Navy’s Top Officer Marks Battle of Midway’s 67th Anniversary

American Forces Press Service ^ | Gerry J. Gilmore

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2009 – The Navy’s top officer yesterday marked the 67th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of Midway at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Navy Memorial here.

The Battle of Midway, fought June 4-7, 1942, pitted U.S and Japanese naval and air forces in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Midway is part of the Hawaiian island chain; the battle was fought about 1,300 miles northwest of Oahu.

The United States lost the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and a destroyer at Midway, but the Japanese navy incurred more extensive losses, including the destruction of four aircraft carriers and their aircrews and a cruiser. The battle’s results permanently weakened the Japanese navy; the momentum in the war’s Pacific Theater of operations would now be with the U.S. and allied forces.

Navy Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, who commanded U.S. forces during the Midway battle, described its outcome as “‘a glorious page in our history,’” Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, told a group of military veterans gathered at the Navy Memorial.

Midway “was a battle that seized the strategic initiative” in the Pacific, Roughead said, and demonstrated “the importance of naval power in conflict.”

Most of all, the admiral said, Midway “showed the world what an American sailor could do.” The battle is replete with scenes of courage and heroism, he said, from “the stories of those sailors who stayed at their posts until the bitter end to the stories of the sailors who rescued shipmates from the sinking Yorktown.”

The USS Yorktown had been heavily damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea a month earlier. Shipyard workers at the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor had worked around the clock to repair the carrier. Consequently, the Yorktown would participate in the Midway battle, which would turn out to be its last fight.

At Midway, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto had planned to draw out and destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet, thus opening the way for a negotiated peace settlement with the United States. Yamamoto realized that Japan couldn’t compete industrially with the United States, and that his forces needed to win a decisive victory early in the war.

However, what Yamamoto didn’t know was that U.S. and British cryptologists had broken the Japanese naval code. Therefore, Nimitz knew, before the battle, the approximate date of the Japanese attack on Midway, as well as the types of ships in Yamamoto’s strike force and its location.

“The code breakers that gave us the location and date of the battle, the shipyard workers, the airmen and Marines who fought from Midway Island and the sailors who fought at sea” all were among the battle’s many heroes, Roughead said.

The U.S. victory at Midway came just six months after the successful Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he pointed out.

“And in those months, the carrier Yorktown had been nearly sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea,” Roughead said. Thanks to the shipbuilders at Pearl Harbor who repaired much of the damaged fleet, he said, the U.S. sailors at Midway “were able to overcome the enemy in battle.”

Biographies:
Navy Adm. Gary Roughead

Related Sites:
Naval History and Heritage Command

[Talisker]

Midway won the war.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

The U.S. Navy Memorial in DC...beautiful!

[DieHard the Hunter]

> Midway won the war.

Certainly in the Pacific Theater it did.

[Dilbert San Diego]

It’s nice to remember our history. We’ll see how Obama commemorates D-Day tomorrow.

I am so sad that so many young people don’t know their history.

Many young people draw a blank on talking about the Battle of Midway. They don’t know how Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo raised the morale of a nation. They don’t know what happened at Dunkirk, or about the Battle of Britain as Britain stood alone against the Nazis. They don’t know the significance of D-Day, where Omaha Beach is, the Battle of the Bulge, Guadalcanal, the Burma Road, Bataan Death March, or what happened at Anzio.

It’s nice to commemorate these events of World War II. Some liberal types say war is never justified, but we fought evil and we won World War II, and the world was a better place after the Axis powers were defeated.

[rlmorel]

Not without the help of the Aussies and New Zealanders, it didn’t.

I have always thought very highly of folks down your way. Been close friends of the USA since way back, been thorough a lot of scrapes together. Funny, I envy you folks down there. I never, ever thought I would be envious of any other nationality on earth. But here I am.

[Young Werther]

And Crypto Analysis was the key to our success.

We knew that the Yamamoto was planning a second attack to complete the destruction of the US Pacific fleet. He planned to draw us into battle where the Japanese held the advantage. We also knew that they were decrypting our codes. This was tested by our knowing their code words for specific facilities. We suspected that the Japanese offensive on the Aleutian islands was a feint. We flew an aircraft to Midway and asked them to communicate to Pearl Harbour that Midways water distillery was malfunctioning and they needed supplies. When the Japanese reported to their fleet that Midway was out of water and they should proceed with the attack of Midway, we met them with all our strength and beat em up!

Yamamoto would get his comeupance over the Solomon Islands when he was ambushed by P-38s who had been given his itinerary from decoded messages.

Personal story, As an ROTC cadet and avid miliatary history buff I was pleased to meet the ROTC commandant of Syracuse Univ who was one of those pilots, (he wore the DFC for this mission). He said that in order to make that long over water flight his squadron had been trained by Charles Lindebergh!

[DieHard the Hunter]

> I have always thought very highly of folks down your way.

Likewise, FRiend. If your travels ever bring you DownUnder to Auckland, do look me up. I’m always good for a coffee/beer and a chat, and if your itinerary allows the time, a quick tour of the local sites.

[rlmorel]

Thanks for posting, SandRat. I just want to ping LS to this thread, because he is someone who really appreciates what happened on these momentous days back in 1942.

LS, I just finished reading “Halsey’s Bluff”, and I enjoyed it immensely. I appreciated the way you filled out the personalities of those men caught up in that time.

I know on these days, your thoughts are probably very far away. I can see someone who loves history a mile away. Good job on the book!

[DieHard the Hunter]

> Many young people draw a blank on talking about the Battle of Midway. They don’t know how Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo raised the morale of a nation. They don’t know what happened at Dunkirk, or about the Battle of Britain as Britain stood alone against the Nazis. They don’t know the significance of D-Day, where Omaha Beach is, the Battle of the Bulge, Guadalcanal, the Burma Road, Bataan Death March, or what happened at Anzio.

(grin!) I was pleased to see my son reading a book about a fortnite ago. It was one of the “Warpath” series written for 13-yr-old boys about World War II. The main character is always named “John Smith” and he’s either British or American, and the books take the young readers thru the main battles from a first-person perspective.

He has since read about the Battle of Britain, Iwo Jima, the Battle of the North Atlantic, the crippling of the Tirpiz...

Late at nite, when he’s asleep, I sneak into his room and grab the latest of these books and give them a quick read — they’re only 100 pages or so. They’re generally quite good, for history dressed up as a boy’s adventure story.

With books like the “Warpath” series (Penguin Books) there’s hope yet.

[rlmorel]

By the way, my favorite part of the book (Oddly enough) was the conversation you created between Roosevelt and Kaiser...I suspect you enjoyed writing it!

[Talisker]

Great personal story, thanks. And you’re right about cryptoanalysis, it’s one of the best proof-of-value incidents in history.

[rlmorel]

You know what bit me with the history bug and set me off to have a lifelong love of reading? I read Ted Lawson’s book “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” when I was about six and a half years old. Then I actually got to move to Japan about a year and a half later and SEE where they bombed (my Dad got orders to Yokosuka)

Then, when I got to the Philippines, I learned about the Bataan Death March, and my Boy Scout troop got to hike it.

I remember clearly being just horrified. Astounded. I had never encountered that level of human brutality in my young life before. Sure, I had heard about stuff in school, as in “What year was the Bataan Death March”, but as I read the in depth first hand accounts in a big, thick book, it dawned on me why humans really are the most feared creatures on earth, even though we aren’t particularly big, fast or strong.

I realized that what sets humans apart is that we do have a capacity for evil that animals simply do not have. And we have it in spades. As you can probably tell, I still feel the discomfort of that realization today. I think it is the reason I am a conservative and have been since I understood the general nature of politics...and that would be when I was around eleven or twelve.

I know how important history is, and that is what puts me particularly at odds with liberals. Their utopian views of the world are completely incompatible with the existence of an Imperial Japanese Army guard on the Bataan peninsula in 1942.

[rlmorel]

Count on it! It is (and has been) a lifelong dream to get down that way, and...I’m not done yet!

[DieHard the Hunter]

> Then, when I got to the Philippines, I learned about the Bataan Death March, and my Boy Scout troop got to hike it.

WOW!!! That would have been something, ay!

I can’t remember what book started my fascination with reading and history. I can recall being about nine and reading “They Were Expendable” by WL White, about the PT Boats in the Philippines, and a book called “Wing Leader” by John E Johnston, who was Britain’s top ace.

WW-II would have been a fascinating time to live thru. I feel privileged to have lived in a time when I could meet and talk to people who went thru it first-hand, the Greatest Generation. One by one they are leaving us, and one day soon there will be none left. None...

[rlmorel]

Excellent books...I have read them both. I am aviation buff, so “Wing Leader” was particularly interesting for me.

[rlmorel]

That, and “Reach for the Sky” about Douglas Bader. Now THAT was a man!

[rlmorel]

My dad was one...

He got his commission in July 1945, so he just squeaked in, but he got the WWII ribbon.

He was a good man. He was, and remains a hero to me. Not because of his military service, but because the way he conducted himself as a man. He was honorable. I miss him so much, and wish I could talk to him again.

[Ax]

I have read that the leadership in both theaters have said that the SIGINT support they received was equivalent to having another Fleet in the Pacific and another Army in Europe.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> I miss him so much, and wish I could talk to him again.

One day you shall, God Willing. (Meanwhile, you’re needed here.)

That’s a really nice photo. Where was it taken?