In April 1995, Herman Wouk made a rare public appearance at the Naval Institute's Annapolis Seminar. He spoke without notes, and the words he delivered, flawlessly, were captured by Naval History Editor-in-Chief Fred Schultz in his recent Naval Institute Press book, History Makers. The power of the historical novel cannot be overestimated, and Herman Wouk's contribution to this important genre and to the naval services cannot be overstated. Several of his novels-The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance-have served as major sources of information and understanding of both the Navy and World War II for countless Americans.
As we prepare to commemorate the Battle of Midway, it is appropriate that we look to Herman Wouk for his account of that pivotal battle. In War and Remembrance, Mr. Wouk upheld his high standards of both literature and history, describing the battle in colorful and historically accurate terms. In the passage below, he became less the novelist and more the historian and still more the inspired American as he inserted his assessment of the actions of the carriers' torpedo squadrons that scored not a single hit but played so crucial a role in one of the U.S. Navy's most important victories:
"It was a perfect coordinated attack. It was timed almost to the second. It was a freak accident.
"Wade McClusky had sighted a lone Japanese destroyer heading northeast. It must be returning from some mission, he had guessed; if so, it was scoring a long white arrow on the sea pointing toward [Vice Admiral Chuichi] Nagumo. He had made the simple astute decision to turn and follow the arrow.
"Meantime, the torpedo attacks of Waldron, Lindsey, and Massey had followed hard upon each other by luck. McClusky had sighted the Striking Force at almost the next moment by luck. The Yorktown's dive-bombers, launched a whole hour later, had arrived at the same time by luck.
"In a planned coordinated attack, the dive-bombers were supposed to distract the enemy fighters, so as to give the vulnerable torpedo planes their chance to come in. Instead, the torpedo planes had pulled down the Zeroes and cleared the air for the dive-bombers. What was not luck, but the soul of the United States of America in action, was this willingness of the torpedo plane squadrons to go in against hopeless odds. This was the extra ounce of martial weight that in a few decisive minutes tipped the balance of history.
"So long as men choose to decide the turns of history with the slaughter of youths-and even in a better day, when this form of human sacrifice has been abolished like the andent, superstitious, but no more horrible form-the memory of these three American torpedo plane squadrons should not die. The old sagas would halt the tale to list names and birthplaces of men who fought so well. Let this romance follow the tradition. These were the young men of the three squadrons, their names recovered from an already fading record."
We halt the tale here to list the names of those pilots and their crews who fought against such incredible odds at Midway.
Tom Marfiak