SPIRAL OF
THE SORYUThis iconic image of the Battle of Midway
was taken from an American B-17 bomber
and shows the Japanese aircraft carrier Soryu
attempting to evade bombardment by executing
a circular maneuver. At its launch in 1937, the
I.J.N. Soryu was the fastest carrier in the world,
but the ship’s nimbleness did not save it at Mid-
way: Attacked as its aircraft were refueling on
June 4, 1942, the Soryu was damaged beyond
repair and scuttled that same day.NEWSNavy—including the Akagi,
Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu, four
of the six aircraft carriers that
had participated in Pearl Har-
bor—was preparing a strike
on the Midway Atoll.Pacific Payback
This time, however, the
Americans would be ready.
U.S. warships, supported by
bombers from above, am-
bushed the Japanese fleet afterit bombarded the tiny atoll on
June 4, 1942. Victory was hard
won: The United States lost
the carrier Yorktown, and the
destroyer Hammann.
Midway was a catastrophic
loss for Japan that derailed its
military efforts in the Pacific.
In addition to the loss of the
four carriers, more than 3,
Japanese servicemen were
killed, a death toll 10 times
higher than the Americans’.Japan would not recover, and
the defeat was not revealed to
the Japanese public.
Nearly 80 years later, the
operators of the Petrel are con-
scious of the human dimen-
sion of the find. Robert Kraft,
director of subsea operations
for Vulcan, said: “Every ship-
wreck we find reminds us all
of the ultimate sacrifice made
by those who served their
countries.”speck in the middle of the Pa-
cific, would be high on Japan’s
list of potential sites.
To find out when and
where Japan would strike,
American cryptographers
worked tirelessly to crack
the 90,000-word Japanese
codebook known as JN25. In
the spring of 1942 they had
revealed enough of its work-
ings to decipher that the
bulk of the Imperial Japanese
6 MARCH/APRIL 2020
RGP VENTURES/SUPERSTOCK/ALAMY