The Course to Midway

By Clyde Hedges

In May of 1942, the Japanese sailed east, their destination, a small island called Midway, a fueling station for American ships sailing from Hawaii. Awaiting them was the United States Pacific fleet. Though Admiral Nimitz had the advantage of knowing the Japanese were coming,  his fleet was smaller and without any battleships. The Course to Midway tells the story, of Charlie Nelson, Admiral Nimitz's driver, and of the most important American naval victiory of WWII. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clyde Hedges
• Release date: Apr 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386141914

Clyde Hedges

Clyde Hedges was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana. Upon graduation from high school, Clyde enlisted in the army. While stationed in New England, he met his wife Marion. After mustering out, Clyde attended Fitchburg State Teachers College where he majored in secondary education with an emphasis in English and History. Clyde, Marion, and their daughter Stacy settled in Evansville where Clyde taught history and economics. Stacy's health forced them to relocate to Las Vegas where Clyde and Marion taught for 23 years. They are now retired and live in Reno near their daughter Kelly and son-in-law John and their grandson Carrick, whom they dote upon continually.

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CHAPTER TWO

DECEMBER 25, 1941

The white navy barge bobbed easily on the oil slicked water. Beneath its canvas covering, thirteen officers stood wearing their dress whites along with their matching brimmed hats. The lowest ranking were three full commanders, along with captains and two admirals, the highest being a vice admiral. The officers stood uneasily, mostly frowning, few talking, while two boatswains stood on the wharf near the moor, waiting to cast off.

In a moment, they heard the drone of aircraft engines and a huge Coronado Flying Boat appeared overhead, surrounded by a half dozen Marine fighters. There he is, one of the officers said to another. No one else spoke, all remained quiet.

As soon as the Coronado landed, the coxswain started the barge and drove toward the side door of the flying boat. Meanwhile, the fighter escort circled and then headed for the nearest landing strip on Ford Island. Reaching the plane, the coxswain carefully angled the barge to the accommodation ladder that had been lowered from the passenger's compartment. The door opened, and a silver haired man dressed in a dark civilian suit emerged. He stopped and stood on the landing platform.

For a moment, he studied the United States' largest naval base in the Pacific. It was shambles. A hundred yards from him, seven battleships lay on their sides, or upside down, while one sat on the bottom with only its conning tower above the water line. Along the other wharves, cruisers and destroyers lay sunken too. A few still floated but were heavily damaged. On the wharves, sentries carrying rifles loaded with live ammunition marched while every undamaged gun turret was manned and ready to fire. The silver-haired man frowned and then descended the plane stairs to the barge.

Though he was dressed in a civilian suit, the officers waiting for him came to attention. As you were, Admiral Nimitz said, and the officers relaxed. Nimitz then turned to the third-class petty officer manning the helm.

Where is the Coxswain? he asked.

Killed on the 7th, Sir, the young sailor replied.

The admiral frowned deeply. All right, let's see how well you handle the barge, sailor. Take her up and down battleship row. I want to inspect them first, he ordered the young bosun’s mate."

Quickly and flawlessly the helmsman made headway from the plane to the nearest moor where the first of the giant ships lay beneath the water. None of the battleships had survived the Japanese attack. Only one, the Nevada, had managed to get under way, but it was now grounded on Ford Island almost as badly damaged as the others.

Before December 7th, the ships Nimitz viewed had been the greatest aggregation of firepower in the Pacific. Now none of them could get under way let alone fight. The Oklahoma had been hit so hard by the Japanese bombs that it capsized and lay upside down, with a huge gaping hole on its bottom through which crew members had been rescued. The Arizona was worst. Unlike the Oklahoma, it sat on the bottom of the harbor with only its conning tower showing. In a moment, the coxswain brought the barge near it and Nimitz ordered him to stop.

By ill luck, the Arizona had been blown apart when a Japanese bomb hit its forward magazine. Almost a thousand sailors went down with her. For over a week, guards marching the wharf would hear the men trapped inside beating on its hull, hoping for rescue. There was nothing humanly possible they could do for them. Their deaths were slow and agonizing, ones of starvation, thirst, or oxygen deprivation. 

For a moment the barge idled in the water, gently swaying with the waves, as Nimitz stared at his former flagship. The Vice Admiral stood from the officers seated behind him and walked to the front.

Chester, he said quietly.

Jim, Nimitz replied, acknowledging his old friend and Annapolis classmate for the first time.

The explosion was so powerful that it blew armor plating a thousand feet into the air. We think chunks of it might have downed a Jap fighter, though we can't say for sure.

It would only be fitting, Nimitz replied. While enroute to the West Coast to catch his plane for Pearl, Nimitz had been given an envelope containing top secret photos of the ships in the harbor. The destruction he now saw in person was far worse than any photograph could depict.

How about the men? Nimitz asked Jim.

Jim cleared his throat. He had witnessed the entire attack and fought from his own bridge until the last Japanese plane left. Talking about the Arizona especially bothered him.

Over a thousand went down with her and were trapped and are still inside. They never had a chance. As they died, they stopped beating on the hull. Many of those who did escape were burned critically from the oil burning on the surface and perished in the hospitals, or the hangars we converted for the wounded. 

Nimitz frowned. She was my flag ship for two years.

I remember, Jim replied.

Part of me is down there with those men.

Part of all of us, Jim said.

What about Isaac, have you found any trace of his body?

The only thing we recovered was his class ring fused to one of the metal supporting poles. The blast must have completely disintegrated him and somehow melded his ring to the metal.

Nimitz frowned deeply. He and Admiral Kidd had been close. It hurt him to lose such a talented officer. It hurt even more to lose such a good friend, one who fought valiantly from his bridge until killed by the explosion that rocked every ship in the harbor. Nimitz shifted his eyes and noticed something bobbing in the water near the con of the sunken ship. He nudged Jim and pointed to it.

Helmsman, take us as near to the con as you dare, Nimitz ordered the driver.

Carefully, the sailor edged the barge closer, moving within a few feet. All the officers on the admiral's barge, including Nimitz, stared at the water wrinkled body floating face down while bobbing with the waves.

We search for them twice a day, Chester, Jim explained to him. They remain within the ship until something works them loose and they float to the surface. No telling how long we'll be picking them up, Jim told him.

See that this man is picked up too, Nimitz ordered Jim. They said nothing further as they looked at the once majestic battleship, the pride of the Pacific Fleet until early Sunday morning, little more than two weeks before. Let's go, Helmsman, Nimitz ordered after another moment.

The barge slid away from the Arizona and slowly moved down the row of sunken ships, a row that was almost a mile long. Six of the ships lay on their sides still above the shallow waters. Good thing they weren't at sea when the Japanese hit. We would never have been able to raise them then, Nimitz said to himself, more than anyone.

At one time Nimitz had been the navy's leading expert on diesel engines, and his grasp of ship engineering and mechanics was extraordinary. He could assess damage to a hull in seconds, and he was almost always correct with his estimates. Most of these ships will fight again, he assured Jim.

Next to the Arizona, the explosion on the Oklahoma had been the most powerful, and like the Arizona, most of its crew had been trapped inside, but with its hull facing skyward, rescue parties were able to climb onto the curved bottom and cut through the ship's armor. While they worked, the trapped crewmen tried to conserve air. All afternoon, the rescuers persevered, even as the Jap planes strafed them. In the end, only 32 crewmen were rescued. The rest suffocated or died from wounds.

Of all the battleships, only the Nevada had gotten underway. Ensign Joe Taussig had just relieved the officer of the deck when the Japs came screaming over the mountains that hid them as they approached the harbor. Sounding general quarters, Taussig was able to get his gun crews into position and managed to shoot down four Japanese planes as the Nevada's second boiler slowly built up steam.

Meanwhile, the fighting was fierce all over the harbor with most of the advantage to the Japanese. When the Nevada's steam was high enough and seeing his chance, Taussig guided his ship into the channel, but there it drew the attention of eight Jap bombers, who hit it several times. Afraid that he might be sunk and block the harbor entrance, Taussig beached the Nevada on the north shore of Ford Island. Once beached he and his crew continued to fight until the Japanese returned to their carriers.

Taussig was not present on the barge. He remained in the base hospital where his wounded leg kept him. Admiral Nimitz planned to visit him as soon as his schedule permitted. Taussig was more than a hero to Nimitz, a close friend, as his father and Isaac had been.

Nimitz studied every ship as they passed them, and as they did, his face remained stony and inscrutable. After inspecting the last battleship, Nimitz motioned to the coxswain to take the barge to the east side of the harbor to inspect the sunken cruisers and destroyers.

The day before the attack, a Japanese submarine had been sunk approaching the harbor's entrance. Two days prior to that, Admiral Kimmel, then commander of the United States Pacific Fleet, was notified that intelligence had lost track of the Japanese Fleet which had been last detected steaming west toward Hawaii.

Deeply angered that he hadn't been informed sooner, Kimmel ordered planes sent aloft to search for the Japs. Late that afternoon, a scout plane spotted them, and once more Kimmel began to track them, but he couldn't bring himself to believe that the Japanese would dare attack Pearl Harbor even when the Navy Department wired him that diplomatic negotiations with Japan had broken down and war was imminent.

He learned just how imminent while watching the Japs bomb and torpedo his fleet the following morning. The army had suffered too. Ninety percent of their planes went up in flames and Scofield Barracks had been strafed and bombed and several of its buildings destroyed. Thank God, Halsey's carrier task force had been at sea, or they might well have been lost too. In Washington, on December 9th, the day after Congress declared war, President Roosevelt summoned Admiral Nimitz to the White House to promote him to commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Nimitz remained impassive, saying nothing as he studied the wrecks of the destroyers and cruisers, and the armed guards posted along the wharves to watch for Jap sympathizers, or a return of their bombers. In a little over an hour, he had seen enough and ordered the barge back to the main dock. Fifteen minutes later they arrived and the two boatswains’ mates waiting on the wharf quickly secured the launch.

Well, Admiral, what do you think? the youngest and tallest of the sailors asked Nimitz after knotting the last lanyard. The officers waiting in the barge grew aghast that an enlisted sailor dared speak directly to the commander of the Pacific Fleet.

First, let me thank you two for such a comfortable ride; you're both excellent seamen, Nimitz said. "Now, I want you to remain with the officers so that you can hear what I have to say. If you can't find a seat, then stand in the rear. Admiral Jim, overhearing Nimitz, pointed to a vacant seat beside him, while a senior captain made space for the second helmsman. Nimitz stood in front of them all.

Things look pretty bleak; there's no denying that, he told them first.

The officers remained silent. They had no idea what he was leading up to. Nimitz's reputation in the navy was solid and dependable, an officer you could trust. But the Japanese made several serious blunders. The first was that they didn't attack one of our carriers. They remain safe at sea with Halsey commanding them.

Everyone smiled except for Nimitz. Halsey was noted for being aggressive, and was probably the navy's best aviation fighter and tactician, and on December 7th, he'd wanted nothing more than to pursue the Japanese fleet, but Admiral Kimmel had ordered him back to Pearl to refuel. By the time he was at sea again, the Japs were long gone.

Second, Nimitz began again, the Japanese fighters were so busy torpedoing and bombing the battleships, they forgot about the dry docks. Admiral Kimmel has already informed me that only the Arizona and the Oklahoma cannot be salvaged. All the other ships we'll raise and repair, and a lot of their repairs are going to be done in the very dry docks the Japs over-looked.

Every officer nodded approval. Nimitz saw that their spirits were beginning to rise.  Third, and more important than the dry docks, they didn't touch our fuel reserves. The reservoirs are only five miles from the harbor and remain almost completely full. One strafing with metal piercing explosive bullets would have ignited every tank, and made a larger explosion than the ships did. Without fuel, we would have been forced to retreat to San Diego. Now we live to defend Pearl if they dare come back.

Again, the officers nodded their heads. The last and probably their biggest mistake is that they attacked on Sunday morning to gain complete surprise. That they figured well. What they didn't figure is that the largest percentage of those ships' crews were ashore on liberty. We have ninety thousand trained sailors available for duty, almost begging to man the first ships we raise. It takes months to replace experienced seamen, and right now we have a surplus, but I intend to make good use of every one of those men and of you too. He paused and looked at the officers for a silent moment.

Are there any questions? he finally asked.

No one said anything, no one moved. Okay, now let's get to work and start paying the Japs back. You are dismissed.

Nimitz nodded, and every officer rose and began to file from the barge. I want the two enlisted men to remain behind, Nimitz said aloud. Surprised, the two seamen stepped aside as the officers continued down the gangplank. When just the three of them remained, Nimitz turned to them.

Men, Nimitz said calmly. Once again, thank you for the comfortable ride. You steered right with the current, you didn't make one unnecessary lurch, and you brought me as close to the ships as possible. Nimitz nodded his appreciation to them both as they stood nervously, their hands clasped behind their backs, staring at the admiral, who when in uniform wore four stars on either epaulet and a chest full of ribbons.

I've always been a believer in fate, and one of the problems facing me this morning was whom I would tap to be the drivers of both my barge and my limousine. You two solved that problem for me. I want you to report to BUPERS immediately and tell them that they are to assign you to my staff as drivers. Twelve on, twelve off, seven days a week unless you exchange shifts so that you can have a whole day off.

"Sir, may I speak? the tallest of the two sailors asked.

"Yes, Nimitz said.

Charles Nelson, sir, petty officer third class, he said as he looked eye to eye with the Admiral. Nimitz possessed cold blue eyes that seldom expressed emotion, but he was reputed to be able to pierce armor with them when angered.

Go ahead, Nelson, Nimitz said.

My brother and I were on the Arizona, sir. We asked to be assigned to the same ship. We weren't with the lucky ones in downtown Honolulu when the Japs struck, but I was lucky enough to be on deck. I managed to man a hose and was trying to fight the fires when the magazine exploded. I was thrown into the harbor and hardly hurt. My brother wasn't so fortunate. He died a week later, still suffering from his burns and broken hip and leg. I want sea duty, sir. I want to kill every Jap bastard in the Imperial Navy.

Nimitz frowned and shook his head. I appreciate how you feel, Nelson, but this war is too big to take time to settle personal grievances. But I promise you'll see action the first opportunity that comes your way. Right now, I need you as a driver.

Nimitz saw the disappointment in Charlie's eyes, and then grudging acceptance of what he had told him. It was said that Nimitz was a man of his word. Charlie was sure that before the war ended, he'd return to sea.

Report to BUPERS now, immediately. I am going to continue to inspect with Commander Evington and Admirals Kimmel and Pye. If anyone gives you trouble, tell them to call Commander Evington. He'll get it straightened out. If they give him trouble, I'll talk with them, myself.

The two sailors saluted smartly and then waited for Nimitz to exit the barge. Once he did, they carefully sealed the small boat, rechecked the lines, and then started for BUPERS, a three mile walk to the other end of the base. Like everyone else at Pearl, they had believed their war started on December 7th; little did they know that theirs was just beginning. 

CHAPTER THREE

DECEMBER 27, 1941

HIROSHIMA BAY - MEETING OF THE JAPANESE FLEET COMMAND

The twenty gathered officers of the Imperial Japanese Fleet were dressed in their dark naval uniforms. This morning they stood around the huge planning table in Admiral Yamamoto's flag ship, Nagato, the Japanese Navy's largest battleship. As a unit, the officers stared at the giant map of the Dutch East Indies along with Ceylon, Malaysia, and the South Sea Islands. This was their first meeting with Yamamoto since returning from their victory at Pearl Harbor. From the map, it was obvious that the Admiral was planning next to strike west into the Indian Ocean. Where and when they were to learn from him that morning.

None of them were happy about the targets displayed on the planning table map. To a man, they wanted to return to Oahu and hit the American Navy again. They had unfinished business there, fuel reservoirs to destroy, and three carriers that held a knife to their throats as long as they were battle worthy. This morning, they only stared at the huge map and wondered what the admiral was thinking.

They looked up as the door of Yamamoto's state room opened. The Admiral walked in. Even among his fellow countrymen, Yamamoto was short, 5'3", with a somewhat frail and delicate body. As if one, the officers bowed to him, and unlike most senior admirals, Yamamoto bowed in return.

Be seated, he told them.

They sat in folded chairs in front of the planning map and looked up at the Admiral who stood before them. Fellow officers, Yamamoto began. I ordered you here to assess what we have accomplished and to begin planning for our next major offensive. First, our strike at Pearl Harbor was a huge success. Smiles and murmurs of pride greeted his announcement.

Second, we missed every one of their carriers.

The smiles and mental back patting stopped. Undoubtedly, the Americans are already rebuilding their fleet, scavenging what ships they can find in their homeland, and bringing what is available from the Atlantic. That might not be too many for our German allies are raising havoc along their Atlantic coast, and have shelled several shore installations with their submarines.

Something we should be doing, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida said, interrupting the Admiral. The Commander was a slender man of medium height, but was already recognized as a rising star in the navy, a brilliant aviator, the officer who along with Genda and Yamamoto had planned and then led the attack upon the American fleet at Oahu - and he was not afraid to speak his mind with the fleet admiral, or anyone else, except possibly the Emperor.

Yamamoto wasn't afraid to put him in his place either. He stared coldly at Fuchida. Rash talk is easier said than accomplished, Commander Fuchida. We will return to Oahu, but right now we must expand into the Dutch Indies and secure oil. The Americans don't have to search for it anywhere; they have plenty at home, and in their reserve tanks on Oahu, which you missed too.

The other officers frowned at Yamamoto's response. He had specifically ordered Admiral Nagumo to hit the reserve tanks with a third wave of bombers, but the Admiral had balked at sending them in for fear the remaining Americans were waiting for them, which they were. 

Still, we should once again make them feel our presence. They should know that we are not holding back, that Pearl Harbor was not a fluke. The Americans are our primary enemy in the Pacific, not the Dutch or English, Fuchida persisted. And we need to destroy their carriers and bomb their fuel reserves.

Yamamoto continued to stare coldly at the young offender who met his eyes. We have taken Wake Island and Guam. That is enough to warn the Americans that we have not forgotten them, and that we are slowly but surely encircling Hawaii. We will eventually strike them again, but for now we must secure the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies to provide fuel for our ships and planes. Unless, of course you know of another source that has eluded the Emperor and the Combined Chiefs.

Forgive me, Admiral, Fuchida answered. But we must strike boldly and unexpectedly as we did before. Once we beat the Mongs soundly, they will withdraw from Hawaii and retreat to California. Then we can ask for peace and return their islands. Then we will no longer have a powerful adversary, and the rest of the Pacific and Indian Oceans will be ours for the taking.

Your term, Mong, acquaint me with it, Yamamoto ordered Fuchida.

The Americans are a mongrel nation of many races while Japan is racially pure. My friends and I call them Mongs, short for Mongrel, Fuchida explained.

Seldom did Yamamoto talk a great deal. He was usually a stern, taciturn officer who watched and judged planning, and then made the final decision as to what action to take with modifications that he ordered himself. Now, staring at young Fuchida, he fairly shook with anger.

"If you do not know, then