The story of how Naval intelligence paved the way for victory at Midway is embedded in the culture of the U.S. Navy, but the impact of this narrative extends far beyond the service. Today, scholars use the events leading up to Midway to define intelligence success—an example of a specific event prediction that was accurate, timely, and actionable, creating the basis for an effective counterambush of the Imperial Japanese Navy.1 Yet an important element of the Midway intelligence story has been overlooked over the years: Those who received intelligence estimates understood the analysis and warnings issued and acted effectively on them. There is much to learn about naval intelligence by considering how commanders responded to forecasts of potential events in the waters around the Hawaiian Islands in June 1942. Naval planners and commanders today—not just intelligence officers—need to recognize and consider their role in the intelligence process.
Actionable Intelligence at Its Best
The Midway intelligence story is both well-known and well-told.2 Following the 7 December 1941 disaster at Pearl Harbor, Station Hypo, the signals intelligence cell at Pearl Harbor, which was under the leadership of Navy Commander Joseph P. Rochefort, redoubled its efforts to break the Japanese JN-25 naval code. Even though it was able to read only a small portion of encrypted intercepts, by the spring of 1942 Station Hypo began to issue daily intelligence assessments of Japanese dispositions and intentions. These indicated something significant would soon be afoot in the Central Pacific and the Aleutians.
When analysts reconstructed the Japanese grid map for the Pacific, they realized the target of the upcoming Japanese operation was Midway, represented by the grid coordinates “AF.” To confirm this assessment, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, allowed Rochefort to undertake a stratagem to confirm the analysis. The garrison at Midway broadcast in the clear that their desalination plant had suffered a casualty. Soon after, the Japanese reported in their encrypted communications that AF was suffering a water shortage. Intelligence performed so brilliantly that on 27 May 1942, Pacific Fleet Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Commander Edwin Layton was able to provide Nimitz with a forecast that still stands out in the annals of intelligence. Layton reported that airstrikes probably would materialize on the morning of 4 June from the northwest at a bearing of 325 degrees.
The defenders would spot the Japanese on 4 June at about 0700, 175 miles from Midway.
This is actionable intelligence at its best. It allowed Nimitz to move his forces to a position, codenamed Point Luck, to defend Midway—or if the forecasts proved mistaken, to protect the most important U.S. facility in the area, Pearl Harbor.
Takeaway 1: Synchronize Intelligence, Operations, and Strategy
Although intelligence analysts at Pearl Harbor had been working the issue throughout April and May 1942, only nine days elapsed between Layton’s forecast of coming events and the detection of Japanese carriers northwest of Midway. That was just enough time for Nimitz to conduct emergency repairs on the USS Yorktown (CV-5) and assemble a force of three carriers at Point Luck to engage the Japanese. Layton’s forecast was delivered far enough in advance for Nimitz to take appropriate action, but the timing between warning and effective response raises an important observation: Intelligence assessments must be synchronized with operational and strategic requirements.
Operations and strategies based on warning being available weeks or months in advance of some untoward event are doomed to failure if intelligence analysts can provide only a few days or hours of warning. Nevertheless, sometimes planners seem to believe forces and logistics will be alerted and in place when they are needed, courtesy of a Layton-like specific event prediction. But plans cannot rest on an expectation of a timely warning. Monitoring this synchronization between intelligence and operations should be the responsibility of intelligence professionals, but strategists and operators should ask themselves occasionally if their expectations line up with intelligence realities. Strategists and planners have a hand in making sure a warning will be actionable—their plans must be based on what intelligence professionals can deliver.
Takeaway 2: The Receiver Must Recognize and Respond to Warning
The intelligence saga at Midway traditionally focuses on the performance of Rochefort, Layton, and their analysts. Their performance was in fact outstanding, but three elements of the story deserve additional attention. First, intelligence professionals knew exactly who should receive warning. Second, the receiver recognized their personal and organizational role in responding to warning. Finally, action was taken in response to warning. Midway met the necessary conditions of intelligence success because it closed the gaps between warning and response, that is, between intelligence and command.
While this appears commonsensical, there is nothing common about it. In the summer of 2001, for instance, the “system was blinking red” as intelligence professionals and officials dealt with indications that al Qaeda was planning a “spectacular” attack; yet no one inside the U.S. government recognized the threat and responded. It was the same before Pearl Harbor—reports and analysis were disseminated to officials in Washington and Oahu, while everyone seemed to think that someone else had the big picture and would respond appropriately.3
Things were different at Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, in 1942. The staff knew exactly who needed their analysis. Nimitz understood the message conveyed and knew he was responsible for devising a response. He did not cast about for others to act (e.g., the Marine commander on Midway), solicit opinions about the situation (from “Big Navy” back in Washington), or look to others to supply operational direction (the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration). The response to warning at Midway is so rare that it constitutes an intelligence success comparable to Layton’s forecast itself. This is the second lesson of Midway: Before a moment of crisis, intelligence professionals and commanders need to come to consensus on who receives the warning, who will recognize the warning for what it is, and who will take appropriate action. Responding to warning also requires prompt action at various points across a command, suggesting that some command-wide emphasis on bridging the warning-response gap would be beneficial. Commanders at all echelons need to recognize their personal and organizational role in responding to warning and anticipating exactly what that response will entail. Disaster looms when commanders or intelligence professionals assume that someone else will take action.
Takeaway 3: Trust
In hindsight, the intelligence story at Midway appears cut and dried, and it came to be portrayed generally that way. Brilliant analysis is used by a brilliant commander to turn the tide of World War II in the Pacific. One should stop to consider, however, a bit of the backstory.
Admiral Nimitz was taking advice from the same people who had a direct hand in helping create the intelligence failure and naval disaster at Pearl Harbor. Yes, there are theoretical and practical considerations that ease the task of intelligence in wartime; there was reason to expect intelligence might do better in May 1942. Nevertheless, Nimitz and his staff did not simply accept intelligence estimates at face value. They made a deliberate effort to understand the tradecraft behind the estimates they were receiving, and the intelligence officers provided details about how they reached their conclusions. As a result, Layton’s estimate struck home and prompted an appropriate response.
At the time, others were less willing to accept Midway was the target. The Army on Oahu opined that the Japanese were returning to strike the only target in the area that mattered, Pearl Harbor, which happened to be the target they were charged with defending. The War Department was concerned about a raid on the West Coast. After hearing how heavily the Pacific Fleet was relying on signals intelligence, some officers worried the Navy was falling victim to communication deception. In 1946, Chief of Staff George C. Marshall told congressional investigators about the doubts that emerged about the intelligence used by Nimitz:
We were very much disturbed because one Japanese unit gave Midway as its post office address, and that seemed a little bit too thick, so when the ships actually appeared it was a great relief, because if we had been deceived, and our limited number of vessels were there [Midway], and the Japanese approached at some other point, they would have had no opposition whatsoever.4
Was Nimitz falling for a ruse? The idea that Midway was not worth defending at the risk of a strike against more important facilities or the loss of the remainder of the fleet gave credence to the idea that deception was afoot.
Trust might be the best way to account for the fact that Nimitz and his staff understood and accepted intelligence forecasts, while others stuck with their own preferences and opinions. But it was not blind trust that animated the relationship between intelligence and command. The staff worked continually to build a shared understanding of command requirements and intelligence realities, which created a common assessment of the situation at hand. Everyone was aware that everyone else understood the threat and what was needed to defeat it. Trust, based on mutual understanding of command requirements and the strengths and limits of intelligence, ultimately lies behind the success at Midway.
Takeaway 4: Specific Event Prediction is Rare
Layton’s 27 May forecast was a specific event prediction. It was highly actionable because it answered the “who, what, where, when, and why” of a future event in a timely way that made it possible to take effective action. This type of forecast is rare. By contrast, indications & warning (I&W) intelligence, which is more commonly produced by intelligence agencies, often does not involve specific event prediction. Instead, it provides a more general assessment of a change in an opponent’s operational status—that is, a movement from a routine day-alert peacetime posture, when the ability to undertake operations is limited, to a generated-alert posture, a time when the ability to undertake operations is increasing.
Because I&W usually provides a more general alert—that an opponent is gearing up to undertake some range of potential actions soon—it will lack the certainty and specifics that characterize Layton’s forecast. Commanders do not always respond to this sort of general forecast. They often avoid acting until the situation develops, but by the time things become clear, it is generally too late to take effective action. Additionally, intelligence is always about actions that might happen and damages that might be incurred, while the cost of response is known and often high. As a result, commanders believe that if they are going to bear those costs, they want to respond in ways that are guaranteed to meet a looming threat. But those types of assurances are in short supply when intelligence is based on estimates and not certainties. Certainty only appears in hindsight.
It is the responsibility of intelligence professionals to introduce their customers to the strengths, limits, and common mistakes that can bedevil attempts to bridge the gap between warning and response, that is, between intelligence and command. The Midway intelligence narrative might be a good place to introduce the distinction between I&W intelligence and specific event predictions.
Takeaway 5: Mitigate the Intelligence Problem
What steps can planners, strategists, and commanders take to reduce the threat of strategic surprise attack and the associated failures in warning and response? What role do they play in helping intelligence professionals succeed? The answer is simple: Avoid presenting the opponent with a static, persistent posture to plan against.
Standard operating procedures that continue for years or even decades give opponents the time they need to devise innovative tactics, technologies, and stratagems that are hard to detect, analyze, and forecast. Small changes can delay opponents’ schemes, while larger changes can invalidate their plans altogether. Routine can be exploited. It is possible for planners and commanders to minimize the challenge facing intelligence by providing opponents with a new problem to plan against before they devise a way to solve the old one. And rest assured, they are working on finding ways to sidestep current force postures.
Replicating Success
The Midway intelligence story is about more than the genesis of Layton’s 27 May forecast. It also is a story about how Nimitz and his staff understood, accepted, and acted on the specific event prediction Layton provided. American actions at Midway demonstrate that intelligence success only occurs when the gap is bridged between intelligence and command, a chasm that often stops a warning from prompting an effective response. In that sense, the traditional Midway intelligence narrative is misleading, because it seems to suggest that a brilliant forecast cannot be ignored and will prompt appropriate action. That is not what happened in the weeks leading up to Midway. Rather, actions were taken to bridge the gap between intelligence and command in a way that built trust, a common understanding of the emerging situation, and awareness of everyone’s role in producing and responding to intelligence forecasts.
The success at Midway can be replicated, but it will not be easy. Today’s intelligence challenges can compress the time between warning and response to minutes, in the case of hypersonic weapons, or even tenths of a second in the case of a cyberattack. In addition, the tyranny of distance that governs operations in the Pacific theater is no longer working in the United States’ favor.5 Layton had an important advantage in offering his 27 May forecast: The Japanese Navy was already on the move when the warning was issued. That movement made it possible to provide such a specific estimate of when their carriers would arrive in Midway’s vicinity. Today, the shoe is on the other foot. The U.S. Navy now needs lead time to generate forces in the western Pacific. The availability of I&W is becoming central to the U.S. maritime deterrent posture. The Midway intelligence narrative suggests, however, that intelligence alone is no guarantee of success, which occurs only by bridging the gap between warning and response.
1. With publication dates separated by 26 years, the two leading works on intelligence success take the Battle of Midway as their point of departure, see Ariel Levite, Intelligence and Strategic Surprises (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); and Erik Dahl, Intelligence and Surprise Attack: Failure and Success from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 and Beyond (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013).
2. Craig L. Symonds, The Battle of Midway (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Thomas C. Hone (ed.) The Battle of Midway: The Naval Institute Guide to the U.S. Navy’s Greatest Victory (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016); and Gordon W. Prange, Miracle at Midway (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982).
3. James J. Wirtz, “David Sherman’s ‘William Friedman and Pearl Harbor’: A Symposium,” Intelligence and National Security Vol. 33, Iss. 3, (2018), pp. 307-307; and David Sherman, “William Friedman and Pearl Harbor,” Intelligence and National Security Vol. 33, Iss. 3, (2018), pp. 309-323.
4. Marshall quoted in Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, Miracle at Midway (New York” Penguin, 1983), p. 47.
5. James J. Wirtz, Jeffrey E. Kline, and James A. Russell, “A Maritime Conversation with America,” Orbis Vol. 66, Iss. 2. Spring 2022, pp. 166-183.
