 This is Professor Jim Holmes, J.C. Wiley Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College. Today I want to talk to you about aviators and admirals at the Battle of Midway, but first a quick recap of that monumental naval engagement. Early on June 4, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy struck at the U.S. airfield on Midway Island about 1,300 miles west of Pearl Harbor in hopes of drawing out U.S. aircraft carriers into the open sea so they can be sunk. Instead, carrier-tops forces commanded by rear admiral Ray Spruance and rear admiral Frank Jack Fletcher took station north of Midway and lay in wait for the Ketubutai, Japan's mobile carrier striking force. The Japanese brought four fleet carriers to the fight, the American's three plus the airfield on Midway. Thanks to brilliant intelligence work by the staff for Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, our Navy knew the Japanese target was Midway and had a solid idea of the Ketubutai's whereabouts on the morning of June 4. Carrier-air forces on both sides had a hard time finding the enemy. After all, the ocean is a big place and in those days, planes had not yet been fitted with radar. Nevertheless, a clear edge in what we today call battle space awareness went to the U.S. Navy. The advantage of knowing the surroundings became decisive when Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commanding the Japanese carriers, waffled at a key moment about whether to arm his torpedo bombers with torpedoes to attack ships or bombs to attack ground targets. Japanese aviators had pounded the airfield on Midway early that morning, as I mentioned. But Nagumo was convinced a second wave of strikes was necessary to put it out of action. Since he didn't know for sure that U.S. carriers were in the area, he ordered the attack planes reloaded with bombs only to receive ambiguous reports that the U.S. fleet had been sighted. After wavering, he ordered bombs switched out for torpedoes. Unloading and reloading takes time unfortunately for him. Planes from the carrier's enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown began finding their way to the sea while Japanese crews were changing out ordnance and refueling planes, the time when a carrier is most vulnerable to attack. U.S. torpedo planes arrived first, coming in low and slow according to the tactics of the time. They scored no hits, but drew Japanese fighters down to the deck just before dive bombing squadrons reached the scene on high and barreled down on the Japanese flat tops. American bombing squadrons suffered heavy losses, but they got the job done in grand style. By the end of June 4th, the Ketubutai lay in ruins, while our Navy lost only one carrier, USS Yorktown. Historian Craig Simons, the author of a must-read history of the battle of Midway, notes that the strategic initiative passed from Japan's Navy to our Navy in a day. So much for the historical to sketch. Now let's put history to work, reviewing the part played by aviators and admirals in the battle. Midway was an air battle, so it's natural to dwell on what air crews did. Always bearing in mind how many people, rather, it takes to keep an airplane flying, defend the fleet from attack, or steam an engineering plant to keep the ship moving and the lights on. Naval aviation is a true team sport, as indeed are all maritime endeavors. Putting the accent on the human factor is right and fitting. As Navy people, we tend to focus on ships, planes, weapons, things in other words. And this is natural. After all, we live on board our platforms. They are home for long stretches of time, and there is no gainsaing the importance of material excellence. But the finest weapon is no better than its user. We should never lose sight of the fact that war is a human enterprise. War puts antagonists animated by ingenuity and competitive fire against each other. Each competitor tries to outthink and outdo the other, imposing its will on an unwilling foe. Oftentimes, the victor is the combatant who wants it more and whose people are more willing to write grave personal risks for the cause. There was no shortage of valor on June the 4th. When I think of valor at midway, I'm thinking of the crews of Torpedo Squadron 8 from USS Hornet who went in first against the Japanese fleet with no fighter cover and no dog momers overhead to distract Japanese attention and defensive efforts. They faced the combined firepower of the Kito Boutai and suffered grievously. From Torpedo 8, on the instant George Gaye survived the assault, watching the battle from the water before finally being rescued. I'm thinking about Lieutenant Dick Best, the commander of Bombing Squadron 6 on board USS Enterprise, who ingested caustic soda from a faulty oxygen canister on his first sword tee that day yet went on to hit two Japanese carriers and received the Navy Cross. I'm thinking of Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Thatch, the skipper of Fighting Squadron 3 on board Yorktown, who invented tactics to offset nimble Japanese zeros and went on to down three of them on June 4th. Gaye, Best, and Thatch make up only part of the role of honor from the Battle of Midway. Their example reminds us that not just tactical and technical skill, but sheer bravery is what makes the difference in war on the high seas. We must live up to their example as we confront the challenges of our own day, challenges every bit as daunting as those of 1942. Now let me say a few words about Admiral Nimitz, who oversaw the Pacific War from late 1941 on. Nimitz was an icon of naval leadership. Psychologists wanted the perils of Groupthink, a dynamic in which social pressures within groups discouraged dissenting views from being fully aired and all options fully considered. A team afflicted by Groupthink reaches consensus, but it tends to be an ill-considered consensus. The remedy for Groupthink is to solicit many different voices and to empower and even reward those who challenge the prevailing view. In so doing, a leadership ensures that all ideas are vetted in full and the benefits, costs, and dangers of each course of action are identified and pondered. No one has a monopoly on tactical, operational, or strategic insight. The chances of sound decision improve when perspectives clash. Conformity is a bad thing, while raucous debate makes us better as a team. Nimitz understood the dangers of Groupthink decades before the term was coined, and he set out to counteract it. I mentioned how intelligence work set up the American fleet for success in Midway. Nimitz listened to official estimates from Washington, D.C., but encouraged his naval intelligence staff in Honolulu, in particular Joe Rochefort and Edwin Layton of Station Hippo to pursue rather competing analysis. And so they did. The staff hit on an ingenious subterfuge for determining where the Japanese blow would fall, and pieced together enough fragments of Japanese signals traffic to project where and when the imperial Japanese navy would appear off Midway. That made it possible for our fleet to take an auspicious position and ambush the enemy from an unforeseen axis. Nimitz listened to contradictory arguments, pondered his options, and made up his mind to trust the views put forward by his own people. I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that Admiral Nimitz empowered his subordinates in other ways. He was no micro manager. His orders to Fletcher and Spruitz were simple. They were to fight according to the principle of calculated risk, meaning they were to avoid exposing the fleet to attack by superior forces unless they saw good prospects of inflicting greater harm on the enemy. That was it. In other words, Nimitz told his subordinates what to do, but refrain from dictating how they should do it. In this, as with encouraging productive discord when debating operations and strategy, he is an example to us all. People such as these carried the day at Midway. And with that, I will close, except to encourage you to read up on Midway and to say Happy Birthday Navy.