Battle of Midway: June 4, 1942:

 Today marks the 84th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, one of the most significant naval engagements in history. Below I repeat a blog post that I have posted almost annually featuring Samuel Eliot Morison's account of that battle that changed the course of WWII. The older I get, the harder it is for me to think or read about war, and the young lives lost on both sides. Nevertheless, at the end I add a link to an extremely well done documentary video about some of the resourceful and brave naval aviators involved in the Pacific war on both sides.

The anniversary of the Battle of Midway coming as it does on June 4, is usually overshadowed by remembrances of the Allied landings on the coast of Normandy on D-Day, the sixth of June, 1944. Nevertheless, if not for the American naval victory in the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942, D-Day might never have happened.

Nowhere is the story of Midway told better than in Admiral Samuel Morison’s epic history of United States naval operations during the Second World War. Admiral Morison was a rare combination of sailor and historian. Before the war he had written a magisterial biography of Columbus that still ranks with anything ever written about that great sailor. As part of his research Morison even used a sailing ship to cover the route Columbus had taken.

When the war broke out, the U.S. Navy asked Morison to be its official historian. The Navy took pains to put him on actual ships that were very likely to see action. He was not at Midway but his account reads like an eyewitness. Below are excerpts from his depiction of the pivotal two minutes of that epic battle.

First, a little introduction. After their stunning success at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Japanese had rolled up one victory after another. By the spring of 1942 Japanese strategists thought that an attack on the tiny island of Midway in the central Pacific would entice the American navy into a decisive engagement that would completely solidify Japan's hegemony over most of Asia, and force the USA out of the war.

They sent a huge naval task force including four of their best aircraft carriers and most of their best pilots to take the tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Even though the American navy had been battered at Pearl Harbor, it was able to send a carrier force to intercept the Japanese after code-breakers deciphered enough of the Japanese naval code to reveal that Midway was the target. 

The Japanese had already bombed the small garrison at Midway when the American carriers came into range. Admiral Raymond Spruance was in command of the American fleet and he followed the advice of Captain Miles Browning who shrewdly predicted the location of the Japanese force. Spruance launched an immediate attack and the American planes quickly found the Japanese. Unfortunately, the initial torpedo bomber attack was thwarted by Japanese fighters (Jekes). Not one torpedo reached its target and practically all the torpedo bombers were shot down. It seemed like all was lost for the Americans. Morison relates what happened next.

Lt. Commander McClusky

   

“The third torpedo attack was over by 1024, and for about one hundred seconds the Japanese were certain they had won the Battle of Midway, and the war. This was their high tide of victory. Then, a few seconds before 1026, with dramatic suddenness, there came a complete reversal of fortune, wrought by the Dauntless dive-bombers, the SBDs, the most successful and beloved by aviators of all our carrier types during the war. Lieutenant Commander Clarence W. McClusky, air group commander of Enterprise, had two squadrons of SDBs under him: 37 units. He ordered one to follow him in attacking carrier Kaga, while the other, under Lieutenant W. E. Gallaher, pounced on Akagi, Nagumo’s flagship. Their coming in so soon after the last torpedo-bombing attack meant that the Zekes were still close to the water after shooting down TBDs, and had no time to climb. At 14000 feet the American dive-bombers tipped over and swooped screaming down for the kill. Akagi took a bomb which exploded in the hangar, detonating torpedo storage, then another which exploded amid planes changing their armament on the flight deck—just as Browning had calculated. Fires swept the flagship, Admiral Nagumo and staff transferred to cruiser Nagara, and the carrier was abandoned and sunk by a destroyer’s torpedo. Four bomb hits on Kaga killed everyone on the bridge and set her burning from stem to stern. Abandoned by all but a small damage-control crew, she was racked by an internal explosion that evening, and sank hissing into a 2600 fathom deep.

Lt. Commander Leslie

The third carrier was the victim of Yorktown’s dive-bombers, under Lieutenant Commander Maxwell F. Leslie, who by cutting corners managed to make up for a late start. His 17 SBDs jumped Soryu just as she was turning into the wind to launch planes, and planted three half-ton bombs in the midst of the spot. Within  twenty minutes she had to be abandoned. U.S. submarine Nautilus, prowling about looking for targets, pumped three torpedoes into her, the gasoline storage exploded, whipsawing the carrier, and down she went in two sections.

…Never has there been a sharper turn in the fortunes of war than on that June day when McClusky’s and Leslie’s dive-bombers snatched the palm of victory from Nagumo’s masthead, where he had nailed it on 7 December.

Midway was a victory not only of courage, determination and excellent bombing technique, but of intelligence, bravely and wisely applied….it might have ended differently but for the chance which gave Spruance command over two of the three flattops. Fletcher did well, but Spruance’s performance was superb. Calm, collected, decisive, yet receptive to advice, keeping in his mind the picture of widely disparate forces, yet boldly seizing every opening, Raymond A. Spruance emerged from this battle one of the greatest admirals in American naval history.

Admiral Spruance

Admirals Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance are, as I write, very much alive; Captain Mitscher of Hornet, Captain Murray of Enterprise and Captain Miles Browning of the slide-rule mind have joined the three-score young aviators who met flaming death that day in reversing the verdict of battle. Think of them, reader, every Fourth of June. They and their comrades who survived changed the whole course of the Pacific War.”

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Note: Here is a link to a very informative and, at the end, moving video. 

Memorial Day: The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives swept most of the Academy Awards for 1946, and remains a film classic today. It is an emotional heart-rending story of three veterans returning to their families and their civilian lives that will never be the same.

 

William Wyler directed the film, his first after himself returning home from three years of military service. He had won the Best Director award in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver but then volunteered at the age of 40 to make films for the Air Force. In the process, he flew on a number of bombing missions and actually lost most of his hearing. Despite his disability, he won the best director award for The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that relied so much on the use of sound. 

 

The film featured a great cast that included stars like Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Virginia Mayo, backed up by a superb supporting cast who shine in some of the best scenes. The film also featured Harold Russell, a real sailor whose two hands had actually been amputated during the war. It is at once heartbreaking and inspirational to see him manipulate the hooks that serve as replacements. Russell won Best Supporting Actor as well an unprecedented special award for his performance as the wounded sailor.

Harold Russell, Dana Andrews, Frederic March

 

Frederic March won the Best Actor award playing an army sergeant, returning to his respectable family and banking career. Actually, that year the Academy Award should have gone to Jimmy Stewart for his performance as a small-town banker in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  It was a real sign of the times that both films featured bankers as heroes. In my opinion Dana Andrews could also have won for his portrayal of troubled Air Force bombardier Fred Derry.

Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright

However, the women in the film more than hold their own. Feminist historians would do well to note the powerful women portrayed in this 1946 film. Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and youthful Kathy O'Donnell are all towers of strength. Glamorous Virginia Mayo played an unfaithful floozy, but gave the best performance of her career. Ironically, she gets to utter the title line in the film when she complains to her returning husband that while he was flying bombing missions over Germany, she had given him the best years of her life.

 

The supporting cast is equally fine, and again it is the women who shine. One of the most emotional scenes in the film occurs at the beginning.  I will never forget the look on the face of the mother, played by Mina Gombell, when she first sees the hooks of her young son. Toward the end of the film after the dejected and out of work airman decides to leave town, he discards his wartime citations. When he leaves the house, his father then reads them to his step-mother, played by Gladys George, who sits quietly registering on her face the emotions felt by every viewer. 

 

Speaking of scenes, Dana Andrews, playing an Air Force Captain and bombardier who is haunted by horrific dreams and memories of lost comrades, appears alone in the pivotal scene near the end of the film. He has lost his job, and his wife, and a new romance has hit the rocks. He is about to leave his home town and waits at the airport for a flight to anywhere. He sees some de-commissioned and stripped down bombers waiting for the scrap heap. He climbs into one and sits in the dusty cabin and the war memories come back. There is no dialogue but gradually we hear the engines starting one by one, and the awful memories come back. It is one of the most iconic scenes in film history, filmed beautifully by famed cinematographer Gregg Toland. 

 

The final scene is the rendition of the marriage ceremony of the wounded sailor and his high-school sweetheart. Even today it is hard to watch him sliding the ring on her finger with his hooks. But the most moving part of the scene is the simplicity of the wedding ceremony itself. It takes place in the modest home of the bride. She descends the stairs as a couple of children sing, Here, Comes the Bride. Waiting in the living room are the parents and a small gathering of friends and family. A minister calmly directs the couple in the exchange of the traditional vows, and that is it except for congratulations. 

 

Someone once said that the length of the marriage is inversely proportional to the size of the wedding. This memorable wedding scene, and the film itself are powerful reminders of what we have lost in the ensuing years. 

 

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China Summit

 

I have always disliked Communism, its principles and its practices. As a child I recognized that while we may have all been born equal, we did not develop equally either in the classroom or the playground. As I grew up, my studies and experience revealed that Communist regimes were among the most murderous in history, and that their atrocities were directed not just at capitalists but at their own people. 

 

Although not on a par with such brutal oppression, one of the worst things about Communists was the way in which they betrayed the hopes and dreams of their most ardent supporters. After all, there is something noble about Communism, despite its sordid history, that attracted and still attracts millions of idealistic supporters all over the world. Slogans from a bygone day like, “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains” really resonated. 

 

There are countless examples of young idealists going to fight for Communism. I think of George Orwell, an English writer, whose political convictions led him to fight with the Communist backed Republicans against the Fascists during the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. His own experience in Spain led him to realize that in practice Communists were just as bad, if not worse than the Fascists.

 

Older readers will remember Orwell’s political fable “Animal Farm” about a rebellion of oppressed farm animals against the farmer who profited from their labor. The farmer and his men were driven off the farm that then was to be worked by and for the animals. A banner was raised proclaiming, “All Animals are Equal.” All would share equally in the work and rewards of the farm. 

 

Unfortunately, things soon took a wrong turn. The wily pigs took over with the aid of fierce attack dogs and soon lorded it over the other animals. One day the animals noted that the revolutionary banner had been altered to read: “All Animals are Equal, but Some are More Equal than Others.” 

 

The book ends with a very touching scene. One night the ordinary animals stand out in the cold peering through the window of the restored farmhouse. They behold the prosperous pigs enjoying a fine dinner. Their guest is the farmer. The revolution had been betrayed.

 

The above thoughts came to mind while I watched some of the ceremonies of President Trump’s recent visit to China. As Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist party, descended the stairs in front of an enormous palace I could only think that he was the latest in the long line of Chinese Emperors. True, he preferred Western business attire to Imperial robes, but it is obvious that the People’s Republic of China is long gone.

 

The Communist Party in China is the largest in the world, but its one million members make up a small minority of China’s 1.5 billion population. Interestingly, workers in China are not allowed to unite. Labor and trade unions are prohibited. Communists and Communist sympathizers in the United States have to willfully blind themselves to the realities of Communist rule wherever it has triumphed. Whether Soviet Russia, China, or Cuba some animals were more equal than others.

 

Nevertheless, I hope the summit does achieve some good results. If President Trump somehow managed to convince the Chinese leader that it would not be in his best interest to invade Taiwan, that would be a huge success. If the trade deals work out, that would also be a major accomplishment. Actually, I think that President Trump understands that trade, rather than military force, is our best weapon in dealing with the Chinese empire.

 

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Marriage Vows

I know it is common for couples today to compose their own wedding vows. When my wife and I married 63 years ago, we never thought of writing our own vows. In our innocence we accepted the traditional words. In turn we said:

I take you for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

I take you for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

That was all we said. I then placed a ring on my bride’s finger “as a sign of our marriage vows.” Although it was followed by a Mass, the actual wedding was a brief ceremony taking no more than five minutes. I still have the little wedding pamphlet from that day, and I notice that the priest did not even say, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” It was our brief vows that made us man and wife.

The pamphlet included an introduction that provided the basis for the simple vows. Reading it today I can honestly say that I was not aware at the time of the awesome significance of the words.  I realize now that the words represented an ideal that would not be easy to attain. 

This union then is most serious, because it will bind you together for life in a relationship so close and so intimate, that it will profoundly influence your whole future. That future, with its hopes and disappointments, its successes, and its failures, its pleasures and its pains, its joys and its sorrows, is hidden from your eyes. You know that these elements are mingled in every life, and are to be expected in your own. And so, not knowing what is before you, you take each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death.

Truly, then, these words are most serious. It is a beautiful tribute to your undoubted faith in each other, that, recognizing their full import, you are nevertheless so willing and ready to pronounce them. And because these words involve such solemn obligations, it is most fitting that you rest the security of your wedded life upon the great principle of self-sacrifice. And so you begin your married life by the voluntary and complete surrender of your individual lives in the interest of that deeper and wider life which you are to have in common. Henceforth you belong entirely to each other; you will be one in mind, one in heart, and one in affections. And whatever sacrifices you may be required to make to preserve this common life, always make them generously. Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy; and perfect love can make it a joy. We are willing to give in proportion as we love.

No greater blessing can come to your married life than pure conjugal love, loyal and true to the end. May, then, this love with which you join your hands and hearts today, never fail, but grow deeper and stronger as the years go on.

I doubt that I read those words back then, or even that I would have understood their full significance if I had read them. It would take a lifetime. 

Maybe the best depiction of the exchange of vows can be found in the final scene of the award winning 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives. It ends with the simple wedding ceremony of a sailor who after losing both his hands in the war, returned home to find that his childhood sweetheart was still in love with him. Click on this link for the brief video. 

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