MIDWAY JUNE 4, 1942 - AFTERNOON
Attack on the Japanese carrier Hiryu
The Hornet recovered our dive-bombers returning from Midway Island. I was assigned to a flight of about twelve VB-8 and VS-8 dive-bombers, which was launched to attack the Hiryu, the carrier whose aircraft had dive-bombed and torpedoed the Yorktown. We did not have any fighters to escort us. About twenty miles from the Hornet my gunner warned me about four fighters that started to dive on us. The fighters turned out to be friendly F4F Wildcats from the Enterprise. As we approached the Japanese carrier task force, we were surprised not to be attacked by Zero fighters. I could see large black AA bursts at our altitude just ahead of us. As we got closer, I could see the aircraft carrier Hiryu dead in the water and burning. Still no Zeros but I did see a Japanese cruiser scout plane flying low on the water near the carrier.
The Japanese carrier Hiryu lies abandoned and burning after an attack by American Dauntless SBD-3 dive-bombers,
Our flight leader led us to a position where we could start our dives on a cruiser. I was the last plane to dive and I observed a 1000-pound bomb explode just behind the bridge from one of the first aircraft to dive. As I started to push over in my dive, I saw numerous explosions in the water about fifty yards to the port side of the cruiser. As I approached my release point, I pressed the electrical bomb release button. I didn’t feel the bomb release. The bomb was hung up. As I started to pull out of my dive and closed my dive brakes, my airspeed indicator had pegged at its maximum position. We had to dive through a thin layer of clouds that had obscured another cruiser. I passed right over it’s fantail at about 300 feet. I could see nothing but shrapnel fragments splashing in the water right below me. My tremendous speed acceleration caused by the extra weight of the hung bomb made the Japanese gunners under estimate my speed. Finally my airspeed indicator slowly returned to a normal speed of 145 knots. I had a real wild ride! I finally was able to shake the bomb loose with a manual release system. After I joined up on the aircraft of our C.O., Lieutenant Commander Ruff Johnson, he closed his cockpit hatch and lighted a cigarette! We made our dive-bombing runs with open hatches.
As we proceeded on course to the Hornet, we flew over numerous yellow life rafts in the water below us. I had no idea how many of out pilots or Japanese pilots were down there. I felt sorry for them and glad I was not down there. Walter Winchell, a TBD pilot from Enterprise's VT-6, was down there. He survived twenty-one days before he was rescued. We flew over the Yorktown and it looked pretty forlorn in the gathering dusk. A destroyer was alongside and it looked like the Yorktown was not going to sink. Later a Japanese submarine fired some torpedoes and hit Yorktown and the destroyer. When the destroyer sank its armed depth charges exploded and the both the destroyer and the Yorktown were lost. Most of the personnel aboard the destroyer were killed.
Army Air Corps B-17s are mistakenly credited with the victory at Midway
After our flight landed on the Hornet and returned to the ready room, I asked the other pilots, "What was the source of the explosions I saw near the port side of the cruiser". Somebody said, "Fisher didn’t you see those B-17s above us. They almost dropped their bombs through our formation!"
I have a newspaper clipping from the New York Times that described how the B-17s had sunk the Japanese carriers and won the Battle of Midway! If I had been a bombardier on one of those B-17s, and I released some bombs and then observed an explosion on that cruiser, I would have been totally convinced I had hit that ship.
When the Enterprise and Hornet returning from Midway were passing through the narrow channel to the entrance to Pearl Harbor people standing on the edge of the channel taunted some of the crew members about where had the carriers been hiding! The Hawaiian newspapers had only published what the Army Air Corps headquarters had released. The B-17s had sunk the Japanese carriers! The Navy had not yet released how those four Japanese carriers had been sunk. Eventually the truth came out. Also Japanese accounts after the war indicated that no Japanese ships had ever been hit by a single bomb from the B-17s. The B-17 and its Norden bomb director were not designed to hit maneuvering ships moving at 30 knots.
The SBDs were the only aircraft to hit the carriers and the dive-bombers could release their bombs as low as 1,500 feet and still recover from their dives. All the torpedo squadrons suffered terrible losses, and none of their torpedoes scored hits on the carriers to my knowledge. Their sacrifices set the stage for the dive-bombers to enter their dives unopposed by the Zero fighters. The Japanese made a huge tactical error in bringing down most of their fighters for the "kill" of most of our torpedo aircraft. "Banzai" didn’t pay off. All four Japanese aircraft carriers were hit with numerous 1000-pound bombs and finally sank! Three of those carriers had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.