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Gentleman;

From conversations with the surviving members of VMF-221, and examining the few extant reference materials, the possibility surely existed that the fighters might be used as an escort force. However, MAG-22 had never implemented a pre-battle strike plan, and certainly never had any kind of organized planning session on the evening/night of 3-4 June for the missions the next day. The loss of the fuel dump and resulting difficulty in refueling aorcraft left no chance for additional training and practice flights - and no chance to practice getting everything on the atoll off the ground in an organized fashion. The veteran pilots that had been on the atoll for most of the year had experience out of sight of the atoll and working with the dive bombers, but the new replacements were had no experience in that regard.

The entire attack had been expected on the 3rd and my interviews indicated that the entire fighter force was not committed to CAP operations on the 3rd or any prior day. On the 4th, like most other days, they had had a pre-dawn CAP to cover the launch of the PBY search and the B-17 striking force that, like the other days, was recalled to refuel after the departing aircraft were clear and dawn broken with a clear sky.

While all that was going on the USN, USAAF, and MAG-22 aircraft on the airfield were arming up their engines and then shut down to top off their tanks. It is also clear from interviews with the surviving USAAF (B-26) and USN (TBF) torpedo crews had never been integrated into any strike plan by MAG-22 - they were simply tasked with attacking the enemy when ordered. Otherwise, they were mostly concerned with trying to get information and maintain their planes as neither group had ground maintenence personnel onn hand.

However, the electrifying radio alert of many planes heading Midway at a time when the airfield was packed, left no time for any briefing or planning. The fighters never got any kind of position report prior to heading for their planes and were, immediately after takeoff, givien vectors for interceptiong the incoming strike. Both Carey and Armistead indicated that their had been prior discussions about elements of the squadron escorting the dive bombers, but nothing about this was ever discussed in the hours before the moring CAP, flown by Carey's 5th division.

In the event, even the two Marine dive bomber formations took off with no indication amongst the followers (i.e., anyone beside the two formation commanders and perhaps their deputies) of what they were going to do or where they were going other than to the squadrons designated rendezvous point east of the atoll.

My best take on the question was that the airfield was so overloaded with planes and aircrew and there was such difficulty organizing the refueling and rearming of the planes, particularly the B17s, that communications collapsed in the face of the sudden alert and mass departure and it was simply recognized that there was no time to attempt to organize the strike force, particularly the fighters. Heck, there is no doubt from interviews that all the runways were in use simultaneously - it was a small miracle that there were no mid-airs and only the one taxi accident in the pre-dawn darkness between a PBY and an SB2U.

Thus, keeping all of the fighters home for CAP seems to have been default option given that no other orders could be given prior to takeoff.

Mark E. Horan