The Battle of Midway Roundtable Opening Remarks
Welcome to the Battle of Midway RoundTable. This month I'd like to start off by thanking each and every member that reads the newsletter every month and many thanks to those of you that are quick to answer questions or send in articles or interesting pieces of information on the battle. The Battle of Midway is more than one story. It is a group of stories that make up the history of the battle each one no more or less important than another.
In college I did a play written by a friend of mine for a course called Historical Studies. It was actually many courses under one roof so to speak. In one, 'Peculiar Trials', I played the narrator. It was a play depicting the history of the war between Italy and Ethiopia. As not a lot of 'true' theater majors wanted anything to do with us we often times had very few people that could be recruited to act in the plays. So many plays we all did multiple parts. (More on that another time) At any rate in order to give the actors time to change costumes, etc. I as the narrator would intervene and give a short history lesson or such to the audience.
One such narration was about 'The Crystal Ball Theory of History'. Summary of the narration as it was a long one.
The Crystal Ball Theory of History states that history is like a crystal ball. Round, perfect, transparent, and clear as can be. Everything about it is easy to read, understand, and it’s dead accurate. However history is never that clear. (At this point I drop the crystal ball I'm holding and it shatters on the floor.) But historians are never left with one perfectly round clear crystal ball. Instead they have to pick up all the shattered pieces and try and put the story back together again.
Okay there was a lot more to the speech but that was the major theme. And yes the first night I didn't hold the ball high enough and it simply bounced a couple times on the floor. I had to stomp on it praying that a piece of glass would not shoot up through my shoe. It didn't. Instead it slipped out from under my foot and flew headlong towards the audience. But as luck would have it the ball fell to the concrete floor in front of the audience and shattered hurting no one. Held the ball up higher after that.
So why bring this up. Well there are many stories about The Battle of Midway, both on the RoundTable and elsewhere, but there may be more, however insignificant that lend yet one more small piece to a much larger story. Each month my one goal is to add one more small piece to the story.
Enjoy.
Photo of Lew Hopkins
From Ron Russell April 8, 2019
If this is the photo of Lew Hopkins that John Manguso is referring to....
http://www.midway42.org/RoundTableBook/Vet_Hopkins.aspx
....I'm certain that I captured that off my TV screen, from the "War Stories with Oliver North" documentary on the BOM. Hopkins was one of North's major contributors to that production, and that great closeup of him in flight gear was as easy catch with my VCR and new digital camera. This would have been around 2004 or so. The video dates from '02--see page 319 in No Right to Win.
I did the same trick with the Roundtable's photo of Bill Surgi, who was featured on another BOM video:
http://www.midway42.org/RoundTableBook/Vet_Surgi.aspx
In both pictures, you can make out the TV's horizontal scan lines at the bottom of the photo.
So, for John's purposes, what does that mean regarding permission to use the photo? It depends on the source of the original photo itself, and one can reasonably conclude that any shot of an SBD pilot in flight gear from 1942 is going to be an official U.S Navy photo, which would not require any permission to reproduce (that was my assumption). However, that may be moot because a better resolution copy is out of the question; that TV screenshot is all that I had.
--Ron Russell
From John Manguso April 26, 2019
CV-6 Enterprise Pilot Lewis A. Hopkins
One of my neighbors just gave me a photo of Adm Hopkins in flight gear standing on the wing of an SBD that I think I can use. Thanks for your help.
John
PS. Getting the latest BOM roundtable email always perks up my day.
Editors Note: If you can share the picture with us I'd be happy to post it on his bio page.
Ed Kroeger
From Scott Smith April 8, 2019
Ed Kroeger was CAG-Six aboard USS Midway during its 1952-1953 Sixth-Fleet cruise. All us ensigns flew with him. I flew with him three time. He got a foul-deck wave-off on our second flight and I cut the cake for the 52,000th landing. The third flight was very interesting, The Air Group was going to put on a fire-power demonstration for Sec-Def. The vertical-dive on the practice flight didn't go well. CAG Kroeger led the actual flight. I was near the tail-end of the flight. There was five or six planes ahead of me in the dive. Every bomb was dead-on. The spar was floating on top of the bomb plume until the last bomb exploded, yet we couldn't drop our bomb until the plane ahead started a pull-out and the plane blocked the view the spare.
The SBD was a good bomber, the Able-Dog was better.
Scott Smith
From George Kernahan April 9, 2019
Regarding the mention of Ed Kroeger in the latest issue of the RoundTable, LtCdr E.J. Kroeger was a bomber pilot in VB7 aboard USS Hancock when, on 1 November 1944, he received orders to transfer to USS Hornet as commanding officer of VB11. He assumed command of VB11 on the 7th.
Clayton Fisher
From Barrett Tillman April 9, 2019
Bill asked about Clayton Fisher's missing a tombstone promotion. That program ended in 1959.
BT
Burl Burlingame
From Don Boyer April 9, 2019
Burl Burlingame was a well-known newpaper journalist and historian of long standing here in Hawaii, probably most well-known as the author of "Advance Force Pearl Harbor," about the Imperial Japanese navy's midget submarines during the war, a well-written, well-researched an authoritative book on the subject. He had been working in various capacities at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island for quite some time and was an expert on the aviation aspects associated with Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific. I had just responded to a Face Book post of his where he was complaining that the flu he had was really dragging him down, and the doctor's had said it was a version that was particularly tough and that he should be well in a week or so. He died the next day, and I was totally shocked and devastated, he was good friend as well as a truly intelligent and outrageously humorous man for all seasons (his acerbic movie reviews stand as classics still today) in addition to his
contributions to history. He will be greatly missed by those of us in the historical field here and everywhere he was known. (As a footnote, I had asked him once if he was related to the legendary submarine commander Creed Burlingame of Silversides fame, but he was not. He said he wished he was, he'd probably have a hell of a collection of salty dog sea tales from the war.)
Don
New BOM book
From Barrett Tillman April 13, 2019
Starts with Nimitz checking his clock and ticking off the declining number of TBDs returning....
https://www.amazon.com/Midway-Battle-That-Modern-World-ebook/dp/B07QHBVGL4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Midway: The Battle That Made the Modern World - Kindle edition by Richard Freeman. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Midway: The Battle That Made the Modern World.
From John Lundstrom April 13, 2019
Obviously Nimitz must have been down in the Cincpac map room following the course of the battle by pushing around tiny ships and airplanes, just like in the movies. In fact, Nimitz would have needed a crystal ball to have learned about his own carrier strikes. He knew very little on 4 June of what was actually happening at Midway.
John Lundstrom
Editors Note: It is getting increasingly easy and relatively inexpensive to publish any book electronically now. In fact Amazon will also do print on demand books which are again not all that expensive to do. To that end we all have to realize that ones dealing with history might not not be edited or researched all that well. Still whether they are worth reading or not is probably an individual taste.
No Right To Win
From Lou Wagner April 20, 2019
I'm just starting the Russell book, No Right To Win, and the back cover says Mr. Russell lives in Northern California. I live in Los Altos, which is about 35 miles south of San Francisco. Do you know which town Mr. Russell lives in? Is he still alive? Does he still moderate the website? Also, I first learned of the Midway website from a friend who thought it was run by some folks in the mid-west. Where is home base for the website?
Many thanks and apologies for intruding...
Editors Note: No worries. Ron Russell had some other book projects that were taking a lot of his time in 2011 and didn't have sufficient time to devote to the website any longer. If you look at the archives you'll see a gap between September of 2011 and July of 2013. In 2013 he realized that he had way too much work on other projects to continue so offered anyone that wanted to continue the site to contact him. If nobody came forward he was going to close down the website. I volunteered to continue to run the website. Not sure if anyone else did but he asked me to take over the duties if I was still interested. Sometime in the spring of 2013 he gave me access to the pages which I downloaded and developed the new site. It took a bit of work so I didn't actually get the first newsletter out till July. So that's the history of the transformation.
Ron Russell lives in Northern California and is still very active with contributions to the site on many occasions. I live in Nebraska and there is only me, no other folks. But I've been a student of the battle for most of my life as my father was in the Navy during WWII and although not at Midway told me a lot of stories. Somehow this battle really fascinated me as a kid.
Hope you like the book. There are some updates to it on the site here: http://www.midway42.org/RoundTableBook/BookUpdates.aspx
The Flight to Nowhere and What did George Gay see are probably the most significant. Recommend reading those when you get done with the book.
And not intruding. Glad to help.
From Lou Wagner April 20, 2019
Thanks very much. I'm almost done with Peter Smith's Dauntless Victory book, and I shouldn't have "eyeballed" No Right To Win. Nor, for that matter, your website. I'm sure you know the feeling when one comes across material that is so fascinating and well done that you're overwhelmed with what to tackle first. And chagrined that you've known about it and haven't gotten to it sooner. All the best to you....and thank you for the update info......
Lou Wagner
Excellent TBD sequence in recent movie
From Ron Russell May 5, 2019
Thom, has anyone seen and reported on the 2014 movie Against the Sun? I stumbled upon a clip on Youtube that shows the opening scene, with an astoundingly accurate depiction of an Enterprise TBD on a solo search mission. Specifically, it's the true story of 6-T-6 and its enlisted pilot, Chief Harold Dixon plus his bombardier and radioman-gunner. The actions and dialogue among the three during their flight is spot-on authentic--the movie's producers obviously had a very experienced USN consultant whom they paid attention to.
One minor quibble: the TBD is marked 6-T-14 instead of 6-T-6, and the plane has other minor marking inaccuracies that a purist might spot, like no BuNo on the tailfin. But you can easily ignore the small stuff, for the brief flying sequence is hands down the most authentic piece of WWII naval air film that I've ever found. Sadly, I haven't seen the full movie yet, but I'll get there. It's available via various DVD or streaming services, so it's just a matter of picking one.
Here's a Youtube of the opening scene, which covers the entire flight sequence before the plane exhausts its fuel and has to ditch. It runs a little over 6 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cl9Md6rHfg
Then, here's an online reference giving a factual summary of the plane and what happened to Dixon and his crew:
https://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/tbd/0335.html
It's nice to see that a film company really can get the details right when they choose to do so. We can hope your friends doing the new Midway movie have the same standard.
--Ron Russell
Editors Note: I have not seen the movie either. It was only released as an on demand movie so I didn't get to see it. I do understand they went to great lengths to do a good job on a very small budget. It did get good reviews, rotten tomatoes gave it a 70. As for the Midway movie I think they'll get the details right for the most part. They went out and bought or borrowed exact equipment, uniforms, etc. Now whether they corrected any of the historical inaccuracies in the script I can only guess. But the director did task me with sending him any inaccuracies in the script no matter how small. So that I did. See what happens.
Announcements and Questions
Dauntless Midway Movie
From Jeff Lund April 24, 2019
I found a trailer for “Dauntless”, if anything, it gives a clue of what to expect from the cgi of “Midway”.
Dauntless Movie Trailer
New video well done on Midway events from Japanese perspective
From Martin Bunch April 29, 2019
I ran across this on a few groups, this guy has made a few up to date videos on Coral Sea and a few others on the most current information. Watch it and use your own judgment if its worth posting. Very well done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&feature=share
Question about the Battle of Midway
From Anders Dahlgren May 1, 2019
Just reading a fine Swedish book ”MIDWAY 1942” written by Johan Lupander, telling about the fantastic and almost unbielevable important event - the ww2 turning point. Many flowers to all brave men and women involved.
I have some questions: What happened to all downed planes and pilots into the sea?
Did the Japaneese war ships picked up US pilots who survive a crash close by the ships? US fleet - the same question?
Or was the casual rate 100% at such occasions? Nobody survived landing in the sea? Must have been hundreds of brave airmen left in the ocean during the fierce battle otherwise.
Thanks for your excellent homepage.
Best regards
Anders Dahlgren
Goteborg
Sweden
Editors Note: Thanks for contacting me. Aircraft shot down while attacking a fleet, either American or Japanese, had a small chance of survival as most attacks were made at low level. However there were quite a few that survived the attack with badly damaged aircraft that could not make it back to their ships or ran out of fuel on the way back, mostly American as the Japanese planes had plenty of range.
Out of the men who went down the only reference I have of any Japanese pilots or crewmen being rescued is if they were on CAP over the carriers when the carriers were disabled by the US dive bombers. Most were picked up by destroyers. No pilots or crewmen that made attacks on Midway or Yorktown I know of were rescued but then again I don't know if any survived long enough to ditch.
The US pilots and crew were another story, George Gay being the most famous, who ditched his TBD shortly after making the attack on the Japanese fleet and was rescued several days later by a PBY. A number of US airmen were not as lucky, three of them being picked up by Japanese ships, interrogated, and then killed. Still others ran out of fuel on the way back and were rescued many days later. The US having control of the battlefield made extensive search and rescue operations to recover as many downed US airmen as possible of which they did a remarkable job. The last rescue was 17 days after the battle, both crewmen from a downed TBD. Here are some books published on the subject.
1) Shot Down at Midway, by Lee Coleman McCleary is the story of his being shot down in a PBY, and later rescued by one. Published by McCleary in 1996.
2) The Last Flight of Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Junior, USNR, by Bowen P. Weisheit. It includes the rescue of VF-8 pilots who ditched June 4th. First published in 1993.
3) Adrift: Rescues after the Battle of Midway, by Alvin Kernan. Includes quite a bit of discussion about Hornet during the battle. Published by BookSurge Publishing (October 11, 2009)
From Anders Dahlgren May 1, 2019
Thanks a lot for your information. Clarifies a lot. I Understand. Heavy weapon anti aircraft fire and ditching not good at all - to make it short. Bad outcome normally. Very much so. It must have been terrible circumstances for the involved Pilots and Airmen. And for the ships crews as well. Heavy losses everywhere indeed. Thanks very much again. Allow me to come back if I have some more questions while reading and going thru the thick book. Best wishes from Sweden and thanks very much what your great Nation have done fighting evil forces to save the Freedom of mankind.
Anders Dahlgren
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