Of what I speak is the famous WWII battle in the Pacific. And it truly was a miracle when the highly outnumbered American Pacific Fleet actually defeated the gargantuan fleet sent out by the Japanese Imperial Navy to complete the unfinished job of destroying the American fleet which they failed at on December 7, 1941.
They certainly inflicted terrible losses on us with that Sunday morning surprise sneak attack on Pearl Harbor but for one great loss: The two aircraft carriers based at Pearl, The USS Enterprise and the USS Lexington, were both out at sea on missions of delivering aircraft to Wake Island and Midway Island, and the carrier USS Saratoga was in San Diego having just completed a months-long overhaul, yet to begin its trip to Pearl.
If they’d been at Pearl Harbor that fateful morning and damaged or destroyed, there would have been no face-off at Midway on June 4, 1942, within just 6 months of the Pearl Harbor attack, a face-off which drastically altered the course of the war in the Pacific. But alter it did.
The main reason this battle even took place was due to our naval cryptologists having broken the Japanese naval code. They’d picked up knowledge of an upcoming operation at objective “AF”. Not knowing, but suspecting the identity of “AF”, the base at Midway was instructed to send out an uncoded message stating that Midway’s water purification system had broken down. In under 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that “AF was short on water”, confirming that the Japanese were going to attack Midway.
That set the stage for one of the greatest naval battles in history. The initial stages of the battle did not bode well for us. The TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, unescorted (without fighter cover), slow and under-armed, didn’t have a chance. One 15 plane Torpedo Squadron, VT-8 from the USS Hornet, was totally destroyed, losing 29 men, with only one pilot, Ensign George Gay, surviving. And, unfortunately, either their torpedoes missed or didn’t explode when they did hit, which wasn’t uncommon early in the war. But after the failure of this day, the TBD Devastator torpedo bomber was never again used in combat.
However, the distraction of our torpedo bombers allowed our dive bombers to sneak in and do the job. At the end of the battle, 4 Japanese carriers were sunk as well as one heavy cruiser, the carriers four of the six who had attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese lost 3,057 killed in action, including many of their experienced pilots. U.S. losses were the carrier USS Yorktown, the destroyer Hammann with 307 total dead airmen and sailors.
What prompted me to tell this tale is the movie we went and saw on Veterans Day, the movie Midway. It was a fantastic movie. It’s not the first one. There was another one simply named Midway back in 1976. It had an all-star cast but it didn’t come close to the historical accuracy of this one.
And back in the day, I read books about this battle, Miracle at Midway, a good book, and Incredible Victory by Walter Lord, a fantastic book. So if you get a chance to see this movie, I would recommend that you follow that up with reading the incredible story of those American heroes and the history they wrote that day long ago way out in the vast Pacific.
Wow, I never really knew about the story of Midway. I would love to see the movie and get a firmer grasp of what this was all about.
I think it’s so important that people know about this. Especially the young people. They don’t realize the sacrifices made by these brave soldiers. I hope we can see this movie soon!
Thanks for sharing this. I never knew the history of Midway. I really would love to check out the movie.
History is something need to keep alive! People need to know what the past was like! I LOVE this and I can’t wait to see it!
This movie sounds really interesting! I would love to see how the story goes. Will definitely check this out.
I did not know that detail about the coders. How interesting that that enabled the whole operation to take place.
I have never heard of this movie before but I am going to bring it up to my husband because he loves movies like this!
Great history lesson here. I have heard great things about the movie and can’t wait to see it for myself!
History is my favorite subject, and one that I’ve gotten all of my kids to love as well (we homeschool). I’ll have to watch it first to see if it’s appropriate for them, but it’s just so fascinating to learn more about history.
Thank you for sharing this. I am really curious about it and would love to see this film.
Sounds like this would be really interesting to see. I love to learn a bit about history myself. It’s interesting to see what happened years ago.
I’m ashamed that I don’t know much about this time in history other than the basics. It’s a fascinating story and I did see the previews for the movie and told my husband I would like to see it. Thanks for this.
I had no idea about the story of Midway! Thanks for sharing such an important piece from our history!
I do adore a good story. Historical fiction is my favorite. I haven’t read much about the Miracle of Midway but now I want to!
I can’t wait to watch this movie. It sounds like a good one! I love movies that tell us about history!
This is a wonderful story! We should watch the Midway movie. Thanks for sharing it with us!
I love that this story made it to the big screen. I think everybody should watch the Midway movie.