On June 3, Japanese forces attacked Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. Later that day B-17’s flying out of Midway spotted and attacked the Japanese transport group that was carrying the troops that were going to land on Midway.

During the night of June 3-4, four Japanese carriers and their escorts under command of Admiral Nagumo approached Midway from the northwest, totally unaware that Fletcher and the three American carriers were only a couple hundred miles away to the east.

While the Japanese carriers were sending their planes to bomb Midway, American aircraft were searching out the Japanese fleet. While this is not a history of the Battle of Midway, one of the more dramatic events of the battle occurred when the sixteen TBD Devastator torpedo bombers of Hornet’s Torpedo Eight managed to locate the Japanese fleet.