I would give anything to see this film. It took my breath away to learn that it exists. It's the cinematic equivalent to having photos of the defenders of the Alama or the Spartans at Thermopalye.
That's not hyperbole -- in historical terms, the three carrier torpedo squadrons that flew to their deaths at Midway (especially Torpedo Eight off the Hornet) played as pivotal a role in history and made as great a sacrifice as Travis' Texicans or Leonidas' Spartans.
The US was in bad shape in the Pacific in June of 1942. The US Navy crippled at Pearl Harbor was not only outnumbered, it was outclassed -- the Japanese had much better planes and a core of much better trained fliers. We had a lot more potential power, but it was at least a year away.
The Japanese operation at Midway was designed to destroy the remainder of the US Pacific Fleet and to neutralize Pearl Harbor (Japanese bombers on Midway would have been in range of Pearl Harbor ... we would have had to abandon it as a Fleet base and pull back to the West Coast).
Their fleet at Midway outnumbered ours by 5 to 1 in tonnage, but by just 4 to 3 in the critical category of big carriers (the Japanese also had four smaller carriers, but they were dispersed and didn't play a role in the battle).
The Japanese launched a dawn strike on the airfield at Midway on the morning of June 6. Thanks to US codebreakers, we knew what was coming ... unfortunately, we didn't have the ships or planes needed to meet them on even terms.
John Ford was on Midway, shooting film of the attack. He actually shot the famous flag-raising sequence in the doctumentary The Battle of Midway himself. He had other film crews on the U.S. carriers and one of those shot the footage of Torpedo Eight.
What happened was that when the Japanese carrier force was sighted, Midway launched every plane they had in response and dropped a bunch of bombs, launched a bunch of torpedos and didn't score a single hit.
At the same time, the two American Admirals Spruance and Fletcher launched every plane they had at extreme range. Because our carrier doctrine was not very good at this stage of the war, we failed to coordinate our attacks. Each squadron from each carrier flew off separately at different speeds (depending on the type of aircraft) and different altitudes.
The slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers were supposed to have fighter protection, but the fighters, flying faster and at a higher altitude lost them.
What happened next is almost unbelievable. The fighters and the dive bomber squadrons from the three US carriers got lost and flew off in the wrong direction. By some instinct, Torpedo Eight Commander John Waldron flew his 15 planes directly to the Japanese Fleet.
They arrived at just the moment when the Japanese Admiral, Nagumo, learned of the presence of an American carrier force. He was just preparing to launch his strike -- a strike that almost certainly would have destroyed all three American carriers -- but he had to delay the attack to evade Waldron's 15 Devastators.
Evade them they did ... it was a slaughter. All 15 planes were shot down and 29 of the 30 men aboard the two-man planes were killed (one, pilot George Gay, was wounded and picked up out of the water several days later).
At almost the moment the last of the Torpedo Eight planes went down, the 14 Devastators of Torpedo Six from the Enterprise arrived -- and were also slaughtered (although five of the 16 planes survived) without scoring a hit. But before the Japanese could launch their strike, Torpedo Three from the Yorktown arrived and launched another futile attack -- 10 of 12 planes shot down without a hit.
At this moment, the Japanese were on the verge of victory -- not only at Midway but in the Pacific War. The first plane of Nagumo's strike force rolled off his flagship's deck when the dive bombers were spotted.
Three squadrons -- two from Enterprise and one from Yorktown (the two squadrons from Hornet never found the carriers) -- finally arrived over the Japanese carriers just as the last American torpedo planes went down. They found that all of the Japanese air patrol were at wavetop level, chasing the last Yorktown survivors.
The dive bombers had a clear sky and made their dives unimpeded. In five minutes, they wrecked three of the frontline Japanese carriers. Later in the day, they got the fourth (after its scratch attack had smashed the Yorktown). All those Japanese battleship and cruisers and transports had to turn around and sail home.
Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific and it turned because the men of those three torpedo squadrons were willing to sacrifice themselves in a hopeless attack. The slaughter of Torpedo Squadron Eight is a tragedy, but it's a triumph too. I hope you can understand the emotion that Torpedo Eight evokes in those of us with a military background.
To know that these men were captured on film in the hours before their decisive sacrifice ... I'm just overwhelmed.
That's not hyperbole -- in historical terms, the three carrier torpedo squadrons that flew to their deaths at Midway (especially Torpedo Eight off the Hornet) played as pivotal a role in history and made as great a sacrifice as Travis' Texicans or Leonidas' Spartans.
The US was in bad shape in the Pacific in June of 1942. The US Navy crippled at Pearl Harbor was not only outnumbered, it was outclassed -- the Japanese had much better planes and a core of much better trained fliers. We had a lot more potential power, but it was at least a year away.
The Japanese operation at Midway was designed to destroy the remainder of the US Pacific Fleet and to neutralize Pearl Harbor (Japanese bombers on Midway would have been in range of Pearl Harbor ... we would have had to abandon it as a Fleet base and pull back to the West Coast).
Their fleet at Midway outnumbered ours by 5 to 1 in tonnage, but by just 4 to 3 in the critical category of big carriers (the Japanese also had four smaller carriers, but they were dispersed and didn't play a role in the battle).
The Japanese launched a dawn strike on the airfield at Midway on the morning of June 6. Thanks to US codebreakers, we knew what was coming ... unfortunately, we didn't have the ships or planes needed to meet them on even terms.
John Ford was on Midway, shooting film of the attack. He actually shot the famous flag-raising sequence in the doctumentary The Battle of Midway himself. He had other film crews on the U.S. carriers and one of those shot the footage of Torpedo Eight.
What happened was that when the Japanese carrier force was sighted, Midway launched every plane they had in response and dropped a bunch of bombs, launched a bunch of torpedos and didn't score a single hit.
At the same time, the two American Admirals Spruance and Fletcher launched every plane they had at extreme range. Because our carrier doctrine was not very good at this stage of the war, we failed to coordinate our attacks. Each squadron from each carrier flew off separately at different speeds (depending on the type of aircraft) and different altitudes.
The slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers were supposed to have fighter protection, but the fighters, flying faster and at a higher altitude lost them.
What happened next is almost unbelievable. The fighters and the dive bomber squadrons from the three US carriers got lost and flew off in the wrong direction. By some instinct, Torpedo Eight Commander John Waldron flew his 15 planes directly to the Japanese Fleet.
They arrived at just the moment when the Japanese Admiral, Nagumo, learned of the presence of an American carrier force. He was just preparing to launch his strike -- a strike that almost certainly would have destroyed all three American carriers -- but he had to delay the attack to evade Waldron's 15 Devastators.
Evade them they did ... it was a slaughter. All 15 planes were shot down and 29 of the 30 men aboard the two-man planes were killed (one, pilot George Gay, was wounded and picked up out of the water several days later).
At almost the moment the last of the Torpedo Eight planes went down, the 14 Devastators of Torpedo Six from the Enterprise arrived -- and were also slaughtered (although five of the 16 planes survived) without scoring a hit. But before the Japanese could launch their strike, Torpedo Three from the Yorktown arrived and launched another futile attack -- 10 of 12 planes shot down without a hit.
At this moment, the Japanese were on the verge of victory -- not only at Midway but in the Pacific War. The first plane of Nagumo's strike force rolled off his flagship's deck when the dive bombers were spotted.
Three squadrons -- two from Enterprise and one from Yorktown (the two squadrons from Hornet never found the carriers) -- finally arrived over the Japanese carriers just as the last American torpedo planes went down. They found that all of the Japanese air patrol were at wavetop level, chasing the last Yorktown survivors.
The dive bombers had a clear sky and made their dives unimpeded. In five minutes, they wrecked three of the frontline Japanese carriers. Later in the day, they got the fourth (after its scratch attack had smashed the Yorktown). All those Japanese battleship and cruisers and transports had to turn around and sail home.
Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific and it turned because the men of those three torpedo squadrons were willing to sacrifice themselves in a hopeless attack. The slaughter of Torpedo Squadron Eight is a tragedy, but it's a triumph too. I hope you can understand the emotion that Torpedo Eight evokes in those of us with a military background.
To know that these men were captured on film in the hours before their decisive sacrifice ... I'm just overwhelmed.