20. A Lopsided Defeat
As McClusky’s planes neared the point beyond which they would not have enough fuel to return to their carriers, he decided to keep going, and turned north. He was rewarded by spotting a lone Japanese destroyer below. Guessing that it was heading to rejoin its fleet, McClusky used the destroyer’s wake as an arrow. It led him to the Japanese fleet, which was caught at the worst possible time for an attack from dive bombers. The carriers were rearming and refueling, so bombs, torpedoes, and fuel hoses were all over the place. There was also no fighter cover: Japanese fighters had gone down to intercept and destroy the torpedo bombers that had attacked at low level.
They hadn’t regained altitude when the American dive bombers showed up high above and dove down. McClusky’s dive bombers struck and set on fire two Japanese carriers. At almost the exact same that McClusky began his attack, the Yorktown’s dive bombers, which took a different route, arrived over the Japanese fleet and dove after a third carrier. Within five minutes, three of the four Japanese aircraft carriers were burning. The fourth Japanese carrier was sunk later that day. In exchange, Japanese planes severely damaged the American carrier USS Yorktown, which was later sunk by a Japanese submarine. The lopsided defeat turned the tide of WWII in the Pacific, and dealt the Japanese a defeat from which they never fully recovered.
