Layton's Prediction Of When & Where The Japanese Carriers Would Be First Spotted | bestScenes

Midway (2019) Best Scene

Edwin Thomas Layton's Specific Prediction Of When & Where The Japanese Carriers Would Be First Spotted

"Well, Layton,
you and Rochefort were only off
five minutes, five miles and five degrees."
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A little before 6:00 A.M. on June 4 a PBY Catalina float plane droned through the bright morning sky. Lieutenant Howard B. Ady and his crew had been searching a sector northwest of Midway since well before dawn. Then came the electrifying message from Ady's plane: PLANE REPORTS TWO CARRIERS, TWO BATTLESHIPS, BEARING 320 DEGREES, DISTANT 180 MILES, COURSE 135 DEGREES, SPEED 25 KNOTS. Only an hour earlier Nimitz had asked Layton to give him a specific prediction of when and where the Japanese carriers would be first spotted. Layton swallowed hard and hazarded 0600, from the northwest at a bearing of 325 degrees, at a distance 175 miles from Midway. When Nimitz received the PBY's report in his operations room he could not resist tweaking his intelligence officer; turning to Layton he dryly commented, "Well, you were only five minutes, five degrees, and five miles out."