Battle of Midway day

Today is the anniverary of the Battle of Midway, something I always take time out to remember, as it is when a very small group of aviators miraculously changed the course of history in a few minutes.
So, here's to the heroic VTs that cleared the way for their SBD and Wildcat buds.
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Thanks for reminding us about that battle. It slipped my mind, sorry to say, but it will always be the ultimate expression of who we were then. Those pilots and crew went after the Japs knowing that they were outnumbered and with the knowledge that they probably weren't coming back. Mc Clusky (sp) kept searching in his SBD knowing full well that he was running out of fuel but he found the Jap fleet because he persisted. The entire U.S. fleet was outnumbered and still gravely wounded from previous actions and yet they went after the enemy anyway and gave him a beating so severe that it started the decline of the Japanese power in the Pacific.I don't think that the current generations have a clue as to what this nation accomplished in a few months after Pearl Harbor, Midway took place 7 months after, Guadalcanal 8 months after Pearl and somehow we had put together and trained a Marine Corps and Army that stopped an enemy that had been planning, training, and fighting for ten years.
Looking back at the reaction in my town mirrored the awakening of the entire nation. My upper class high school friends disappeared in a matter of months and those who managed to come back were not the same kids who left a year before. I watched all this with a keen interest for a couple of years and all of a sudden I was gone and there were no questions about it, it was on the schedule.
WW2 gets little or no attention in the public schools now. Kids can't recognize dates , have no idea what December 7th means and could care less that this country accomplished an unbelievable task in 3 1/2 years.
Better get off the soapbox.
Switches

 

For someone of my generation, it is sometimes difficult to understand the concept that those men did these things, and impossible to know what it was like. The stories and memories of those that survived and the remembrance of those that did not should be precious to us all. These are the moments that defined us as a nation once. It makes me very sad that so many are either never taught, or have forgotten.

 

Is Midway on TV today? It should be somewhere.

 

Not getting any hits for "Midway" on a TV Guide search... thankfully, I've got the DVD. Might have to do a double feature of 30 Seconds Over Tokyo and Midway...

 

I have read so many books about WW2. Every front, every theater, land, sea and air and still Midway is one of the most fascinating to me for some reason. It was a combination, like most battles I suppose, of the right people in the right place at the right time with a big dose of luck and devine intervention thrown in. And to think that at the end of it all Adm Raymond Spruance offered his command to Adm Nimitz for losing a carrier.

One of the better war movies too.

 

If you can get it in a used book store you should read Barrett Tillman's
" The Dauntless Dive Bomber of World War Two". It is a good read and beautifully describes the Midway Battle and the men involved. If there is such a thing as Divine Intervention, it was evident at the Battle of Midway. From the lowest ranking tail gunner or deck rat to the commanding officers like Nimitz and Halsey there was something added to their bravery.

 

I can't remember the movie right now but I agree with all that you said. The assembly of all the right people at one crucial moment in time is uncanny and your comment about Spruance's sense of responsibility and personal integrity illustrates the fiber of those who, thank God, were in the military at the time. I was just a kid of 15 then but I remember the stress under which this nation was laboring and The Battle of Midway was an unbelievable lift when we were losing so much so fast. We had a family member in Guadacanal at the time and the photos that he had when he returned were shocking to us but soon it became commonplace to see such things. 1942-43 were horrible times for us. Accelerated training and spooling up for the war was absolutely frantic and cost a lot of lives in the process but it went on without stopping. Family get togethers at our house were nothing but a news gathering session on what was happening in almost any theater of operations and what our brothers or sons-in-laws had experienced. Ny brother came back from the Phillippines colored bright yellow from attabrine to keep him from catching malaria and down from 165 pounds to 135. He was a combat surgeon in advanced positions and at one point had napalm releases by P-38's right over their tents My brother-in -law flew B-25's and B-26's in the South Pacific and though we tried to chat about family and other boring stuff it turned into a bull session about the war. You couldn't escape it when family and friend were home from action. I was lucky enough not to have been sent over seas to experience things over there but I at least did a little something...pitiful little.
I apologize for ranting on too much but as time marches on my perspective of what happened 66 years ago has become sharper instead of a matter of every day life as it was then. It upsets hell out of me that hardly anyone gives a damn about it now. I feel that we are on the decline.

 

Much of the success of Midway rests on the shoulders of this man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Browning

 

F yeah!

 

I miss very much the times as a kid when it was just the "Guys", fathers and sons at camping trips etc when the fathers would tell each other the stories of their experiences during the war with all the sons listening with an otherwise unknown degree of attention.

Your experiences in aviation are no less interesting.

Thanks.

 

I absolutely agree that the niracle at Midway had so many contributors. One of my favorites, and pivotal to the entire success, was Joe Rochefort. He led the team that broke the code so we knew where the Japanese would be. Remember the ruse about Kwajelein's water distillers? Genius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rochefort
It takes the whole team.

 

I just read a book (The Unknown Battle of Midway - Kernan) on the ultimate sacrifice, of the American Torpedo squadrons during the Battle of Midway. With the multiple tragic events that unfolded during the battle, a disaster was bound to happen.

In the author's opinion, cowardice by both a fighting squadron C.O. (Gray) and the Hornet's CAG, helped result in the destruction of the American torpedo planes, at the Battle of Midway. Some after action reports, were never even submitted ! Where is the AAR, from Commander Ring, who was the CAG of the Hornet ? The only AAR from the Hornet, was submitted by Marc Mitscher. Ring did not even assign a fighter escort, for Torpedo Squadron 8. Ten Wildcats and two squadrons of dive bombers from the Hornet, did not even make contact with the enemy, on the day of the battle !!!!!!! 1/3 of the American dive bombers, did not make contact with the enemy, on 4 June 1942.

After the units had departed the Hornet, Ring and Waldron had an arguement over the correct course to the target, while flying to the enemy fleet. Waldron broke away from Ring's course, and flew directly to the enemy fleet. It is the author's opinion, that Ring did not want to make contact with the enemy, on the day of the battle. According to scuttlebutt, Mitscher demanded that Ring immediately report to the bridge, after he landed - still in his flying gear. He was chewed out big time for screwing up.

Yet Ring was awarded a Navy Cross, for his actions. Unlike Waldron, Ring's Navy Cross was awarded for actions on 6 June 1942. Ring, a graduate of Annapolis, went on to become a Vice Admiral. Years after his death, a personal AAR was found at his house. He blamed communication failure, for failing to make contact with the enemy. Yet no course was specified in his personal AAR.

At a Midway conference in Pensacola in 1988, Jim Gray (skipper of the Enterprise fighters), spoke about the position of the fighters. He claimed to circle over Torpedo Squadron 8. He counted the # of American torpedo planes -15. Torpedo Squadron 6 - his outfit, had 13 airplanes. At an altitude of 20,000 feet, there were no Zeros to be found. He claimed that if he had gone down to mix-it-up with the Zeros, he would not have the gas to return to the ship. In his official AAR from the battle, he claimed he was watching Torpedo Squadron 6.

His original AAR also stated, that he had circled for an hour above the enemy fleet, without any sense of being low on gas. In his official report, he also mentioned that he never received a call for help, from Torpedo Squadron 6 during the battle.






LCDR Waldron's daughter (12 years old at the time), found an official letter, from the USS Hornet, just delivered to her house. At the time, her mother was away on a trip. She opened the official letter from the Navy. It described the sad story of her father's squadron going into battle and not returning to the carrier. The mother came home, only to find the telegram.

 

Thanks, Rifledriver. I' am reluctant to continue to express my " war stories" because I was over here and did my service in this country. I'm unable to accept the term veteran because in my mind that is reserved for those who saw combat. I lived with the war from 1939 to 1946 and experienced it as a spectator to participant in that time. Family and friend were swept into it early on. Our way of life changed to support the war but not as much as it did for the Brits and the French but it did change and all our energy went into it. Thank God for the U.S. because we literally vomited men,supplies, and equipment to save the allies on the Continent and in the Pacific. Boeing Seattle produced 22 B-17's in 24 hours, Kaiser built a ship in 11 days, and who knows what GM, Chrysler, and Ford produced every day. I have written about it before but every town in Florida had an air base and the air was full of fighters, med. bombers, and whatever else. You couldn't escape it...especially when a P-40 impacted in the scrub 200 yards from our home or the reports in the newspaper of one or two more crashes that day.
My mother spotted some English air cadets in town one day and told them that they were going to spend the weekend at our little house on the beach. That spawned a weekly event for us after that and I don't know how she fed them because we had little to begin with. Fish from the Gulf became important from then on but she kept the door open. A total of 14 cadets over a period of 10 months were fed, swam in the Gulf, slept in soft beds, and cared for by my mother who referred to them as " her wonderful boys". Only one of them survived the war and he ended up in a mental hospital.
When I was in the air force I experienced the same kindness from strangers who took us in for Christmas. There were other times also and they never leave my mind.
I had a few experiences around airplanes that raised the pucker factor but nothing compared to what too many of my buddies and bunkies went through.
I find it difficult to hold my tongue about what went on then because I was just an observer but when you keep bumping into friends and old crew members years after the war it continues to grip you. When I was working on the 777 in 1990 I had to coordinate something on the instrument panel layout and was shocked to contact an engineer with whom I was stationed at Langley Field , Va. When I was at Duke in 1948 I got pulled over by a state trooper who turned out to be a wild and wooly " imbiber" in my outfit in 1944.
And an old friend from basic training lives 25 miles north of us.
Like I said, you can't get away from it.
Switches

 

A really great post, I may live far away from the US but I remain glad that WW2 from the US perspective was taught to me. As one of the younger generation its astonishing to see how the US recovered from the severe damage inflicted at Pearl Harbour to go on and win the war. Dare I say it but this story should be taught to everyone regardless of country as it shows how as people we can pull together and do what many beleive isnt possible.