In the foreground the Kaga passes across the picture with the planes she sought so hard to launch caught on her deck like birds in a nest, helpless against the swooping eagles. At the extreme left the carrier Akagi is sending up billowing smoke, as towering columns of water geyser up around her. The carrier Soryu is burning fiercely from stem to stern under a cloud of mushrooming smoke. In the center a light cruiser's stern rises up as she makes her final plunge. On the horizon 1000-pound bombs have hit two battleships and both are begining to burn. A zero trailing smoke dives into the sea.

This painting is based on the recollections of Ensign George Gay of Torpedo 8, who watched the battle from the ocean after his plane was shot down in the first wave against the Japanese.