Posted on 05/29/2016 7:24:33 PM PDT by doug from upland
See story at link; we are celebrating freedom and honoring all those who gave their all. If you have never seen the film, you have no idea what you are missing.
I would bet that not 10% of those in high school could even place the battle as being in WWII. We have raised a nation of idiots thanks to the leftists who have destroyed our education system and any sense of patriotism.
As Wellington said at Waterloo. It was a close run thing.
If we had lost that one, we would have been left wide open.
Thank the almighty for the code breakers.
Four Japanese carriers sunk and, as Obama might do, did not let the population know for a year.
I’m impressed. I’d wager half of your then-class mates couldn’t name the century in which the war took place nor name our enemies.
Alliances change over generations. Who would have imagined the friendship with now have with or WWII enemies? Could there come a time when the Ruskies and us are forced to work together to save the world from the Muzzies?
They kept dropping him over and over onto the deck, until they got it right.
Several of my ship mates got bit parts in the movie.
I have always been a Tora Tora Tora fan myself. Better than the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor and yes better than Midway.
It placed everything in a historical context.
BTW, the radar plot of the Japanese planes coming to Pearl
Harbor is on display at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.
Reused footage from Tora Tora Tora and 16mm color footage of Hellcats, SB2C’s and Essex class carriers and an awful tacked on romantic subplot with some Japanese chick.
Worst war movie ever made until Ben Affleck and Pearl Harbor.
My late Father fought in the Battle of Midway. I’ll have to check out the film.
I’m pretty sure a lot of kids today know that it was the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor.
It was a miracle from God plus the incredible fortitude and bravery of our sailors and pilots.
We found their carriers first was the first Divine aide, and the second was the Japanese commander ordering a certain type of bombs and weaponry to be loaded on their planes, then changing his mind and ordering them back, then at a critical moment our dive bombers caught them with bombs and torpedoes stacked all over the carrier waiting to be loaded.
I’ll never forget reading of how a squad of our dive bombers finally found the Japanese task force. Our planes had no fighter cover, yet attacked anyway, knowing they probably wouldn’t make it out alive - which none did. I cannot speak words ever deep enough to express the sense of gratitude and awe at such sacrificial courage shown by these men.
The other miracle, when you think about it is this.
America entered WWII training some of our troops with broomsticks, for lack of guns.
Within 3 years and 9 months, America defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
“Get them japs out of the Pacific!”
https://youtu.be/Pnvv8TwGa9I
US Navy Squadron Torpedo 8.
Director John Ford filmed this when the navy contacted him to film the battle of midway before it got underway. He caught live footage of the Japanese bombing the island.
A couple days before the battle he filmed this of the Hornet’s torpedo bomber squadron that was wiped out at Midway attacking the Japanese fleet. Only George Gay survived. They didn’t get any hits either.
A horrified John Ford kept much of this out of his movie about the battle but made this for the families of the TBD torpedo bomber crews and reformatted it in 8mm so they could watch it on home projectors.
One guy did - Ensign George Gay. Quite a story. He was the first off the Hornet and watched every plane of his squadron go down. Shot down himself, hid under his seat cushion to keep from being strafed and was an eyewitness for what happened when the dive bombers showed up. His book is out of print (and worth a pretty penny). That must have been quite a show. He died in '94, was cremated, and his ashes scattered at that very spot in the Pacific.
The other day, after reading about the passing of Norman Kleiss, a dive bomber pilot from the battle of Midway, I was having lunch with my youngest daughter who just graduated high school. I asked her if she knew anything about the battle of Midway. Of course she didn’t.
I implored her to read the book Midway ( I can’t remember the author)if she read no other book about American history, because it epitomizes American resourcefulness, determination and, above all, bravery.
I gave her a brief description, but when I tried to describe what the pilots faced; flying a mission with little odds of returning, the shortcomings of the equipment for the time, the courage it must have taken, especially for the torpedo squadrons, I got kinda choked up and had to leave the restaurant.
Best out now is “Shattered Sword”. It uses Japanese sources that have never been used here.
A good read.
This was the first “grown up” movie my dad took me to see. The audience cheered when we bombed the jap’s carriers.
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