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Ask any moderately well-informed history buff what he knows of the Japanese cruiser Tone, and he will surely say, "Ah, yes, the cruiser whose scout plane was delayed before the Battle of Midway."

On the morning of June 4, 1942, Admiral Nagumo's fleet was steaming toward, Midway, somewhat blindly, as were all fleets of the day. He thought he had the element of surpise, but he wanted to be sure; the Americans still had 2 or 3 carriers (in fact we had 4). He ordered the cruisers' scout planes to fan out in a careful search pattern, but one of Tone's was delayed getting off.

After the scout planes went off, the Japanese strike planes hit Midway, which was well-alerted and not heavily damaged. It looked like a second strike would be needed. Midway-based aircraft were attacking the Japanese fleet; Nagumo needed little convincing. He ordered his planes re-armed to hit the island, rather than warships. Just as that task got under way, the Tone's scout plane radioed in "ten ships, apparently enemy, bearing ten degrees ..."

The rest is history. Nagumo got confirmation that an American carrier was with the group, and he was thus compelled to halt the re-arming, and switch back to torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs.  In the midst of this high-explosive work on the carrier decks, the American dive bombers struck, and in ten minutes three Japanese carriers: Soryu, Akaga and Kaga were destroyed.

Thus one of the great "might-have-beens" of naval history: What if the Tone's scout plane had launched on time and spotted the American naval forces in good time?

Sources: Public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships

and pictures from my father's 1943 Naval Recognition Manual

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