[Joe 6-pack]

When my dad was a cop, one of the sergeants on the force was a grizzled, chisel-faced giant of a man who had served as a rear gunner on a Dauntless during the war. He didn't get to the fleet until after Midway, but was in many campaigns after that.

He loved that plane and spoke highly of it.

Years later after I left home, my folks told me he had carried the national colors in a Memorial Day Parade for the VFW, sat down after finishing the parade route, and died of a heart attack.

[lodi90]

If you want to see the real thing NAS Pensacola has one of the Midway Douglas SDB’s in their air museum. It’s quite rare to have a military aircraft from a historic air battle in a museum.

[alternatives?]

They would not have been nearly as successful had the torpedo planes not attacked first and taken the Japanese fighters down to the surface with them.

[crz]

The Japanese had so many planes coming at them from different directions they didnt know which way to look.

They walked right into a hornets nest. And luck was not on their side that day.

5 minutes that changed the war in the Pacific.

Remarkable. Talking to friends over in the UK they marveled at what the USA did in that short of time. In 4 months and we bombed Japan. A month more and we stood them off at Coral Sea. Then, just 7 months after Pearl Harbor, we got them at Midway. They all said that in comparison, in a few months they had to get to hell out of mainland Europe and escaped with their lives.

[Americannae1362]

Our nation is at Midway again, and the SCOTUS would be our 47 Dauntless dive bombers.

[neodad]

5 minutes that changed the world. Very similar today. We were losing until we weren’t. They just kept fighting.....

[JerryBlackwell]

“lost 92 officers and 215 enlisted men”

Just a handful of the many we owe an apology to in the next life if we give up the republic now

[Grampa Dave]

The ideal dive angle was 70 degrees; a dive might take 30 or 40 seconds. During that time, the rear seat radioman/gunner – on his back, facing the sky – would be nearly weightless.

A former church member, who has passed on, was a radioman/gunner on 3 of these dive bombers during this battle.

Two were shot up so bad, after landing back on our carriers, they could not fly again. He ended with 2 different pilots, a different carrier, as one was damaged too bad to land our planes on.

He said that it was amazing how everyone could make all of those changes under those conditions.

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

The speedy 3 carried the day

[blueunicorn6]

Where did the Japanese Navy go after Pearl Harbor?

[Mr. Jeeves]

At the last moment, one of the section leaders, Lt. Richard Best, realized what was happening and redirected his five-plane section to attack Akagi.

It is believed Best's bombs sunk both the Akagi and then the Hiryu, later in the day. Talk about cast iron balls - this guy is up there with the greatest of American heroes.

[Little Ray]

Strangely enough the Army tried to adopt the Dauntless as the A-24, but found that dedicated dive bombers were too vulnerable and that fighter-bombers met their needs.
The Army did use A-24s to cover the retreat from the Java sea, but they took heavy casualties.

[bert]

The definitive work on Midway is “Shattered Sword”

I recommend it highly.

It is a fantastic read while suffering from cabin fever

[2big2fail]

Love this story! HAve red it in many forms dozens of times. My allergies act up every time, too. These brave men, the miracle moment when they see the Jap fleet below them with planes and munitions scattered all around, the dives toward their target...so amazing.

[Rockingham]

For many years, Bill, a former Dauntless pilot in WW II was a close friend of my father. Soft spoken and genial, on rare occassions Bill would talk of his years of wartime flying against the Japanese in the South Pacific. He was proud of never losing a rear gunner to Japanese fighters.

Bill had learned to wait until an incoming attacker had lined up and was ready to fire, then he would jink to throw off the attacker's aim, cut engine power, put on the dive flaps, and give the rear gunner a chance to get in a burst as the Jap fighter streaked past. Sometimes the attacker would try and fail two or three times before giving up, unable to defeat a well-handled Dauntless.

[blueunicorn6]

Here’s what I was taught in school about the war in the Pacific:

Pearl Harbor.....Doolittle Raid.....Midway.....Iwo Jima.....Nuclear bombs.

There is so much more.

[lurk]

Watching the movie, it struck me how brave these men were.

[FatherofFive]

We took our cub scouts to Patriots Point in Charleston SC every other year for a camp out. Scouts were allowed to ‘camp’ on the Yorktown. Amazing weekends. They never closed anything down, and the scouts could roam anywhere. They would sleep in the bunks. Eat in the mess. Great memories and history.

[Oatka]

Pre-war doctrine also held that B-17 bombers could effectively bomb ships from high altitude, but attacks against Japanese ships by Flying Fortresses at Midway scored no hits.

The Japanaese "Betty" horizontal bombers took one Helluva toll on U.S. ships early in the war: USS Pecos (oiler), USS Langley (our first aircraft carrier), USS Houston (Heavy Cruiser - knocked out after turret) just to name a few.

[central_va]

Look we are not going back to normal. Cute history stories are not in order at this point.