Midway garrison

Midway's tiny atoll had been turned into a fortress: Marine defenders of the 6th Defense Battalion, a naval air station, and more than 120 land-based aircraft — fighters, dive bombers, torpedo planes and B-17 Flying Fortresses. On 4 June 1942 its radar caught the Japanese first strike about 80 kilometres out, and every aircraft that could fly scrambled to fight or evade. The Marine fighter squadron rose to intercept and was nearly annihilated by Zeros, but the base kept operating: the runway survived repeated bombing, the bombers kept harassing the invasion fleet through the day, and the garrison's torpedo and dive bombers pressed attacks on the Japanese carriers at terrible cost. The garrison also sent the famous uncoded message that its water distillation plant had failed — the bait that confirmed 'AF' meant Midway and gave the US Navy the ambush that decided the battle. Its dispersal discipline on 4 June — aircraft launched and clear of the field before the bombs fell — denied the Japanese the parked formations that might have ended the island's air power in one blow.