Warriors to Return to Midway

It was more elated and exhilarated that day than ever before in my life, or ever since.” The speaker was Dick Best, at 89 years old, trim and ramrod-straight at the podium. He spoke of 4 June 1942, the decisive day of the Battle of Midway. As a dive bomber pilot flying off the USS Enterprise (CV-6), then-Lieutenant Best scored direct hits on two Japanese aircraft carriers, the Akagi and Hiryu.

Thanks to the courage and skill of aviators like Best, the perseverance of Navy code-breakers at Pearl Harbor, and a good measure of luck, U.S. naval forces sank four Japanese carriers and emerged victorious. On 28 to 29 June 1999, many of the participants of that great naval engagement gathered with family members at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu to share their memories at a Battle of Midway Symposium sponsored by the International Midway Memorial Foundation (IMMF).

Like Best, most of the Midway veterans displayed remarkable recall of the details of their roles in the battle. Few, however, were so near the point of attack.

Best, commanding officer of the Enterprise’s Bombing Squadron 6, precisely and clearly recounted his squadron’s attacks on the Akagi and Hiryu, the first with hardly any opposition, the second under withering fire. He was the only U.S. pilot that day to register hits on two enemy carriers. A faulty oxygen system in his Dauntless bomber (SBD-3), however, severely damaged his lungs. After returning from the afternoon attack on the Hiryu, “the next thing I knew I was in sick bay coughing up blood.” Best never flew again. Subsequently diagnosed with tuberculosis, he spent the next two years in naval hospitals and was retired in March 1944 on 100% disability. “And here I am today. So much for Navy medicine,” he joked at the symposium.

Lee McCleary was an ensign serving with VP-44 as a pilot-navigator on a PBY-5A Catalina patrol plane flying out of Midway’s Eastern Island on 4 June 1942. He told the harrowing tale of being shot down by a Japanese Mitsubishi floatplane, with five members of the ten-man crew perishing in the attack or the crash-landing in the water. He and the remaining four survivors (one of whom, Ensign Jack Camp, died later of his wounds) spent some 60 hours in the water in a bullet-damaged raft, pursued by sharks, before being rescued by another VP-44 Catalina.

Injured himself, McCleary was transported to Pearl Harbor for treatment. Admiral Chester Nimitz visited the hospital and stopped at McCleary’s bed. “He said to me that it was by the providence of God that we won that battle,” McCleary said. “That was exactly the conclusion I had come to. It was only through God’s mercy that I survived and was rescued.” Also participating in the symposium was retired Commander Bill Cullin, who not only served with McCleary in VP-44 but who also was flying with the patrol elements that spotted and rescued McCleary and the other crew members.

Harry Ferrier was a 17-year-old enlisted radioman-gunner with a detachment of six TBF Avenger torpedo bombers from the Hornet (CV-8)’s VT-8, assigned to Midway Island. Setting out from Midway in the morning of 4 June to engage the attacking Japanese force, more than 20 enemy Zeros pounced on the detachment. Ferrier gave a frightening account of barely surviving the sudden, fierce attack. The machine gunner in his airplane was killed, the pilot wounded, and Ferrier was bleeding and dazed from a bullet that creased his scalp. Blood was all over the aircraft. The pilot, Ensign (and later Captain) Bert Earnest, somehow managed to fly the badly damaged airplane back to Midway. The other five planes and their crews were lost. As Ferrier concluded his remarks, he displayed a baseball cap he was wearing during the aerial fight, with a hole plainly visible from a Japanese bullet.

The day-and-a-half symposium was the centerpiece of week-long observances conducted by the IMMF, which included a three-day visit to Midway Atoll itself. There, the Foundation rededicated a memorial it had placed on Sand Island in 1995 and dedicated two new plaques on Eastern Island to the Marine Corps ground and air forces that had defended Midway. The group then returned to Honolulu for a “Midway Night” dinner, where the keynote speaker was Admiral Dennis C. Blair, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command.

Leading the 50-person contingent that traveled from the mainland for the Midway events was Dr. James D’Angelo, president of the IMMF; Vice Admiral William D. Houser, U.S. Navy (Retired), an IMMF member who helped coordinate the events, and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both Vice Admiral Houser and Admiral Moorer served in the Pacific during World War II.

Before setting out for Midway, the IMMF dedicated a plaque in honor of the Combat Intelligence Unit at Pearl Harbor, known as the “Hypo Unit.” Led by the colorful Lieutenant Commander Joseph J. Rochefort, the unit worked tirelessly in basement offices at Pearl Harbor, eventually breaking the Japanese code and providing Admiral Nimitz and his staff with critical advance information on Japanese plans to attack Midway.

The plaque states, in part:

In the early months following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor ... a group of dedicated men in the Combat Intelligence Unit labored in this basement of the 14th Naval District Headquarters to decipher the Japanese naval code. The unit is known as ‘Hypo’ but a more proper designation is ‘Fleet Radio Unit Pacific’ (FRUPAC). Code name ‘Hypo,’ then the standard name for the ‘H’ flag in the international signal code, was sometimes used loosely for the whole activity and thus applied here.

Under the inspirational leadership of LCDR Joseph J. Rochefort, USN, cryptanalysts had decoded a few key words in the Japanese naval code (JN-25), and concluded that the letters ‘AF’ stood for Midway Atoll. When Midway sent out a bogus message that the atoll had experienced a serious casualty in the fresh water system, the Japanese signaled that ‘AF’ was having trouble with its fresh water distillation system. Armed with this intelligence report and with deep confidence in Rochefort’s team, Nimitz placed three American carriers 240 miles northeast of Midway to ambush the Japanese task force and reinforced Midway with men, planes and equipment. Aided by this pivotal information, the United States Navy on June 4, 1942 wrote a “glorious page in our history” and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

The plaque is mounted on an exterior wall at Pearl Harbor Naval Station headquarters, at the entrance to the basement offices where Rochefort and his fellow codebreakers toiled. In fact, symposium participants were able to visit the long-vacant basement office spaces. “It feels almost ghostly down here,” said one Midway veteran.

Midway Atoll itself is a place for the birds these days. It is operated as a wildlife refuge by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with tourists coming regularly to observe the hundreds of thousands of albatrosses—“gooney birds”—and other wildlife that call the two tiny mid-Pacific islands their home. The Navy withdrew the last of its personnel in 1997.

Most of the buildings on the main island, Sand Island, were built by the Navy during or after World War II and, indeed, the place looks like the Navy just left yesterday. The former Naval Air Facility (NAF) Midway terminal is used for the twice-weekly flights from Honolulu. Navy signs and posters still fill the walls. The sign outside the galley building reads, “NAF Midway.” Visitors stay in refurbished bachelor officer quarters (BOQ) buildings. They are shuttled from the terminal to the BOQ in a former Navy gray bus, the interior of which is adorned with dozens of insignia of air squadrons, Seabee battalions, and other units.

Apart from the street names (e.g., “Halsey Drive, Nimitz Avenue”), however, few reminders are left of the Battle of Midway. To remedy this situation, the IMMF in 1995 dedicated a handsome stone memorial to the battle on Sand Island, the larger of Midway’s two islands and the only one inhabited today. On 1 July, with Midway veterans from the symposium participating, the IMMF held a ceremony rededicating the memorial. The monument—consisting of three handsomely inscribed stone markers—lists all the U.S. units that participated in the battle. The main inscription concludes: “June 4, 1942—the day when the American spirit reached unparalleled heights and, in so doing, saved democracy for the Western world.”

The next day, the group traveled by boat across the sparkling, blue-green Midway lagoon to Eastern Island. Once the home to Navy patrol-plane squadrons, the island is now a forlorn place, bereft of people and structures, given over to countless gooney birds. In the middle of the former runway, still visible through the weeds, the IMMF dedicated the two plaques mounted on a stone marker to the islands’ Marine defenders.

One of the plaques is in honor of the Sixth Defense Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps. The second is dedicated to Marine Aircraft Group 22 (VMSB-241 and VMF-221), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ira L. Kimes. Of the approximately 60 aircraft from MAG 22 that engaged Japanese forces in the early morning hours of 4 June 1942, only eight returned to Midway. Honoring the courageous crews of those planes, the plaque states: “To these men America is forever grateful.”

In a salute by today’s Navy to the warriors of a generation ago, the Eastern Island ceremony was punctuated by a fly-over of F-14s and F/A-18s from the USS Constellation (CV-64), under way from San Diego with its battle group on the start of a Western Pacific deployment. As the roar of the low-flying jets receded, one of the Midway veterans turned to his wife and said softly, “It was nice that they remembered us.”

Midway Night Belongs to the Navy

By Vice Admiral William D. Houser, U.S. Navy (Retired)

Since 1945, the Armed Services have turned their attention to many national emergencies. The 50th anniversary of World War II, however, brought renewed attention and interest to that great conflict.

In 1992, veterans, historians, and authors convened a symposium in Arlington, Virginia, on the Battle of Midway, considered the most important naval battle of World War II and one of the most important in history.

After the symposium, attention turned to erecting a monument on Midway Atoll dedicated to the warriors of the battle by the newly organized International Midway Memorial Foundation (IMMF). Upon return to the United States, members of the fledgling foundation decided that a monument to Midway should be erected at the U.S. Naval Academy. The Class of 1942 turned the idea into a reality.

On 4 June 1999, three years after the IMMF’s First Annual Midway Night in Washington, D.C., and after almost a year of study, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson, decreed Midway Night to be one of only two events to be celebrated annually Navy-wide. The Navy has now adopted the annual Midway Night commemoration, and we anticipate a bright future for this tribute to all warriors of the naval services.

‘The Air Force Guy’

By Captain James A. Noone, U.S. Naval Reserve

Jim D’Angelo likes to tell the story of hearing, unobserved, a brief exchange between two Navy admirals in mess dress at the first “Midway Night” dinner in Washington in 1996.

“Why the hell didn’t someone think of this before,” growled admiral number one. “Yeah,” retorted admiral number two, “and it was an Air Force guy who did it!”

He is the Air Force guy. The Rockville, Maryland, physician founded and still heads the International Midway Memorial Foundation (1MMF), which he operates from his medical office and home. From a modest beginning in 1992 with no funds, the IMMF has led a resurgence of interest in the Battle of Midway, which has included Midway Night dinners in Washington and eight other cities, symposia involving veterans of the battle, the start of a documentary film, and the installation of memorial plaques on Midway Atoll’s two islands, at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, and at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Born and reared in New York City, D’Angelo graduated from Fordham College in New York and Georgetown Medical School in Washington, D.C. Growing up in the post-World War II years, he became drawn to the military by watching movies about the war. They left him “with an indelible impression of idealism and the courageous men who fought the war,” he says, speaking with a sincerity more typical of small-town America than the Big Apple.

He particularly became enamored of the Navy, a condition that has lasted his entire life. He tried to become a Navy pilot but was rejected because of poor eyesight. “I asked the recruiter if I could be a navigator, but he said, ‘Son, with those eyes we won’t even let you on the airplane.’” He wound up serving on active duty as an Air Force doctor from 1967 to 1969, mostly at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.

Throughout his medical career, D’Angelo maintained his interest in military matters, particularly World War II. In early 1992, Bill Surgi, a patient at the Washington area medical clinic where D’Angelo was working, approached him about helping organize a symposium to commemorate the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Surgi, who served on the USS Yorktown (CV-5) during the battle, knew of D’Angelo’s interest in military history. D’Angelo accepted the offer and staged a successful symposium. Later that year, he launched the IMMF and has been at it ever since.

“Many people think it’s a greater miracle that the foundation has survived than that we won the Battle of Midway,” laughs D’Angelo, alluding to the group’s early struggles to stay afloat financially. The IMMF’s first major undertaking was to install a monument on Sand Island at Midway Atoll in 1995. Rebuffed at first by the Navy, the foundation eventually gained permission from the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, and the handsome monument—consisting of three inscribed stone markers—was dedicated by D’Angelo and fellow IMMF supporters in August 1995.

In 1996, the IMMF held its first commemorative Midway Night dinner, and the following year designed, purchased, and dedicated the monument at the Naval Academy. Since then, the initiative has gathered significant momentum. In 1999, for example, Midway Night dinners were sponsored by Navy commands or private groups in Washington, Pearl Harbor, San Francisco, New York City, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Charleston, Kansas City, and Newport.

The next major undertaking for D’Angelo and the IMMF is to complete a documentary film on the battle, “Against All Odds.” The IMMF started work on the project five years ago and has filmed interviews with the battle’s participants in the United States and Japan. Fund-raising efforts are under way to raise the estimated $260,000 needed to complete the project. The film is intended to be the definitive documentary on the battle.

Throughout his seven-year involvement with commemorating the Battle of Midway, D’Angelo has had three primary motivations: to honor the now-elderly Midway veterans—“They deserve a thank-you from the American people, which they didn’t get at the time;” to ensure awareness of the battle among the public—“It was of such immense importance in winning the war;” and to help instill in his country’s culture the values and courage embodied by those who participated in the battle.