“After that, I have no expectation of success.” — Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, speaking to the Japanese Cabinet during planning for war with the United States in 1940.
On December 7th, 1941 Yamamoto’s fleet delivered a crushing surprise attack on the US at Pearl Harbor. Exactly six months later, four of his six fleet carriers: Soryu, Hiryu, Kaga and Akagi went to the bottom in the waters off Midway Island. The battle began 65 years ago today and was a turning point in the Pacific War, and as US industrial capacity ramped up to wartime production levels the strategic tide had turned.
The only questions remaining was how long it would take to end the fighting, and how many would have to die along the way.
Too long, as it turned out. And far too many.
Update: Saturday evening was the annual Midway celebration here in Sandy Eggo, and it was held – quite appropriately – aboard the ex-USS Midway, now moored as a museum on the waterfront, her active service complete. Two of the aircraft aboard the museum’s flight deck are represented by bureau number in your correspondent’s log book, aircraft he flew in his youth and which are now, like the ship they rest upon, retired from the line – a knowledge which makes your humble scribe thoughtful.
Officers, Chief Petty Officers and Sailors, together with their escorts were invited to the celebration, and a right good time was had of it too. This was our Trafalgar, the moment when the US Navy put all the chips in and helped to save the world.
The last survivors of that campaign joined us on deck, a few dozen or so men gone nearly as gray as ghosts, reedlike, aged, vanishing almost before our very eyes. Each year there are new holes in the line, fewer arrive – but each year a young Sailor in whites stand tall beside them as the ones that can still make the journey come aboard, living witnesses to history, hardship and courage. They speak to us with quavering voices but with fire in their eyes and we are transported.
65th An. of Midway: 4/5 June – Forces Engaged…
In every battle there is a moment when the combatants, and the world, seem to catch their breath. It is a fleeting moment, lost in the blink of an eye. But in that same blink, everything changes. Such moments are borne of desperation, of courage, of …..
“They saw the friends of their youth cartwheel into the ocean, and the slow, slow falling of the spray”
–from THE BIG E
Thank you. We owe you a debt that we probably can’t ever repay.
Capt. J, about once every 5 years, I break out my very dog eared copy of The Big E and read it again. I’ve been reading it now for about 30 years. IMHO, the greatest ship and crew to ever serve in the US Navy.
Byron,
My hero in the book The Big E was the damage control officer, LCDR John Monro. That Enterprise survived the battles that doomed Hornet, Yorktown and Lexington was in no small part due to his leadership and relentless training of his DC crews.
“The skill shown by the personnel of Enterprise in coping with serious damage and controlling fires and flooding attests to the serious attention given to careful preparation of equipment and to study of war damage to Lexington CV-2 and Yorktown CV-5.”
http://cv6.org/ship/damage/solomons_2.htm
Deckplate steel and stout hearts –once joined, cannot be separated.
CPT J
I echo your words
Also, this morning while I drove my 13 year old to school…who is getting fired up with WW II history…I explained the story of Midway..not in the way his 7th grade teacher explained this year but in the way I learned from my Dad.
I lift a glass to George Gay, Wade McCluskey and Ray Spruance…and all the men of of the VTs who brought down the fighters so the VBs and VSs could succeed.
I still enjoy that it was the aggresive spirit during the inter-war period that developed the tactics our dive bombers crews used to put large high explosives down on the decks of those 4 carriers ( read near vertical dives 65+ degrees). Also amazing was the skill and bravery of the TBD crews as they pushed themselves to fly low and slow so they could try and put a 21in torpedo into the side of a Japanese carrier.
In the end of it all though it was a team effort by the crews of Fighting Three, Fighting Six, Fighting Eight, Scouting Three, Scouting Eight, Bombing Three, Bombing Six, Bombing Eight, Torpedo Three, Torpedo Six, Torpedo Eight all made names for themselves in the annuals of history. Where men like Lt Cdr John Waldron, Lt. Richard H. Best, Lt Cdr Lance E. Massey, Lt Cdr. Max Leslie all became well known names in the US Naval Aviation.
There is a great discussion in some of Herman Wouk’s works, that the Japanese made the decision to go the wrong way in 1942. Had they not gone east, but west and continued to press against India-at a time the British Empire was on the ropes-who knows what might have happened. There is some evidence they were thinking about that when the Doolittle raid happened, which spooked the Japanese into turning east.