Two Japanese Carriers Sunk, One Heavily Damaged in Battle at Midway Island
BE A.P. June 14, 2014
Two Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers were sunk and another heavily damaged in intense fighting near Midway Island yesterday. The U.S.S. Enterprise and U.S.S. Yorktown were hit but repaired at sea while the U.S.S. Hornet remained unscathed.
One IJN carrier was sunk by repeated aerial bombing. In the words of one IJN commander "That first CV was attacked so many times, it was brutal, I was in it spinning the fleet around the whole time. That was a great deal of fun trying to keep that poor thing floating." -ROC
A second IJN carrier was lost to the 8" guns of U.S. Navy Task Group 14, operating as part of a joint task force operation to locate and destroy the enemy carriers. Participants speculate this may be the only aircraft carrier ever lost in a surface to surface engagement in the history of Aces high scenarios.
The air to air action was equally intense. Reflecting on the words of prior Japanese airman Saburo Sakai: "I had full confidence in my ability to destroy the Grumman and decided to finish off the enemy fighter with only my 7.7 mm machine guns. I turned the 20 mm cannon switch to the "off" position, and closed in. For some strange reason, even after I had poured about five or six hundred rounds of ammunition directly into the Grumman, the airplane did not fall, but kept on flying. I thought this very odd—it had never happened before—and closed the distance between the two airplanes until I could almost reach out and touch the Grumman. To my surprise, the Grumman's rudder and tail were torn to shreds, looking like an old torn piece of rag. With his plane in such condition, no wonder the pilot was unable to continue fighting! A Zero which had taken that many bullets would have been a ball of fire by now." bacon8tr stated "Talk about immersion. That is almost word for word my encounter experience."
Unofficially the U.S. scored 135 aerial victories to only 56 losses with the battle lasting three full hours, beginning at 1530 eastern and ending at 1830 eastern daylight time.
The acting U.S. commander had this to say: "Nur nur na nur nur, ya rice munching noodle dodgers. We sunk your boat." -Swoop, adding "And ya wanna tell the plan makers that planning to get all your planes shot down and your CVs sunk isn't a great plan.....as plans go."
After scoring significant moral victories at both Pearl Harbor and Midway the emboldened U.S. forces are expected to once again engage the Japanese Navy near the Santa Cruz islands within the week.
