JUNE 4—THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY.

JUNE 4—THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY. The fourth post on this blog was on Thanksgiving. In giving thanks to the Americans who have gone before, I typed out the names listed in Herman Wouk’s WAR AND REMEMBRANCE of the 82 young men from the three torpedo squadrons who changed the course of the war in the Pacific at the Battle of the Midway. For this Memorial Day, Vin Suprynowicz wrote a moving article about how on June 4, 1942, “a few dozen lonely fliers aboard the USS Enterprise, Yorktown and Hornet were America’s last line of defense.” At 4:30 in the morning on June 4, four Japanese aircraft carriers launched more than 100 planes to attack the United States base on Midway Island. In a five minute stretch later that morning, as a result of extraordinary luck and extraordinary bravery, three of the Japanese carriers were destroyed. Later that day the fourth Japanese carrier was destroyed—“and the eventual course of the naval war in the Pacific” had been decided.