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The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Captain Kleiss and Jeff Burton

My dad was Rotarian in my hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas. A couple of his friends went down to nearby Claremore, Oklahoma and talked Will Rogers into speaking to us .

Now Cofeyville, Kansas would never have been heard of except the Dalton Gang came to town to rob its two banks. They had to be the dumbest lads in the universe. The kids in Coffeyville, learned how to shoot rabbits before they learned how to chop firewood. The Dalton Gang robbed the banks and got onto their horses. The word of the robbery got around, and the citizens shot down the Dalton Gang before they reached the edge of Coffeyville and that wasn't far away. By the time of Will's visit not much had changed. Everybody still owned guns, no crime, no bank robbers. My Aunt Helen was a typical Coffeyville Mom. Made delicious cherry pies and was Women's Shotgun Champion of Kansas.

The only thing new was the six story Dale Hotel, four stories higher than all the other buildings in town. It had a swanky dining room on the second floor and the Rotary Club could hold their meetings there. A bunch of Rotarian buckaroo's thought Will Rogers would feel more at home in his rodeo days if they prodded a large bull up to the swankey second floor dining room. He might even do a few rope tricks.

Old Will started his patter after a nice lunch. Just as he was going well, there was a large "PLOP" from the opposite side of the room. He stopped, looked startled and puzzled. He went over to the big bull, carefully looked it over from nose to tail and to the floor. He shook his head and said "This is the first time I've ever encountered REAL competition. "

Now I'll skip the BULL and head on to the Battle of Midway.

But first a quick view of Aircraft Carrier Operations in the 1940's. The ENTERPRISE flight. deck was 800 feet long. The 400 foot landing area had a retractable barrier to protect aircraft parked on the front half of the deck

To make a landing, pilots headed downwind on the port side of the ship, dropping down to 100 feet above the waves, and slowing down to five knots above power-on stalling speed, with landing flaps, wheels, and tailhook down. When even with the stem of the ship, the pilot made a semi-circle to end in line of the flight deck. As soon as the Landing Signal could be seen, the pilot followed him explicitly. His paddles told the pilot whether to go slower, faster,higher,lower, and finally they indicated a CUT or a WAVE-OFF. Steel cables caught the plane with a force of two g's. The plane was then jerked backwards and the cable was freed by two men. The pilot then blasted the plane past the barrier to the parking area. The best speed Scouting Six could accomplish, was to land ten seconds between landings. Average time was 30 seconds between landings.

Planes took off without catapults. Our Scouting Squadron Six SBD dive bombers were usually at the head of the pack. We had a 300 foot run for takeoff, the same length as a football field. Planes usually dropped below the bow on their take-off run, trading the 65 foot height of the flight deck to get enough speed to climb. We needed 30 knots wind over the deck, either from natural wind or enough steam from boilers, for safe landings or take- offs. The B 25's of Jimmy Doolittle's raid needed the little drop below the HORNET's bow to allow them to climb.

During the war ENTERPPRISE Scouting Six always kept radio silence. Planes flew close enough to the next plane, day or night, to see hand signals. We flew 18 plane formations at night without any lights. The exceptions were joining night formations, or making night carrier landings.

Prior to the Battle of Midway our only "200 mile out and 200 mile back" searches relied on dead reckoning, using wind information, and revising wind changes by watching ocean waves using the Beaufort Scale. Just before the Battle of Midway we had YE-ZB line of sight electronics equipment. When we were up 4 miles high we could locate the carrier more than a hundred miles away.

After taking some Marine airplanes to Wake Island early December 1941, we encountered a terrific storm as we headed back to Pearl Harbor. One destroyer broke a seam, and we were one day late arriving into Pearl Harbor. Had we arrived on time at our berth Fox Nine, on 6 December 1941, WW2 History would have been different. The ENTERPR1SE would have gone down with the battleships. The Japanese would have made more scheduled attacks, destroying ammunition depots, fuel depots and repair facilities. Also there would have been no early raids in the Pacific, no Jimmy Doolittle Raid and no victory in the Battle of Midway.

Because we were a day late, were carrying full loads of service ammunition and were declared to be at war, (As stated in this 28 November order in my Log Book, the ENTERPR1SE pilots tangled with the Japanese before the Japanese attack, tangled with them during the attack, and chased them as they ran for home that night. All this is recorded in THESE PAMPHLETS written by Dr. Cressman, a retired Navy historian.)

Many historians report that FUJITSU, the Japanese Air Force Commander, sulked in his cabin for a month afterwards because he was not allowed to make additional attacks. On the other hand the Japanese Admiral was told that radar pictures indicated that 59 aircraft were headed his way and he decided to scram for home. But enough of previous history.

The Battle of Midway foundation started in the code room of Admiral Nimitz's headquarters in Honolulu. His experts had broken the latest Japanese code, knew that a giant armada was being assembled in total secrecy, but couldn't figure out the code word designated for the United States target.

The code breakers guessed that Midway Island might be the target but they weren't at all sure. Admiral Nimitz gave them a go-ahead to have a fake, unclassified signal sent from Midway Island. It said that the fresh water distilling system was out of commission and fresh water supplies were running low.

The Japanese bought this garbage and reported, in their new code, that target X was running short of fresh water. Midway Island was definitely the target. At that point in time, the ENTERPR1SE was dropping off planes and pilots at Efate Island. The Battle of the Coral Sea was in progress. We arrived there just as the battle ended.

The United States won, but the old LEXINGTON was sunk and the YORKTOWN barely made it afloat to get back to Pearl Harbor. The repair facility said that her repairs would take several months. Admiral Nimitz said the YORKTOWN had to be repaired as best as could be accomplished in a days.

Like the ENTERPRISE, the YORKTOWN was to lie in ambush for the midway attack. The movie named the "Battle ofMidway" depicted the YORKTOWN pilots singing and playing guitars to pump up their spirits for the forthcoming battle. As a matter of fact the YORKTOWN pilots were trying to get a little badly needed hours of sleep, and the ship's crew ere trying to get some things working. Our Captain Murray outlined our ambush strategy, and said that the Japanese would make a feint attack on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, intending that we would send all our forces there. The one thing he didn't tell us was the Japanese were sending 189 ships and we were ambushing with ___.They had eight of their aircraft carriers and we had the HORNET, the ENTERPRISE and the battle damaged YORKTOWN.

Vice Admiral "Bull" Halsey was unable to go with us. He was hospitalized with hives. Our shipmates revered him. Ensign Tom Eversole and his torpedo bomber plane got lost in fog and bad weather enroute to attack Wake Island. Halsey turned his entire fleet around, found the rubber raft of Eversole and crew, and clobbered Wake Island a day later than scheduled.

Halsey chose Admiral Spruance to replace him. Spruance was not an aviator, but he matched exactly Halsey's evaluation of risk philosophies. He knew the abilities and limitations of carriers and the abilities and limitation of other ships. Admiral Kimmel, by contrast, understood neither.

Halsey knew that our cruisers had only 8 inch guns and the Japanese had some 18 inch guns. Both the US and the Japanese signed the Washington Conference Treaty. We trashed our 18 inch guns, the Japanese built theirs. As Will Rogers said, "America never lost a war or won a peace conference. "

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