- Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome
to the United States Navy Memorial at Naval Heritage Center.
Today we commemorate the 77th anniversary
of the Battle of Midway.
Guests may remain seated for the march on
of the 56th state and territorial flags
and honors corner for our official party.
(trumpets sounding)
(officer shouting orders)
(trumpets sounding)
(cheerful marching band music)
- Sir, the honor guard is formed.
- [Man] Very well, post.
Staff, address center, address.
Ready, front.
- [Announcer] Guests, please rise for the arrival
of the official party, the presentation of colors,
our National Anthem and the wreath presentation.
(officer shouting orders)
(cheerful marching band music)
(officer shouting orders)
Advance the colors.
(patriotic marching band music)
(officer shouting orders)
(marching band playing the National Anthem)
(officer shouting orders)
Ladies and gentlemen, in commemoration of
the Battle of Midway, Admiral John Richardson,
chief of Naval operations, will now place a wreath
on the Navy memorial to mark the anniversary
of this great American Naval victory.
Our wreath ceremony here in Washington D.C. serves
as the standard for many similar ceremonies
throughout our Navy.
Let it be known that as Admiral Richardson
places this wreath, others are being presented
around the world to honor the Americans who fought
at the Battle of Midway.
We pause to remember and honor the spirit of Midway
in our Navy, Marine Corps, and in our nation.
We pause to honor all those who have served
and who now serve with honor, courage and commitment.
(officer shouting orders)
(quiet drum roll)
(trumpet music playing Taps)
(officer shouting orders)
Retire the colors.
(patriotic marching band music)
- Sir, this concludes the rendering of honors.
- [Man] Very well, carry on.
(officer shouting orders)
(rhythmic marching music)
- [Man] Wow, my throat hurts.
- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
Captain Judy Milana, Chaplain Corp, United States Navy
will now offer the invocation.
- Let us pray.
All mighty God, you are the creator and sustainer
of all life and your teachings tell us
that those who go down to the sea in ships,
those who do business on great waters,
they have seen the works of the Lord
and his wonders in the deep.
For at your hand, mighty waves rise to a crescendo
and calm again to a whisper.
Because of your mighty power and endless love towards us,
we humbly invoke your presence among us
this morning here at the Navy memorial.
You guys, we stand together in a sea of white uniforms
to honor our battle at Midway Veterans who are here
and the hundreds of other heroes of that great battle.
Dear Lord, bless these brave souls and their families
who truly make up our greatest generation.
May we be centered in solemn gratitude this morning
and one mind and one accord as we reflect
on their sacrifices and on those hundreds
of courageous patriots who ultimately gave
their last full measure of devotion in combat at sea.
We remember the fateful events that took place
77 years ago in waters so far from American shores
in perhaps, the darkest hours of our nation.
Our sailors, Marines, airmen and coastguardsmen
stood firm, facing an enemy that was widely thought
to be invincible on the ocean.
They were outnumbered, yet their steadfast courage
made all the difference.
So Lord, let us be mindful of the important lessons
that history teaches us, that their diligent preparation,
decisive action, power of intelligence,
trust in leadership, calculated risk taking
and God's good favor navigated our Navy and our nation
to a victory that changed the course of the Pacific War
and led America's triumph as a world power.
We are grateful that we can stand here today
as free citizens in a free nation,
recipients of the gift of liberty that was handed down to us
by those who have defended our nation.
So may our hearts be stirred this morning
knowing that their duty or their debts were not in vain,
for their deeds are a testimony
of the indomitable American spirit forged at sea
with the strength and will to fight
and the determination to win in every warrior.
May our souls be inspired by their legacy
as we realize our own capacity for victory and greatness
for that same war fighting spirit and toughness of character
resides in each and every one of us.
So on this Battle of Midway commemoration day,
may we rededicate ourselves to the purpose for which
we are called and recommit ourself
to serve a cause greater than ourselves.
We ask these things in the name that is above every name,
the name of the one who conquered death and the grave,
our rock of ages, our light in the darkness,
for you are the one, oh Lord, that calms the sea
and gives breath to every wind of Heaven.
Amen.
- [Announcer] Please be seated.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my honor
to introduce Admiral John Richardson,
Chief of Naval Operations.
(scattered audience applause)
- Thank you very much.
I want to thank everybody who's taken a little bit of time
out of their day to just pause with us here
as we celebrate this great battle.
We memorialize it.
We remember it.
And I mean first, what an amazing day
to be here and to have this opportunity
here at the Navy Memorial to celebrate
and remember the great deeds that went on so long ago
at the Battle of Midway and this is
a very poignant time of the year, right?
If you think about, well just a month ago,
preceding the Battle of Midway,
there was a Battle at Coral Sea.
We just celebrated Memorial Day.
Now we celebrate the Battle of Midway
and soon we'll be celebrating the 75th anniversary
of the Battle at D-Day.
Such impactful moments in our history
where our nation's future literally was held in the balance.
So welcome to everybody.
And to Secretary Vaudly,
thank you for coming out and joining us today,
but let's particularly welcome warmly and loudly
and pay our respects to the veterans who were there
on that fateful day, fighting in the Battle of Midway.
Let's pay our respects to our Midway veterans.
(audience applauding)
I'll tell you what, to this day,
you can talk about Midway forever.
You can fill rooms with the volumes of books
that have been written by Midway
and you'll never be short of inspiration,
but I don't thing that there's anything more inspiring
than to see the fight that's still in our veterans today,
right, the fight to just tell their story
and the humility with which they approach days like today.
You know, you'll talk to them and they're like,
I don't know, what's the big deal?
I was just sort of there and I did my job.
Let me just tell you, you did so much more than your job.
You preserved a nation in a battle that has been called
the most stunning and decisive blow
in the history of Naval warfare
and that designation, that description
was given by the British historian, John Keegan,
and if you got any British historian
that's gonna put a Naval battle in front of Trafalgar,
that is saying something.
This has got to be an amazing battle.
But what I'd like to do, rather than sort of
go through the intricacies of the battle,
I'd like to really focus on the true power
that won that great contest 77 years ago,
which was of course, the people,
the people represented here by our Midway veterans.
And of course you can read about the brilliance
of the senior leadership there, right?
We all know about the genius of Admiral Nimitz
and the same with Admiral Spruets and the bond of trust
that existed between the two of them
and the poignancy and precision of their language,
after the Battle of Midway, after winning
this great decisive victory,
Admiral Nimitz actually wrote a FITREP about Admiral Spruets
and there's this epic FITREP bullet
that we should all strive to get.
His action at the Battle of Midway
leaves no doubt as to his character and his ability, right?
How beautifully understated.
When you read our FITREPs today
and you compare it to this statement
at the Battle at Midway,
it's kind of a calibration check I think
for all of us to just sort of center ourselves again.
And we would not have won without the great heroes
like Nimitz and Spruents, but we also would not have won
without the individual contributions
of just about every sailor who was in that battle
serving on any ship, any aircraft, any submarine in any way,
whether at sea or on the Island of Midway itself.
There are examples throughout this battle
of people, sailors, Marines, serving with initiative
and toughness and the foundational element of this battle,
I think, can be found to be the bonds of trust
and confidence that existed between
everybody who fought there.
I'll just use a few examples to illustrate what I mean.
First we'll talk about Lieutenant Joe Roeshfer.
He was the officer in charge
of the Naval communications station in Pearl Harbor.
He was the guy, he and his team,
who had cracked the Japanese code, right?
But I'll tell ya, that's not the end of the story.
Right, because they've got all of these designations
in the code and Lieutenant Roeshfer had this hunch
that the Japanese were planning to converge
around the island of Midway,
but he had to test this hunch, right?
So he conceived of a very clever plan
to insert some false information into the system,
watch the Japanese Navy react to that,
track their reaction and confirm indeed,
that it was the Island of Midway
to which the Japanese were sailing
and he compelled, through this analysis,
he compelled Admiral Nimitz to send the fleet to Midway
in Oakland 2942, directed Enterprise and Hornet
to make best speed there and then of course,
the aircraft carrier, Yorktown, followed
as soon as repairs were complete
in the Pearl Harbor Naval shipyard.
And the intent of Admiral Nimitz,
his commander's guidance in this operational plan
was impeccably clear,
again with that precision and conciseness.
Imagine if you will, getting this order to carry out,
inflict maximum damage on the enemy
by employing strong attrition tactics.
Be governed by a principle of calculated risk.
That's it, right?
Go engage the enemy and calculate the risk.
There's a tremendous amount of trust and confidence
encapsulated in that terrific order.
So there's Lieutenant Roeshfer's contribution,
leading to the fleet's commitment at Midway.
Second example, Lieutenant Commander William Brockman,
commanding U.S.S. Nautilus.
Now I've been accused of over inflating the role
of the submarine force in the Battle of Midway.
Device chief's nodding up and down right now.
I don't mean to do that, but it is a great illustration
of just tenacity, right?
Not knowing where this engagement may go,
but just doing what you can, exercising you initiative
to its fullest extent and engaging the enemy.
And Nautilus was one of only three submarines
in the theater to make contact with the Japanese
during the battle, but the actions of her crew
undoubtedly ended up playing a pretty critical role,
in a way that Commander Brockman never could have foreseen.
And so on the 4th of June, Nautilus had been attracted to
the Japanese strike group by smoke,
smoke that had arisen from the attack
on the strike group from the planes
that had taken off from Midway, the Avenger torpedo bombers,
all launched from Midway Island itself.
And the submarine tried repeatedly
to attack the Japanese force,
but they had terrible luck, okay?
They were initially strayed by a Japanese fighter.
They were bombed by a Japanese float plane.
They were death charged by a Japanese light cruiser
and then once the death charging stopped,
Lieutenant Commander Brockman took the ship
to periscope depth, fired on Kirishima
with two torpedoes, one of which jammed in the tube
and the other one missed and all of that tenacity
was rewarded with more depth charging, right?
42 depth charges, two of which actually bounced off
the Nautilus' bow without detonating.
Now what does all that mean?
What did it amount to?
Well, I'll tell you what it amounted to.
One destroyer out of the Japanese strike group
was tasked to stay behind
and continue to engage Nautilus, all right?
And they went at it and eventually,
it didn't really amount to anything,
no damage to the destroyer, no damage to the submarine,
but when they decided to call it quits,
the destroyer had to catch up with
the rest of the strike group
and so she basically pointed the strike group,
made maximum speed, all ahead flank to catch up
and be involved in the engagement, okay?
So now, fast forward to my third example,
here's Lieutenant Commander Wade McClousky,
Enterprise's air group commander,
and on that 4th of June, at 7:00,
Admiral Spruents launched the air groups
from Hornet and Enterprise to attack the Japanese carriers.
The issue was, the big challenge in those days was
finding the enemy to engage.
Hornet's air group flew north of the formation
and never really sighted the carriers.
Lieutenant Commander McClousky's group from Enterprise
nearly met the same fate in the 33 plane dive bomber
at strike had initially overshot the Japanese forces
and they were running out of gas, all right?
They were getting really low on fuel
and Commander McClousky at that point had two options,
he could turn back to Enterprise and try again
or he could take the shorter and actually,
what he thought was the safer route,
to land on the Island of Midway
and just at a stroke of luck, at 9:55 in the morning,
he looks down and what does he see?
He sees this Japanese destroyer that is
now sprinting at a head flank to catch up
with the rest of the strike group
and he takes a hunch, he takes a bet and he goes,
sets his course for the course of the destroyer,
follows that course and intercepts
the Japanese strike group, all right?
And then almost the exact same time,
the Yorktown's more experienced dive bombers squadron
attacked the Japanese carriers at the same time.
Now this is where, if there is any doubt
in anybody's mind, Naval aviation distinguished itself
in a way that put them on the map
as the premier striking power of the Navy,
a role that they play today.
70 U.S. carrier based aircraft were lost that morning
in the ultimate sacrifice to take the fight to the enemy.
37 of 41 torpedo dive bombers, torpedo bombers,
21 dive bombers and 12 fighters.
40% of the planes that were involved in the attack
were lost beneath the waves,
but I'll tell you what, within the span of five minutes,
three Japanese carriers were reduced
to flaming infernos and at that moment,
the course of the war in the Pacific
was changed forever and the 4th carrier in the strike group
would be engaged later today,
making it a clean sweep, four for four.
Now, it might be tempting to attribute success at Midway,
at the end of the day, to a stroke of luck,
a series of lucky events that when strung together
add up to something little less than a miracle,
but I'll tell you what, this is luck that we made.
This is luck that was formed by the tenacity
and the fighting spirit and just the fortitude
of everybody involved.
If hadn't been for Roeshfer convincing Nimitz
that it was gonna be at Midway,
we wouldn't have been there.
If it hadn't been for Nautilus,
that destroyer would never have had to sprint and catch up.
If it hadn't been for McClousky hanging in there,
he would never have seen the strike group
and engaged the enemy.
These are the things that tenacity leads to, right?
You combine this, you make your own luck
when you do things like that.
We won because of our team.
We won because of the tenacity and fortitude
and initiative of our people.
And at the end of the day, at the end of the war,
years later, the famous war correspondent,
Ernie Pile, who was lost in the Battle of Iwo Jima
after covering two wars, World War I and World War II,
he also centered up on this idea
of the importance of people.
He said, we won this war because our men are brave
and because of many things, because of China,
because of Russia, England and the passage of time
and the gift of nature's material.
We did not win it because destiny created us
better than all other peoples
and I hope that in victory we are more grateful
than we are proud.
And perhaps the final and most gratifying,
the greatest outcome of this battle and the war
and the way we proceeded after that,
is the peace that followed this war,
the reconciliation that makes a strong alliance,
the lasting partnership and friendship
between the United States and Japan
that exists and is so important to peace and stability
and prosperity in the Pacific to this day.
Now, we're here to honor those who fought
in the Battle of Midway and by extension, the entire war.
How can we honor them?
How to best honor these veterans
and their comrades, their shipmates?
I would propose three ways that we can get after this.
First, we can celebrate the history and heritage
in our Navy and as you heard, today, across the fleet,
ships are celebrating the Battle of Midway.
Every sailor takes a moment to pause
and think about what happened on this glorious day.
And to mark that, today across the Navy at morning colors,
ships are hoisting the traditional Union Jack,
a version of this jack that flew upwards
throughout the Pacific as the Navy island hopped
its way across that vast ocean
and in the Atlantic as it supported operations
to liberate the European continent.
It's deeply connected to our maritime heritage
and our rise as a global nation
and our continued role as a global superpower.
So we can remember.
Second, we can rededicate ourselves
to those core attributes that were so decisive
on that day at the Battle of Midway
and in so many other battles.
We can't ever predict what our efforts may lead to,
but as you've seen and as so many other examples bear out,
these things add up, these small contributions add up
in ways that we can never understand
and they add up to victory and so we have
got to rededicate ourselves to those attributes
of initiative and accountability and integrity
and toughness that have characterized
our Navy, our sailors for 243 years.
The third way we can do this is by rededicating,
recommitting to each other and to our country
at every opportunity.
Let's not pass up an opportunity to tell our story.
Let's not pass up an opportunity to talk about
those principles that unite us as a people
in the United States, the principles of life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
the opportunity to encourage each other professionally
and personally as we continue to realize,
to become what those founding fathers set out for us
243 years ago, all right?
It's a tough business.
It's a cynical world.
We need to come together and reinforce one another
every time that we can.
And I'll ask you to do one last thing,
tonight, as you lay your head down,
having finished the celebrations,
having recognized and remembered everything that happened
on this battle 77 years ago,
I would ask you to say a special prayer
for all of those who fought in the Battle of Midway,
those who survived and those who gave
their final measure at that battle
and for all of our other veterans
who fought in World War II,
many of them giving their final measure.
And I'd ask that you also say a prayer
for all of our sailors, soldiers, airmen, Marine
and coastguardsmen who continue to honor their oath
to support and defend our Constitution,
honor it by deploying around the world
in very dangerous places to protect that thing
that we continue to hold dear, that thing called freedom.
Thank you all very much.
God bless the United States Navy and God bless America.
(audience applauding)
- To honor our Midway veterans,
the chief of Naval operations has decreed this day,
four June, 2019, to be Battle of Midway Commemoration Day.
The Battle of Midway Day proclamation,
four June, 2019, a proclamation by
the United States Navy's chief of Naval operations.
Whereas the United States Navy recognizes
the great significance of the Battle of Midway
as one of the greatest victories in its history
and in that of our great nation.
Whereas the sailors of the United States Navy
take great pride in their service to our country
and now take time to acknowledge their fore bearers
who set the standards of service and sacrifice
that form the hallmarks
of our rich Naval history and heritage.
Whereas we set forth resolutely to preserve and celebrate
the legacy of the Battle of Midway's many heroes
and their invaluable contributions
to the Navy and our nation.
Whereas we use the model of determination,
zeal and valor from our past
to meet the challenges of our future.
Now, therefore, I, John M. Richardson,
Chief of Naval Operations,
by virtue of the authority vested in me,
do hereby proclaim four June, 2019,
Battle of Midway Commemoration Day
and call upon all sailors to take part in this ceremony
and remember those who have led the way
through their bravery and who have sacrificed
to make ours the world's greatest Navy.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand
this forth day of June, 2019, the 243rd year
of independence of the United States of America.
Signed John M. Richardson, Admiral, United States Navy.
The United States Navy band will now perform
Midway March, composed by John Williams,
while Admiral Richardson presents copies of the proclamation
to each of our honored Midway veterans.
(marching band performing Midway March)
(applauding)
Guests, please rise for the playing
of the Marine's Hymn and Anchors Away
and remain standing for the benediction.
(marching band performing Marine's Hymn)
(marching band performing Anchors Away)
- Let us pray.
Eternal father, you are indeed strong to say,
we thank you for our heroes at the Battle of Midway.
May we never forget their example of honor,
courage and commitment under fire
and may we ever hold dear their sacrifices
and the price that was paid in service to our country.
The blood, sweat and tears of ordinary individuals
who became extra-ordinary by their deeds.
Let us rest in the confidence that their legacy
is but a prologue to the greatness
of what is and what is yet to come
by those who wear the sacred cloth of our nation
for there are challenges yet to be faced.
There are battles yet to be fought
and victories yet to proclaim.
Because of this, we stand with the same resolve
and fortitude as did our predecessors
for we know that freedom is not free
and the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
So we ask your hand in protection over our sailors,
soldiers, Marines, airmen and coastguardsmen,
those who stand the watch this very hour.
Strength to them, God, those at sea,
under the sea, in the air, those in harm's way,
those missing in action, those on foreign soil,
strengthen and comfort them and their loved ones
who await their return.
And all mighty God, by the power and might of your spirit,
may we continue to dominate the sea
and dominate our enemy until there is no enemy,
but your eternal peace and we ask these things
in your glorious and mighty name, amen.
(somber marching band music)
- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
this concludes our ceremony.
Please remain in your places for the departure
of the official party and our honored Midway veterans.