abandoned.  Two days later as her crew tried to save her, she was torpedoed for a second time; this time by the Japanese submarine I-168.  She was sunk along with the destroyer Hammann which was beside her supporting the salvage operation.  As a sad note, many of the Hammann's crew were killed in the water when her depth charges went off as she sank.

Although Hornet's planes would take part in later actions (which were minor in comparison) they would contribute little to the battle.  After the battle, CDR Ring would receive a scathing (even if unintended) insult from his boss, the quiet and calculating Task Force commander RAdm Raymond Spruance.  When the after action reports were filed the one Ring submitted was vague in some regards and the map he drew did not jive entirely with certain facts.  Whether this was due to his mediocre navigational skills or outright deception I cannot say but Spruance told ADM Nimitz that where the after action reports from Enterprise and Hornet vary, consider Enterprise's to be accurate.

                                                        RAdm Marc 'Pete' Mitscher


Mitscher would acknowledge that the Hornet's performance was "subpar".  Both he and Ring were beached after the battle and would have to work their way back into the good graces of the navy brass.  Hornet herself, which had been made famous for launching the Doolittle raiders, would be sunk 5 month later at the battle of Santa Cruz.  VS-8 commander Walt Rodee would eventually rise to the rank of rear admiral as would Ring (who was promoted to Vice Admiral upon his retirement) but Ring never fully lived down the stigma of the the flight to nowhere.