Cool Things to Know About Admiral Nimitz on His Birthday
Admiral Nimitz was born on February February 24, 1885 and was promoted to command the Pacific fleet replacing Admiral Kimmel after Pearl Harbor. He was promoted over several other more senior officers. Lucky for us he was in command when the decoded messages from breaking the JN-25 naval code revealed the Japanese plan to attack Midway Island.
Here are some other interesting facts on Nimitz courtesy of Osprey Publishing.
Cool Things to Know About Admiral Nimitz on His Birthday
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Western Pacific Islands
From Fran Kraus:
Here is a good link about the abandoned Airfields in the Western Pacific including the now abandoned Midway airfields. The link takes you directly to the Midway section but you can scroll to the top to look at all the others.
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Western Pacific Islands
BOM historiography
From Barret Tillman:
Ref. John Hentsch's comment about BOM historiography:
January Issue
When I obtained BOM action reports for my first book back in 19mumble-mumble they were stamped Declassified 1956. So presumably anything published before then was via word of mouth or from secondary sources. However, offhand I cannot recall any books addressing the subject in the early-mid 50s so perhaps it's a moot point. At any rate, I'm reminded of the long-long flail about The Hiroshima Thing which was conducted in an info vacuum for about 30 years. The decrypts of Moscow-Tokyo messages were classified until the early-mid 70s, which (to objective minds anyway) cast the "controversy" in a wholly different light. Short version: No, Tokyo was NOT about to surrender....nowaynohownosir.
BT
Allies in a new era
From Terry Popravak Jr.:
FYI, Folks, A recent USAF News article of Battle of Midway interest:
Capts. Christopher Fukui and Joshua McNelley are assigned to the 18th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Japan. Both Airmen are descendants of sailors who fought in the Battle of Midway during World War II. Fukui’s great-grandfather, Chisato Morita, commanded the Imperial Japanese Navy Midway Flying Corps aboard the aircraft carrier Akagi and McNelley’s grandfather, Ray Sorton, a U.S. Navy Sailor, manned an anti-aircraft gun during the battle.
Allies in a new era
What became of BOM's Bombing and Scouting Eight?
From Barrett Tillman:
Question recently arose in email discourse. Haven't found when they were disestablished. What I see online is mostly the second VB and the coastal patrol VS.
Editors Note: I have not had any luck finding the date both VB8 and VB6 were disestablished but the date was most likely some time shortly after the Hornet was sunk which I'm sure is fairly obvious. The Hornet's Air Group lost a lot of aircraft as many returning from the attack on the Japanese fleet found the Hornet disabled and so either landed on the Enterprise or ditched. Clay Fisher reported that when he returned from the air strike he decided to ditch instead of trying to land his damaged Dauntless on the Enterprise and risk fouling the flight deck if he crashed. Likely many others did the same.
VB8 along with VT8 were both reformed and operated from the Bunker Hill in 1944 from about March to November when they were withdrawn to reform. They never operated from an Aircraft Carrier again as the war ended before they were reassigned. VF8 was deactivated on November 23, 1945 which may have been the date for the other two squadrons as well but cannot find a source that lists either being deactivated. Apparently the squadron designation VS8 was never re-established again or at least operated from carriers again. Seems that all squadrons operating after 1942 combined the scouting and bombing squadrons into the VB designation.
Anyone having information please send it along.
The Shattered Sword Yahoo Group
Editors Note: For those interested in more on the Battle of Midway in a slightly different format consider joining The Shattered Sword Yahoo Group. You don't have to have a Yahoo account to join. I think any email address will work. The site is run by Jim Hanford and contains a lot of information, pictures, and accounts of the battle.
Here is a link to the group.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/shatteredsword/info