Post by The Herald Erjen on Jun 7, 2023 5:07:23 GMT
It's the 81-year anniversary of the Battle of Midway, and this came up on my YouTube so I decided to share it with anyone who might be interested.
There are a few battles in world history that fascinate me no end, and Midway is one of them. The thing that amazes me most is that Lt. Cmdr. Waldron knew.....and no one knows how he knew but somehow, he knew.....where the enemy was. Somehow, he knew that they had been given the wrong course to fly. I read somewhere that he was part Native American. Maybe that was a factor. I imagine myself in a plane several hundred feet above the Pacific, and all I can see is blue ocean in all directions that all looks alike. GPS? No, this is 1942. No such thing then. They had the compass and little else.
Somehow, he knew, and he led what amounted to a mutiny in the sky. Ordinarily that would be a court martial, but for reasons that should be obvious it never came to that. One flight at a time the other planes peeled off and followed Waldron. USS Hornet lost most of her planes in the battle without hitting a damn thing, but the planes from the other two American carriers more than made up for it, and it was the turning point in the Pacific part of the war. Waldron located the enemy ships first, which would not have happened if he hadn't known what he knew and done what he did.
There are a few battles in world history that fascinate me no end, and Midway is one of them. The thing that amazes me most is that Lt. Cmdr. Waldron knew.....and no one knows how he knew but somehow, he knew.....where the enemy was. Somehow, he knew that they had been given the wrong course to fly. I read somewhere that he was part Native American. Maybe that was a factor. I imagine myself in a plane several hundred feet above the Pacific, and all I can see is blue ocean in all directions that all looks alike. GPS? No, this is 1942. No such thing then. They had the compass and little else.
Somehow, he knew, and he led what amounted to a mutiny in the sky. Ordinarily that would be a court martial, but for reasons that should be obvious it never came to that. One flight at a time the other planes peeled off and followed Waldron. USS Hornet lost most of her planes in the battle without hitting a damn thing, but the planes from the other two American carriers more than made up for it, and it was the turning point in the Pacific part of the war. Waldron located the enemy ships first, which would not have happened if he hadn't known what he knew and done what he did.