Transcripts For CSPAN3 Symposium Reflects On 75th Anniversary Of The Battle Of Midway 20170602

U. S. And japanese navies. Leading off is a review of the war in pacific prior to june 1942 then new information about the japanese at the battle. This is live coverage on cspan3. We are pleased and very very proud to be hosting it. I would like to thank our partners that helped put this together. The Hampton Roads Naval Historical Foundation and world war i and world war ii come mem ri commemoration. We couldnt have done it without you. [ cheers and applause ] now, before we get going i do have housekeeping items to pass along. First of all, turn off or silence your cell phones. Keep your programs. We have something of a limited supply of those and please wear your fwbadges throughout the da. Keep in mind we are on cspan so during the q and a use the microphone deployed here on the square. At this time i would like to bring forward my counter part john pentanjelo who will make some remarks, john. [ applause ] thanks, chris. Good morning and welcome. The Hampton Roads naval hue see yum is proud to sfon sore this in come mem rigs of the battle of midway. In a matter of minutes those involved american pilots burned and sank three out of four Japanese Carriers late their day the fourth carrier involved in the attack was also foundering. Joining those heavy capital ships at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean were 248 japanese aircraft and over 3,000 souls. On the morning of june 4th 1942 japan was winning the war in the pacific. They would never recover from their loss for would they recover from the staggering loss of accumulated knowledge and skill and tactics and Flight Operations as the title of this claims the tide indeed turned. As chris said, the battle of midway is and over french and Spanish Naval forces tauf coast of spain and enshrined in every navy officer and sailor as it is etched in the hearts and minds of the british people. It is also for its decisiveness. It has not however traditionally enjoyed the same status. Be encouraged the United States navy have also turned the tide in the quest to commemorate this crucial battle. In 1999 the chief of operations established the annual commemoration of the battle of midw midway to build in all hands a renewed awareness of our tradition and history. Johnsons orders continued and i quote one of the most decisive battles was won not by superior numbers but by the courage and ten nas si of the sailors who fought a battle over overwhelming odds. It is appropriate that we remember it and those who participated in it. This year we present this with some of the finest minds to have studied the battle. The speakers are part of an active group helping to restore the battle. Historian famously wrote they had no right to win yet they did. In so doing they changed the course of the war. So was it fate . Was it sheer luck . How did it effect the Decision Making of the battle . How did intelligence and planning and leadership and bravery factor into the victory . Those that fought in the battle is simply to always remember them. Thats what we do today. Thank you. Thank you very much. At this time i would like to welcome john to come up to make a few remarks on behalf of the commemoration commission. Jack cap aped a distinguished career and as many of you probably know he is a true champion of military heritage. Its a great pleasure and an honor for me to represent delegate curt cox who is the chairman of our commission. Kirk will be joining us later today. This commission was created by our virginia General Assembly a little over a year ago. We look forward of americas entry into and 100th anniversary it was determined that we had to remember. So the goals of our commission are twofold. First to honor our veterans. And by remembering them we not only pay tribute to their service but we truly feel that we are supporting todays men and women in service to america to assure them we wont forget them. Well remember them as well. The second goal and i think every bit as important, is to make it possible for the people here to explore personal connections that highlight the multiple perspectives of virgin virginians problems and to make it easier for visitors to connect with many museums, Historic Sites, memorials we have here in virginia. The commission pursues those goals. Granlts to localities which need Financial Assistance to do so. We venlts mark key anniversaries like this one. Plus, teacher institutes that will take place this summer, june and july across the state to provide interactive and useful seminars for teachers throughout the public and private School Systems in virginia. Theres also, as already mentioned, our profiles of honor tour, which is parked outside here today. Thats a mobile museum. It travels the state. They have a tremendous schedule. Interactive exhibits, right there for museums, schools, libraries to visit. Profiles are to bring to life stories the states of a role in both of the major conflicts. It highlights 40 who served in those conflicts. These are the profiles of ordinary people who were caught up to extraordinary times. We are very very happy. It has already been mentioned p. Certainly the city of norfolk, im delighted to be here. Well be glad we are here today. Thank you. [ applause ] thanks, jack. At this time i would like to invite all families of world war ii veterans to stand and be recognized. Thank you. We have family directly connected to midway abdomen as world war ii family members here we have a proclamation to present. I would like to present jack beal to the stage accompanied by john pentangelo. John is holding in his hand a proclamati proclamati proclamation. It occurred between the u. S. And Navy Pacific Fleet and where as many ships and sailors with ties play add role in the bot bath l which that has been called one of the greatest and where as the battle turned on naval aviators from york town enterprise and hornet and one passed away at age 100 as the last surviving dive bomber pilot from midway and where as the Common Wealth of virginia having its event as a symposium honoring the 75th anniversary with testimonies to the brave men who fought extraordinary days in june, 1942 and where as dusty who earned the navy cross will be one of the stories told in the presence of his family. Now therefore i kenneth keecoop wa alexander do recognize and call upon all citizens of norfolk to honor and remember veterans of this great and significant battle given under my hand signed kenneth cooper, major of norfolk. At this time john will present is proclamation. [ applause ] quick photo op. All right. Thanks, guys. Our first speaker today is walter. He is the author of numerous books. His biography as well as other biographies arent in there. I will say she the numerous of books and arls including General Macarthur. He is working on a book about u. S. Schlt macarthur. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, chris. You know its a pleasure to be here. When i was invited today speak about the battle of midway asaid im not really an expert. They said its okay. What we want you to do is set the table. Thats what im going to do, set the table of how we got to midway. We are also going to talk about based on my book the admirals some of the American Leadership that appears at midway and finally do a quick overview of what goes on between pearl harbor and june 2nd, 3rd and 4th of 1942. So lets start by talking about i may have clicked one too far. Lets start about talking about the relationship between japan and United States. Note they about the same par rels of latitude. The difference is it moved westward across the continent. Japan as it faces industrialization also moved westward. It put it on a collision fwors china. You might remember they saent great fleet. What happened . Devine wind. Ja a pan and chinas history are much different and china continues to interact with the west. Japan really doesnt. It sort of closes its ports. It remains that way until Matthew Perry opened in 1891853. I would suggest to you that it really embraces the Industrial Revolution more so than japan. Theres a huge change. Japan models it, builds a new jersey and steps to ward onto the worlds stage. The first sign of jep these war. Everyone says ja pab. Japan cant take on china but it wins. It is part of the island of formosa. Theres my clicker. The island of formosa is in fact japanese territory after that treaty with china going ahead and ending that conflict. After the first japanese war what happens . Korea is sort of a state of japan at that point and it puts japan on a collision course with russia. We all know about the russo jap japanese war. Sends doe stroiers in there with torped torpedos. Its very much a surprise attack and the results of the war is wiped out. Japan takes another step in can he remembers of going ahad japan is even a Japanese Naval squadron thats at work convoying allied ships in the mediterranean. But what does world war i do in terms of the big story, particularly in terms of midway . After the treaty of versailles goes ahead and concludes the first world war, japan is the beneficiary of all of these islands that have been german territory. So the mare yawnas, except for gu guam. The carolines and marshals become japanese territory. Look at this line between hawaii and the philippines. The United States has figured we can go ahead and develop the philippines, well send a fleet out here and counter any kind of aggressor or harm to the philippines. But now suddenly post world war i, japan controls a large stretch of the Central Pacific. Well, the other thing that happens right after world war i is the Washington Naval conference, 1921. Everyone thinks most people think in the aftermath of world war i, we have the league of nations, japan joins the league of nations, the United States does not. Okay, theres going to be a new era of peace. Were going to pass these naval treaties that basically limit capital Ship Construction. If we limit tonages and capital Ship Construction somehow, someway theres going to be peace. That certainly doesnt happen. Let he suggest to you as we do these landmarks as japan goes to a world power. The fact that the Washington Naval conference in 1921 includes the United States, Great Britain, and japan, even though the United States and Great Britain have five, five to a ratio of three naval superiority with japan, the very fact that japan is on the world stage with those other two powers, pretty significant. Well, in the meantime, whats been happening in china . By 1927 i suggest to you in one word, chinas really in chaos. By 1927 they have solidified an emerging government in china. There is conumentest efforts. They bring under the chinese overall government that puts china on even more of a collision course with japan. And along about that time, 1931, another marker. Theres something called the manchurian incident and its a minor thing. Theres an explosion on a railway, it doesnt disrupt the railway but japan says oh, my gosh chinas been the aggressor weve got to move into manchuria and seize manchuria. Thats what happens. They send troops to occupy parts of shanghai. China, good member of the league of nations it is says oh, wait were going to appeal to the league. Japan, who is also a member of the league of nations says, i think well just withdraw from the league. So that doesnt do much in terms of going ahead and solving that crisis. Interesting footnote to that. In sort of a bait and switch, the International Community and the world is really focused on whats happening in shanghai. And japan goes back and forth maybe well withdraw, maybe we wont withdraw. In the meantime theyre using all of their powers to solidify their control over manchuria. In the end they withdraw from shanghai but in the meantime while the whole world order has been watching whats happening in shanghai they solidify control over manchuria. 1937, sometimes we think of world war ii beginning in 39 in europe or 41 at pearl harbor. But world war ii in the pacific really does begin in 1937 when japan full out decides to invade china. Again, theres an incident sort of one of those who fired first, but japan uses it to go ahead and really aggressively move from manchuria into the rest of North Eastern china. At the same time, china says im going to oppose this. Theres a major war that goes on between china and japan beginning in 1937 until the next four years when things break out with the United States in 41. The United States, kind of gets involved in the middle of this with an incident called the penai incident. Its on the Yangtze River. One quiet sunday morning why do these things happen on sunday mornings . In the Yangtze River port there at nanking. Japanese planes strike, kill americans, kill journalists who are involved. And William Leahy who is the chief of Naval Operations basically advises Franklin Roosevelt weve got to do something about this. Weve got to take some action. Send a fleet out, work with Great Britain to put up a kwo quarantine and everything. Well, that advice i wouldnt say it falls on deaf ears, roosevelt is responsive to that but hes fighting the depression. And Great Britain, 1937, is occupied with things that are going on in europe. So theres just not the support. 70 in a poll in january 1938 of the American Public say we dont have any business at all being in the far east. And america really turns a Cold Shoulder to what japan is doing. Even though china is sort of a nominal ally of the United States at that particular point, there is no American Interest in terms of doing anything major there. Well, moving on very quickly, the war starts in europe. The french fall in may of 1940, the government that still controls French Indo China says japan you want to set up base and stuff . Fine. Even as late as december of 1942, one of the things that Franklin Roosevelt is asking the japanese is well, now, wait a minute you had this agreement with the folks in French Indo China. Why are you moving more and more troops there. Please tell us about that. And, of course, japan doesnt respond to that. So what has happened in july of 1941, is that roosevelt imposes an oil embargo. Both with Great Britain and the netherlands. A three way embargo of japanese oil and Raw Materials that are coming from the Dutch East Indies and that part of indo china. In addition to that, roosevelt freezes japanese assets in the United States, recalls douglas m mac arthur and gears up. And while that embargo was really posed as a way to sort of curtail and hamstring japans operations, in some respects, it made them even more determined to work on a fairly short time schedule to move into Southeast Asia and come up with some level of those Natural Resources that they needed historically. All right. Lets do a quick overview of the players. Im going to leave characterizations of admiralss yamamoto. Earnest j. Ki ernest j. King is commander of the u. S. Fleet. I would suggest to you that admiral king is the overlooked strategist of world ii. The man who says to the joint chiefs, all right, we have come up with an allied plan and a u. S. Plan of germany first. But admiral king very much to his credit, is also focused on the pacific. Hes also focused on winning a two ocean war and pouring resources into the pacific. And quite frankly, sitting in this building, i would suggest to you that Douglas Macarthur is one of the beneficiaries of that. Because if king had not convinced the joint chiefs, and the joint chiefs convinced roosevelt to put resources into the pacific, well, again, we would not maybe have been meeting the japanese at midway as we ended up doing. King has two things he really develops over his career. He graduates from annapolis in 1901. Hes been born on the banks of lake erie in 1878. As he goes through his career, he focused on submarines and aircraft. Hes very much a brown shoe admiral coming out of that Aviation Wing of the American Navy. He had a really fiery temper. And i think like some other folks we could mention, theres really no middle ground with admiral king. He either had supporters or detractors. He had five daughters and a son. One of his daughters famously said, daddy, hes the most even tempered person i know. Hes always in a rage. And i think that that probably was admiral king. Chester nimits leads by example. More apt to put his arm around you and say hey lets get this thing done together. He grows up in the sandhills of fredricksburg, texas, west of austin. German family. He went off to west point. He wanted to go to west point but he went off to annapolis because there were so many calvary officers in texas who had sons they wanted to send to west point. The congressman finally said to him, youre never going to get into west point but ive got this opening for annapolis, what if you go there. He agreed to go to annapolis, wrote back to his parents who were german immigrants and said im supposed to take a foreign language. What do you recommend . His german speaking folks said take english, son, we think that will put you in good stead. But nimitz is someone who goes it through, interestingly enough, hes in charge of building the Submarine Base at pearl harbor in the 1920s. He pioneers naval rotc at berkeley in the late 1920s. Goes on and commands the augusta, the cruiser thats the fl flagship of the asiatic fleet. So by 1940, 1941, he has a really good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the people hes about to send into harms way after december 7th. Lets talk about bill hallsy. He was a fighter and a scrapper. Hes the one at annapolis that channelled his energies into athletics. He was voted his senior year the midshipman who did the most to promote athletics. He goes on and serves time on the great white fleet on battleships but hes first and foremost a destroyer man. He cuts his teeth on destroyers, later at a fairly advanced age for the time of 50 hes going to get into carrier aviation. King, by the way, has been a captain of the carrier lexington and he sort of i would say mentors halsey in terms of saying you want to command a carrier, heres what you need to do, you need to go to pensacola and basically take flight instructions. I notice and thank all of the veterans and families of veterans who stood. The most rewarding thing to me in terms of my writing about world war ii has been the stories of some of these men and some of others that have come to me. The nephew of halseys flight struct instructor from the 1930s emailed me the story didnt make it into the book. Of halsey coming down after one of his solo trips, jumping out of the plane. Hes about 50 and this instructor is probably some young lieutenant and he jumps out of the plane is all excited. And the instructor says, captain halsey why are you so excited. He says well, son, i just got my prescription goggles and for the first time i could see the Instrument Panel up there. The other story about halsey, gruff, pugnacious, that really says a lot about him is a story about he was on the bridge of one of the carriers at one point. And a young junior officer looked down at the compass and pondered a course change and wondered out loud where that old s. O. B. Is taking us now. Out of the shadows on the darkened bridge stepped halsey shaking a finger at the junior and basically saying not so old young man, not so old. He had a sense of humor, again, much different personality all three of those folks. Lets talk about Frank Jack Fletcher just a little bit. Fletcher graduates from annapolis in 1906. Thats a year behind nimitz. He wins a medal of moner at the battle of vara cruz. The government is a little bit more generous in terms of medals, particularly the storied medal of honor. Fletcher wins a medal of honor for that. He goes on and i would suggest to you that he is really the epitome of battleship admirals. He is somebody who goes and is able to command destroyers, battleships, cruisers by the time of pearl harbor. Hes in charge of the scouting force. And somehow along the way, i think fletcher gets a little bit of a bad wrap. I recommend to you a book called black shoe carrier admiral. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher at coral sea midway and guadal canal. Its an overdo and balanced presentation in terms of fletcher and his importance to really the entire American Navy. Particularly in the months leading up to midway. Well, spruance lets say a few things about raymond spruance, from what i was find out it was raymond spruance. Thats the way he signed his letters, thats the way people addressed him. Thats not what raymond would have said. And i think that characterization of his name says something and the way he wanted it characterized says something about his meticulousness. He and halsey become great friends. Halsey is four years his senior. They pal around together. And yet they are polepar opposites. Halsey is brash, rough gruff. One officer said when he had command of the fleet we never knew what we were going to do. Spruance was the absolute opposite. Meticulous, crossing every t, dotting every i and somehow they become great friends. As world war ii goes on theyll alternate command of the fleets. We couldnt be in norfolk without talking about Douglas Macarthur. The thing about him to remember is that hes very much a 19th century man. He graduates from west point in 1903. Hes going to go on to command in the famed Rainbow Division during world war ii, superintendent of the west point. Becomes chief of staff of the army under hoover. President hoover in 1930. And then retires from the army, making a long story short, ends up in the philippines. Hes an advisor. And by fall of 1941. Hes convinced the American Leadership, the war department, that he can, in fact, defend the entire archipelago of the philippines. So that really brings us to december 7th of 1941. And i think the thing that is important, heres nimitz taking command of chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet. Right after pearl harbor, roosevelt said to king, tell nimitz to get out to pearl harbor and stay there until the war is done. He did. He takes a train across country, hes kind of in shock. He ends up flying from the west coast to pearl harbor and assumes command on the deck of the grayling on december 31st of 1941. And he later joked that he took command on a submarine because it was the only ship that survived the attack. That was his sense of humor. Obviously it wasnt quite that bad. What nimitz did recognize, and i think whats important to the upcoming battles not only at coral sea but certainly at midway, nimitz recognized that despite the horrific loss of american lives and treasure, there were really three things where it could have been an awful lot worse. The carriers were not in port. Where would we be with midway if the car yriers had been sunk at pearl harbor . The submarine forces he alludes to really is generally intact. Its going to have some problems with faulty torpedos, but its going to take the attack to the enemy very, very quickly. The third thing, and, you know, the admiral is going to come under criticism for not watching a third attack wave or the second wave being directed at infrastructure. If the infrastructure had been destroyed on december 7th, 1941. That line of the american front in the pacific would have perhaps been pushed back to the west coast. No one by june of 1942 would have been able to turn around the yorktown in three days and send it back out to sea to support the midway operations. So nimitz was great at being able to bring people together and say, okay, im not going to cast any blame on what happened. It could have been worse. Lets focus on those three things and lets move ahead and build what we can here at pearl harbor. And thats absolutely critical in terms of the next six months leading up to midway. All right. Kings orders in terms of the global strategists weve alluded to. King tells nimitz three things, one youve got to protect the hawaii to midway line. We want midway as a very important point and probably in the spring of 1942, midway for all of its acreage and tiny atoll may be the most heavily defended island in the pacific. You need to protect the west coast of hawaii life line. West coast of hawaii, but also west coast to australia. After the war, we know that maybe japan didnt have quite the plans to go ahead and actually do a physical invasion of australia. But they certainly had plans to cut off australia from the American West coast. Hence their operations into the solomons and things. At this particular point, its really important for nimitz to hold the west coast to hawaii and australia life line. The third thing this is where king comes into his own as a global strategist, i think. He says to George Marshall who is arm chief of staff and his colleague on the joint chiefs, you know, we are not going to do defensive containment in the pacific. We are going to push back and take an offensive operation against the japanese thrust. And i think that that is critical, not only to the story of midway, but certainly the story of what goes on after midway in terms of operations against guadalcanal. I want to tell you a story about an operation here off port moores by. Its march of 1942. The japanese are moving into the solomon islands. You can see the dates of their expansion. Douglas macarthur is still at this point in the philippines on curegdore. Hes saying whats the American Navy going to do . The American Navy having done initial raids in january of 1942, enterprise and halsey shell into tsail into the marshals to put the japanese on notice that the American Navy is not going to take all of this lying down. And in march of 1942, lexington and hornet, fletcher is on excuse me, lexington and yorktown, fletcher is on yorktown, wilson brown is on lexington. And the two carriers together sail into the gulf while the japanese are making this an assault. March 8th. And what they do is relatively little known operation. They launch air attacks on these beachheads and on the japanese transports and support ships that are offlaid. That does two things. The first thing it does is it really gives a whole cadre. Youve got to fly over the owens stanley mountains, it gets a little bit dicey up there. Theyre facing some Aerial Combat but theyre also able to sink about three transports, a subchaser and a few other cargo vessels there. So they get great Flight Operations and experience that particular way. But the most important thing that that raid does, is convince the japanese that wow, wait a minute, we cant conduct these operations without adequate air cover. Were going to need our Aircraft Carriers and everything. What happens is they go ahead and have their main carriers at that point in the indian ocean and they postpone the invasion of the port thats involved with the coral sea battle. And basically put that back a few days. And weeks as the time goes by. I would suggest to you that that really doesnt impact the entire schedule of the battle of midway. And if coral sea had happened earlier, midway may have happened earlier. And that particular attack in new guinea is significant. Macarthur a few days later arrived in australia, the Australian Press says it looks like hes here ready to go ahead and make a very good showing of things. Hes a workhorse. And what is he going to command . Macarthur ends up with the southwest pacific here. Nimitz is in charge of Everything Else, in terms of the central, northern and southern pacific where halsey will command. This whole idea of the Central Pacific and nimitz moving this way is important. I want to talk about yorktown and carrier operations a second. April 1942 is sort of an epiphany for nimitz as a commander. Prior to that time, even though we talk about lexington and yorktown being together for those operations, it really is a situation where king, despite the fact that hes pioneered carriers working together and everything. King really has the idea that well, maybe we better be a little careful with our carriers, nimitz is the one that really pushes him. Pushes him to marshall his carriers. Nimitz says this is how were going to do it. That certainly happens at coral sea and thats sort of what brings us to this particular battle. Let me just go through the numbers for you here in terms of coral sea. You can follow along on the map. Yourktown, number one there, yorktown and lexington rendezvous on may first. Yorktown sends a raid on may 4th. Comes back with glowing reports and nimitz says not so fast. Lets see if we cant really make more of this happen. Join up with lexington and go ahead and take on the japanese fleet. Yorktown and lexington rejoin on may 5th, number three. Number four, the show host sinks to the cry of scratch one flat top. Famously on may 7th. And then, of course, there becomes the carrier duaels back and forth. It really, really triggers carrier operations. The lexington gets hit. I have a good friend named bill dye, passed away, but i met him when he had his cap, lexington cv 2. He used to tell the story many times of being on board here and going over the side. And he said other than complaining about the 26 in his wallet that he left below decks, he basically said not one man on that ship got out of line. Thats how we were able to get off with so few casualties, told the story of ice cream being passed out, a rationed treat in the heat and stench of that battle. Just before, of course, they abandoned ship and later the american destroyer phelps sank the lexington so it wouldnt fall into japanese hands. Sank it with a torpedo. Nimitz is on the cover of time magazines. The question the cover asked, who wants to know where the fleet is. Were going to find out from elliott carlson. That that question was being asked by a lot of people. Let me summarize three things that i think are important to the battle of midway that come out of all of this. One, Japanese Naval expansion does not just occur between pearl harbor and midway. Its really the culmination of 50 years, as weve seen of japanese expansion, Japanese Military buildup. Half a century during which they have not been defeated. Coral sea we can put down as a draw. But as they go to midway, there is this great feeling of superiority and they have not known defeat. The second thing, let me suggest to you in terms of all of this premidway activity is kings policy of global two ocean war. If king hadnt really pushed on the joint chiefs a strategy to go ahead and hold the line in the pacific, the defensive containment line may well have been east of hawaii and not west of it in terms of Midway Island. And the third thing, of course, is in terms of the evolution of the Aircraft Carrier as a weapon. Nimitz really succeeds in this idea of marshalling carriers, putting them together as an offensive strike force and the prepearl harbor mantra of battleships, battleships, coral sea and certainly after midway becomes carriers, carriers, carriers. Its june 2, 1942. Were about to fight the battle of midway. Thanks. [ applause ] id be glad to take a question two. Please use the microphones. In preparing for today, i read a little bit about the early 1941 battle off of cape matterpan in the mediterranean. Skimming through it i was impressed with the key role that a couple of british carriers played in that basically surface battle at the european war. Did the information about that come into the hands of the u. S. Navy by this time or was that sort of so far away and obscure that they really didnt have a feel for operations in that battle . I think that theres no question that nimitz had information with that, that that kind of information was being shared. Even before pearl harbor, very informally by, you know, you got to remember roosevelt and churchill are together for the Atlantic Charter conference in august of 1941. And even theres this tremendous king is in charge of all the convoys that are going across the north atlantic. I think theres very good and Close Relationships between the american and british navies. One could argue why wasnt more attention paid to perhaps what was done at sinking the italian navy. Yes, sir . Its fortunate we had three or four carriers at this time. Im interested in the process during the 20s and 30s, then, when the decision was made to build these carriers . It was a period of some isolationism, american debated what to do about japan and germany. So who what was the process by which they decided to Start Building this in the 30s . Who is there one person who kind of gets the credit for the foresight . The early carriers initially there was a carrier called the langley, that actually was modified. It was a coal ship. And it was modified and then modified again to basically become a sea plane tender. But one of the things the Washington Naval conference of 1921 gave permission to there were a lot of exceptions. They gave permission to the United States to build two carriers on what were basically battleship hulls at that point. The battleships everybody said, lets not build anymore battleships, but by the way we have these two hulls, what are we going to do with those. Those basically became the early two carriers of lexington and saratoga. Now after that, i think you need to give Franklin Roosevelt and to some extent people like admiral king who were pushing for naval aviation. I think you need to give roosevelt credit that even as soon as his election and inauguration in 1933 hes beginning to turn back this 20s isolationism and do things like put more money into the navy. And begin to buildships like that. Certainly Aircraft Carriers, enterprise, ranger, yorktown, come online. And theyre really gems in terms of state of the art at that point and of course, halsey and king both command them at some point. To your point about what would have happened if we hadnt done that, you know, its just like if the carriers had been caught a at pearl harbor. The result may have been catastrophic. There were four carriers in the pacific. Actually there were three carriers on pearl harbor. Saratoga is on the west coast taking on its planes in december 7, 1941, off san diego. The enterprise is en route to resupply things on wake island and lexington pulls out of pearl harbor as late as december 5th, that friday, and takes a similar fleet of aircraft toward midway. They dont end up making that delivery, but so thats kind of the history of the carriers to december 7th. I would agree theyre very important. Saratoga gets torpedoed fairly soon and ends not being involved in the actions early on in 1942. Its repaired but its not available for the operations. And, of course, what i didnt mention in the brief overview is hornet and enterprise hornet comes around from the atlantic. Theyre involved with the doolittle raid and nimitz has dispatched that to coral sea they just dont arrive in time for the battle. Its only yorktown and lexington at the battle at coralsea. Should admiral king, nonetheless had been fired in early 1942 for what he did not do at atlantic . For what he did not where . In the atlantic. Heres my take on that. I think king and by that, i assume you mean not putting in convoys sooner and putting more things there . I think king has gotten a bad wrap for that. Thats my personal opinion. No one knew what was going on in the atlantic better than king because before hes basically tapped to command the u. S. Fleet. Hes in charge of the atlantic squadron, it becomes the atlantic fleet. He is shepherding these convoys back and forth across the atlantic. Hes the one who basically says, i think its to the captain of the greer, who is sort of being questioned for firing on a german uboat that, you know, captain as long as i run this fleet im never going to dispute you doing something in selfdefense. So king is well informed about whats going on. And i think that while it took a while to employ the convoy system, that part of that was just in terms of adequate defense forces, destroyers to shepherd them. So im not saying i give king a total pass on that. But i think that thats one of those things that people sort of want to characterize kings record of what he didnt do based on that. And for my take, at least, im more of a king supporter in that. We have a question from twitter. Can you describe the relationship between General Macarthur and admiral nimitz. They had a very Good Relationship i know its been popular and i admit in the admirals perhaps i was a little bit rough on macarthur. The navy guys didnt think i was too rough. But perhaps i was. But i think at the end of the day the friction, the Traditional Army navy rivalries, i think that theyve been really overstated. I think there were people on both sides, macarthurs staff and nimitzs staff who hated one another. And marcarthurs chief of staff southerland was one of those. I think that nimitz and macarthur once they got together just like halsey and macarthur really got along and embraced the bigger picture. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thanks for a great presentation. Were going to take a short break. Well reconvene in 15 minutes, at 10 45. The first break in this forum marking the 75th anniversary of the battle of midway in which the u. S. Defeated the Japanese Navy for the first time in world war ii. Coming up, code breaking and its effect on the battle and the rest of the world. Later presentations on new information about the japanese during the battle. And the role of the u. S. Navy. An update about next week on cspan 3. Former fbi director James Comey Testifies before the Senate Intelligence committee. Live thursday, june 8th at 10 00 a. M. During the break here, a short news reel about pearl harbor and background on the next topic, code breaking. Each week american historys tv reel america brings archival films that provide context for todays issues. Your commonentator is joel bryant. Here is the Motion Picture record released by the United States navy of the havoc wrought by the japs sneak sky and sea raid on pearl harbor. On december 7th, 1941, japan like its infamous Access Partners struck first and declared war afterwards. Costly to our navy was the loss of war vessels, airplanes and equipment. But more costly to japan was the effectiveness of its foul attack and immediately unifying america in its determination to fight and win the war thrust upon it and to win the peace that will follow. The japs copied the german masters in striking hard at airfields. The field northwest of hauonolu. Scores orphplanes were bruised and battered by the japs aerial bombs, many were demolished beyond repair. Direct hits were scored on hangars and these were badly shattered. Kwiment and airplane supplies were reduced to smoldering ruins. Here at the Naval Air Station is grim and positive evidence of jap treachery. Foul blows were struck while jap d diplomats were talking peace in washington. America lost three destroyers, with decks awash after jap bombers make direct hits on their decks. First to feel the sting are the uss oklahoma and utah. Accurate hits make show work of these bulwarks. With these keels out of water they lie helpless wreck and a sad reminder of cowardly strategy. To make possible a surprise attack, the japs built two manned submarines to enable them to fire sneak blows within waters that are narrow and tortuous. Several of these surprise wiphi were blown. Others were beached and captured. While sky and sea fire was still raging, salvage crews inspected our naval craft to estimate what may be saved. Before the din of birthing bombs had been silenced preparations were underway to salvage these two warships. At low tide, the huge propeller of the oklahoma stilled by the enemy was high above water. Its believed that the small two man jap submarines carrying torpedos were responsible for these two losses to our Pacific Fleet. Here is the actual bombing of the mighty uss arizona by jap planes. These pictures were made by a fearless cameraman who thought nothing of his personal safety to make possible this record for all posterity. A single lucky hit was responsible for the disaster that befell the arizona when a jap bomb falling directly through the battle ships funnel landed in the fuel room and set ablaze fuel oil. Smoke billowed today the sky as the control tower began to keel over. Their courageous crew stuck to its guns till the very end. The once mighty arizona now rests on pearl harbors muddy bottom. A grim monument to the treachery of japan. The armored plate is twisted and torn but the controlatory stands, a defiant beacon which will cast its shadow. At the bomb pocked streets of honolulu, history is written with a tragedy pen. History that 130 million americans will never forget. In days to come, the japs, too, will remember pearl harbor. Here is a tragic unforgettable page in the annals of america. Here the cunning deceit of the japs will never be forgotten. Here they hope to score a knockout before the war began. The arizonas gun crews battered and broken fired to the last. Their guns pointed skyward from whence the enemy appeared. The japs sneak blow cost hundreds of military and civilian lives. The treacherous attack cost our Pacific Fleet two battleships out right another capsized. The loss of three destroyers and a mine layer. While bombs were still bursting and flames still pouring from our shattered naval craft, a United States cruiser moves out to join the fleet and avenge pearl harbor. Each week, american artifacts takes viewers into archi archives, museum and Historic Sites around the country. Next from our visit to the National Cryptologic museum, a look at one of their exhibits about the making and breaking of secret codes and their role in u. S. History. Were going to talk about the battle of midway. And really despite the fact that it happened way back in 1942, theres no better example of showing how cryptology applied correctly in time of war can be what the military refers to as a force multiplier. Something that can help you even the odds when youre at a great disadvantage. Now our story starts in the spring of 1942. And lets just say that the United States navy was not in a good position. We were down to about 50 ships. We had three Aircraft Carriers about 47 other assorted craft. The Japanese Navy on the other hand at the time had over 200 ship and six to eight Aircraft Carriers they could deploy. The Japanese Navy after pearl harbor conquered over a seventh of the earths surface in a few months time. It was an amazing military operation and we very much underestimated the japanese. Now admiral yamamoto was moving at a rapid clip for a couple of reasons. First offer, we didnt have the manpower and the resources out in the pacific quite yet to deal with the japanese operation. But the other reason hes moving quickly is, he wants to end the war in a short period of time. Why . Well, he figured correctly that it would take about a year for american factories to convert from peacetime to wartime production. And once that 12 month limit had been reached, the factories would begin to churn out so many guns and planes and tanks that japan would be overwhelmed. One more punch and theyll be down for the count. He wants to throw that punch now, rather than later. He left the home islands of japan in spring 1942 with the largest fleet in the history of Naval Warfare to that point in time. Hes going to attack an american held island. 50 ships will come out to defend it t. Hell destroy them with overwhelming numbers. When theyre gone hes hoping and praying that Franklin Roosevelt will sign a peace treaty with japan that will leave them in control of vast regions of the pacific. Las vegas hadnt been created yet, it was a bus stop in the desert. If there been odds makers at the time they would have given all advantages to the japanese. They were a Football Team that was 160 and barely scored upon. The japanese do not win the battle of midway, and partially thats because we had great leadership ourselves. This is a photo of admiral chester nimitz, a man who was able to restore morale quite quickly after pearl harbor. He is not only laboring under a handicap of a lack of resource and man power, but he also has another challenge. And that is this, we have not yet broken japans naval codes. Now after pearl harbor, we got smart, we began to apply more manpower and resources to breaking the military codes. And there were any number of organizations that were devoted to doing just that. Station hypo out at pearl harbor under the leadership of commander joseph rotchford is trying to break systems. Back in washington, there is one doing the very same thing. After a lot of very, very tough work in may of 1942, they achieve a breakthrough and they begin to read portions of Japanese Naval messages to the point where they can ascertain what the japanese are going to do. When they look at the messages, they are able to see clearly that the next objective for japan is af. The next question, of course, what does af correspond to . Rotchford came to the conclusion rather quickly that af was Midway Island. Most importantly, he convinced nimitz this was the case. And nimitz informed the marines on midway to be ready for a massive invasion. So far inplan seems to be going quite well. The problem was this, the superiors of these gentlemen in washington, admiral king and admiral redmond were not sure they were on the right track. Nimitz was never ordered to put this plan on the shelf. But they did question him, and basically, second guess him. Not so much because they werent confident in his leadership abilities, but because they were worried. You can understand why they were worried. We were down to 50 ships. If nimitz was wrong, that would mean that both hawaii and the west coast could be open to japanese invasion. The second guessing though, really got underr rotchfords skin. He respectfully asked nimitz to help him with plan to prove they were right. He requested the marines on midway to go to their radio center and send out what will be a false message. A message that will say that the water plant on the island that draws in seawater and turns it into fresh gridrinking water is broke sq broken and theres no fresh water on the island. Thats sent out despite the fact its false. They want the japanese to think theres a problem. Well, they prayed that the japanese would intercept it t. Guess what, they do. How do we know . Days later there is a message sent from guam, a Japanese Naval center at guam. Its intercepted by the americans. We can read those messages now. When we break the message, it is the minutes of an intelligence meeting held in tokyo a few days prior. Guess what one of the topics of conversation was . Af is short of water. Now nimitz has proved his point and he can put his ships exactly where he wants them. And ultimately hes able to stage a brilliant nautical ambush. The early parts of this battle were a challenge, despite the fact we knew the direction the japanese were approaching from, Pacific Ocean is a big place. We had lots of different elements, trying to locate the japanese fleet. We had a little bit of trouble doing it. And we lost a lot of very brave pilots in the beginnings of this battle. However, when you know what your adversary is going to do, when you have their battle plan, and they can only guess what youre doing, sooner or later, if you keep pressing you will gain an advantage. And quarter after 10 00 on june 4th a collection of dive bombers found three of japans top of the line carriers in close proximity. They attacked and in 25 minutes this was the result. Now, American Naval forces were able to destroy a fourth carrier later that afternoon. It is worth noting that all four of those carriers had been part of the raid on pearl harbor and they were now gone forever. Most importantly it will now be the United States on the attack, on the offense, and after several more years of bloody fighting, japan will surrender in the fall of 1945. Midway was definitely the turning point. Now, please dont go back to the wonderful organization you work for, cspan and tell everybody that we won the battle of midway because of cryptology. Criptologists dont win battle if they did poland would have won world war i in the first week. Cryptology help but you have to have soldiers who will carry the fight to the enemy and you have to have guns and planes and tanks. Even with all that crypttology can be a huge help because it can help you to know what the enemy is going to know before they do tha. If you know that the odds of victory are going to go up. Something else will happen as well. We lost soldiers at the battle of midway. It not only helps you to win, but it also helps you to survive. If you ever have to describe to somebody, to break the codes of the enemy. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs at any time. What was your rank, sir . [ inaudible ] okay. So very much very honored to have you here in the audience, thank you. My theme today, midway and code breaking. When crypt analysis came of age, might need a bit of an explanation. It suggests there was a time before midway when crypt analysis was not of age. And this might seem odd. Because crypt analysis, the art of breaking secret messages encrypted in a cipher or code has a long history. It goes back to the romans. During world war i, the british navy stymied the german high seas fleet using code breaking. But on the eve of world war ii, as practiced by the American Army and navy, crypt analysis was barely in its adolescence. The American Military yes, sir . [ inaudible ] you want me close togethr to microphone . Louder. Okay. Im going to boom it out. Okay. The American Military had barely entered the cryptologic arena no more than 20 years earlier. Is that better . And for many officers admirals, generals, this activity was new. Not only new it was strange and a little fuzzy. And a lot of them regarded crypt analysis is a kind of novelty. An activity that would probably never yield timely intelligence in a combat situation. So crypt analysis was not really much of a really much of interest for ambitious young officers. In fact, the field was considered a career killer and only a few increpid souls had anything to do with it. That was the way to arise in the navy. Code breakers, the reputation of cryptanalysis, was upheld by the attack on pearl harbor, and a lot of the skeptics and officer ranks wondered why this new science had not provided a better warning. So cryptanalysis entered world war ii very much under a cloud. Code breakers had staggering problems of their own besides their representation. Their big problem was that there was not enough of them. Those services had too few trained cryptanalysis. A lot of them were detailed to work on various codes, diplomatic codes, and only a tiny handful worked on the Imperial Navy operational codes, and this small group was supplemented by 21 cryptanalysis scattered across the navy. And this small band was charged with shadowing the entire Japanese Navy. And it must be said that they did an amazing job. They did catch a few breaks. Walter bordman was talking about the early raids in the gilbert and marshal islands, and code breakers cant break codes unless they have intercepts, lots of messages to work with, and those raids generated kau zillions of Imperial Navy messages, so suddenly our code breakers had more intercepts than they knew what to do with than they could possibly break and that showed in the results that came later when a japanese squadron was spotted heading toward the Southern Coast of new guinea, and it was tracked by analysts at pearl harbor and malborn, australia. So admiral nimitz had information, and he sent some to thwart that advance, and the action known as the coral of the sea was the first major set back for the Imperial Navy. Its been called a draw. I would say its a tactical draw for the japanese but a strategic defeat for the japanese because they were not able to proceed with their mission. But it was at midway a month later on june 4 where cryptanalysis comes into its own. In the words of historian, john ferris, midway is one of those cases when intelligence strikes like lightning. At midway, the encrypt analysis had the victory of predicting the campaign. And that engagement made Everything Else possible. I think its not an exaggeration to say that aside from the battle of the coral sea, the battle of midway was the only campaign of the pacific war in which code breaking was so fundamental to the event that if there had been no code breaking there would have been no battle. The battle could not have happened without it. Without code breaking, june 4 would have been a very different day than the day that history recorded. True, some things would have been the same. The Striking Force, the famed four fast carriers would still have converged on midway, but the three carriers nimitz had available to check that advance, yorktown, enterprise and hornet, they would not have been there. Yorktown would have been 3,000 miles away in the shipyard getting repairs from scars sustained in the coral sea. Enterprise and hornet would have been 4,000 miles away on station in the coral sea. And that is where admiral king wanted them to be, to give protection to australia. Australia had been asking, pleading with king that they needed extra protection from the japanese fleet and the australians were very worried about the Japanese Navy. So you had those three carriers all in the wrong place, and there were no carriers in the Central Pacific. So both of those carriers, the hornet and the enterprise, cruised in the coral sea on the 17th, but days later all three carriers, including yorktown showed up 200 miles northeast at midway at a point that nimitz called point luck. What caused nimitz to act so quickly was a single message, a single transmission from the Imperial Navy headquarters to a japanese transport ship resting in the marshals. And the go shaw ma rue was asked to pick up supplies and proceed to a place called af, and ill talk more about af later. That dispatch that was picked up by the radio man in oahu, and it left no doubts in nemitz mind. Marshals apprise you will of midway is now widely accepted. What is also so well known is that lightning almost didnt strike on june 4. The battle as we know it almost didnt happen. Marshal called midway a close squeak, but it wasnt only a close squeak in the waters near midway, it was also a close squeak in washington where army and navy chiefs couldnt agree among themselves where it would blow and they disputed nimitz estimate. He was unphased by the jobsquab going on, and he had a source that he learned to trust, and this source was a officer named joe roerbford. Hes easily the pivotal character of the story, and he was an unusual officer. Unlike most officers occupying positions of high responsibility in the navy, he had not been to the Naval Academy. He had come up from unlisted ranks and it made him an ougan oddity. They described him as witty, unorthodox, blunt but quick, intimate and brilliant. Nimitz faith in this officer was well placed, and he had been a pioneer in navy cryptology, and he entered the field in 1925 joining something that was then called the reshirts desk. The word was intended to disguise one of the navys newestnew est activities at that time, code breaking. Excuse me a minute. Newest activ code breaking. Excuse me a minute. When the founder at the research december, a genius named Lawrence Safford, and he inherited his job, so at the tender age of 26 and only a couple months of training under his belt, he found himself running the navys code breaking arm. It consisted of five people, one officer, himself, and four civilians. Now, happily one of those civilians was a script analyst, and she was known as miss aggie. She tutored joe in cryptanalysis. They did working together compromise at least one Imperial Navy code. Miss aggie went on to become one of the legendary cripologists and teachers. And he went on to japan and he went on to familiarize himself with the culture in japan, and staying there three years, thats what he did. So in the spring of 1941, with war looking more likely in the far east, his training in japanese came in handy. His old boss, safford, ran something called up 20g. It was an expansion of the old Research Desk and it was a new version of the cold breaking arm. Safford wanted roseford to run the 20g station at pearl harbor, and he took the job and it was known as station hypo. Roseford did not personally break the codes, or at least he did not do it by himself. He had a lot of help. He used expertise in the language of cryptology to lead the team that did most of the work. And his outfit consisted of a small corp. Of two dozen ofrbz. They were a salty crew, they were math wizards and language characters. They were people who, were in rosefords roads, were not generally conformed to ideas. Roseford meant this as a compliment it, and as he put it, he said if you want to be an analyst, being a little nuts helps. They did their work in a rather dreary place, a basement in the Administration Building at pueal harbor. This is what it looked like in 1942 and this is what it looks like today. Oops. Got ahead of myself there. That little space there is the door that led down to this work area, this basement work area, and this is the staircase that led down to it, and it was usually full of burn bags from discarded intercepts and work sheets, so getting down there was kind of a trial. Not an inspiring place. And because roseford wouldnt allow photographers down there for security reasons, all we have is this artist conception. The basement was fairly spacious about the size of a large pool hall, but it had some draw backs. The airconditioner either worked excessively or didnt at all, so you were either hot or too cold, and sometimes froze your bones off, and the men down there called that place the dungeon. Rosefords odd characters excuse me a minute. I got a little bit ahead of myself. We have one other idea of that world i am going to share with you. It comes by way of hollywood. In the 1976 movie midway, roseford is portrayed by al holbrook as a kind of weirdo, a loud mouth who speaks with a twang, and smokes red cigars and walks around in a red smock. Rosefords old staff hated the portrayal of him, and they said he was not like that at all and remembered him as a tall slender gentleman that spoke softly and smoked a pike on his desk. And one little trouble was that the movie was released june 18, 1942, and im sorry. 1976. July 18, 1976, the movie was released and joe died july 20, a month later, so whether joe liked the movie or would have liked it, we will never know. But roseford did wear a red jacket in the confines of that basement because, as he said, it was cold down there. At first roseford and his odd characters pleased their bosses in washington. That changed after japans surprise attack on december 7. The code breakers were not blamed for that debacle, but Lawrence Safford lost credibility with the higher ups and he was reassigned and new bosses took over the 20g. This was bad news for roseford. His new bosses in washington didnt like his practice whereby he customarily reported his findings, radio findings and so forth and what not to the fleet commander first, and he would report first to admiral kimable when he was there, and then nimitz, and then secondarily to 20g in washington. Well, commander john writman, another picture of those two gentlemen, john redman now ran op 20g. He was a curious choice, he had no background in cryptology or code breaking or cryptanalysis. He was proficient in regular navy communications, which is to say hardware, morse code, regular stuff like that, but he had no background encrypt analysis. Redman wanted code breaking and intelligence and the findings to be centralized in washington, and they wanted roseford to send in the data and let op 20g, let washington do the thinking. Roseford wouldnt go along with this. He thought because of his background in cryptanalysis and the japanese language he was better sooted than the people in washington to render judgment on what the japanese intended. So he continued to report first to fleet headquarters. Over the weeks the relations between station hypo and op 20g frayed. But despite the bickering, they did serious work. Among the code breakers in melbourne and some in washington, they were doing some decent work. They confronted a daunting task, how to break the Imperial Navys main operational code. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the famous jn25. The numbers on the left are the code groups, and the wording on the right are plain text recoveries of the code groups. As you can see the top code group is that a bomber and others have not been recovered, some were ships and some were Something Else. In all jn25b had 50,000 fivedigit code groups and assigning values to these code groups was a gargantuan task, and it was made harder by the fact that the code groups on the left were something disguised by additives, and there was a book of 50,000 additives, and they looked like that, superimposed upon the regular code groups, so before you could read the real code group you had to strip off these additives. Not easy work. Unlike enigma, the code used by the german army and navy, 25b was not a decrypted code. The jn25b was a manual code, and they had to be solved by pencil one digit at a time. And they used machines, tabulators, and other devices to gain clues into the code and each monthly used 3 million ibm punch cards for storage and retrieval of the codes used. And then a portion of jn 25b became readable, and they saw a huge offensive building up in japanese home waters. They knew the attack would be huge. They knew it would be bigger than the coral sea, but they didnt know where it would be. Now station hypo turned into a pressure cooker. To pinpoint the Imperial Navys target, analysts started to work long hours, and roseford worked 20hour days and his men worked almost as many hours, and their problem was not breaking messages so much as it was staying awake. One analysts actually, my favorite guy at station hypo, Lieutenant Commander dyer struggled with a code, and to culprit the problem, he took uppers and downers, and as tommy put it years later, i couldnt sleep, i couldnt keep awake sitting at my desk, so my doctor gave me something that i could take in the morning and aphene yo barbara tall at night, and that worked pretty well. On may 13, the men intercepted that Imperial Navy message i told you about earlier. That established midway at the target. The message contained the designator af. Roseford remembered that back in march hypo had picked up a message from a japanese scout plane flying near midway and that scout plane sent a message to wake island using the designator af, and so af was clearly midway, and nobody had any doubt about that at pearl harbor, but when nimitz on may 14 reported hypos finding to washington, he ran into that buzz saw i described earlier. And second of war, henry steupb ton, all believe they intended to not midway but the American West coast in retaliation for the doolittle raid that on april 18 had bombed tokyo and four other japanese cities including the Imperial Navy. And the admiral king, by whom we heard from earlier, we know he was a guy that was temperamental, and had a lot of anger and rage, and he first had doubts about midway and then two days later, king did something that astonished nimitz and nimitz staff, and king actually changed his mind and he accepted nimitz assessment. Nimitz had to conjoel from king the transfer of those carriers from the coral sea to midway, but king went along with it. But opt 20g, this little group of analysts working separately didnt agree with hypo, and they told king that hypo was making a terrible mistake and if king followed hypos lead he would be making a terrible mistake. Op 20gs analysts actually believe that the Imperial Navy might be headed for samoa, rather than going east to midway. Or they thought, perhaps, hawaii itself would be the main target. So nimitz now was getting a little anxious himself, and he told roseford that he needed better proof and roseford convened his group in the basement and fortunately there was a member of the staff named well, this was king, and we missed him. Jasper holmes informed roseford about midways vulnerability to water shortages and they thought that if they could get midway to report a shortage japanese radio men would pick that up and convey it to tokyo and the cap would be out of the bay, and it was indeed midway and the radiomen did take that bait and the word got out that it was now confirmed. The only trouble was roseford had not bothered to inform his bosses in washington about the water ploy and they didnt appreciate the slight but they had no choice but to accept the final midway estimate. By the end of may, navy code breakers, primarily those at pearl harbor and melbourne, they were able to itemize the entire order of battle of the japanese ramada. This is an iconic message in my opinion. This is nimitz dispatch to all his commanders at sea on may 31st, ten days after this original water ploy, showing what was going to happen at midway. From this message, we can see that nimitz had incredibly detailed information. He knew about a Striking Force coming in from the northwest, and the amount of carriers, and he knew about an occupation force coming in from the west with transports and destroyers, and as many as 60 submarines. Nimitz was really armed. With this cornucopia of information, nimitz proceeded with his plan to surprise the japanese, which we all know he did. In the aftermath of the stunning victory, roseford could have been the man of the hour. He was in the eyes of admiral nimitz and nimitz put him in for a distinguished Service Medal. And they persuaded king to veto the medal and king went with the recommendation of his staff and vetoed it. A little later they went a step further and removed roadford from pearl harbor and had him assigned to a shipyard in the San Francisco bay, and ordered to supervise the building of a floating dry dock. Magnificent structures if you have ever seen one, and he did that rather well. The navys success, medal or no medal, roseford and his team put their stamp on the battle of midway, and the intelligence available to nimitz, and the ene enemys objective, and the direction of his approach and the timing of his attack and the launch position was all the product of cryptanalysis. The navys success put cryptanalysis on the map inside the military. It gave code breakers the recognition and respectability they needed when they needed it most. Ambitious officers caught on that they had an option, an alternative to the gun club and they had another pathway to a glorious career in the navy. He didnt have to join and be gunners. At the outset of the war, code breaker units in the army and navy numbered more than 1,000 sou souls. By the end of the war that number had ballooned to more than 16,000 in washington alone. Cryptanalysis had, indeed, come of age. If you will indulge me a footnote, i would like to say that in 1986, roseford got his distinguished Service Medal at the behest of his staff, they campaigned for years and years and years, and finally it worked and president reagan awarded joe the medal. Joe could not be there himself because he had died ten years earlier, so the medal went to his daughter, janet rose tpurfo and his son, joe roseford, jr. , military retired. Thank you very much. I will be happy to answer any questions. [ applause ] i would be happy to answer any questions if there are any. Yes, sir. So were told that intel missed the attack on pearl harbor or the lead up to the attack on pearl harbor, and we can debate that on another talk show, but during the attack was there any collection going on and did we garner any valuable information from that collection that helped break the code later on . You are asking me what was roadfo rosefords unit doing during they were stumped. Roseford often said he got half of it right and he did predict the pearl navy attack to the west, and singapore and east asia and mollmalaysia, he saw t coming a week before it happened. He was not totally asleep at the switch, but he thought that all of the Imperial Navy capital ships were tied down on these other missions down to malia, and he had nothing left over, he didnt think, to go to pearl harbor. He felt very uneasy that day. He had a suspicion in his bones something might happen but theres no question he missed it, and all you can say is that that ship, if they dont emit signals theres no way the signal people can pick up signals that arent there, and they maintained complete radio silence in their expedition to pearl harbor. Thank you. Good morning. Yes, sir. How close, on the morning of june 4th, at daylight, dawn, how close was rosefords producktion to where they would be to where they were when ad discovered them, when the could you come to me . I didnt quite hear that. How close was rosefords prediction of where they would be on june 4th when they were first discovered relative to where they actually were . They were almost exactly in the same spot. That rosefords team forecasts. Latent passed on the estimate to nimitz, and after the battle nimitz told latent, you were off by half a degree. They were close and had it down precisely and accurately. They spoke about the disposition of the American Carriers on the morning as well. It seemed to me that they were out of position relatively speaking if rosefords prediction was right on. Well, you know, theres an argument over this, and theres a point of view that said that our two forces were dill tory in move into position. They came later than what was appropriate. I will let some logistical experts argue that. I would say my own guess is, no, that they closed the distance rather well and rapidly, and that fletcher held back in the yorktown for very good reasons. He wanted to make sure that he didnt have a coral sea surprise where he had two large fleet carriers of the Imperial Fleet coming in that he was not expecting, and he wanted to make sure that didnt happen again so he stayed behind and this might have given the impression of a lag, but when it came to moving the planes towards where the Japanese Task force was, fletcher was actually ahead of the other two carriers, i think. Another factor to take into account, and this is that hallsy was not there. So the formation of the planes and their organization for takeoff and attack was in the hands of captain browning, who had been hallsys chief of staff, and browning did a lot of thinking for hallsy on organization, strategy, and so forth. It would have been interesting if hallsy had been there, but people forget browning being there was like hallsy being there, and if he made the mistake of letting our planes stack up before being send on, hallsy might have done the same thing. Thanks. Uhhuh. Well, thank you very much. [ applause ] thanks for that fantastic and illuminating presentation. We are going to take a short break. I would ask you if you could remain seated for just a few moments p moments. The memorial is open for visitors, and we have living history that i neglected to mention. We will reconvene in this room promptly at 1 00, and resume our Afternoon Program. So thank you and enjoy your lunch. About a 90minute break here in the forum. The event continues at 1 00 eastern time with a presentation on new information on the japanese at the time of the battle and u. S. Navy Fighter Pilots. An update about next week here on cspan3, fbi director comey will testify before the Intelligence Committee meeting and we will have that live, and also your phone calls and reaction via social media. You can watch it on our website, cspan. Org or listen to the free cspan radio app, next thursday, june 8th, 10 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan3. Now its a movie about midway made by john ford. Each week american historys tvs real america bring films that help tell the story of the 20th century. In the third of a fivepart look of hollywood directors that made films for the u. S. Government during world war tworbgs we feature director john ford. In the 18minute documentary about the june 1942 battle of midway. The film presented a victory in vivid color to an American Public eager for good news in the years following pearl harbor, but first we speak with the author, mark harris, about john ford. In his book, mark harris focusing on the story of hollywood and the second waorld war, and john ford served in the u. S. Navy during world war ii. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. What can you tell us about john ford . Ford was one of the most respected directors in hollywood, probably the most respected director before the war, between 1939 and 1941 he went on kind of an unmatched tear in hollywood making the grapes of wrath, how green was my valley, stagecoach, and just a set of movies that gave him the representation of one of the most intelligent and seriousmi seriousminded directors. He realized that war was inevitable. Three months before pearl harbor, ford was already in uniform. He felt that war was coming and that he also understood that hollywood really needed to be prepared. He had gotten the navy to agree almost a year before the war to let him create something that came to be known as the field photo unit. It was a sort of auxiliary in which he recruited cameramen and soundmen and film editors from Hollywood Studios who would spend their weekends and nights training to do things like develop film on a listing ship, and, you know, shoot film under wartime conditions. In some ways it was kind of a lark. Ford really loved ceremony and military procedure and dress up, but this unit became absolutely crucial during the war when it was called into action to shoot documentaries. Two of the most significant events, dday where john ford witnessed the events unfold on omaha beach in the battle of midway in which he was wounded, correct . Yes, the battle of midway was the first time a major american filmmaker was there to film and engagement, and it was the middle of 1942, and the war in europe was not obviously happening yet as far as the u. S. Was concerned, so all of the news, all of the concentration and all of the effort was spent in the pacific trying to hold off the japanese in various places while the navy attempted to rebuild its fleet to full strength after the damage was done by pearl harbor, and most of the news in the six months after pearl harbor that came out of the war was not good for the u. S. There were not a lot of victories being tallied in the newspapers. There was a lot of valor in terms of allies holding the line for a very, very long time before, you know, betan or the philippines fell, but midway was the first point at which we won a successful major intkpwaeupblmeintkpwaeupbengage and ford was there. He was put aboard a ship from hawaii and taken to midway without knowing that a battle was coming. He said later that he assumed he was there to make a documentary about life at a remote naval out post, and instead when he got there he learned that a japanese attack was imminent and that the u. S. Was prepared, so on the morning of midway, he was stationed on the roof of a powerhouse with a camera and a couple of men from his unit that also had cameras, perfectly positioned to capture in coming japanese zeros, and he was he was alternating shooting footage and being on the phone to the naval officers below just telling them what he was seeing, and he shot until a piece of shrapnel hit him in the arm and knocked the film and the camera out of its spraubgets, and he was the first hollywood filmmaker to be wounded in action. We will see part of his work entitled the battle of midway, but for our audience watching in just a moment, what should they look for . Well, its impossible to overstate the impact that this movie had by the end of its run. Because its a short movie, it didnt show instead of hollywood features, it showed in addition to them. They were played in three quarters in all of the movies in the United States. What you should look for in this movie is the fact it was made in color. We take that for granted now, but it was shocking and unprecedented for audiences then to see real events like this in color, the color had been reserved for fan s fantasies like the wizard of oz, and gone with the wind, and this was one of the first examples of color realism. If you listen to the movie, you will hear that there are four off camera voices. He has a really interesting technique of kind of alternating narration and commentary, and you will hear a surrogate elderly woman and young man, maybe their son signature in the audience, and so its a fascinating mixture of hollywood technique in terms of the narration and the music and the storytelling and pure, raw footage especially in the middle of this movie when the narration drops away and the battle begins. Mark harris, thanks for being with us. From 1942 with director john ford, this 18minute film titled the battle of midway. Routine patrol. Behind every cloud may be an enemy. Midway island, not much land, but its our out post, your front yard. These are the natives of midway. Tojo has long to deliberate them. The birds seem nervous. Theres something in the air. Something behind that sunset. Excitement this morning. The patrol sighted an enemy fleet, during the night flight fortresses had landed at midway. A historic counsel of war is held. That looks familiar. Say, is that one of those flying fortresses . Yes, maam, it is. Well, thats jimmy, hes from my hometown, springfield, ohio. Hes not going to fly that bomber . Yes, maam, thats his job. Hes a skipper. And his mother, well, shes just like the rest of us mothers in springfield or any other american town, and his sister, patricia, shes about as pretty as they come. Ill say so. Well, junior. Good luck. God bless you, son. Suddenly from behind the clouds, the japs attack [ gunfire ] [ gunfire ] [ plane engines roaring ] [ explosions ] yes, this really happened. [ gunfire ] [ plane engines roaring ] [ plane engine sputtering ] [ gunfire ]. [ explosions ] [ plane engines roaring ]. Mean while, our crews stopped the jap fleet. [ plane engines roaring ] suddenly, the trap is sprung. [ plane engines roaring ] navy planes roared from the decks of our carriers, and marines cause destruction over the battle area. [ gunfire ] [ gunfire ] [ plane engines roaring ] the invasion forces were hit and hit and hit again. Men and women of america, here come your neighbors sons home from a days work, and you want to meet them. There is kenny patch. Seven meatballs on his plane. How many more today, skipper . Back at midway, he swore hed liberate the navy. The battle of midway is over. Our front yard is safe, but a big job is till to be done. Day after day, search for survivors. Every tiny coral reef, every distant mile of sea. Search for men who fought to their last ammunition and flew until their last gasp of gas and flew into the sea. Eight days, nine days, ten days without food or water. His first cigarette. Boy, that first drag sure tastes good. Eleven days. Well done, hughes. Logan ramsey. Frank. Thats 13 for frank. Get those boys to the hospital. Please, do. Quickly. Get some them clean cots and cool shakes. Doctors, medicine, a nurses soft hands. Get them to the hospital, hurry, please. There was a hospital. Clean, orderly, 100 beds. An honest roof that red red cross plainly marked. The symbol of mercy the enemy was bound to respect. The next morning, Divine Services were held beside a bomb crater that had once been a chapel. At even tide, we buried our hero dead. The last salute from their comrades and their officers. Captain simone of the navy. Colonel chandler. Major vincent. The 1942 film battle of midway from director john ford. Joining me from new york, mark harris. How did ford view his service in the u. S. Navy . Ford was really proud of his service. He was the oldest of the five directors i write about. In fact, he became a grandfather during the war. He had been old enough to serve in the first world war, although he didnt, so for ford, i think the war was a proving ground. He really wanted to test his courage, and although he was, you know, at least once directly in the line of fire, im not sure that ford ever believed that he was courageous. In fact, at one point he said all i know is that im not a brave man, that im a coward. That was after he had been at dday. So, ford was really proud that he had served, and, in fact, when he completed his sort of decommissioning papers, he said he would do it again if called upon. One of the things ford did right after the war was start a place called the farm, which was sort of a combination rest home, clubhouse, barroom, get away for the men in his field photo unit. And it was a place that he decorated with, you know, every medal and recognition he had ever won during the war. That was something he was really obsessed with, but it was a huge part of his identity, and he kept it in operation for almost 25 years after the war. I just wanted to ask you about his work and how it lives on in the films he put together. Just how important was it to the allied efforts and to the American People who saw these films in the 1940s . Fords war work was tremendously important. I mean, especially the battle of midway, which is really the first visual evidence that home front moviegoing audiences had that the u. S. Could win this thing, that it was the first really good news that movie theaters brought about the war. And also i think beyond any one movie that he put on screen, ford will always have a place in the history of world war ii filmmaking efforts, because he was the first of anyone, whether in hollywood or the war department, to realize and believe and act on the conviction that there should be a wartime filmmaking effort. He understood that it was going to be absolutely essential to document this war and that film, which at the time we should really remember was a sound film was only ten or 12 years old. It was newer to americans by far than the internet is to us today. Ford really understood this fledgling media would play a critical part in american perceptions of the war effort. The book came out earlier this year, five came back, a story of hollywood and the second world war. Thank you very much for being with us. Thanks for having me. Next, veterans discuss their roles during the battle of midway and the significance of americas victory in turning the tide in the war with japan. Ed fox, a marine machine gunner, john crawford, a navy captain, and hank cudsick, also a navy veteran, make up the panel. I cant tell you how excited i am to be here today. Thank you, wes, and jim, and the American Veterans center. Ive been here all day yesterday, i was at the Wounded Warrior experience. Its tremendous to read about history. As we heard from general richie yesterday, its more than important that were hearing it from those that participated in history. And we get to hear it from some phenomenal and amazing men and women that weve heard from in the last couple days. The marines, i had never heard that story before, but i tell you after today ill be going up and reading more. How can you not be interested after that . What i thought i would do is give you a brief overview on the battle of midway, but really keep my portion short, because i think we all want to hear from these three gentlemen that were there, and they can offer much more information than what i can give you. But i will say in the last five to ten years, were very fortunate, some fantastic books were written on the battle of midway and all of the rich detail. Ill point you to that and ill just give you the highlights, but shattered sword is an excellent book thats written from the japanese perspective. Incredible victory was written shortly after world war ii. Theres pacific crucible recently came out. No right to win, which sergeant fox is story is in, no right to win, so a lot of rich books out there. If youre interested, please, go read more, because youll definitely learn even more than what well be able to go through this morning. So lets go back to 1941, december 7th. How many of you remember september 11th, 2001 . Exactly. So if you think back to december 7th and this generation, that was their september 11th, and they all remember where they were on december 7th. The biggest difference is, we have twitter, we have smartphones, we have facebook, we have everything to communicate. What did they rely on . They relied on the radio, and they relied on pen and paper to send letters. So a lot of the information wasnt available. People didnt know what was going on until they heard from fdr about the attack. So, december 7th, it starts. The japanese are off. Their main goal is to secure Natural Resources. They need oil, they need metals, so that started. Starting from then through about march 1942, they did not lose. They were on a rampage. They were two to three months ahead of their prewar planning in taking different parts of the pacific. So, its its interesting to put your mind back to what they were thinking at the time. They could not be stopped. They sent six Aircraft Carriers to hawaii to attack pearl harbor. So they caught us completely off guard. They then took the philippines. They then took south to new guinea, so they really owned the pacific. They pushed into the east indies in january and february of 1942. Their goal their goal whenever they pushed south was to control australia, as well, and to cut our lifeline. We were continuing to supply australia and keep them in the fight. Then a fantastic thing happened for our country, and we heard about it yesterday. On april 18th, 1942, doolittle, the doolittle raiders hit tokyo. And that was a turning point. We didnt realize it at the time, but that was at a turning point. Admiral yamamoto, who is the commander in chief of the combined fleet, had been pushing the emperor and the leadership in japan to go take midway, and theyd said, no, no, we want to push south. We want to go take australia. The doolittle raid gave him the backing that he needed to push his plan to go invade and take midway. His thinking was, and his argument was, weve got to protect the eastern approach to tokyo. We cant allow the americans to attack us unknown again. And so that really set the wheels in motion for the battle of midway. In addition, there was the battle of coral sea, down in the south pacific, which again was one of the first battles where we stepped up and we took on the Japanese Carrierforcarrier, so a very, very important battle. And that brings us to january 3rd and january 4th for the battle of midway. The japanese sent three invasion groups. They sordyed most of their fleet. Any ship that was not already engaged in action or not in for repairs, sordied for the invasion of midway. They sent three task forces. Peter takei with four Aircraft Carriers, four of the six that attacked pearl harbor. They also had the occupation force and the invasion force coming up from different angles on midway. Their approach was from the northwest, and if it hadnt been for the coat breakers and station hypo in pearl harbor, we would not have been prepared. Admiral nimitz listened to the codebreaking team, and he very fortunately stationed our two task forces up northeast of midway and we waited. We knew they were coming. We had an idea of the direction. We had an idea of the strength, but we didnt have all the details. We didnt have everything. And thats what well hear today. And so we had three Aircraft Carriers stationed up northeast against basically all of the combined fleet and their four Aircraft Carriers. And with that, i want to turn it over to sergeant fox, who sergeant fox, a marine. Stationed on midway during the battle. Weve got captain john crawford, who was on the yorktown, and then we have chief hank cudsick, who will give us a perspective that many havent heard. Chief was on the u. S. U. S. S. Nautilus, a submarine, that also participated in the battle of midway. So were fortunate today to hear about a very complex battle from three veterans that were there, but from three very different perspectives. With that, sergeant fox, ill turn it to you. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. And i want to thank wes smith and his volunteers, and especially Lieutenant Dan haywood, who traveled out to the airport, picked my wife and i up, and fought that traffic all the way back to renaissance hotel. Thank you, sir. And i bring greetings from a survivor okay, sorry about that. I bring greetings from a survivor of the yorktown, oldist knight to captain crawford. And you signed a chit of his of 2. 98 when you were at incident and he was a plane pusher on that Aircraft Carrier. And, chief, i have something for you when i get finished with my little diddy here. Ive been searching for a boat person for some time, and i finally found one. My role on battle of midway was so insignificant, that i wonder why im here. I dont know how i got recommended or who sent my name in. I was told a general did, and i looked back at my history and tried to find out how many generals did i know . Not very many. I didnt shoot down any planes, and i didnt sink any ships, nor rescued any pilots. And i never even fired a shot. Though i had one of the best machine gun teams on the island and we would compete with other teams during the time that we were waiting for this battle. I had a. 30 caliber machine gun in a bunker on the south tip of sand island. And my Job Description was deny the enemy the access to the real estate in front of me. And my bunker was located in underneath about eight or nine feet of coral sand and brush, and i had a view of 25 yards of the beach and 100 yards of surf. Surf to the reef in front of me. We would test fire our weapons once a week, and i think they only did that to make sure that we would clean them, just enough to cause us to tear down the weapon, but my brownie had 500 rounds per minute rate of fire. We carried 5,000 rounds of delta ammunition in the machine gun bunker, and if you do your math, youd figure out how long wed last. Twice we would pull our guns out and place them in antiaircraft position to fire at a towed target, and this scenario did not last too long. 40millimeter guns to our right always shot down the toll line, shot the toll line, and the. 50caliber machine guns somehow would crease the tail end of the snj that was towing the target. Causing the pilot to expend some explicits you could hear all the way to pearl harbor. Our pilot came back and chewed everybody out and told us after the third mission, that was it. He would rather have he was going to refuse to fly. Said he would rather be shot down by the enemy than some dumb ass marine. But my gun position was buried under eight feet, ten feet of coral sand, and the bunker was made of poured concrete, and i was privileged to go back to midway this past june to be a guest at the 70th anniversary of the battle of midway, and they have preserved my bunker. Lived in that for about eight months. The bunker itself was made of concrete, but it was lined with sand bags. Our deck was sand and wood. We had it slanted on the deck where we stood. Youd figure out or imagine a van, delivery van, and the rear window, that was your port for your gun. The van was what you had behind you with your supplies or extra ammunition or hand grenades. But our deck was slanted for one side with a twofoot slot to the right, and we figured if the japanese threw hand grenades in with us, wed continue firing, kick them to the side and down this little slot. So we would practice with beer cans full of sand and throw it at us. None of them ever came into the bunker. Theyd land in front of the machine gun or underneath the tripod of the gun. That was so much for our practice or learning about what to do if hand grenades came in at us. The interior was lshaped at the point of the deepest point of the l pointed towards the beach. We had barbed wire strung that we would lay, and im sure that we annihilated many a supply route, supply stored with our request for barbed wire. When the barbed wire was laid out, wed walk them out underneath the surf of the water, and about our own causality there was being hit by the portuguese man of war, which would as some of you know, is kind of a rare stinging animal. In a school when i explained this to the elementary kids at fifth grade weather what the barbed wire entanglements were, they couldnt understand it even though i had pictures on the wall. They wanted to see one, so with the help of some of the farm supply people, why, we built barbed wire entanglement at the school. About 15, 20 feet long, built identical to what we had. The kids attempted to crawl through it. Had comments from the parent that night through the teacher, what is mr. Fox doing out there . But no real complaints. They thought that was kind of neat, and the kids wanted to leave it up, but we couldnt do it. We had to take it down after a week. We made personnel mines ourselves with the help of engineers, and these boxes of mines would lay out on the beach with shrapnel inside of it from sheet metal works, glass, metal shavings with dynamite packed in it. And the back end of it was a detonator with dynamite attached to the side of it. So with the target that we could shoot at. We could detonate these from our gun positions. At this position where we lived, we were supplied food or were carried to a quiet area, they would pick us up in a truck and take us back to inland to eat a decent meal in the cafeteria, or the mess hall. But we had to supply our own head. Once in a while the c. O. Would fly overhead and notice that ours and some of the heads were visible, and we had to camouflage it. So we got door hinges from the engineers and we made a collapsible head, and it was one of our number one unflushables. We had to use it. Pull up the rope, lash the rope down, use the head, and lower it down. The island itself was only seven feet above sea level, and when you would dig down for a head, youd run into water. Very soon. The communications on our island from guntogun was done with a ee twostranded telephone run by two batteries, class d batteries inside the telephone, and you would crank to send a signal out to have people pick it up. The dance standby was a strong power phone, and that had one line from one gun position to yours, and then a line stuck in the ground that you kept damp and wet. This was more reliable than the one with the battery. Excuse me. And we had to make sure that the fresh water that we had inside of the gun position was not used in that portion of the ground, so Human Element entered in there field experience, so when you had to use that telephone, you went out there and took care of that damp ground, and i think that was the origin of the pee call. Our big patrol at night was alongside the barbed wire. The surf was to our left in my area. And i would take brush with me and drag brush around behind me, tie it on my ammunition belt, so that the brush drug in the sand. And so when i got to the end of my route and turned around, i could tell whether or not anybody had crossed my path. One night it was attempted by the o. D. Came out and walked in my path and saw that i was doing my job, i guess, and went up and hid in the brush. But i didnt know that. I saw his tracks as they left where i had walked, so i weptnt on, came up, and found him in the brush behind me. And i stuck my b. A. R. In the back of his chest and i said, who goes there . Almost got court marshalled by that one. But the next day the First Sergeant called me in and he charged me, didnt handle myself. During that time of walking patrol, we had a terrible storm. No moon, no stars. Lightning. Some of the barbed wire that was off the island, into the water, and the water gets struck with lightning, barbed wire would glow as you would walk along. So stayed quite a ways away from it because of the lightning strikes and the thunder and the claps, the mooning birds and birds in the island would sound off. And if you have ever heard of a moaning bird on an island, sounds like a human being calling for help or trouble, so this builds up your adrenaline a little bit to stay alert, and a little bit, probably about two weeks, i think it was, before the japanese attacked, and we knew they were coming. We were told to be careful of people attempting, the enemy trying to sneak in on the island. And on this particular night of the storm and what not, ideal time, i noticed a head out in the surf. And i watched it, stopped, and it came closer, got up on the shore, crawled a little way, looked left and right, i laid down, took the safety off, lined up and fired three rounds. Three rounds went off, that was enough, my part of the island to wake up and get going, something was up. Call for the guard, sergeant of the guard, o. D. Of the entire guard detail calling my name, and i would not call out my name. Fox, fox, where the hell are you . I thought, possibly if theres more out there, i wouldnt want to give away where i was. We waited, once he finally found me, i told him, pointed to my image, he understood, cautioned everybody to lay down. And when dusk dawn came, why, we found out it was a monk seal that i had shot. First sergeant called me in the next morning and charged me a dollar because i had only hit the seal twice. But during the day of the attack, i was ordered underground, all of us that had machine gun positions were ordered underground. Not to be seen, not to be visible. And i thought about what was going on at eastern island, which i had been on often, thats where all the aircraft were stored, and operated from. There was 127 combat aircraft over there. And i knew that when wed got the alert that the japanese were en route. We saw our planes leaving. The times that i had been over there to eastern island, every time a plane would take off on the runway, his crew were staying out by the end of the rebutment and salute that plane as it went by. Every one of them. As good luck. When the day japanese did arrive, all i did was strap my position and shoot up one of the hinges on our out houses, which kind of upset us. We didnt get a chance to fire back. We never did get a chance to fire back at the enemy. The navy and the tbfs from the enterprise and yorktown hornet all took care of the Japanese Carriers, and from the time that the first bomb that was ever dropped near or upon a Japanese Carrier, why, the episode changed, order of battle changed. They were on the defensive, they werent on the offensive anymore. We did not know this on the island for some days. We didnt stand down for probably about six or seven hours. And unbeknownst to me that night was another submarine out there, along with the chiefs here, and that was the tambor, and that was commanded by a captain murphy. And he had been submerged, and that night when he came to the surface to get radio message, he was told there was targets in the area and also friendlies, to be careful. He did see silhouettes on the horizon, and he began to approach them and saw them change position, two or three times, had to submerge, find another position, come to the surface, and ask finally with a flasher on top of his con in red light, identify yourself. As he was crossing the bow of a cruiser, japanese cruiser. When that happened, he found out who they were. Immediately, he dove. People, japanese on the surface, turned around and trying to get into an evasive or attack position, the two cruisers crashed into each other. One tboned the other one. That i did not know at the time until after the war, but those two heavy cruisers were heading to midway to bomb Midway Island itself, sand island. So i was always after somebody in the boat service from the tambor to try to find to give a gift to them of my appreciation, which im going to forward to the chief here when this is over with. When i left midway, i went on to my cockiness of being a young marine on the island was kind of diminishing now. I was learning the hard way, i guess, but i went on to i iwo jima, on the invasion of dday. When the flag was raised, i was 25 feet away from the team, and i went on to nagasaki as occupation and then on to korea. And i often thought that about all those people that lost their lives for us. I made a promise. For all the guys that never returned and for all the men that gave that last effort and could not get back to be as fortunate as i, i will tell our kids about what you did and why. Semper fi. [ applause ] thanks, sergeant fox. I mean, thats a great story. I think he underplays his role on midway. If the japanese had landed, he would have been right in the middle of in the thick of things when they tried to come ashore, and to put things in perspective, midway is too small, i guess youd call them islands. Its only 2. 4square miles. So its smaller than downtown d. C. , the area that were talking about. So, captain crawford . Yes. First of all, let me say, if anyone has trouble hearing, just wave the hand and ill try to turn up the volume, or turn it down. Turn it towards you. Angle it towards your mouth. Hold it . Oh, good. First of all, the battle of midway is a tremendous story and its seen at many levels. At the historical level, historians see it as one of the great battles, most significant, decisive battles of all history. Not u. S. History, all history, ranking with selmas, jutlin, and other great historydetermining battles. Us, thats a view thats not well known, even in the United States navy. Only in the last couple of years has the navy decided that it is determined officially that it is the greatest naval battle fought, ever fought by the United States navy, and as such is celebrated at all ships and stations in the navy marine corps. At the in regards, practically unknown, and if you doubt me, pick up your sons history book and see if it is rated more than one paragraph in 2,000 pages of american history. So, im not going to correct that. Im not going to rectify that difficulty, but the American Veterans senate here has taken a big step forward by doing their part to see that every american child knows and understands the significance of the battle of midway. Let me begin with my beginning. I was honored after graduation from the Naval Academy to pearl harbor to join the carrier yorktown. I got there in late late may, and went aboard the ship the night before she deployed for the battle. Now, yorktown had just come back from the battle of the coral sea, where it had been heavily damaged. And while i was waiting there to go aboard, i was told by my boss, a lieutenant, flag lieutenant, take your time, it will be around here for two or three months. Admiral rikover gave the ship two days to repair the damage and i got aboard about 10 00. We were off for midway at early the next morning with the tide. Shortly after we took the air group aboard, the officers were assembled in the war room, and the briefing officer pulled down a map of the whole pacific and started to enlighten us on what was ahead. It was staggering in its perspective. The he outlined he stated the fact that the combined mite of the Japanese Navy was headed in an attempt to take Midway Island, and to oppose them, admiral nimitz had mustered about 48 or 50 ships, including three carriers. Now, i remember clearly, because i was interested in carriers, the japanese numbers were mentioned as included caga, saw you, hear you, so here were six battle carriers come and we were reminded what we all know, we had three carriers. Yorktown enterprise, the stalwarts, and the new just barely tested hornet. Okay. And so the whole japanese order of battle was laid out. A force going up to hit the illusions property diversion, the main party under yamamoto, chief of the Japanese Navy, on the battleship yamamoto, the invasion force coming down a southerly direction, or from a westerly direction toward Midway Island to occupy the island when taking over. And a support and other support group. Pretty formidable stuff. Now, i was innocent enough to know that the history of intelligence wasnt all that great, but these guys seemed to know what they were talking about. In any event, the executive officer told me he was too busy to assign me any duties. Just get him the watch list, take my bridge and after about two weeks from now youd be able to get to me. I didnt understand what was up, but now i did. I had to have a sense of did these guys really know what they are talking about . The answer came four days later on the when i was standing watch as junior officer of the deck on the carrier yorktown. A message early in the morning, about 4 00, a message was handed to captain buckmaster. I knew it was something. It was handed of the officer of the deck, who handed it to me. Were at the end of the line. I read it. Enemy planes many planes headed midway bearing three, four, and five, thats northwest, about 100 miles, and the time miraculously was just when the intelligence said it would be, and it turns out that our intelligence people had so studied that battle, that they told the operating forces the bearing on which the Striking Force jap carriers would come in, the distance at which they would be launched their strikes, and and just everything right down to a t. Well, i became a true believer at that point of view and it was not hard to do. The guys, the intelligence people, had really hit the hit to the circuit on that one. So, the battle as far as i was concerned went pretty much like this. I was aware that a message had been sent by admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who was in charge, who was the admiral of the task group that included yorktown, sent to admiral who had the enterprise and hornet, who looked to the south. The message went, proceed southwestward and engage the enemy when located. When located. We held back to bring in the scouting group, and then await events. Probably well, the ship, of course, went to general quarters, and, of course, i was entranced seeing the first lodge strike force ever take off from a u. S. Carrier, and ill never forget it. I stood there on the deck and watched the dive the torpedo bombers take off, and then the dive bombers, and then the fighter planes. Circle over the ship and then almost looking like from horizon to horizon, 80 ships of the carrier yorktown headed western to strike the navy. Then came the period of waiting. What was going to happen . Before i mention that, i should mention one thing i had learned. The night before i was in a room with a few torpedo plane pilots, and i found that they were flying an obsolete plane, torpedo plane, torpedo plane devastator, it was called. Then it could barely get off the flight deck with a fully loaded gasoline and torpedo. It barely chugged off the flight deck at 100 knots, roughly 100 miles per hour. I also knew by this time id keep my ears open, that they were going to be hit or expect to be hit over the enemy by japanese zero fighters that could make 350 to 400 knots. And i felt i felt, gee, how can these guys know that and still keep up the morale that they were showing . But they did. And, naturally, then i waited as everyone did, hours, for the for the planes to return. Well, skipping ahead a little bit, 41 torpedo planes of that type took off from the u. S. Carriers. Hornet, enterprise, and yorktown, 41. None came back, not one came back to hornet. None came back to yorktown, because i watched for them. About five or six came back to about five or six came back to the enterprise, as we learned later. Now, you may think certainly this was an exercise or manifestation of immense bravery. These men all had to know that they were going out to almost sure death, and i didnt ones that i know, not a whimper, not a whimper. Known as the charge of the last brigade. They went out to do their duty, and there was an immense payoff of doing that duty, because in riding over the Japanese Carrier force, they found that the i mean these torpedo planes were immediately struck. They pulled down the japanese zeros to sea water level, because the torpedo planes were going in at sea water level, and all the fighters came down and hit and took out and shot down all the torpedo plane, but in that interval, almost by miracle there was a rendezvous of our dive bombers at 14,000 feet. Enterprise dive bombers, yorktown dive bombers, all of them coming in unopposed under the combined mite of the Carrier Force. And they dove and they got three out of the four carriers. They were in shambles for all they left. Called the famous five minutes. Practically all of the dive bombers came back. I want to emphasize here that sometimes bravery, even almost futile bravery, the bravery certainly marines and navy people and others demonstrate as a matter of course, cant have a payoff, and you cant win by intellect and planning and technology. And its a lesson that not only is a lesson for the armed forces, but its a lesson for the people of this country. You have to face up to challenges that face you, and even when the even when a prospect seem futile, give it the best you can. Give it the best you can. I will try the motto by the marines and the guy asked to take he said, i will try, sir. And they did. Okay. Now, now ive talked quite a long, but without and to this purpose, to emphasize the role of bravery. But now i want to point out that bravery alone is not sufficient. We had brilliant intelligence and not just as an accident. If admiral showez, who unfortunately was to have spoken today but is unfortunately deceased, he would be able to tell you a story of intelligence and the role of intelligence at midway that would stagger your mind in its brilliance, and again, because those some of those cryptic analysts used to spend as much as 20 hours a day in the day of midway approach. It was only a few days before midway before we had it pinned down as june 4th, before we had it pinned down the debates between people in washington and the criptologyists and other intelligence stations and whether they were really headed for midway. Admiral nimitz was confident and finally convinced admiral king that it was midway and that it would be on june 4th. And he was right on. But, then comes the problem of how you how do you use a few ships to confront the entire Japanese Navy . Well, nimitz figured out a way. What he is is, and its a timehonored tactic, hit him in the flag, or his technology, were going to bushwhack him. He sent the yorktown and the enterprise and the hornet up on the north about 200 miles north of Midway Island, sure of the fact the japanese were going to come in bearing 315, and it worked out beautifully. Thats just exactly what happened. We caught the japanese first. We were at an admiral admiral the admiral in charge of the task force that was running the tell me the name of the guy. Spruence, as soon as he got the slightest intelligence about the whereabouts of the japanese Striking Force, he launched a full load. That is every single carrier he had. Throwing you might say caution aside and he got them in just the manner i described to you. So it was brilliant planning on the part of nimitz and spruence. Now, how did spruences brilliance show itself otherwise . The aviators naturally wanted to go chasing west after the japanese party. But admiral spruence knew that we would get cut to pieces if we ran up against the main party of the Japanese Navy, so he carried out the orders, carried out his orders in this way. He turned away from the enemy and headed east of midway, and then came back and was stationed off midway at the morning after the battle. Now ill end that remark about the battlespecific aspects and just take a second to tell you that you can ask questions later if you want, of what was the real significance of the battle of midway, because i havent touched on it yet, and you should know it. You should more importantly know that significance than even what ive told you. Now id like to turn it over to the microphone to my comrade in arms here, chief is it . I got to give you two things first. I learned the word you may ask yourself what is this chief . I learned the meaning of chief the day after i went to the Naval Academy. I roomed with an admiral. You know all about the navy. Who is this guy going around saluting chief . He said, jack, he says, you learn this and you learn the most important lesson youll ever learn in the navy. The chiefs run the navy, and he was right. Best lesson i ever learned. Another thing, this chief had the good fortune to serve a former boss of mine at the Naval Academy, might say he was my football coach. Bill brockman, great man. Chief, take it away. [ applause ] please. My name is wait a minute, is this okay . My name is hank cudsick. I and i come from bethlehem, pennsylvania. During world war ii, i spent all my time on two submarines. I made 14 war patrols, beginning with the battle of midway. We all know midway was an air conflict, so what was a submarine doing there . December 7th changed completely my life. I was 16yearold kid. Didnt know what to do with my life coming up, so when the japanese bombed pearl harbor, two days after christmas in 1941, i went to the recruiting office. I didnt lie. I didnt lie. I told them i was 16, but i had a birthday coming up. I got a recruiter who listened to me and he said well go through it all, the preliminaries, and get you signed up. All you have to do, son, is put up your hand and say i do, or what it takes. He said, son, youre in the navy. No mention of a submarine. I didnt even know what a submarine looked like. I couldnt tell the difference between a baby stroller and a submarine. Thats how i want to go to war, but submarine was not in the plans. But anyway, things happen in the old days real quick. I didnt go to school, and any school whatsoever from boot camp, which was over real quick, to the west coast, i wind up in the navy yard and pearl harbor. And there was a lot of us. What did they do with us . Put us on work detail. My first work detail was helping to take the dead bodies off of the oklahoma. Not a very and the ogalala was another one. Not a very pleasant task. Youre asking me to go back to 1942 and dig in this can and pick out all these things. Some of them other than midway are very emotional for me, because the nautilus was a submarine that was built between 1928 and 1930. There were three submarines that were built in those days. The argonaut and the nautilus. It was 12 years old already when the war started. In those days, in the early days, they didnt know what to do with these submarines, you know. No, generally had six torpedo tubes on it. Actually Shirley Temple rode around on the norwall before the war. Well, i happen to be on a work detail on the carrier saratoga. You know, these were work details. Were waiting to be assigned. And a fresh water tank wire brushing rust. They just decided to take her out on a shake down or whatever it was to do. Well, im still in the fresh water tank. Wire brushing rust. An explosion occurred. An explosion. What was that . Well, get out of that tank, so i get out of that tank. What happened . Oh, i dont know. We something put a hole in the water line. It was either a mine or a torpedo, but it was a hole, so we managed to get it back, and when i crawled out of that fresh water tank, i didnt want any part of Aircraft Carriers again. So when i looked over and i see that the Submarine Base. I figure maybe i ought to apply for something id rather be on that end shooting these torpedo rather than receiving them. I had to go to the chaplain, because the chief in charge of the work detail wouldnt let me go, but the chaplain was very sympathetic. He said, son, you know what youre getting into . He says, but i tell you, ill if you ill let you go over there and you talk to him and you bring back a chit saying theyll accept you, ill free you from this work detail. Thats exactly what happened. I wound up waiting to be assigned for a submarine. Along came the submarine nautilus about the middle of may. I became crew member. This is what i wanted. I really wanted combat. I didnt want ships company, anything like that. I wanted to get there and sock it to em. Well, they kind of modernized the nautilus because of the war and they added a torpedo tube. So now she had ten, six forward and four aft. A submarine carries 28. Ten in a tube, so youve got 18, you know, between the forward room and after room. We left pearl harbor to go on patrol around midway. Whats everybody excited about midway for . Whats midway . Its nothing but a sand bar. A hotel there called the gloomiville hotel. Huh, before the war, 38, 39, pan am was flying a big sea plane called the china clipper from l. A. To the orient, stopping at midway. The passengers got off, went into the gooniville hotel, spent a night. Boarded the next day and flew to the orient. I know the goonyville hotel. I spent a few nights there. When you finish a run on a submarine, they reward you. I think they are trying to entice you to make another run. So they give you two weeks r r, and if you happen to come back into pearl, that two weeks r r is at the Royal Hawaiian hotel on wiekiki. And theres where you use the bathtub for your beer cans. We dont were not going to take a bath in there. Were going to take a bath out on the beach. Okay. When we finally did get on our station, we, all right, like i say, all my all my everybodys assigned to duty watch. Four on, eight off, four on, eight off. This is what you do on a submarine. So you dont eat three meals a day because youre either sleeping or depends on what your hours are. And chief . Yes . We are just running a little long. Can we wrap it up real quick . Can i wrap it up . Yeah. You dont want me to tell them about the boomboom . Can you tell the boom instead of now, my my watches were elbow to elbow with the executive officer the skipper and so forth. Okay. So thats why youre going to ask me how do i know all this stuff. My watch was either in the control room, the tower or the bridge. I wanted to get on the bridge when the submarine i want some fresh air. You never smelled such bad air in your life as you will on a submarine. If you can take that diesel smell and you have caustic odors coming out of the batteries, that disintegrates your clothes. If you can stand pressure is the boomboom coming up . Im just an the foul air, maybe you can maybe you can become a submariner. Anyway, let me get to the meat of this thing because this is midway. There we sit on our patrol area and captains dream. A flotilla of ships is coming by. What is this . Ozzy. Ozzy is the name of the jack. Oh we dont even have to plot a firing course. We can just sit here and shoot torpedoes. You know . And see what happens. Thats exactly what happened. He picked out a big cruiser and another large vessel, looked like a cargo vessel. Now, this is the first understand this ramshackle bunch of submarines that they put in the war the nautilus being one. She was already 12 years old and a riveted submarine. Did you hear what i said . Riveted. What does that remind you or bring the titanic was riveted and look what happened to her. We had a submarine with a half inch pressure hull. Submarines have two hulls and on the other side of that is the ballast hull and between them is water. And the japanese were involved, right . Hmm . The japanese were there, too . Coming up. Okay. So this skipper says we are going to make ready tubes one, two, three and four. Torpedo tubes. Here we go. Were going to shoot. Hallelujah. Im so excited because this is what is i wanted. I wanted to join the navy and get into the combat. So the skipper fires, fire one, fire two. Didnt even have to turn the sub very slightly and fires two more. Three and four. One hit. Two hit. Three hit. But no explosions. Disaster. We fire four torpedoes. All of them hit. We didnt sink a thing. We paid for it. Now, Something Else was new to us. Depth charges. Boy, they came falling down because they werent going to let us get away. So they pounded us with close to 40 depth charges, which was the worst thing i ever heard in my life. Well, they had another mission to get by us and they didnt spend too much time so we managed to survive their attack. The next day and a half strange thing happened. I one of my things was every so often when youre submerged you take a look around. Of course, you dont want any surprises to, you know, to surface and theres something in your i spotted some smoke on the horizon. Whats the smoke . Talked to the exec. I see smoke. Okay. Let me take a look. Youre right, hank. There is smoke there. Lets investigate. Well, we get up on the surface. And we started to head towards the smoke. Guess what it was. An Aircraft Carrier. Hallelujah. Man, now were it couldnt happen again. We couldnt shoot some more torpedoes and have them not go off. No. Okay. Well track this guy. So his friend and my captain bill brockman said, we are going do get as close as we can. Now, a submarine fires torpedoes at least 1,500 yards or less. Not greater than that. You want to be between 1,000yard mark an 1,500 mark. How about 700 yards . Thats how close we were. The captain could read some of the japanese insignias on the soru. Thats how close we were. Make tubes ready. One, two and three. Okay. Were ready to go. Now you fire from the tower. Fired one. Fired two. Fired three. Number one hit. Number two hit. Number three hit. Water is a very good akousistical sound. You could hear everything. One exploded. Two exploded. Three did not. Now, we had we had problems at the beginning of the war. Torpedoes not exploding. But anyway, here we have two fish that was enough to take the soryu tremendous list. Now, the soryu was they were they were patching her up because they wanted to land some of the planes that were their carriers were sunk and those planes land in the water or land on a hard surface and the soryu was that. But we sank the soryu. Now, with the soryu chief, we will have to wrap up here. Okay. Okay. You heard it from the boss now. Am i through for the day . Why. Huh . Yeah. For now. But, i just want we sank the carrier. We got so close we could spit at the destroyer. And we sank her with one torpedo. And now there was another destroyer with the next day she came after us because she theyre going to get the nautilus. The chief will be here all week so if you want to come back im kidding. We fired down the throat shot. I think hell still be going. Thanks. [ applause ] i got to tell you. Our executive officer was a camera nut an he wanted to find a way to take a picture through the periscope. So the skippers happener than hell. He said, ozzy, ozzy, did you see it . Did you see it . Well, ozzy took his camera and he had a device. He took a picture, right, chief . So he said, ozzy, did you see it . He said, i didnt see a thing, captain. Of course not. The camera saw it. So when he looked, there was nothing there but when he developed the picture, this is what he got. This is what. Thats a picture from a 1942 magazine. This is the first picture taken of an american submarine sinking an enemy vessel. This is going to sell bonds. In the usa. They want to know how the war is going on. What a great story. Thanks, chief. Thats awesome. [ applause ] and what a great panel, right . Lets say thank you. Back now live to the Macarthur Memorial Visitors Center in norfolk, virginia, for the event marking the battle of midway in world war ii. The afternoon session getting ready to start. Well hear next from Anthony Tully, coauthor of scattered sword mpblt untold story of the battle of midwayment hell review new information about the japanese since that books publication. Live coverage continuing now on cspan3. Good afternoon, everybody. Did everybody have a good lunch . Good midday break . I didnt hear that with a lot of enthusiasm. Thats better. I was worried they might be falling asleep on you here, tony. Well kick off our Afternoon Program with a little bit different perspective. Weve been talking about midway and the setting from a u. S. Perspective although walt did a great job talking about some of the japanese thinking that led them to midway. But Anthony Tully will build on that and go deeper on the japanese size, specifically the combined fleet and the perspective because in many ways theyre essential to the battles outcome as any american action. Tully has written publications of the naval war in the pacific and should provide a very illuminating perspective today. Without further ado, Anthony Tully. Thank you all. Thank you for putting this on. Thank you all for coming. Lets see. Okay. Okay. What i would like to do testing. Okay. What i would like to do is i would like to segue into what Walter Boardman covered coming up to the battle of coral sea, drop back in time a little bit from that in the setup from the Japanese Point of view. Leading into that. At the end of march, the japanese had formed a barrier, what they called the first phase operations completion barrier. If you see this red line here sorry. All right. There. Okay. This barrier here was what they called the defensive barrier for the area that they had just conquered. Starting from pearl harbor all the way through february to the start of march they conquered indonesia, malaysia, singapore, philippines. This area was what was a concern to the Japanese Army to make sure they continued to defend. So the next question that arose was, which direction would their next offensive go . The japanese general headquarters, both the navy and the army side, they wanted to go down here. To cut off the supply line to australia and to put australia in a position where at a later date they could even look at raids or invasion of some of the coast. So this was a preference of the japanese general staff, both army and navy. However, the victor of pearl harbor, yamamoto, commander and chief of the combined fleet, he wanted to go to the Central Pacific in this direction because he wants to force a major battle with the u. S. Navy and especially the surviving carriers. These are the main choices. Now, this was in the balance when the doolittle raid happens. On that day, e25 bombers launch from the hornet covered by the enterprise, attack tokyo and other japanese cities on the main island of honchu. This is a transformal affect on the japanese thinking at the time because up until then the thinking was to split their attentions but yamamoto was wanting them to go to the Central Pacific and he kind of gets his way from that. Okay. Now, the situation sorry. At start of april, right before the doolittle raid, theyd agreed to go to the Central Pacific but only after two operations had completed. One was down south in the off port and walter went over it extensively. The other was a raid into the indian ocean to attack the royal navy. In short hand, basically to see if they could repeat some of the success they did at pearl harbor with the royal navy in the indian ocean and to fulfill the Japanese Armys desire to test the defenses in the indian ocean for future campaigns because they were opening operations in the burma thailand area and wanted to know what the perspectives were for salon so they had been forced to promise this and thats why the japanese raid the island of salon in april in a carrier raid a lot like pearl harbor. Two of them. One at colombo and one at tringamali. At the same time, theyre sething up for the battle at coral sea. When the doolittle raid happens, this turns it only its head because the Japanese Carrier fleet is on its way home from the indian ocean outbridge. April 18, it is literally near forno sa, modern taiwan. At the same time, two carriers are detaching and heading for coral sea from the main Japanese Carrier force. When doolittle raids hits, it puts all of this in a in what could only be described a tizzy because it full possibly on japan for future attacks so right after the doolittle raid is over, which incidentally, one of the bombs of the doolittle raiders hits a Japanese Carrier under construction. Which was in dry dock at the time being conformed. The reason i mention that is it was a matter of pride to the japanese that one of the new carriers being built is also actually hit right there at home in the navy yard. To them that wasnt a trivial thing. It spoke of the fact of all the more need to get rid of the carriers that caused this because that was a main loose end that had been left after pearl harbor. So the result is because of the doolittle raid, yamamoto gets his way. He will be able to go straight to Central Pacific instead of focusing further attention on trying to go back to coral sea. Remember what walter talked about. And fight that battle again. Thats why the battle of coral sea becomes a strategic victory. There was nothing preventing them from trying it again instead of midway but yamamoto wants to go toward midway. Because he wants a decisive battle forced with our carriers on his terms so that is the plan. The plan as it comes out is japanese fleet sails out to go to midway is a highly complex way and it is in several formations. One is the its the main force of carriers coming from the homeland heading across, then up northeast and then they will come down and strike midway from the northwest. The other will push straight across and advance into a position to be ready to both bombard and cover the landings on midway when they get the goahead signal after having completed the raid and hopeful destruction of the American Carrier force. The Landing Force is coming up from the guam direction. A bunch of transports and the support ships. That is not the least of it. Theres also the operation called the m. O. Operation which is tasked to attack and invade the aleutian islands. This is part of alaska area. And is often characterized as a diversion but it wasnt really. It is a promise to a Japanese Army in return for midway they would get land up here by landing in the aleutians and had some territory up there to guard their northern flank because thats what they wanted to especially after doolittle raid, theres concern about the northern part of the barrier i talked about earlier. So the aleutian island operation as two of the Japanese Carriers committed to it. The main battle of midway has four because coral sea, they lost the services of three. One the light carrier sunk outright. The fleet carrier was badly damaged. Kind of like yorktown but unlike yorktown they didnt have the just make it happen that we did when we got the yorktown ready in three days. They just werent able to the flight deck was completely smashled by the bombs, both the front and back end of the carrier, bow and the stern and her flight squadrons were largely decimated in the battle and was the other carrier that was intact so the net result is those two carriers are not able to go with the Japanese Carrier fleet to midway. So now theyre down to four rather than six on the main force. Two are committed to aleutians. They dont change that because once theyre basically light carriers. Now, this keeping in mind this approach, this is what yamamoto brings to the battle. Almost 300 ships and the incredible thing to remember about it is this die gram will show you is yamamoto comes to the battle with eight carriers, 11 battleships, 23 cruisers and 65 destroyers. And nearly 300 ships total. But that nearly 100 are major warships at least down to destroyer size. Against that, there are three American Carriers, seven cruisers, one light cruiser, 14 destroyers. No battleships at all. So on paper, the japanese plan looks like its a slam dunk and thats how yamamoto saw it, too. But youll see a problem here. Because of the way he divided his forces, this is all that ends up contacting each other. At the main point of contact in military terms, intact call deployment terms, he brings the center of mass to the battle. This is all he brings at the front end. Thats the force against fletcher. So you have it nearly impertive and you remember midway itself has an Aircraft Carriers worth of aircraft on it its four versus four and because of the complexity of the plan and the formations all over the ocean, at the point of contact, at the actual battle, thats what meets each other. This illustrates it better. You could see the parody is not that exstream now. Theyre almost equal. Theyre meeting on near equal odds. If you remember eliots presentation going into the code break throughs and the reading of the japanese signals up to incidentally that cut off around may 25th and having to guess after that. Because the japanese changed the j and 25 code after that. But until then, they had the japanese advance information that they had been able to figure out from the codes and the trick with midway saying it was running low on water. So you have to figure the coding advantages a huge force multiplier in the american advantage. The japanese are coming in thinking they have surprise achieved. In fact, theyre convinced of it as i go on, you will see. The conviction gets to a point where it almost pathologically gets in the way of their chances of winning. These are the two main adversaries at midway as far as ones in total overall control. Yamamoto is actually at the battlefield in one of the trailing squadrons on the super battleship yamato and you may have heard of. Recently, microsoft paul allen stuff found the sister ship of the yamato. He is on yamato as a flagship. 300 miles astern of the nagumo force. So he is on the scene. Admiral nimitz, on the other hand, had had a calm and logistical, logical manner and realized that he can direct the battle better right there from pearl harbor in honolulu area. In other words, from hawaii than he can if hes steaming around on a ship in the field. So nimitz never considered going out to sea because he can direct it better from hawaii. Hes going to trust his commanders, fletcher and spurens on the scene. Yamamoto, however, on yamato is in a position to control everything but also had a it wasnt a micromanaging influence but it was the yamato has some of the best communication equipment and you had a situation piling up where the latest intelligence and updates that were received, they would be received by yamato and often not received by the advance forces, the flagship of the carrier kagi or the commander of the invasion force support group of cruisers kando. He wasnt getting them, either. So, when you add yamamotos insistence on radio silence, they come in blinder than they may need to. Okay . This is nimitzs principle by which he agreed to get into the combat. He said, the main point will be without exposing our carriers to danger, destruction out of proportion to the damage they can conflict. We must calculate the risk and must accept the danger when our prospects of frustrating or destroying the enemy carriers are sufficiently good. So hes willing to accept odds if accept the dangerous odds because hes going by the total count of ships we see. The divided nature of the plan, he doesnt know that. He would have no clear way of knowing that the yamato and several other japanese battleships are not closer. He knows theyre approaching separate from the invasion force but these are terms nimitz accepts the battle. Now, the main thing i wanted to talk about was some of the new light on the japanese assumptions and what their frame of mind was going into the battle. Some of what i said before may be somewhat familiar to many of you. This is a part where we take a new look at some of whats come to light about the japanese thinking and what their mindset is going into the battle as it opens on june 4. But you see here is the relative dispositions. Midway is down here at the southeast. Nagumas Carrier Force is approaching it on the southeast course. They were approaching that way because theyre flying into the wind from launching. The day of the midway strike, the wind was out of the southeast which was perfect for the japanese. All they have to do is steam into the wind and launch their planes and then fly on to midway to attack. For the americans sitting up here in the northeast, each time they had to lunaunch, they had turn and steam away to launch and then come back. Now, that adds a lot of that makes a planes have to fly longer and opens the range but it also helped confuse helped make them harder to find because theyre kind of moving like this a lot. But this is a general disposition as a battle breaks. The japanese had no clue at all that these are here. When they go into battle on the morning of june 4, theyre certain, practically certain, that there would be not any American Carrier force present yet because their plan called for once midways bombed, that will make the carriers come running from wherever they are whether theyre down southeast, southwest or even down toward coral sea or at pearl harbor. Wherever they are, theyll come running when they bomb midway. What they never took into account is they might already be there and you had heard earlier about how the yorktowns was rushed and the enterprise and hornet rushed out to the scene and arriving together and its an ambush position. Now, i wanted to cover something i know comes up earlier. The question was asked why wasnt the American Fleet go straight towards naguma where they were more in position rather than out here. They were wanting to avoid the fact that their intelligence might be wrong and naguma might go this way all the way to launch a doolittlestyle raid on the west coast. If hes here, nagumas chances of going that way are greater or even down here. If theyre wrong and the japanese dont come from this direction, they come from this direction, they will be way down here and also have a clear shot of hawaii or the west coast. So this was nimitzs compromise. Well set up here and we can guard both possibilities to put washington and the west coast at ease. Now, they need not have worried. This goes into one of the things about the new light part. Unlike our side that was worried about the japanese wanting to repeat the doolittle raid in reverse for revenge among other things, yamamoto, that never entered his mind because he wants a decisive battle. He wants a straightup fight. He doesnt want a raid like doolittle. Hes bent on bringing about a major battle so there was never a danger of the japanese using their carrier strength that way. They wanted it for the next big battle. Thats what theyre setting up. Now, on the morning of june 4, when the japanese prepared to launch their strike wave to bomb midway to prepare it for invasion, they also launch several search planes and this is one of the controversial aspects of the battle where the search planes that go forward was the search. Why wasnt it more extensive . Why did it go out in two phases . Why did it seem to not some of the ships delayed launchings. Well, one of the things thats come to light since is that this kind of sorry. This kind of search pattern is what the japanese fleet does when it does not expect opposition. Its what they do when theyre going to bomb a land base, not expecting to site a task force with their search planes. It is almost a search just in case type of search. It is not expecting enemy Carrier Forces to be present. So it the search itself is now known to be proof that the japanese did not expect Carrier Forces to be on the site, the very day of the battle. They expected them to come in later. Okay. Yep. Well just when the Japanese Carrier fleet launches its strike in the morning of june 4, they fly to midway an attack it and bomb it, destroy fighters on the ground. Blow the fighters out of the sky. It is an appalling loss because the fighters we had at midway, most of them inferior design. There are some wildcats. Most inferior design and out of 25 fighters to stop the japanese, 23 of them are shot down. Its its just just a fiasco as far as the fighter interception goes. But the japanese, in turn, they dont do too much damage to the runways or the installations. And they can tell that as theyre flying away so they call nagumo and tell him that they need a second strike launched. Now, n 5gumos been holding the second wave, each Japanese Carrier has two waves of strike aircraft. The one committed on the wave and one down in the hangar that can be sent on whatever mission and the way it works is when they come back, one lands and refuels and rearms while the other one takes off at any given time. You try not to have both on the ship at the same time except when the battle first starts. So now they get the word that their second wave needs to go attack the island. This is where you may have heard the famous going back and forth of Decision Making takes place on whether or not to rearm the planes for land attack or wait for search results and see if there is American Ships present that they need to attack with torpedoes and bombs designed for ship attack rather than land attack. Nagumo makes a decision based on heres another one of the new things. Based on his experience in the indian ocean, he found out that he needed a second wave when he was bombing salon. Each time he found that out. So he kind of knows that hes going to need to launch the second wave. So he has that in the back of his mind. Second, when they had a search pattern that didnt indicate enemy was expected, that also meant it was correct to concentrate on the land target. And that is what nagumo is, in fact, doing that day. So when this signal comes, hes halfway expecting it. Its even a signal prearranged in a short form which tells nagumo, we need another attack. Armed with land bombs used for destroying runways and inthe lagss. Now, this switch out on the carriers means they will not the planes will not be able to attack American Carriers if theyre sighted so hes committed to going one to one pass and go into another. That is when planes launch from midway, start to attack in waves. We have torpedo bombers and b26 bombers outfitted with torpedoes. We have dauntlesses flown by pilots and not trained in the nosediving and willing to make level bombing and flies the plane and drops the bomb and hopes to hit something and these groups go out from midway along with the experienced ones, all of them attacking the Japanese Carrier force. One at another with incredible boldness and courage. Just shot down out of the sky with the antiaircraft but each time they do that, this is what it causes. Theres no planes on the deck. And this is true of all four Japanese Carriers. None of them are able to spot the second wave on deck either to go attack midway or to go attack the American Fleet. During these bomb runs, the ships are having to turn and swerve and take evasive action and they cannot do the kind of rearms, especially with torpedoes. Cant be rolling those around in the hangars of the carriers. Its too dangerous. Theyre too heavy when you build up the swerving movements. Here we come to a famous point nagumo learns theres a carrier out there. This is the yorktown. The search plane get it is name from the cruiser where it was catapulted from. The search plane sights an American Carrier after some several long minutes of confusion. Sighted surface ships and took a while to come back with a confirmation 08 20, theres an American Ship with them. They thought it was two british cruisers and found nothing more at first and thinking maybe it is kind of like that. But now they know theres an American Carrier there and, gosh, no. They have to change the planes and attack the American Carriers first. They have to sink that carrier before they deal with midway. But this is the situation at the same time. 08 20, 08 30. The reason we had that picture because what is happening. B17s have now arrived. They have flown every other type of aircraft but the bombers arrived overhead and from some 15,000 to 20,000 feet, our bombing nagumos carriers. Just dropping tons an tons of bombs and carpet bomb fashion. Exploding all around and they have to swerve. All the pictures show them taking evasive action and stuff that delays any kind of spotting of aircraft. 08 30, the flight decks are cleared. This is the time when he has to decide what is he going to do next . Because at the same time returning from midway is his own strike group from midway. Now running low on fuel and needing to land and rearm. So he has two choices. He has to figure out, do i go ahead and launch what i have . But try to raise it to the flight deck, spot them and launch them, or do i land the first strike wave first and then send them out together . He opts to do the second but part of the reason i learned he did is this fact that his decks were empty. He does not have a choice to launch a second strike. Thats part of the myth. It is not ready. The soonest it would have been able to take off is 09 10. Even from an soryu. Other two carriers not going. Dive bombers. If you go recover the strike wave, otherwise youd have to skip that, spend a half hour spotting the planes. The reason this is so tangled up is because before you had angled flight decks like you see on carriers today, you had to do three things individually. One at a time. You had lifting planes up on the elevator. Launching, recovery. Each of these were different things. Because when youre lifting planes up the elevator, you cant be landing any. Theres only a straight flight deck to use. When youre launching, the planes massed at the back of the carrier taking off the length of a runway. Just like civilian airliners still do. You need the length of the runway to take off. Recovery, same kind of thing. Recovering and landing and need the length of the runway. This is why youre having to decide choices of what you do. This this sequence for the japanese at the time worked out to where you had to do you had to take about 30 minutes to raise and spot and launch a strike. Thats how much time you had to figure out what you had to do. If theyre already armed. If not already armed you have to do that first before bringing them up to flight deck and launching. Nagumos carriers, to mount ordinance like the bombs and torpedoes, it was necessary to use a different attaching clamp called a tokiaki. They had to be changed on the planes to either put a torpedo on the attack plane that they called a kate torpedo bomber, a b25 in or an 800kilogram bam, a giant, large armor piercing bomb like one that sank the arizona at pearl harbor. To put them on you needed a different attaching mechanism and that very much complicated rearmament changes on short notice like theyre having to do it. This is a good picture of it. Notice the torpedos length here. If its a bomb, it would only come to this point. Youll see a clamp here. Thats a tokiaki. Theres another tokiaki and another one back here. Japanese maintenance crews in hangars has to change out these clamps for each planes before switching either a bomb or a torpedo so you can see how complicated that starts getting. Now, in the meantime, the American Carrier force hornet, yorktown, enterprise have launched their strike waves. Sighted the japanese and on the way. Theyre in the air. Even as the last of the midway attacks from the landbased planes from midway are petering out. Nagumo is busy landing his strike force and attack midway by 09 15 or so theyre all back on all four carriers. They turn northeast to go close the position of the American Carrier they saw and thats yorktown but they didnt know which one that was. Thats the one they would have least believed it was because they were convinced the yorktown was sunk at coral sea or at least in the same conditions of shokaku back in home yard like puget sound. So, they dont know which carrier they have sighted but they know theyre going to attack and strike it now that they have their planes aboard and i explained to you how complicated it is from the change ammunition from the land bombs to ship attack or the pto and bombs. Excuse me. So given this situation, when theyve just turned to head toward the American Fleet, when come in the first torpedo planes from our carriers. So they have not even had barely a you know, maybe 15 second r minutes or so of a breather. Theyre landing their planes. Almost on the dot at 09 17 torpedo 8 led by wall dron from the hornet comes in to attack and this is the famous attack where you have all the planes shot down. All of the planes are shot down and only one of the pilots enson day survives. This is waldron some of you familiar with. Part cherokee indian. And he sioux sioux, sorry. Thank you. He had an intuition that he knew where the japanese would be and he took the squadron. People have said later it was as if he had a lead line attached to Japanese Carrier flagship. He just flew straight straight from hornet to almost to ikagi. It is very strange because the bulk of the squadron sent off on a mission thats something of a mystery. The course they took. The best explanation seems to be that they they were afraid that like at coral sea there were two Japanese Carrier forces rather than one bunched together but its unclear. John lindstroms name is mentioned. He is an expert. In his book on fletcher, he discusses this extensive. Black shoe admiral. But it amounts to hornets dive bombers and fighters, they go off on a course that wald ron, he ignores it. They told him to fly it but he doesnt and breaks away and follows his instinct and the squadron first to attack. Shot down by the japanese zeros and antiaircraft fire. Not one plane survives. But gay lands in the sea survives a sinking of the plane and hes afloat to watch what happens later. Right after, right after torpedo eight, torpedo six comes in from enterprise. Youre talking about barely two minutes apart. Like the japanese records show, like, you know, the last of enson gays squadrons attack is ending 09 30. The records show like more enemy planes sighted and make clear its right after. Enterprises torpedo planes do the same thing. A few of the planes get back and all of them shot down and none of the torpedoes hit because the torpedo plane at this time, the devastator, was not fast enough to make an attack and yet not get shot down if theres no fighter cover and the fighters were not overhead. They had gotten lost with one exception ill mention. Hornets torpedo planes also go down having failed. But again, every time remember the picture of before. Every time youre bombing the carriers, especially torpedo runs, they cannot bring anything to a flight deck and spot them because theyre too busy doing this and cannot switch the torpedoes because of the same thing. Also, theyre launching one after another, zeros, reserve zeros to go down and shoot down the torpedo planes. The control is active cycling flight decks they call it. When the enterprises torpedo plane attack ends, you have a brief lull and the japanese prepare to launch the second wave against our carriers. Theyre all in the hangar deck now. Theyre not on the flight decks. Thats the common misnomer. Because the japanese stand by practice was for armed and fueled planes at that time to stand by in the hangar deck for launch while the while they were equipping. This is a situation when right around 10 00, you have this situation developing. Enterprises dive bombers in the meantime have been searching around the ocean and they saw a japanese destroyer below a wake because it was tracing the american submarine nautilus that earlier made an attack. It failed but by making the attack it caused one of the japanese destroyers to drop out of the formation. And its trying to catch up. Mccull ski leading the dive bombers comes in from the southwest. At the same time, from the southeast, you have bombing three of a carrier, yorktown, as well as torpedo three. In this case, the torpedo planes, fighters and dive bombers all together. Not separated. Theyre coming in from the southeast. All converging by just a strange sense of timing around 10 00, 10 05 as if it had been planned. This is where you get into some of the miracle of timing that people talk about. But some of the miracle had a different answer because yorktowns planes, the reason theyre approaching from the southeast direct didnt spend the time wandering around like enterprises, they saw the smoke of waldrons suicidal attack and enterprises lindsey leading his torpedo six. Hornet and enterprises torpedo planes making the sacrificial attack created so much antiaircraft raucous, smoke, shells exploding in the sky, all this on the far western horizon that the yorktown planes sight it when theyre headed down this way so they make a right turn and so even though they launched later than enterprise and hornet, they arrive over the Japanese Carrier fleet almost exactly the same time. Just an amazing thing. Now, eliot mentioned earlier the 1976 movie midway by universal and some of you may have seen it or recently on tv or dvd or whatever, but especially back in the 70s, it was a strong visual element and its still one of the major just theatrical images people have. If you think of that battle scene where the carriers are being bombed, you understand it correctly if you just picture that those planes being blown off the flight deck, those are fighters going up to intercept new american planes coming in. They are not the strike wave about to launch. Theyre still in the still below the flight decks in the hangars. That is the main difference of that moment but visually its still basically the same in that you have the dive bombers hit. In the classic fashion, you have them hit three carriers. All in the space of about five to seven minutes. Nearly simultaneously because theyre approaching from Different Directions almost accidentally when they arrive overhead. The japanese planning to launch around 10 30 or 11 00 at the latest. Their big strike against the American Fleet so its not quite time yet. Its about ten minutes away from that so they had not yet started to lift the aircraft to the deck. Those are fighters on the flight decks that people see being blown up. This is the imagery everyones familiar with. And its very its basically true to life. Its just that any aircraft on deck should be thought of as the fighters in the strike wave. The idea that the strike just going right off the deck as the bombs land, thats not really right. This diagram this comes from a book but it shows the relation of how the squadrons attack. Enterprises squadrons split between them. Best in his group head for the ikagi. Mccullski goes for kagi. This is the order they encounter them. Ikagi on the right hand. Doctrine heads for this one. And but only to find mccullski is also headed for it so he cuts off and his own decision heads for the one further away and good thing he did because hes only three planes that attack ikagi and one plane, almost certainly best himself, gets the single hit on ikagi that causes a massive fire that will cause her to sink. Kagi has a same thing. Four to five dive bomb hits and theyre sething off these confully inaugurations. An example some people might be familiar with is franklin or bunker hill on the American Carriers, the way they were set afire when strike waves are ready. This is what happens. So the net result of 10 20 is three carriers are knocked out outright in what is the miracle of five minutes. But the part that was not was not clear was the fact that they were not about to launch. They had been delayed by their massive troubles in switching torpedoes and bombs from land attack to naval attack. And thats partly what set up the chance to do it. Just like you saw earlier, there was the chance of set up because yamamoto scattered his forces where basically only have four carriers meet three and thats how the battle turns out. After that, you have just now hiryu is left. Launches two strikes to attack decided target, original target. They dont leave here until 11 00 helping to show when they were originally scheduled to leave. They attack the yorktown. Hit it with bombs and torpedoes both. Badly cripple it. Its baunled and later yorktown despite attempts to try to tow her to hawaii will be sunk by a japanese submarine. Torpedoes her on june 6th and sinks the next morning. Essentially hiryu launches two strikes for the yorktown. But then hiryu is located and the strike waves from the remaining two carriers and whatever from yorktown can be moved over to relaunch from them. And then goes attacks and sinks the hiryu in a classic dive bombing attack close to sunset. It was about to launch a third strike and postponed it because the men were so exhausted. They needed to wait at least an hour to grab a quick bite to eat and then take off at sunset to attack at night because they had so few planes left. That gave the last strike from hornet and enterprise time to arrive. And so the net result is all four Japanese Carriers are now gone from dive bombers strikes and the battle that on paper looked like it couldnt be won when we began has turned out this way. The reason this mattered was this is the balance before the battle of midway. If you look at the numbers of the ships, the japanese after coral sea, have two carriers laid up. One to repair the squadron. They have these four going into midway. We have lost lexington and the saratoga is being repaired from a torpedo attack. This brought we had her running planes for churchills forces in the mediterranean. You dont hear about it much but thats what wasp is doing. Shes operating off north africa. He comes rushing back after the pacific war breaks out and ordered home after that. And just arriving on the scene after not long after midway. She will be at gath canal and will be sunk but after midway, though, this is the balance. Four Japanese Carriers gone. We have three. This is going into the battle of the gath canal. This is the next moment of parity. You have two ready for battle again. Up against wasp, hornet and enterprise. Those familiar with battle of gad canal, this is why its so important. It is the final touch on what makes the midway victory because its guadalcanal that the surviving you know, some survive war and stuff and wrote the memory but the crop of the yap nees corps is kilned. Not that many except from the hiryu. Anyone that survived midway, they tend to be killed in the two big carrier battles of gad canal. It finishes the way midway turned out it puts final thing on it and heres why. This is the very next year. You see the American Industrial force kicking in. Its replacement capability. This is all the japanese managed to commission in the same time period. The hiyo. Now, going into the battle of philippines sea, they have a new fleet carrier. Remember they lost four at midway. They have three light carriers. They lost the shoho at coral sea. So thats going in the it bath l of philippine sea. But after philippine sea, as theyre lined up there, this is june 1944. The greatest carrier battle, the last one, in that sense for both sides are fully equipped, you see that theyre already badly outnumbered for rux. This is how the situation is at the end. This is in july 1945. Look how many this is why midway ends up mattering. There was no way to replace those four carriers swiftly. The akagi and kaga were like share th saratoga and built out of limitations. Thanks. [ applause ] unfortunately, we wont be able to take ques but tony will be around after this break. Well take a break and reconvene here promptly at 2 00. Thank you. The final break now in this event marking the 75th anniversary of the battle of midway. The last presentation coming up in about 15 minutes with timothy orr, coauthor of never call me a hero an american dive bomber pilot remembers the battle of midway. Meantime, heres two short reel america pieces. The last beachhead. Japan. August 30th, 1945. At sugi airport, general of the army Douglas Macarthur, commander of the pacific, designated allied Supreme Commander to accept ally suprem commander to accept the japanese. September 1st, 1945, this is of all mankind, from this solemn occasion, a better world of the past, a world pounded upon hate and understanding. A world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish or freed freedom, tolerance and justice. I now invite the representatives of the emperor of japan and the japanese government and the Japanese Imperial headquarters to sign the surrender at the places indicated. The Supreme Commander, our ally powers will now sign on behalf of the law of the nation at war with japan. General wainwright step forward and accompany me when i sign . The representatives of the atlant United States of america are now signed. Let us pray for peace and we restore to the world and that god will preserve it always. These proceedings are closed. [ applause ] [ cheers ] the fight will go on the fight will still go on each week americas history tv brings you a archival films that provides context of todays Public Affair issues. The Chemical Plant and the shipyards. For years it was machinery. The strong of the city were 64 of japans products were made in factories. There are hundreds of thousands of these factories where children and mothers and fathers work. The industrial japan can understand every revelation on earth and they did. All over the world, they got that cheap labor cuts and they imported oil, scrap iron, tin, rubber and aluminum. A fernandianatic nation. Sweat for planes, sweat for guns, sweat for ships, sweat for war. But the greatest weapon made in japan was the japanese soldiers. In japan humanitarian to burn. The steel is shaped by beating and hammering so is the boy hammered and beatened in into t shape of a samurai. The final product, japanese soldiers. And so on september 18th, 1931, the first team kicked off. The war following of the mock up plan lost their shooting war. Justice. Proof. Peace. Peace. Peace. [ screams ] r returning to our live coverage of marking the 75th anniversary of the battle of mid way with timothy ore with the author never call me the hero. Remembering the battle of mid way. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to continue our program here. It is my pleasure to introduce doctor timothy ore. Hes an expert on military history and along with his wife whos Deputy Director of education education. Never call me a hero, remembers the battle of mid way. The book chronicles the actions of the pilots. The only pilots on either side to hit the ships during the battle. To share this story, please welcome doctor timothy orr. [ applause ] on the afternoon of june 4th, 1942, the pilots on board prepares for what would be the mission. During the briefing, the pilot austin mayor raised his hand and asked a question. No one mentioned anything of providing any flighter protection. What fighter escort as are we going to have . The answer is none. We cannot afford to give you fighter protection for this trip. Merrill started to come to an collusion about the role of u. S. Naval aviator of u. S. World war ii. He explains the reality of the typical u. S. Naval avery. Sorry, you dont get any fighter escor escorts. You are on your own. I believe we should take merrills message seriously. The navy expected his pilots to figure out the battle on their own and if they fail, there would be no great loss. There would be another way to rae place it down the line. The carrier ships needed to survive of all costs. Today this mode thinking i is from our own 21st century of Vantage Point it is unthinkable to consider pilots on a suicide mission. Not only we live in a world of leaving no one booipd but it costs taxpayers millions dollars a year and training one pay lot more than 30 millions. The world of specific aviators are vasally of our own. The truly amaze thing. The u. S. Pilots understood this world for whatever it was. The naval attacks render them. On june 3rd, another enterpri enterprisenterpris enterprise we are too tangibles, were all the pilots truly needed. I wonder if my letters were too cold and formal and unreal. Thats only because i am living temporary in another world. One that i hope you never know. It is a cold and ruth less world filled with hate. It is necessary that some of us to live there now and to protect the orther world of the one tha i need. Courage and luck. It is something betroth to say. I am worried that we m misinterpreted what the aviators meant. They felt they need luck to survive. Understandingaviators, they knes and what their superior asked of them. All they need were the courage to fight and luck to live. Who were they . There were mainly young and had college educations. They come from across the United States from a hoax of circumstances. Most of them grown up to an impoverish family. His father was sharecropper using cotton. Hopskin wos worked the field an bathing once a week for lack of water. For instance, hopkins is joined u. S. Navy reserve because he wanted to see the world. He wanted to see the fair. In april, he joined up serving on the way up in charleston peeling potatoes. On the way back, he did paint. He hated both activities. He asked his recruiters if he could do Something Else. His College Degree qualified for him to fly. Hopkins took him. Like hopskins, most aviator felt attach into the navy. As a young boy, fishers revelation came in at age four while playing at his front yard. He heard a distant noise and looking up, it looked like a monster. The noise frighten him and he ran panic stricken into his front door. Eventually, his father came to his rescue. The army pilot landed in a near by pastor and showing him that planes are of no danger and voicing his son over his shoulders and taken him to see the monsters. Fisher touched the propellant. I was hooked and i wanted to be an aviator. Whatever hooked them in their youth. The navy pilot followed at mid kay followed three pathways. They went to the Naval Academy and joined the Naval Reserve and rose up the ranks. Whatever their pathway could pass through 11 months of training at the air station at pensacola. Flight checks are meant to push them onto the flight way or flush them out. The last check was difficult. It was called shooting a circle. The cadets and some students would craft their planes to do it rather than wash out. 1930s approximately 40 that aviation could drop out of the program because they fail the check or killing themselves in the process. Aviation could spend half a year of Flight Training or the air of atcrobatics. When it is all said and done, the pilots logging of 600 hours in the air. They are combat experience was limited. Few of the piloted had much opportunities to engage in forces. Only after that carrier returning from the battle of coral sea and surrounding three squaders and replacing them to saratoga which yet to conduct combat operations. Finally, u. S. Air group arise in a combat zone. March 4th, they were anchored. When the pilots know theyll be evolved in the battle . News of the mid way was traveling in secrecy. A demand ensuring no one outside of, small circles of officers decides for the japanese coast. Before leaving hawaii, the pilots leave orders strictken them to a near by station and that 48 hours, none can leave the base. Two days into the voyage, the admiral held a briefings with their squadron commanders. Telling them they expect to find Japanese Carrier near the mid way and ambush them. When the meeting was over, one asked are there any questions . He worried about his wife and daughter who were living in hawaii, he stood up and asked why he believe the japaneses fleet was hot hitting east but hitting pearl harbor again. He knew about this but did not know how to answer him. No one spoke for 45 seconds. Thats a long time broken up a meeting and having an admiral staring at you. Finally, he said we hope they dont. Frustrated, the squad and commanders left their meetings. A big one is fairly soon on june 4th. Most of the pilots were smart enough to know what happened. Pilots cannot use their radio everyone under circumstances. Sending messages from the ship in the air, of communication procedure called the bean bag, photographed here of a bean bag dropped with an urgent message attached. Lieutenant dickinson remembered we were sailing our way west ward, that was all we knew. In short every pilot knew a great battle confronted the fleet. Different feelings manifested in an old one. Dickerson said an unspoken confidence passed between the pilots. We knew we confronted the opportunity to strike a blow. There is satisfaction now and everything we have done to prepares yourself coming our o hours ahead. How he liked the idea of catching the japanese at sea near our base. All of us fully realized, we got a chance to change the character of the war. The battle of mid way involved series of briefings and every air mission. In those missions of wind speeds and data and position of the carrier and intended target, as the time ticking down of the launch, the pilots going through the arithmetics in their head. How far would they have to fly and how much time could they spepd spend in the air and would they have enough fuel to get back. All of these questions, thats the pilot. Undoubtingly, the one in the morning of june 4th, was the most intense. This briefing determines if the japanese fleet is going to show up as the admiral predicted. By 5 30 there were no confirmations by the japanese. The news got relayed and the air group waited for another hour before initiated the launch. Lieutenant gallaher says while we are waiting for them coming in, the butterflies in her stomach starts to coming up. It was not the butterflies disappeared. We got a job to do then. Searching for the Japanese Carrier task force proved another hurl. Further once the planes were airbor airborne, it was difficult to predict where the japanese fleets intercepted. By 9 15. The japanese changed direction. By the time u. S. Aircraft reached them, they thrown 280 and 200 miles. Some of the squadrons never found their carriers. They reached the intercept point and air Group Commander decided that the joop niese fleet must close their distance mid way at home. He turned south which was the wrong direction. Once he saw the smoke for mid way, he realize that had the japanese cannot between him and he changed course and head back to the hornets. Everyone though they have been lost all fuels before finding a place to land. This is easier said, easier laying in the battle when following smoke and leaking oil. Earlier in the battle, the battlefield is a wide canvas and the kmndcommander had to do som quick thinking. They reached the same intercepted point. The air Group Commander Clarence Mcclusky turned north. Mcclusky decide to follow. He wondered of the particulars of his decision. The simple choice to go right instead of left was the difference of the victory and defeat. So whatever their pathways to the japanese fleets, the pilots found a great relief when they found it. The site is something to pressed on your mind. Decades later, he told intere interviewers he can still closed his eye and analyze the Japanese Carriers. This was absolute. After this i felt just anything of anticlimax. Climax it was. As the battle unfolded, rick slaughter occurred in the ranks, navy deployed 41 defr staters bombers launched from the carrier and six tbf launched from the mid way. They engaged and japanese fig flighters brought down all of them. The three more craft were trying to return to their fleets. The tragedies stem from the torpedo bombs. In combat, the claim was supposed to drop 2,000 pounds of torpedos into ships. At annual gunnery test, 1940 for instance firing of only ten torpedos. 90 of their sample size failed to work. However, may 1942, the navy to hold off their decision back to the state for a corrective test. Carrier staff recommending torpedo into the water so it is slow and not to disrupt. No pilots can fly fast as 90 nazs. We knew it was a death squad. Those instructions ended up killing the torpedo plane crew. It pounds on them two at a time riddling the aircraft. It goes without saying that the torpedo playing through dying a horrible death. The tanks were not the aviation gas and filling out in the clouds and igniting through a big fire ball. Only a few torpedos returning from their mission of their testimony. Japanese flighters disregarded their own. It seems no matter how close they are to the water, they dove under us upon completion of firing. The torpedo eighth survivor, he tried to hit the torpedo. He just attacked when the antiaircraft ex bloedploded an burned in his legs. He narrated his thoughts. I had a thought to crash into the planes of those flight deck. I could started a beautiful fire. When the fellows is gone, his choice was to crash into the ship or the sea. You have a little control to do a little bit more damage, why not crash into the ship . All of the planes in the air of the battle of mid way, two squadrons and mid way marine core garrison in the mix of spds. Between those serven squadrons. They struggle to get airborne in a strong wind. Tactically, they served as the most important weapon of the battle of the mid way. Dive bombings was no simple test. It was among the death defining experiences. One at a time the plane nosed over and plummeting downward of 275 mile per hour. After being a dive bomber and an Amusement Park ride was a visit. From start to finish, the process was jarring and complicated from a dive bomb bomber the pilot had determine the target speed direction from that point aimed for the ocean 50 seconds later. When later to die, the commander, each plane peeling off and hunching down, each plane following ahead of a few seconds. Pilots kept their hoods opened to the scope. They had to work and maintain the tarp. The pilots lived a lifetime in that 50 second dis died. The other eye glances at air speed and other instrument ensuring you. Quick poll on the lease handle gives you a jolt as the bomb hits down behind you to clearly propel. You quickly and pull back on the stick of about 40 pounds to give a this means if your parachute and flight gear meeting the design of 200 pounds, you are pushing down a seat of 1200 pounds. Now, full throttle and high rpm, and heading for home. Although, dusty experienced a perfect dive, four perfect dives in the battle. The other pilots did not have their good fortunes. Gunter, felt a blow to the back of his head as his plane dives. He grabs the back of his head thinking that he would not be hit. Instead of finding blood, he found his pilots head and going goggles. He noticed his bare headed pilot benson was still alive at control. He stuck his head out o f the cockpit to get a better view and his helmet blown off. Lieutenant gallengher experienced one of the most worst moems. Knowing that he did not make a correspondent maneuver, gallengher tried his injuries was so painful that it prevented him from reaching the lever that lower his tail. When he returned to carrier, it appears that he could not land. He almost passed out the process. All together, eight died, eight gunners died when their planes were shot down by fighters or antiaircraft fighters during their attacks. Unlike the torpedo bombers. Gunners reported of a success rate. There was no mistake of what had happen. Even when he was miles away and flying in bound. Years later, he could still picture the morning attack clear. He wrote, i can still see the three carriers burning like hay stac stacks, drenched with gasoline. As i reached 1500 feet, i saw chunks of degree. I had to look up to follow them. Finally, the navy and marine core deployed four squadrons. Some of these pilots saw the action and fighter combat often involves combat air control. The experience combat flighters did rather well. The americans benefited from a decent fighter plane. Althou it was more than capable of clobbering slow moving dive bombers and torpedo bombers. Although a portion of fighting three of the commander john thatch tested after the battle, this is what he said. This serious deficiency is not only preventing our fighters from properly carrying out their assigned mission but it had an alarming effect on the moral of our most experience carrier base pilots. The situation was grim among the marine core and at mid way island. Not only did the it was likely armor. It could catch on fire and possess a electrical problem. The morning awe tactic ttack on. Half hour, the japanese shot down 17 of them and killing all of the one occupants chltd. In my opinion, zero fighters have been far under estimated. It is one of the finest fighters in the present war. As for the f 2 a, it should be left in miami as a training point. Still, f 2 a deficiencies were not new to the marine core. F 2 a is sadly out class and all respects for the japanese fights. The pilots were aware of the facts and they drove home their attack. Even after completing their missions where ever they were, the pilots still had to make a treachero treacherous navigation back to their carrier. They were hammered by lower fuel. After pulling out, instan instant japanese fighters persistently tailing his spd. He gave merrill a chilling grind. You can see it was hopeless for me. The fighter throttled back and letting him get ahead into the kill zone. Merrills plane was in no condition to fight back of the 20 meter shells. Desperate to get away, merrill dive into a bank of clouds. Not far above, merrill watched from the hiding spot, for miles the japanese flew through his course. All he need to do is look up and spot his prey. He never did and after 20 minutes, the japanese pilot gave up his suit. Merrill represented, i kept my fingers crossed and headed home. He is not going to survive. Even so, many pilots, 33 planes from the morning attack alone never made it back to their carrier. They were too damaged to make the return trip. Water landing were dangerous things. For instance, mccarthy ditched his dive bomber. He goofed the water landing and dropping away in the last second. The crash knocked him out. Gunter pictured here have managed to avoid similar fate coming out of the crash without a scratch. The dive bomb was ard 30 degrees. Blood poured from his head and his nose is broken. As he did so, his foot became lodged. Mccarthy scrambled and grubbed his gunters ankle and twist it. As you recall i am not going to lose this great guy at this point. A near by destroyer rescued the two men. Mccarthy required 17 stitches on his face. If they were far from their fleet, two Fighter Pilots from u. S. Hornets, john magda, exiting their aircraft was not easy. The flighters plunging their way and barely enough time to exit the cockpit. Both men struggled to get in the wrath. The sun is scorching. But when night fell, it was freezing cold and we huddled in our boats and shivering and shaking. The third day, the sun us unbearable and we put our shirts over our head protection but it did not help. Most of the time you are busy, by the time of the fourth day, we were very weak and for the first Time Beginning to doubt that well be rescued. A three ounce can of concentrated food and a can of malted milk and whatever raw fish they could catch. Both men lost 20 pounds when they were recovered. This was a photograph taken showing how happy they were to be taken back to solid ground. They endured it for 17 days on the water without rescue. Their wrath was found on june 21st. There were others that lasted longer you their stories are unknown because no one ever found them. 22 u. S. Saviors very never seen again. Everyone worse with the experiences of three aviators that were captured on june 4th, interrogated and executed by two japanese destroyers. The day after the battle, japanese sailor hardly abnormal for a war with such atrocities. Over the course of the three day engagement, u. S. Forces lost 344 men. Out of that number of 189, about 55 were airmen. The american pilot was a tough victory to stump. Survivors realized what an incredible trooimt. A lot of their friends making it bittersweet. Clayton fisher it was difficult sit ng the board room and joking between the squadrons. It was a very emotional and depressing experience. It was equally heart wrenching for the families of pilots. For the majority of them were married. When news came, it was not informa informant. The wife of the deceased received a telegram from the u. S. Navy telling her that oswald who she married in miami listed in action. She dreamt that he made it to an island and her dreams, he told her not to give up hope. He still had these dreams. That was terrible. Once in a while, i have a dream about him and i cried. Wait, i let it go. But, i am okay, once in a while i have a dream and i cry. Although i am not a fan of calling the American Veterans of world war ii of the greatest generation. I think it labels and cheapen their command. They live in a period thats unthinkable to us today. When the world teeter on the brink of action. We are glad that our generation would never have to be confronted against the wall snare joe. I would like to conclude by a passage written by Victor Davis Hanson whos in tla remembere this story. Hanson wrote to the modern american at the millennial. There were not young 18yearold conscripts but often married with children and enthusiastic. They prep planes into the fiery and working for their families if america shall every see them again . Thank you very much. [ applause ] we have about eight minutes for questions. Anyone wants to come up to the i never knew a lot of what my dad did until i was an adult and since got interested in aviation and i followed it and i became a private pilot myself, it seems to me that one of americas things is that one of the things that made this country great and militarily superior is aviation. But, nobody seems to ever say that and understand that aviation is so important to this country and our airports and pilots and our governments is supporting it. Is this something, am i alone in this thinking or is this something that you have thought about . Um, i am probably not qualified to judge on this kind of popular perception now. I would say it is a struggle to making aviation a permanent part of the u. S. Fleet. They believe that the battleship would be the queen of a chest set for generations and ta believe that aviators were kind of a passing fad, they would never be a permanent part of u. S. War doctrine. I think one of the other important pieces of the battle of mid way does not affect stories of history. Now, when we think of fleet, we think of carrier tasks and i think the only reason that they have the beginning of what happened of the mid way and other battles throughout the pacific. Anyone else . Well, one more, jill . So there is always this great passion for world war ii, and of any battle and i am not a world war ii person, i am my dads daughter and thats all until i knew until you rrevealed all these great stories. Can you tell whats the reason of the world war ii of the battle of mid way resonates in our history and resonates with us as americans. A tough question, right . It does no resonate enough to be honest with you. I am surprised that the battle of mid way is not more well known. I would say the answer to your question, the thing i always find satisfying about it is a story of a small group of people and aviators held a tremendous way of history. When we think of all the big battles thats throughout the World History and change the fate of the nation. Waterloo and normandy. We imagine hundreds and thousands of soldiers. Mid way is surprisingly the story of handful of aviatoravia. To think that in 20th century of a few pilots made all the difference. One mans life changes the fate of the nation. Thats a satisfying thought to me that everyones life matters and what we do matters. Theyre not just statistics on a sheet of paper but theyre real people who do real things. As i said, thats why i am surprised that we dont talk about them more, more often. As you associate with the younger colleagues today, do you find an appreciation for what history exists or are they learning anything from this . I believe that they are. I will pat myself in the back. My world war ii class is packed full with students generally giving me good marks which i believe is indication that they really do appreciate what they are learning about and depens on the quality of the teachers. As retired naval carrier, i want to express all that are still living and we do routinely so often. Thank you very much for a great presentation. You are quite welcome. Thank you very much. [ applause ] it was a great way to finish a great day, was it . Yeah sure. Absolutely. [ applause ] thank you for that, i was not expecting that but thank you. Before we close, i have a few reminders. I do want to recognize that somebody snuck in during the early afternoon session but i did want to recognize as well. Delegate cox from chesterfield whos the chair of the commissioner, it is been a driving force for the world war i and ii mission here. I want to recognize his presence here. [ applause ] as we close, i want to recognize folks who have been performing service for this event. John mentioned the staff of the hampton road naval museum. I want to admin voice as well. We have a fantastic partnership. A strong and enduring one, i appreciate it. Once again working with you guys to do some great things. I want to Say Something quickly about my staff. They are a cracked team. To be honest, we would not be here today if it was not for their hard work. I maybe the public face of the bridge of the ship. Their support and professionalism, we could not pull it off. Amanda williams and Janice Douglas who were hiding in the back all day until right now i am trying to thank them. [ applause ] after speakers will be signing in at the gift shop. Memorial Visitor Center is opened until 5 00. Please feel free to enjoy yourself here downtown north. Lastly, i want to thank again for coming and spending your day. A great event and learned some great history and remembering some great stories. I hope you appreciate it and i hope you enjoyed this as much as i have. Please explore the memorial and know that we are all about. I hope to see all of you back here again real soon. Thanks again for cspan for broadcasting this as well. Thanks everyone, have a wonderful afternoon. [ applause ] thank you very much. All of todays 75 Anniversary Forum of the battle of the mid way of the Japanese Navy and world war ii reairs tonight on cspan 3. Code breaking and navy at the battle and new information at the state of Japanese Navy. All of that is tieonight starti at 8 00 eastern. Each week, americanis