The American attacks were, largely, disjointed and poorly coordinated due to poor doctrine, inexperience and delays on the carriers, as well as the inherent difficulty in coordinating aircraft launched from three different places and operated by three different services.

The American attacks on the Japanese Carrier Striking Force (Kido Butai) trickled in throughout the morning of the 4th June 1941. The force had been sighted at 5:34 by a PBY Catalina flying from Midway, and then again by another at 5:52 (this aircraft had also sighted the Japanese strike inbound to the island). The knowledge that Japanese aircraft were inbound to the island was the trigger for the launching of Midway's strike aircraft. The carrier aircraft from TF 16 and 17 had to wait, as the carriers were at extreme range at the time of the sighting. The first attack on Kido Butai came at 7:10, when it was attacked by two groups of torpedo aircraft from Midway - Navy TBF Avengers from VT-8 and Army B-26s. The next attack was made by Marine SBD Dauntless dive bombers, under the command of Major Lofton Henderson of VMSB-241. As this attack was ongoing, a force of B-17s attacked; this had been launched at 4:30 to attack the Japanese transports sighted the previous evening, but was redirected when the carriers were sighted. The last elements from Midway to attack was a group of older SB2U Vindicator dive bombers, flown by Marines from VMSB-241. While these attacks were ongoing, the American carriers were launching their aircraft; Enterprise and Hornet of TF 16 from 7:00, and Yorktown in TF 17 from 8:38. The squadrons from TF 16 set off largely independently, but those from the more experienced Yorktown concentrated their strike. Hornet's torpedo bombers were the first to reach Kido Butai, attacking unsuccessfully at 09:18. They were then followed by their counterparts from Enterprise, at 09:38. Finally, two separate attacks intermingled from about 10:00. Enterprise's dive-bombers, from VB-6 and VS-6 attacked from the south-west, while Yorktown's strike, combining both dive and torpedo bombers from VB-3 and VT-3, came in from the south-east. As VT-3's torpedo bombers attacked at low-level, they were sighted earlier than VB-3, while the slow speed of their TBD Devastators meant that their attack was greatly extended. This meant that their attack was often seen as disjointed from the attack by the dive bombers, though later scholarship has corrected this. Hornet's dive bombers never sighted Kido Butai.

Now that we know how the American attacks developed, why were they disjointed? One obvious answer is that the attacks came in from three widely separated locations. To coordinate with the aircraft from Midway, the aircraft from the carriers would have had to make a massive diversion, which they did not have the fuel for. Nor could they wait, in order to arrive at the target together. The aircraft from Midway had to launch at about 6:00, to prevent the aircraft being destroyed on the ground by the incoming Japanese strike (or shot down en route by the escorting fighters). At this time, the American carriers were out of range of Kido Butai. Similarly, TF 16 and 17 could not easily combine their strikes. They were relatively far apart, and still operating at long range from their target; many of Enterprise's dive bombers ran out of fuel before returning to the carrier. They did not know whether or not there was a Japanese strike inbound towards them, and had to launch quickly, rather than waiting to join their forces. Finally, doctrine stated that the carrier task forces should operate independently; this avoided the risk of a single strike knocking out every carrier available, but precluded making concentrated strikes.

Even so, strikes launched from a single location could have been concentrated - so why did the strikes from Midway go in in a disjointed manner, and why didn't Enterprise's and Hornet's strikes attack together. The aircraft that came from Midway came from three separate forces - the Navy, Army and Marines. They did not habitually operate together, and had not discussed their attack plans before taking off. The B-17s had been redirected in flight, so would have attacked independently from the other squadrons even if there had been some coordination beforehand. As it happened, the Army B-26s and Navy TBFs attacked together, in what was, essentially a coincidence. The Marines had some coordination within their squadron, but they were flying two different types of aircraft. The SBDs were faster than the SB2Us (though not as fast as the B-26s and TBFs), meaning that the squadron naturally split into two groups.

The problems with coordinating the carrier strikes, meanwhile, were largely due to doctrine. The American doctrine in force at the time held that each carrier's air group was independent from any other. The choice of route, of which aircraft to launch and when was down to the carrier's captain. This was further exacerbated by a command failing; a member of Spruance's staff had failed to send a detailed description of the situation to Hornet. Enterprise's captain chose to range his SBDs first, with the shorter-ranged fighters and TBDs following in a second launch. The first launch went off without a hitch, but the second was greatly delayed by technical issues. To stop the SBDs from running out of fuel while waiting for the second launch, they were dispatched at 7:45. The fighter and torpedo squadrons took off next, but the commander of the fighter squadron had not been briefed on the change in plans for the bomber squadrons. With no SBDs in sight, he formed up on what he took to be Enterprise's torpedo bombers; instead, they were Hornet's. This left Enterprise's torpedo bombers travelling independently and unescorted towards Kido Butai. Hornet's launch, meanwhile, had the fighters, SBDs and half her TBDs in the first range, and the remainder of the TBDs in a second range. While this reduced the amount of fuel available to her fighters, the full force was able to concentrate and head off together. Unfortunately, the commander of Hornet's air group, Commander Stanhope Ring, picked the wrong course, missing Kido Butai altogether. The commander of the torpedo bomber squadron, though, disagreed, and split off from the main formation at 08:25 (about half an hour after they had set off). The new course took them directly to Kido Butai, but left them isolated and unsupported. Yorktown's pilots and crews were more experienced, having learned the value of coordinated strikes at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The squadrons were briefed to fly along a single line of bearing to the most likely location of Kido Butai, rather than picking their own routes as TF 16's air groups had done. They launched together, and flew together. As a result of this, Yorktown was the only American carrier whose torpedo and dive bomber squadrons attacked together.