National Geographic: The Battle for Midway Page #3

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The Americans fight back

with everything they've got.

Less than half an hour later,

the first Japanese strike is over.

But if the enemy aircraft carriers

are not stopped soon, Midway may fall.

Six-fifty a.m. June 4, 1942.

A hundred-and-sixty miles

from a battle-torn Midway,

the torpedo bomber carrying Ferrier,

Earnest and Manning head straight

at the Japanese fleet.

As they near the carriers,

the Japanese fighter attack

becomes more intense.

And tragically effective.

But very shortly,

Manning had stopped firing,

and so I looked back over my shoulder

to see what was going on,

and he was just hanging down

in his harness in the turret

and obviously had been killed.

And then, really, the next thing

I remember was waking up

with my head hanging down

and blood pouring off my head.

Their plane is shot up.

Their controls and compass out

of commission.

Their comrade Jay Manning is dead.

But Ferrier and Earnest

are still alive

and now they have

to find their way home.

I decided to climb up above the clouds

and see if I could see anything,

and I did.

And when I got up there,

I saw a great big plume of

smoke over to the east.

...and realized that probably

was Midway, which had been attacked.

They manage to land safely in a

plane that is literally shot to pieces.

After getting patched up at

a field hospital,

Harry Ferrier waits for the return of

the other five planes in his squadron.

He waits in vain.

But it was afternoon,

you know, early afternoon,

and it became obvious that our airplane

was the only one that had come back,

that the other five did not,

and we eventually just had to accept

the fact that they

all five were shot down.

It is day eight of the expedition.

Ballard's robot explorer, the ATV,

is still crippled.

And the Navy doesn't know if they can

get it up and fully running again.

They need more time,

the one thing Ballard can't spare.

Fortunately, the sonar

is still going strong.

Instead of just waiting,

Ballard leaves

the phantom Yorktown behind

to look for Japanese carriers

at a site 170 miles away.

The Japanese veterans

have not seen these waters in 56 years

not since the death of their ship,

the Kaga.

Yet here, time is erased.

My heart is racing in anticipation

of seeing the ship.

I keep remembering the image

of the sinking carrier.

I hope it is found soon.

After all the frustration and delay,

the ATV makes it to the bottom

of the sea.

But all too soon,

Ballard realizes the bottom is barren

no carrier, no planes

just rocks and mud.

No excuses.

I just didn't find it. Period.

Round one.

To Kaga.

I'll get to Yorktown.

I really want the Yorktown.

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