National Geographic: The Battle for Midway (1998)

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National Geographic: The Battle for Midway (1998)

Post by bunniefuu »

A lonely outpost of coral and sand.

A thousand miles from anywhere.

Yet here,

on a blue morning in June, 1942,

America and Japan fought for control

of the Pacific

and changed the history of the world.

It was one of

the greatest Naval battles of all time,

a turning point in

the Second World w*r in the Pacific

Midway.

Here in a few bloody hours,

thousands of young men

sacrificed their lives.

Now to the shadowy waters off Midway

comes Robert Ballard,

the man who discovered the Titanic.

Ballard's quest is

to find the American

and Japanese aircraft carriers

that were sunk in the battle,

including the U.S.S. Yorktown.

But the ships are lost more

than three miles down

unseen, untouched on the ocean floor

the final resting place

of many young men.

A story of martyrs and heroes,

admirals and airmen...

of secret codes and lucky hunches

of lost chances and

the painful cost of victory

all in one monumental day.

Tragedy and Triumph.

The battle for Midway.

Midway.

It is hard to ignore the archeology

of w*r in this place.

Nearly a lifetime after the clash

at Midway,

four former soldiers walk

the island's white coral sands.

Two Americans, Bill Surgi

and Harry Ferrier,

and two Japanese, Haruo Yoshino

and Yuji Akamatsu

all veterans of the battle.

The last time the veterans were here,

they came as enemies.

Now, as respectful comrades, they will

explore the meaning of their ordeal.

I met the two Japanese gentlemen,

aviators, and, so I've made my peace.

And I have no animosity toward them.

They were warriors, like we were,

just doing their job.

Welcome aboard.

All in their 70s now,

the survivors have traveled thousands

of miles

to join undersea explorer

Robert Ballard

in the search for the five aircraft

carriers lost at Midway.

Ballard's quest,

sponsored by National Geographic,

is to find Bill Surgi's ship,

the Yorktown,

and Yuji and Haruo's carrier, the Kaga

It will be the voyage of a lifetime

for the vets.

May, 1942.

The United States and Japan are at w*r

It is five months

since the devastating sneak att*ck

on the Pacific fleet

at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Now Japan is poised for total

domination of East Asia and the Pacific.

Pearl Harbor.

In a dingy basement

beneath command headquarters,

Navy code breakers have pulled off

the greatest intelligence coup

of the Pacific w*r.

Out of coded enemy radio transmissions

they have teased out the secret plans

for the next major Japanese att*ck.

A huge Japanese task force

is preparing

to strike a crippling blow against

the already weakened U.S. Navy.

It will happen at Midway, as early as

June 3rd-less than a month away.

Yet now the U.S. knows what's coming.

And the Americans will lie in wait,

hoping to ambush the Japanese fleet.

Day one of the Ballard expedition.

To begin their exploration of the past

the veterans travel with

Ballard 180 miles from Midway

to the place where

Ballard thinks the Yorktown went down.

There is no X to mark this spot,

just blue water and

the occasional gooney bird.

But below the waves, Ballard believes

he will discover history.

For here, young men came to fight

and to die.

I mean, to be at the very spot,

you know,

this is where the battle took place.

This is like going to Gettysburg,

this is like going to Bull Run,

this is like going to Normandy.

This is where a great chapter

in human history,

tragic in many ways,

was played out on the stage,

and we're on the stage right now.

While Ballard studies the terrain,

the veterans explore their own

landscape of memory and loss.

This is what I looked like back then.

This was taken before

the Pearl Harbor att*ck.

I think this is what saved my life.

This is the hat I was wearing

at the time.

Very brave, very brave.

A little older, a little wiser.

Pearl Harbor, 1942.

Yorktown sailor Bill Surgi hears they

are headed for a place called Midway.

The word Midway was a mystique,

mystery,

an awesome word to banter about.

We were not fully aware of

what actually was going on there.

So all we knew was that

we needed help at Midway.

Yorktown will rendezvous

with her sister ships,

Hornet and Enterprise,

at a point approximately 325 miles

northeast of Midway.

Their mission: to ambush the Japanese.

At the same time,

four Japanese carriers,

Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu,

under the command

of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo,

are steaming for Midway.

These are the same machines

and men who bombed Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese know nothing of

the American trap awaiting them.

Many of the American airmen

and sailors headed toward Midway

have never faced enemy fire

including Yorktown radioman

and gunner Lloyd Childers.

Childers was attached

to a torpedo bomber squadron.

He can't forget an intelligence

briefing he attended with other crews.

They said, if a 15-plane squadron

of TBD's makes torpedo runs...

...against a determined Japanese fleet

if three of you get through

to deliver torpedoes,

you will have considered that

you have accomplished your mission.

I immediately became alarmed,

because the odds were not good.

Lloyd Childers will soon find out just

how bad the odds really are.

It's the seventh day of the expedition

Time to part the waves and

take the first glimpse of the bottom

three miles down.

Ballard's eyes will be the U.S. Navy's

remotely operated robot explorer

called ATV

equipped with lights and video cameras

Will Ballard finally, after years

of planning and enormous effort,

be able to find the downed Yorktown?

For the veterans,

the ATV is a time machine

carrying them back to a distant world

of fury and fire.

All stations, deploying the vehicle

into the water now.

I remember walking up and down those

decks and 56 years after the fact,

I'm gonna look at those decks again.

And it'll bring back memories.

The ATV has now traveled over two miles

and almost five decades.

The ocean bottom is getting close.

Twelve thousand feet

The depth Ballard found Titanic.

All stations...

past the one-five-thousand feet.

Passing one-five thousand feet, aye.

Approaching 16,000, the depth Ballard

found the battleship Bismarck.

Nearing the sea floor, deeper than

Ballard has ever gone before.

Under the relentless pressure

of the ocean depths,

key equipment on the ATV has imploded.

It has collapsed into itself,

reducing metal and glass to rubble.

The ATV is crippled.

Just how badly no one yet knows.

It's a disaster that may mean the end

of the expedition.

June 3, 1942

The white sands of Midway

are now heavily defended

by hundreds of

young American servicemen

and dozens of bombers,

fighters, torpedo planes.

The battle is less than 24 hours away.

Among those waiting is a small

six-plane torpedo bomber squadron.

Both the planes and their young crews

are untested in combat,

but the young pilots are eager

to face the Japanese.

Seventeen-year-old Harry Ferrier

served as a radioman and gunner.

You don't think about the fact

that people do get k*lled, you know,

as a teenager, which I really was.

You think you're immortal.

And we had what we thought were

the best airplanes

that the Navy had come up with

and we would really give

the Japanese the hell,

I guess you'd say, and come back.

And it didn't work that way.

Dawn, June 4th nearly six months

to the day since Pearl Harbor.

Two hundred-forty miles from Midway,

Admiral Chuichi Nagumo readies

his att*ck.

He is supremely confident

of the final outcome

and utterly unaware of the American

aircraft carriers slowly closing in.

My spirits were, well, up to then,

we had won ever battle we fought,

so we thought we would win again.

Now is the moment of att*ck.

Six a.m.

With Japanese aircraft bearing down,

the American planes on Midway scramble

into the air.

With them is the torpedo bomber

carrying Harry Ferrier,

Bert Earnest and the third member

of their crew,

Jay Manning, the turret gunner.

They're going after

the Japanese carriers.

Earnest, Ferrier and

Manning clear the island just minutes

before enemy planes hit Midway.

The Americans fight back

with everything they've got.

Less than half an hour later,

the first Japanese strike is over.

But if the enemy aircraft carriers

are not stopped soon, Midway may fall.

Six-fifty a.m. June 4, 1942.

A hundred-and-sixty miles

from a battle-torn Midway,

the torpedo bomber carrying Ferrier,

Earnest and Manning head straight

at the Japanese fleet.

As they near the carriers,

the Japanese fighter att*ck

becomes more intense.

And tragically effective.

But very shortly,

Manning had stopped f*ring,

and so I looked back over my shoulder

to see what was going on,

and he was just hanging down

in his harness in the turret

and obviously had been k*lled.

And then, really, the next thing

I remember was waking up

with my head hanging down

and blood pouring off my head.

Their plane is sh*t up.

Their controls and compass out

of commission.

Their comrade Jay Manning is dead.

But Ferrier and Earnest

are still alive

and now they have

to find their way home.

I decided to climb up above the clouds

and see if I could see anything,

and I did.

And when I got up there,

I saw a great big plume of

smoke over to the east.

...and realized that probably

was Midway, which had been att*cked.

They manage to land safely in a

plane that is literally sh*t to pieces.

After getting patched up at

a field hospital,

Harry Ferrier waits for the return of

the other five planes in his squadron.

He waits in vain.

But it was afternoon,

you know, early afternoon,

and it became obvious that our airplane

was the only one that had come back,

that the other five did not,

and we eventually just had to accept

the fact that they

all five were sh*t down.

It is day eight of the expedition.

Ballard's robot explorer, the ATV,

is still crippled.

And the Navy doesn't know if they can

get it up and fully running again.

They need more time,

the one thing Ballard can't spare.

Fortunately, the sonar

is still going strong.

Instead of just waiting,

Ballard leaves

the phantom Yorktown behind

to look for Japanese carriers

at a site 170 miles away.

The Japanese veterans

have not seen these waters in 56 years

not since the death of their ship,

the Kaga.

Yet here, time is erased.

My heart is racing in anticipation

of seeing the ship.

I keep remembering the image

of the sinking carrier.

I hope it is found soon.

After all the frustration and delay,

the ATV makes it to the bottom

of the sea.

But all too soon,

Ballard realizes the bottom is barren

no carrier, no planes

just rocks and mud.

No excuses.

I just didn't find it. Period.

Round one.

To Kaga.

I'll get to Yorktown.

I really want the Yorktown.

That's where I'm headed.

But one unspoken question

is inescapable.

If the sonar was wrong

about finding the Kaga,

is it also wrong about the location

of the Yorktown?

Seven a.m. The waters off Midway.

Japanese commander, Admiral Nagumo,

is still completely in the dark

about the trap awaiting him.

Eight-twenty a.m.

Admiral Nagumo receives

truly startling news.

His scout planes sight the one thing

they never expected to see

an American carrier.

Nagumo is shocked to discover

he has a real fight on his hands.

Now he must decide on his next step.

Should he launch a

limited strike immediately?

Or regroup, refuel,

and rearm all of his forces

and then obliterate what he believes

to be the one American carrier?

He decides to wait.

It is a decision that will change

the course of the entire w*r.

While Nagumo waits,

the American pilots wing their way

towards his carriers.

Yet very quickly,

many of the American squadrons get

separated from each other.

Most of the torpedo bombers find

themselves on their own

without fighter protection from

the fast, lethal Japanese Zeros.

One after another,

the young torpedo bomber crews att*ck

just as they have been taught stead on

low, straight at the target

directly into murderous enemy fire.

And one after another,

they are blown out of the sky.

The Enterprise torpedo squadron

The Yorktown's 21 out of 24.

And of the 30 from Hornet's torpedo

squad, only one man makes it back.

Yet not a single torpedo makes a

single successful strike

against any of the Japanese carriers.

Despite all the sacrifice,

the Americans are losing the battle.

America is facing defeat at Midway.

And the enemy commander,

Admiral Nagumo,

is set to launch a massive att*ck

against the American carriers.

Nagumo's crews work feverishly

to get nearly a hundred warplanes

into the air.

Abandoning all caution,

they leave expl*sives and

gasoline strewn everywhere.

The decks are a disaster waiting

to happen.

Less than a hundred miles away,

is the last American hope,

the dive bombers.

But none of them can find the enemy.

The Japanese have taken

a 90 degree turn northward

to engage the U.S. ships.

Then Enterprise's dive bombing

squadron plays a hunch

and changes course.

And in their sights appear

the four Japanese carriers

Kaga, Akagi, Soryu and Hiryu.

And there is not a Japanese fighter

anywhere to be seen.

The enemy fighters are still

too busy defending their carriers

against the last of

the American torpedo planes

to stop the dive bombers high above.

It's a sight Lt.

d*ck Best has been longing for.

I was amazed to see that a,

the deck was a bright yellow,

because our decks had been stained

a north Pacific blue ever since

the start of the w*r.

And in addition to the deck being

a bright yellow,

the big rising sun up forward

of the elevator,

it was glowing red,

like a tremendous advertisement.

Here we are, we are the Japanese Navy.

He dives toward the rising sun.

And releases his b*mb

as does the rest of his group

onto Japanese decks now crowded

with torpedoes,

bombs, gasoline, planes-and men.

She was a mass of flames

from bow to stern,

with tremendous eruptions coming up

every four to five seconds

as a b*mb must've hit.

Japanese survivors float hour after

hour in the water,

in silence with the dead and dying

as Kaga burns.

Most are rescued by

other Japanese ships

but not all.

We were fortunate to have been rescued

so quickly.

But there were still men left swimming

and they committed su1c1de.

In five short minutes Kaga, Akagi,

and Soryu have been devastated

scores of planes destroyed,

many hundreds of young men k*lled.

Many of the Japanese airmen are caught

in the sky above their burning ships

with nowhere to land.

In just five minutes, the cream

of the Japanese Navy is finished.

But the battle is far from over.

At first, I would like to read

a letter to my friends here.

Ballard's search for

the Japanese carriers has failed.

And the two Japanese veterans

will soon leave the Laney Chouest.

But the voyage to Midway allows Haruo

and Yuji the opportunity

to bid their fallen comrades one

last farewell

and to remember all the young men

who d*ed in battle.

We believe that the innumerable spirits

who sacrificed their lives for their

country should be forever honored

for their distinguished service.

We are honored to have fought

alongside you in battle.

Veterans from both countries have

overcome past animosities

and have pledged a renewed peace.

Spirits, please rest in peace.

Yes, I was thinking, as Haruo and Yuji

were paying homage to their shipmates,

that I, too, lost 45 shipmates

at this very spot.

As all the planes in my squadron,

except the one I was in,

were actually sh*t down here among

the Japanese battle force,

so this was a very solemn moment

for me as well as for them.

Eleven a.m. on June 4th.

Admiral Nagumo regroups his

surviving planes on the deck of Hiryu

the only carrier

to escape American bombs.

There is still a chance

to emerge victorious.

The Japanese pilots take off,

heading for

the closest American carrier

Yorktown.

The enemy dive bombers score three hits

k*lling more than a dozen men.

But, unlike the Japanese carriers,

there are no bombs,

torpedoes or fuel on deck,

waiting to explode.

For all the smoke and fire,

Yorktown is still afloat.

Two hours later, as the Yorktown

continues to patch herself up,

a second wave of enemy planes target

the carrier.

Yorktown's fighter pilots scramble

eager to engage the enemy.

Down goes one Japanese torpedo bomber

after another.

But still the enemy comes.

I look out there and

here's this torpedo coming,

and it looks like a brand new nickel

just come shining through the water,

right beneath us. And I said,

Oh, my God, this is it.

And it goes off.

One American carrier is down.

The Japanese carrier Hiryu must

be stopped-fast.

When they find it, Lt. d*ck Best

is right there, once again.

And I did look back when I was

far enough out to the west to turn,

and she was aflame,

and burning just the way the ones

in the morning had been.

I felt myself to be the Lord

of creation at the time,

the sense of accomplishment,

and fulfillment of revenge

is so sweet that

I don't think I ever felt anything

as intensely again in all my life.

Caught in the inferno on the Hiryu

is Taisuke Maruyama,

one of the torpedo pilots

who had just crippled the Yorktown.

The maintenance crews and emergency

crews who had tried

to extinguish the fire were injured

by the expl*si*n,

and many lost their legs and hands.

The m*llitary doctor was operating

on them on the deck, soaked in blood.

The troops were burnt black,

dead bodies strewn across the deck.

Hiryu, Soryu, Akagi, Kaga.

By the end of the day, all four

Japanese carriers have been destroyed.

Hundreds of young men dead, maimed,

b*rned, or left to drown.

Twenty-four hours later,

the injured Yorktown is still afloat

and headed home

escorted by the destroyer Hammann.

What nobody sees is the enemy

submarine below the surface

with two sitting ducks in her sights.

Japanese torpedoes split the Hammann

in two, taking 81 men to the bottom.

And mortally wound Yorktown.

For nearly a day, the carrier lingers

on the surface, refusing to die.

Yorktown Radioman Lloyd Childers

is in sick bay, on a nearby ship,

with serious wounds to both legs.

He watches his carrier go down.

This huge ship slowly sank below the

water, the waves,

until it disappeared and we watched it

until it was completely gone.

It's very brutal business.

My other thoughts were that

it's a terrible thing

that so called civilized nations could

do things like that to each other,

convincing me that we're not really

civilized yet.

It is Day 19 of the expedition.

It has been hours since Robert Ballard

sent a robot vehicle down

nearly 17,000 feet

to find the USS Yorktown.

And half a century since Bill Surgi

has seen his carrier.

Ballard has only a left

to find the Yorktown.

After six long hours, the ATV finally

reaches bottom, over three miles deep.

All they see are rocks

that have probably rested here

undisturbed for a thousand years.

I wanna keep looking to the left.

Yet within a few moments of

touching down, they see something

something that shouldn't be there.

A smooth patch of ground clear of rock

as though something had swept across

the bottom.

Something unnatural,

something man-made.

They follow the trail.

Bingo, bingo, bingo.

Suddenly a glint

a shiny metallic glint catches

the video eye.

Dead ahead, range 150 feet.

Keep it nice and high.

I want him to look down and away.

And now the sonar on the ATV itself

is announcing something big

and oddly beautiful dead ahead.

There it is.

Stop, stop, stop, stop. Contact.

It's definitely Yorktown.

There's no question about that.

The Yorktown at last

exactly where Ballard thought it

would be.

Hold that, hold that still.

Try to hold that.

I'm lookin' up my ready room right now

this under the bridge on the island,

on the flight deck.

Too much, too much,

all the people that did their jobs.

I can see them doin' them now.

Keep coming up.

Oh, Yorktown, you're beautiful.

Okay, now I want to pivot to the right

to zero-nine-zero.

The Yorktown-1,100 miles from Hawaii,

over 3 miles below the surface.

Her 19,000 tons sunk halfway

into the mud; her bow crushed.

Yet Yorktown is still intact.

The bridge.

The flight deck.

The pilot house.

She is nearly untouched by time,

her g*ns still pointing skyward,

to fend off the final att*ck.

I walked across the deck

and I still got it.

Thanks again for finding it.

My pleasure.

And on behalf of the crew,

I'm glad to be here.

Me too.

That's the boat.

I got to see my ready room.

Maybe next time I'll get to see

where I got all this banging at.

Well, we'll be back.

That's right. It ain't gettin' away now

Thank you.

How does it feel, Bill?

I'm here, they're not.

So I'm representing the crew

and I did my job.

June 4th, 1942.

America has won the battle for Midway

and stopped Japan cold.

The Japanese Navy would never recover

from its losses.

For the Japanese pilots, the defeat

at Midway and the death

of their comrades is

just the first agony.

They will return home to find

themselves kept in isolation,

in silence.

They treated us like prisoners of w*r.

We were shut away from outside contact

since they were afraid

we might leak information.

You see the veterans who've come back,

whether they're Japanese and Americans

And we brought them here to this spot,

and it spoke to them.

Every one of them cried.

They didn't laugh.

They didn't celebrate. They all cried.

They're hurting.

And this is a half a century later.

So it's their story and what

they're telling us is, don't do this.

This is not fun. It's not wonderful.

Comrades in arms who sleep in darkness

at the bottom of the ocean

for 50 years after the end of the w*r,

thank you for your sacrifice.

I've brought a tribute, flowers

from Japan, chrysanthemums,

which I've placed on your grave.

My heart is full!

Thank you.

It's difficult,

you think how many people gave up

their lives that day

and they call George Gay and they call

eventually Bert and I,

you know, you're heroes,

but you know, I've said

and I'll always go to my grave

believing that the real heroes d*ed

that day.

They earned a victory.
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