Normandy

On the morning of June 6, 1944, a vast armada of Allied ships moved in close to the coast of Normandy and began an artillery barrage on German held coastal positions.  It marked the beginning of the long anticipated invasion of France that would free Europe from Nazi tyranny.

On station that morning off Utah Beach was the battleship USS Nevada.  Her main battery of ten 14” guns lobbed shell after shell on the German shore defenses.  Considering the difficult road she took to get there, what a sight it must have been to see this proud warship providing naval gunfire support on this historic day. 

The Nevada had been one of the eight battleships tied up in Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941.  This battleship’s historic dash to the sea to escape the harbor was the “stuff of legends.”  Despite her spirited efforts, the attacking Japanese aircraft laid several bombs into her deck and she was forced to beach off Hospital Point.  Fifty brave crew members lost their lives.  However, this would not mark the end of the Nevada’s career.  In many ways, it was only the beginning. 

It is a great credit to all of the workers of the naval shipyard at Pearl Harbor who salvaged the Nevada, along with five of the other eight battleships that suffered various degrees of damage in the attack.  Only the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma were lost forever.

By the summer of 1943, the USS Nevada was back in action and contributing to the war, both in the Pacific and the Atlantic theaters.  Because of the perseverance and grit of those shipyard employees the Nevada and the other crippled battleships at Pearl Harbor found a new lease on life.  Though they quickly lost their place as the centerpiece of naval strategy, their roles in shore bombardment and anti-aircraft support proved vital in the long war.

On this 66th anniversary of D-Day we remember all of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to free people they didn’t even know.  We also honor the fortitude and ingenuity of the American people who rose up to the challenge of war, against all odds.  

Nothing symbolizes this better than the resurrection of an old and battered battleship crossing an ocean to liberate the world.

Listen to the Gooney

"The realization of a dream come true" is how I would describe my feelings as I stepped off the plane on the Sand Island runway of the Midway Atoll.  The other thing I felt right away was the heat, but at the moment I really didn't care.

As a historian with a great deal of interest in World War II I have always wanted to visit the place where The United States’ fortunes turned in 1942. I was struck by how beautiful the atoll was. I have seen it in pictures but never up close and personal. As we flew the three hours that it took to reach the island from Honolulu, I also stared out at the endless stretch of ocean and couldn’t help but contemplate how amazing it was that this tiny atoll would be a scene of such monumental events. Standing on the airstrip at Sand Island, I thought, “this is where it all went down.”  I tried to imagine the Japanese aircraft flying in and the American planes lifting off to meet them. I squinted my eyes a bit and wondered if I could imagine the smoke rising from the attack and listened for the voices of the Marines and Sailors who fought back.

And then there were the island’s most prominent residents -- the Layson Albatross, more popularly known by the less dignified name Gooney Birds. I had heard that there are a lot of these birds on Midway, but I was not prepared to have to avoid them with almost every step. When asked if I had taken any pictures of the birds I would respond, “How can you take a picture without them? They are everywhere.”

The ceremony commem-orating the Battle of Midway went off without a hitch and I would like to commend the members of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Military Historical Tours and the Pacific Aviation Museum who co-sponsored the event. They all did an outstanding job of not only honoring those who fought the battle, but taking care of their visitors who had come to be a part of this once in a lifetime experience.
I was especially moved to see the veterans from both sides meeting here sixty-eight years later. They all watched the ceremony unfold and later shook hands as they visited the memorial that had been erected at the site years before.
Kaname Harada was a Zero pilot assigned to the Hiryu on June 4, 1942. In an interview later in the day, the 93 year old Harada mentioned how beautiful the atoll looked today. He said it looked the same way those sixty-eight years ago. It’s interesting that he would think of the beauty of the islands as he winged his way into combat. He was a gentle man who seemed more interested in preserving a lasting peace than in relishing in the bygone glories of war. This is often the case with those who have seen first-hand what war can do.

Marine Sgt Crook, stationed on Midway’s Eastern Island that morning and responsible for servicing the obsolete F2 Brewster Buffalos that were mauled by the Japanese Zeros, remembers events in much the same way. “I knew many of those pilots,” he recalled.  “None of them came back.”  “There were 10,000 Japanese out there and they were coming to take Midway. That’s all we knew. We didn’t have anymore airplanes…they were all gone. They told us to dig in and take as many out as you could because they were coming in….it was three or four days before we had any information on the outcome of the battle.”

He went on to say how familiar the islands looked after all these years. “The buildings I remember are all gone but everything else looks the same. The runway is still there but it is grown over…it was all a long time ago.”

As I stood on the North Beach of Sand Island, I looked out to the north west wishing I could somehow see hundreds of miles past the horizon, and almost seventy years in the past to see the great carriers of the Japanese Empire and the U.S. Pacific Fleet sailing toward their epic clash. It was sobering to realize that five of them were still out there resting at the bottom of the sea.

Which brings me back to Midway’s winged residents. They are the one thing that remains constant on this far away outpost. The Layson albatross come and go year after year, completely unaware of the gigantic struggles of man. As I watched them soaring gracefully through the air and sitting perched on every available scrap of real estate in the atoll I felt a sense of awe that events here really do carry on much as they always have. Things are quiet on Midway now, and there is very little left to remind anyone of its historic past, but seeing the birds in flight, soaring seemingly effortlessly on the Pacific breeze, reminded me that because of our victory in the Battle of Midway, we remain free.

You can learn a lot from a Gooney bird.

Midway

Today, we mark the 68th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. On June 4, 1942 the Imperial Japanese fleet bore down on the United States from several directions in an effort to draw out the carriers of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. If all went as planned within days, the Japanese would control the Midway Atoll and several islands in the Aleutian chain. These footholds would allow Japanese forces to harass the Hawaiian Islands and provide Japan with a security screen to all but close the North Pacific from American naval traffic.

From where we stood as a nation the situation was grim. Japan had overwhelmed the Allied forces in the Pacific since the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. One after another the British, American, French and Dutch strongholds in the region were overrun and Japan’s forces seemed increasingly unstoppable.

Politically the President had a difficult problem. How to stop the Japanese offensive, while still committing the main focus of American forces in Europe to stop Nazi Germany from defeating England and the Soviet Union. After all, the United States had entered this war as a result of Imperial Japan’s attack on America and the American people wanted to see Japan defeated so how would Roosevelt justify assigning a secondary focus to the Pacific.

Japan hoped to cripple the United States once and for all and force a negotiated peace, allowing for Japan to reinforce their mastery of the Western Pacific unhindered by her Eastern Pacific rival. Admiral Yamamoto’s bold plan would marshal Japan’s naval forces in much the same way as the Pearl Harbor expedition six months prior. Though Japan would invade the Aleutian Islands and Midway, the real hope for Japan would be that the remaining American naval forces would come out to defend the atoll only 1,100 miles from the military facilities in and around Pearl Harbor. If things went as planned then the Japanese carriers would pounce on the precious few carriers of the American Pacific Fleet and effectively end America’s ability to defend the Pacific for the near future.

Admiral Chester Nimitz found himself in a difficult situation, how to meet the Japanese challenge, at the risk of losing the three precious carriers that stood between the Powerful Imperial Japanese Navy and the west Coast of the United States. Fortunately Admiral Nimitz at least had the element of surprise thanks to the brilliant intelligence work conducted by the Combat Intelligence Unit in Pearl Harbor which, following the breaking of the Japanese JN-25 code had ascertained, not only Japan’s planned assault on Midway, but also where and when to expect the attack. If the Admiral was correct he could send his three available carriers the Yorktown, Hornet and Enterprise on a sneak attack of their own and inflict a defeat on Japan. If his gamble failed, then the remainder of America’s offensive capabilities in the Pacific could be lost forever, furthering not only the war in the Pacific but perhaps jeopardizing America’s war effort as a whole.

On the that Summer morning of June 4, 1942 in a span of only about six minutes, three of the four Japanese carriers the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu would be set aflame and would eventually sink. The fourth carrier the Hiryu would launch her aircraft against the Yorktown in two attacks which would lead to the death of that great ship, but the Hiryu’s time would come as well when Dive-Bombers from the Enterprise and Yorktown would send her to the bottom. America had survived and Japan’s fortunes in the Pacific would soon turn.

Thanks to the ingenuity and aggressive “calculated risk” taken by Nimitz and his commanders both at sea and on the ground the United States won arguably its most decisive naval battle in history. The victory has been referred to as the turning point in the Pacific theater but an argument could certainly be made that its consequences were far broader. The destruction of a large portion of Japan’s naval air fleet and the experienced pilots who flew in it set the Japanese navy into a position of defense and America took an offensive stand that they never relinquished. America’s forces could be safely focused on the European theater while the Americans public had reason to believe that Japan’s defeat would be imminent.

Today on Sand Island of the Midway atoll a memorial marks the occasion of this epic battle which refers to June 4, 1942 as, “the day when the American spirit reached unparalleled heights, and in so doing, saved democracy for the Western World.”

Our gratitude remains