Yamamoto scattered his forces to keep the attack secret, but that meant his formations could not help each other. For instance, Nagumo's fleet had few big ships. When the carrier planes were carrying out the strikes, the carriers were relatively undefended. By contrast, the flotillas of Yamamoto and Kondo had more big ships, "none of which saw any action at Midway". Their distance from Nagumo's carriers also meant he could not use their reconnaissance planes, so he knew little of what was happening.