The scouts of Midway

Dawn, 4 June 1942. Admiral Nagumo's four carriers, the fleet that burned Pearl Harbor, steam toward Midway atoll believing no American fleet is within a thousand miles. His morning search is seven planes, thin and unlucky. On the cruiser Tone, catapult trouble holds the No. 4 scout on its rail for half an hour; it finally fires at about 05:00. The sector it was to search held the American carriers. At 07:40 its pilot, Hiroshi Amari, radios ten enemy ships, and only later, fatally later, that a carrier seems to be among them. Caught rearming with the wrong bombs, Nagumo hesitates, and at 10:22 American dive bombers arrive over his open hangars. In six minutes, three carriers are burning.

In the timeline recorded here, the black powder charge fires clean at 04:30. The Aichi floatplane bangs off the rail into the grey dawn and flies its allotted line, and the line runs true. At 06:15 Amari's signal comes down into Akagi's bridge like a dropped blade: ten ships, northeast, carriers among them. Nagumo has not yet armed his reserve for a second strike on the island. There is no dilemma, no changing of bombs, no lost hour. The reserve goes up armed for ships, and the fleet that burned Pearl Harbor turns its bow toward Task Force 16 with its whole morning intact.