Dick Lugar: “At 10:25 a.m. on June 4, 1942, a Japanese armada including four carriers was steaming east towards Midway Island, 1150…”

“At 10:25 a.m. on June 4, 1942, a Japanese armada including four carriers was steaming east towards Midway Island, 1150 miles west of Pearl Harbor in the Central Pacific. Its objectives: Invade the strategically situated atoll, seize the U.S. base and airstrip, and, if possible, destroy what remained of our Pacific fleet after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the preceding December. At 10:30 a.m. three of the four Japanese carriers and their aircraft were a flaming shambles. Moments before, Japanese fighter cover had swatted down torpedo bomber squadrons from the U.S. carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown--the final, fatal mission for 35 of 41 American planes and 68 of 82 pilots and gunners. But their courageous attack had drawn the fighters down to deck level, leaving the skies nearly empty for the 37 U.S. dive bombers who then appeared and, in five fateful minutes, changed the course of history. By nightfall, the fourth Japanese carrier, too, was a blazing wreck, a fitting coda to a day that reversed forever the military fortunes of Imperial Japan. "So ended," wrote Churchill, "the battle of June 4, rightly regarded as the turning point of the war in the Pacific." With Sir Winston, of course, the question at times was whether the event could rise to the level of his prose. Midway measured up.…”