- 7 weeks ago
June 4, 1942, a 23-year-old Army Air Forces pilot flew a B-26 Marauder into the heart of the Japanese carrier fleet at Midway and survived by making a split-second choice no one had trained for. James Muri’s bomber, Susie-Q, was carrying a torpedo he had barely practiced dropping, with no fighter escort and no clear briefing, straight toward Vice Admiral Nagumo’s flagship, Akagi.
What followed was a brutal Midway attack story: Zeros, anti-aircraft fire, a dead interphone, wounded crewmen, and a near collision with a carrier bridge that Japanese officers later recorded as a suicide attack. But it wasn’t suicide. It was a desperate low-level maneuver that helped force Nagumo into a chain of decisions that left his carriers loaded with ordnance at the worst possible moment.
This is World War II military history told as a tense combat narrative, with forgotten airmen, torpedo bombers, carrier warfare, and the Battle of Midway at its center. It’s a story of survival, improvisation, and the razor-thin line between destruction and escape.
Created for listeners searching for WW2 stories, military history, Battle of Midway, B-26 Marauder, carrier attack stories, and narrated war history. Ideal for history podcasts, calm documentary-style storytelling, and anyone looking for compelling World War 2 combat narration and forgotten Pacific War stories.
What followed was a brutal Midway attack story: Zeros, anti-aircraft fire, a dead interphone, wounded crewmen, and a near collision with a carrier bridge that Japanese officers later recorded as a suicide attack. But it wasn’t suicide. It was a desperate low-level maneuver that helped force Nagumo into a chain of decisions that left his carriers loaded with ordnance at the worst possible moment.
This is World War II military history told as a tense combat narrative, with forgotten airmen, torpedo bombers, carrier warfare, and the Battle of Midway at its center. It’s a story of survival, improvisation, and the razor-thin line between destruction and escape.
Created for listeners searching for WW2 stories, military history, Battle of Midway, B-26 Marauder, carrier attack stories, and narrated war history. Ideal for history podcasts, calm documentary-style storytelling, and anyone looking for compelling World War 2 combat narration and forgotten Pacific War stories.
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LearningTranscript
00:00June 4th, 1942. 6.10 in the morning. Eastern Island, Midway Atoll.
00:08First Lieutenant James Murie sat in the cockpit of a B-26 Marauder named after his wife.
00:14He had married Alice five months earlier, on Christmas Day, 18 days after Pearl Harbor.
00:21Her nickname was Susie. He stenciled it on the fuselage himself.
00:25Now he sat on a coral runway at the edge of the Pacific, engines idling, with no idea what his
00:32target was.
00:33There had been no pre-flight briefing, no mission folder.
00:37A liaison officer had run up to Captain Collins in the lead aircraft, handed him a slip of paper with
00:43a bearing, a distance, and a speed, and disappeared.
00:46Collins shared nothing.
00:49Murie knew only two things. He was carrying a 2,000-pound torpedo under his belly,
00:55and he was supposed to drop it on something.
00:58He reached for the cigarette can at his feet.
01:01Across Eastern Island, every operational aircraft on Midway was being scrambled before the incoming Japanese strike arrived.
01:09Three other B-26s idled on the runway.
01:13Collins out front, Watson to the right, Mays to the left, in a bomber called Satan's Playmate.
01:20Twenty-eight men in four aircraft.
01:23Not one of them had ever dropped a torpedo in combat.
01:26Not one of them had ever been in combat at all.
01:29The B-26 Marauder had been in service less than a year.
01:33Pilots called it the Widowmaker.
01:35Its short wings and high landing speed killed men in training before they ever reached a war.
01:40But it was fast.
01:42Faster than any medium bomber in the American inventory.
01:46On this morning, speed was the only thing that might keep them alive.
01:51Here is a detail worth remembering.
01:54The mechanism that was supposed to release Murie's torpedo was not a standard military device.
01:59It was a field improvisation.
02:02A trigger wired to a cable connected to a plug with so many prongs that one man would later describe
02:08it as
02:08something Rube Goldberg might have invented.
02:12Nobody had tested it under fire.
02:14Nobody was certain it would work.
02:17Collins began to taxi.
02:19No radio call.
02:20No signal.
02:21He just moved.
02:24Mays followed.
02:25Murie followed Mays.
02:27Four twin-engine bombers designed for medium-altitude bombing,
02:30carrying weapons they were never built to carry,
02:33flown by men who had never used them,
02:36rolling toward a target none of them could name.
02:40If these stories matter to you,
02:42a like and a subscribe help them find the audience they deserve.
02:45That's all I'll ask.
02:47What Murie did not know,
02:49what none of those 28 men knew,
02:51was what weighted 150 miles to the northwest.
02:54Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's first carrier striking force.
02:59Four fleet carriers,
03:01Akagi,
03:02Kaga,
03:02Soryu,
03:03Hyudu,
03:04carrying 248 aircraft,
03:07screened by battleships,
03:08cruisers,
03:09and more than 150 warships.
03:12The most powerful naval strike force Japan had ever put to sea.
03:16At 4.30 that morning,
03:18Nagumo had launched 108 planes to bomb Midway.
03:22The strike was already inbound.
03:24Sand Island's oil tanks were burning.
03:27On the hangar decks of all four carriers,
03:30a second wave sat armed and waiting,
03:33torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs,
03:35held in reserve in case American ships appeared.
03:39Those reserves were Nagumo's insurance policy.
03:42As long as they carried ship-killing weapons,
03:44he could strike any American vessel that showed itself.
03:47The moment he rearmed them for a land target,
03:51that insurance vanished.
03:53No American ships had been reported.
03:55The ocean,
03:56as far as Nagumo knew,
03:58was empty.
03:59The story that begins on that coral runway,
04:02with a 23-year-old rancher's son who could not light his cigarette,
04:06is about what happened in the next 90 minutes.
04:09About four bombers that should never have been carrying torpedoes,
04:13flying into the teeth of the most powerful fleet in the Pacific.
04:17And about a single decision,
04:19made in roughly three seconds,
04:21that would begin a chain of consequences
04:23the admiral on that bridge could never undo.
04:27The four B-26s climbed to 200 feet and turned northwest.
04:32No fighter escort.
04:34Beneath each fuselage hung a Mark 13 torpedo,
04:38a weapon so unreliable that later testing would show
04:42barely a third ran true after launch.
04:45The men in those cockpits did not know that statistic.
04:48They did not know what waited beyond the horizon.
04:52But the torpedo was not the problem.
04:54The problem was what they would have to fly through to drop it.
04:59To understand what James Murie was flying into that morning,
05:03you need to go back six days.
05:05May 29, 1942.
05:09Murie and his crew had been in Hawaii for seven months,
05:12not fighting,
05:13not flying missions,
05:14but checking aircraft.
05:17B-26s were shipped from the mainland in crates,
05:20disassembled in Sacramento,
05:22and reassembled in Honolulu
05:24by workers who had never seen a marauder before.
05:28Murie spent those months inspecting their work.
05:31He was supposed to go to New Guinea.
05:34That was the plan.
05:35Ship out to the Southwest Pacific,
05:37join the 22nd bomb group,
05:39fly combat.
05:41Instead, new orders came.
05:44Two B-26s from the 22nd
05:46and two from the 38th bomb group
05:48were to be fitted with torpedo racks
05:50and sent to Midway for a special mission.
05:53No one said what it was.
05:55The torpedo racks were a problem.
05:58The B-26 was a land bomber.
06:00It had never been designed
06:01to carry a 2,000-pound naval weapon under its belly.
06:05Navy ordnance crews welded external shackles
06:08onto each aircraft
06:09and rigged an improvised release mechanism,
06:11the trigger-cable-plug contraption
06:14that would later make one man think of Rube Goldberg.
06:17The work took days.
06:19The crews practiced exactly once.
06:22A single dry run over open water.
06:24No live torpedo.
06:26That was the full extent of their torpedo training.
06:30Now, here is something that matters
06:31for what comes later.
06:33Moody's crew was not his own.
06:36Not entirely.
06:37He had a co-pilot, Pren Moore,
06:40a navigator named William Moore,
06:42no relation,
06:44and a bombardier named Russell Johnson.
06:47But his three gunners
06:48were borrowed from other crews.
06:51Sergeant John Gogoy,
06:52the turret gunner,
06:53and Corporal Frank Mello,
06:55the radio operator,
06:56belonged to another pilot.
06:58Private First Class Earl Ashley,
07:00the tail gunner,
07:01was Moody's own man.
07:03Seven men,
07:05stitched together
07:05in the last days of May,
07:08given a plane they had not flown as a team,
07:10and a weapon
07:11none of them understood.
07:13The night before they left for Midway,
07:16someone threw a farewell party.
07:18Officers and enlisted men together.
07:21One man who was there
07:22wrote in his diary,
07:24We forgot the war.
07:25We forgot everything.
07:27It was the last time
07:28we were all together.
07:31Before dawn on the 31st of May,
07:33Ashley and the others
07:34woke the men who were staying behind.
07:37Goodbye.
07:38We'll see you in a few weeks, fellows.
07:40Have a good time.
07:42A wave of the hand,
07:43and they were gone.
07:46Midway was coral,
07:48not earth.
07:49Two tiny islands,
07:51sand and eastern,
07:541,100 miles northwest of Hawaii,
07:56sitting in the middle of the Pacific
07:58like a pair of broken teeth.
08:00The ground crews
08:01had carved shallow pits
08:03in the coral
08:03to shelter the B-26s.
08:05The runway on eastern island
08:07was barely long enough
08:08for a loaded marauder.
08:10The crews slept under the wings.
08:13Beyond the beach,
08:14goonie birds
08:15nested by the thousands,
08:17oblivious to everything.
08:18There was nothing to do
08:20but load ammunition,
08:21check the aircraft,
08:22and wait.
08:24The intelligence
08:25about the approaching Japanese fleet
08:26came from codebreakers.
08:28But airmen at Moody's level
08:29were told nothing.
08:31He knew only
08:32that something was expected,
08:34and that the torpedoes
08:35under their bellies
08:36were not decoration.
08:38On the evening of June 3rd,
08:40a patrol plane spotted
08:41what they had been waiting for.
08:43A Japanese carrier force.
08:46Four carriers,
08:47with battleships and cruisers
08:48in escort,
08:50approaching from the northwest.
08:52That night,
08:53the four B-26 crews were briefed.
08:56At dawn,
08:57they would attack the carriers.
08:58Each plane would carry
09:00one torpedo.
09:01They would fly at 200 feet
09:03and drop at close range.
09:05No fighter escort was available.
09:08Six Navy TBF Avengers
09:09would be going with them,
09:11ten torpedo planes in all.
09:13The crews talked it over
09:15among themselves that night.
09:16If they saw a carrier,
09:18they agreed,
09:19they would go for it.
09:20Collins had all four B-26s
09:23on standby by 3.15 in the morning.
09:25The men sat in the dark
09:27beside their aircraft
09:28for three hours.
09:30Nobody slept.
09:31Shortly after six,
09:33Mays walked to the operations shack,
09:35came back,
09:36climbed into Satan's playmate,
09:38and started his engines.
09:40He said nothing.
09:42Collins taxied out behind him.
09:44No announcement.
09:45No speech.
09:46The bombers rolled
09:48one after another
09:49as quietly as four
09:50twin-engine aircraft can.
09:52Murie put a fresh cigarette
09:54in his mouth,
09:55pushed the throttles forward,
09:56and lifted off
09:57the coral runway.
09:59He had never seen
10:00an enemy ship.
10:01He had never been shot at.
10:03And he was heading
10:04toward a target
10:05defended by more fighters
10:07and anti-aircraft guns
10:08than any target
10:09Army Air Force's bombers
10:11had ever attacked.
10:13Of the ten torpedo planes
10:14leaving Midway that morning,
10:16seven would not come back.
10:18Of the 46 men aboard them,
10:20fewer than half
10:21would see the island again.
10:23Moody did not know
10:24those numbers.
10:25Nobody did.
10:27All he knew
10:28was that somewhere ahead,
10:29beyond an empty horizon,
10:31was a fleet.
10:32And his job
10:34was to put a torpedo into it.
10:36For 50 minutes,
10:38nothing happened.
10:39The four B-26s
10:41flew northwest
10:42at 200 feet,
10:43so low that salt spray
10:45misted the windshields.
10:47The Pacific was flat.
10:49The sky was empty.
10:51Moody kept his eyes
10:52on Collins' aircraft ahead,
10:54holding formation.
10:56Nobody used the radio.
10:58The engines droned.
11:00The torpedo hung
11:01beneath the fuselage
11:02like a dead weight,
11:03pulling the nose down.
11:05Moody trimmed
11:06to compensate
11:07and waited.
11:08Then he saw it.
11:10Wisps of smoke
11:11on the horizon.
11:12Thin, dark threads
11:14rising against
11:15the morning sky.
11:16And then,
11:18beneath the smoke,
11:19the sea itself
11:20seemed to change.
11:22What had been
11:23empty ocean
11:24was suddenly filled
11:25with ships,
11:27carriers,
11:29battleships,
11:30cruisers,
11:32destroyers,
11:33spread across the water
11:35in every direction
11:36as far as Moody could see.
11:38His first impression,
11:39he said later,
11:40was that every ship
11:42in the Japanese Navy
11:43was out there.
11:44Four carriers
11:45sat at the center,
11:47flanked by their escorts.
11:49This was the force
11:50that had struck
11:50Pearl Harbor.
11:52The force that had swept
11:53through the Dutch East Indies,
11:55ravaged Darwin,
11:56sunk the Prince of Wales
11:57and the Repulse.
11:59And Moody was heading
12:00straight at it
12:01in a twin-engine bomber
12:02at 200 feet.
12:04He reached for a match
12:06to light the cigarette
12:07in his mouth.
12:08He never got it lit.
12:10The Zeros hit them
12:11before they crossed
12:12the outer destroyer screen.
12:1430 fighters,
12:15maybe more,
12:17fell on the formation
12:18from above.
12:19The B-26s dropped lower,
12:22skimming the wavetops.
12:23It made no difference.
12:25The fighters slashed through
12:26from every angle.
12:28And then the ships opened up.
12:31Every ship in the fleet
12:32looked like it was on fire.
12:34Those were Moody's own words.
12:35Every gun pointed at them
12:37and firing.
12:38The Japanese gunners
12:40shot at the water
12:40ahead of the bombers,
12:41watched where the bullets hit,
12:43and walked the splashes
12:44backward into the aircraft.
12:47Enormous columns of water
12:48erupted in their path.
12:50The big guns on the battleships
12:51depressed to sea level,
12:53throwing up walls of ocean
12:54that a pilot had to fly through
12:56or around.
12:58Somewhere in that first minute,
13:00Watson's B-26
13:01took a direct hit
13:02to a fuel tank.
13:03The aircraft exploded.
13:05Seven men,
13:07gone.
13:08No parachutes,
13:09no wreckage,
13:11just a flash,
13:12and then empty air
13:13where an airplane had been.
13:15Three bombers left,
13:17still boring in.
13:19Inside Susie Q,
13:21everything was coming apart at once.
13:23Mello,
13:24at his waist gun,
13:25heard Ashley scream
13:26over the roar of the engines.
13:28He looked back.
13:29Ashley had fallen away
13:31from his tail gun.
13:32His right leg,
13:33five machine gun rounds
13:35had torn through it,
13:36shattering the bone.
13:37What was left,
13:39Mello would say later,
13:40looked like hamburger.
13:42Ashley was in agony.
13:44He begged Mello
13:45to throw him out of the aircraft
13:46and end it.
13:48Mello tried to call Moody
13:49on the interphone.
13:50Nothing.
13:51The system had been shot out.
13:54In the turret above,
13:55Gogoi was still firing
13:57when a burst shattered
13:58the plexiglass dome around him.
14:00Fragments sliced
14:01his forehead open.
14:02Blood poured into his eyes.
14:05He wrapped a rag
14:06around his head
14:07to keep it out
14:07and climbed back
14:08behind his one working gun.
14:11Moody knew none of this.
14:13His interphone was dead.
14:15He could not hear his crew
14:16or see behind him.
14:18All he could see
14:19was Collins' B-26,
14:21trailing smoke,
14:22still driving toward
14:23the largest carrier
14:24in the formation.
14:26Collins reached 800 yards.
14:28He released his torpedo.
14:31It missed.
14:33Akagi turned hard
14:34and the torpedo
14:35passed astern.
14:37Collins zoomed
14:38over the carrier's bow
14:39at 100 feet,
14:40pulled into
14:41a 1,000-foot climb,
14:43and vanished into cloud
14:44with 189 holes
14:46in his aircraft.
14:48Two B-26s left.
14:51Muri and Maze,
14:53in Satan's Playmate,
14:54on his left wing.
14:56Maze's aircraft
14:57was barely controllable.
14:59It had been hit
15:00so many times
15:01that the pilot
15:02was fighting the stick
15:03just to hold altitude.
15:05His gunners,
15:06Bataglia and the turret,
15:08Walters and the tail,
15:09were still firing.
15:10And directly ahead,
15:12growing larger
15:13with every second,
15:14was the flight deck
15:15of the carrier Akagi,
15:17Nagumo's flagship.
15:19The biggest thing
15:20any of them
15:21had ever tried to kill.
15:24Muri did not yet know
15:26what Maze was about to do.
15:27He did not know
15:29that what happened
15:29in the next 30 seconds
15:30would be called
15:31the first suicide attack
15:33of the Pacific War,
15:34two years before Japan
15:36invented the word
15:37kamikaze.
15:39Maze came in
15:40on Muri's left,
15:41slightly ahead,
15:42driving straight
15:43for Akagi.
15:44His B-26
15:45was dying,
15:47hydraulics gone,
15:48control surfaces
15:49shredded.
15:49How Maze kept
15:51the aircraft level
15:52at all,
15:53no one would ever know.
15:54But he held his course,
15:57200 feet,
15:58straight and level,
15:59the only way
16:00to give the torpedo
16:01a chance.
16:02At close range,
16:04he released.
16:05The torpedo dropped
16:06and hit the water.
16:07It missed.
16:09Like Collins's.
16:11Like every torpedo
16:12launched that morning.
16:14Akagi swerved
16:15and the weapon
16:16passed harmlessly.
16:17But Maze
16:18could not pull away.
16:19His aircraft
16:20was too damaged,
16:21too slow to climb,
16:23too broken to turn.
16:24Satan's playmate
16:25kept flying straight,
16:27directly at the
16:28island superstructure
16:29of Akagi,
16:30where Vice Admiral
16:31Chuichi Nagumo
16:32stood on the bridge
16:33with his entire staff,
16:34watching the attack
16:35unfold.
16:36The B-26
16:38was on a collision course
16:39with the bridge.
16:40On the flight deck,
16:42men froze.
16:43On the bridge,
16:44officers saw the bomber
16:46filling the windows.
16:47At the last possible instant,
16:50Maze hauled back
16:51on what remained
16:51of the controls
16:52and the aircraft
16:53lurched upward,
16:54clearing the top
16:55of the bridge
16:56by what witnesses
16:56remembered as feet,
16:58not yards.
17:00The shadow of the wing
17:02passed over the men below.
17:04The roar of the engines
17:05shook the glass.
17:07Every man on that bridge
17:08believed,
17:09for one instant,
17:11that he was about to die.
17:12Then Satan's playmate
17:14rolled,
17:15dropped,
17:15and hit the ocean
17:16between Akagi and Hiryu.
17:18Seven men.
17:20Bataglia in the turret,
17:22Walters in the tail,
17:24Maze at the controls.
17:25All of them,
17:27gone.
17:28The Pacific closed
17:29over the wreckage
17:30in seconds.
17:32On the bridge,
17:33the silence lasted
17:34only a moment.
17:35The shock
17:36lasted much longer.
17:38Here is why
17:39that matters.
17:39Japanese officers
17:41had been trained,
17:42as doctrine,
17:43as an article of faith,
17:44that Americans
17:45were soft,
17:46that they feared death,
17:48that when pressed
17:49hard enough,
17:50they would break and run.
17:52What Nagumo's staff
17:53had just witnessed
17:54was the opposite.
17:55An American bomber,
17:57burning,
17:57disintegrating,
17:58had flown directly
17:59at the bridge
18:00of a Japanese flagship
18:01in what looked like
18:03a deliberate attempt
18:04to kill the admiral himself.
18:06This was not
18:07how Americans
18:08were supposed to fight.
18:09This was something
18:10the Japanese
18:11associated with
18:12their own warrior code.
18:14And it shook them
18:15in a way that
18:15no Miss Torpedo
18:17ever could.
18:18They did not know
18:19Maze had simply
18:20lost control.
18:22What they recorded
18:23in the action reports
18:24was a suicide attack,
18:26two full years
18:27before Japan
18:28would invent
18:28the word kamikaze.
18:30Hold on to that.
18:32Because the decision
18:33Nagumo made
18:34in the next few minutes
18:35was the decision
18:36of a man
18:37who had just watched
18:38an American
18:38try to kill him
18:39with a burning airplane.
18:41Now,
18:42back to Moody.
18:43He was seconds
18:44behind Maze,
18:46zeros still pouring fire
18:48into Susie Q,
18:49his turret gunner
18:50bleeding,
18:51his tail gunner
18:52on the floor
18:52with a shattered leg,
18:54his interphone
18:55dead.
18:55He could not speak
18:57to anyone in the aircraft
18:58except the men
18:59sitting beside him
18:59in the cockpit.
19:00And he still
19:01had a torpedo
19:02to drop.
19:03William Moore
19:04was hunched
19:05over the improvised
19:06release mechanism,
19:07the trigger,
19:08the cable,
19:09the plug
19:10with its innumerable prongs.
19:11He squeezed the trigger.
19:13Nothing he could feel.
19:15He twisted the plug.
19:17Squeezed again.
19:18No confirmation.
19:20No indicator light.
19:22No mechanical clunk.
19:24Nothing to tell him
19:25whether 2,000 pounds
19:26of torpedo
19:27had left the aircraft.
19:29Myuri was shouting
19:30over the engines.
19:31Is it away?
19:33Moore shouted back.
19:34How the hell
19:35do I know?
19:37They would find out
19:38later that the torpedo
19:39had released.
19:40It missed,
19:41like every other one
19:42that morning.
19:43But neither man
19:44knew that yet.
19:45It didn't matter,
19:47because the flight deck
19:48of Akagi
19:48was now filling
19:49Mewri's entire windshield,
19:51and he was out of sky.
19:53Think about what he faced
19:55in the next 3 seconds.
19:57He could try to climb,
19:59but his aircraft
20:00was damaged,
20:01slow,
20:01and 30 zeros
20:03were waiting above
20:04for exactly that.
20:06He could bank hard,
20:07but that would expose
20:08the full length
20:09of his fuselage
20:10to every gun
20:11on every ship
20:12in the fleet.
20:14Every option
20:15he had been trained for
20:16led to the same place,
20:17a crossfire
20:18that would tear
20:19Susie Q apart.
20:21Every option
20:22except one.
20:24One that was not
20:25in any manual.
20:26One that no pilot
20:27had ever practiced.
20:29An option that made sense
20:30is only if you understood
20:31a single fact
20:32about carriers.
20:34Their guns
20:34point outward
20:35and cannot shoot
20:37at their own flight deck.
20:39Moody looked at the wall
20:40of steel rising in front of him
20:42and made his choice.
20:43He pushed the nose down.
20:45Susie Q dropped
20:46to flight deck height
20:47and thundered
20:48over the bow of Akagi.
20:50For the next 5 or 6 seconds,
20:52the time it takes
20:53a B-26
20:53at full throttle
20:55to cover 800 feet
20:56of flight deck,
20:57James Murray flew
20:58lower than the mast,
21:00lower than the bridge,
21:01lower than the gun platforms
21:03on either side.
21:04The belly of his aircraft
21:06all but scraped the deck
21:07of the most important warship
21:09in the Japanese Navy.
21:11What happened
21:12in those seconds
21:13came back to Murray
21:14for the rest of his life
21:15in fragments.
21:16Russell Johnson,
21:18in the nose,
21:19grabbed the forward gun
21:20and opened fire
21:21in every direction.
21:22Ahead,
21:23left,
21:24right.
21:25Murray could not hear
21:26the gun
21:27over the engines,
21:28but he could see smoke
21:29pouring back
21:30from the nose.
21:31Through the haze,
21:33he saw white-clad figures,
21:34Japanese sailors,
21:36scattering across
21:36the deck below him,
21:38running,
21:39diving behind
21:40anything solid.
21:42Two men
21:43at the forward
21:4325-millimeter gun
21:45on the port side
21:46did not move
21:47fast enough.
21:48Johnson's fire
21:49killed them both
21:50and shattered
21:51the gun's
21:52revolving mechanism.
21:53Both of Akagi's
21:55transmitting antennas
21:56were cut.
21:57Then came the thing
21:58Moody would carry
21:59to his grave.
22:01Silence.
22:03Every gun in the fleet
22:04had been firing at him.
22:06Hundreds of weapons,
22:0825-millimeter cannons,
22:10heavy machine guns,
22:11the main batteries
22:12of cruisers and destroyers,
22:14all pouring fire
22:15at Susie Q
22:16for the last several minutes.
22:18And now,
22:19in an instant,
22:20they stopped.
22:22Every one of them,
22:23at once.
22:25Because they could not
22:26fire at their own
22:28flagship.
22:29For five or six
22:30heartbeats,
22:31Moody flew through
22:32the quietest air
22:33he would experience
22:34in the entire battle.
22:35No tracers,
22:37no shell bursts,
22:38no walls of water,
22:40just the roar
22:41of his own engines
22:42and the flight deck
22:43of Akagi
22:44blurring beneath him
22:45like a gray highway.
22:47He looked up
22:48and saw the Japanese
22:49battle flag,
22:50enormous,
22:51red sun on white,
22:53streaming from the mast,
22:54snapping in the wind
22:55of his own prop wash.
22:57He was close enough
22:59to count the stitching.
23:00Then Prenn Moore's voice
23:02broke through
23:02the engine noise.
23:04The interphone was dead.
23:06Moore was not
23:07on the radio.
23:07He was screaming
23:08from the seat beside Murray,
23:10face to face,
23:11close enough
23:12to grab his shoulder.
23:13For God's sake,
23:14Jim,
23:14pull up,
23:15pull up.
23:17Murray hauled back
23:18on the stick,
23:19the nose lifted,
23:21the stern of Akagi,
23:22the round down,
23:24the wake boiling white,
23:26passed beneath them.
23:27And then they were clear.
23:29Open ocean,
23:30empty sky.
23:32For exactly one breath.
23:35The Zeros found them
23:36before they had traveled
23:37a quarter mile.
23:39Thirty fighters,
23:40maybe fifty,
23:41freed from the risk
23:42of hitting their own ships,
23:44falling on Susie Q
23:45from every angle.
23:47Murray firewalled
23:48the throttles.
23:49The twin Pratt and Whitney's,
23:51the one thing about
23:52the Widowmaker
23:53that had never let
23:54a pilot down,
23:55answered.
23:56The B-26 was fast.
23:58Murray pushed it
23:59to everything it had.
24:01Behind him,
24:02the fuselage was on fire.
24:04Mello crawled forward
24:05through the bomb bay
24:06to the cockpit.
24:08Fire in the aft section,
24:10fuel leaking
24:10from punctured tanks.
24:13Prenn Moore unbuckled
24:14from the co-pilot's seat
24:15and went back.
24:16He found the fire
24:18and smothered it.
24:19Then he kept going,
24:20past the bomb bay,
24:22past the waste gun,
24:23all the way to the tail.
24:25Ashley was there,
24:27still on the floor,
24:28leg destroyed,
24:30unable to stand or sit.
24:32But when Moore reached
24:33the tail gun,
24:34Ashley,
24:35flat on his back,
24:37began passing ammunition
24:38up to him with his hands.
24:40Moore fired.
24:42The gun jammed
24:43after a few rounds.
24:44He cleared it.
24:46Fired again.
24:47Jammed.
24:49In the turret above,
24:50Gogoi fought the same battle.
24:52One gun destroyed,
24:54the other seizing
24:54every few shots.
24:56A Zero flew
24:57a hundred yards
24:58off the wing,
24:59abreast,
25:00watching.
25:01Gogoi kept the barrel
25:02trained on it
25:03and squeezed the trigger
25:04whenever the mechanism
25:05would let him.
25:07Slowly,
25:08the Zeroes fell behind.
25:10The fleet shrank
25:11to a smudge
25:12on the horizon.
25:13The fighters peeled away.
25:15And the full weight
25:17of the silence
25:17settled over the aircraft.
25:19No radio,
25:21no hydraulics,
25:23no interphone,
25:25fuel leaking from tanks
25:26they could not seal.
25:28Three men wounded,
25:30one of them badly.
25:31No certainty
25:32of where they were.
25:34And Midway,
25:34if they could find it,
25:36was more than
25:36a hundred miles
25:37of open ocean away.
25:39The cigarette
25:40Muri had put in his mouth
25:41on the coral runway
25:43was gone.
25:44Sometime during the attack,
25:45he had bitten it
25:46clean in half
25:47and swallowed the piece
25:48in his mouth
25:48without knowing it.
25:50He never found
25:51the other half.
25:52He had more
25:53pressing things to find,
25:54starting with a coral island
25:56the size of a thumbtack,
25:57somewhere in a hundred miles
25:59of empty Pacific,
26:00with fuel running
26:01out of his wings.
26:02A hundred miles
26:03of open ocean
26:04looks the same
26:05in every direction.
26:06No landmarks,
26:08no coastline,
26:09no reference point
26:10except the sun.
26:11And even that
26:12requires a sextant
26:13and a navigator
26:14who can hold steady
26:15while bleeding
26:16from shrapnel cuts
26:17in a shot-up aircraft.
26:19William Moore
26:20could hold steady.
26:22While Murray
26:23kept the crippled B-26 level
26:25and Prenn Moore
26:25tended the wounded
26:26in the back,
26:27the navigator
26:28bent over his charts
26:29with a sun observation,
26:30a single fix,
26:31taken from a damaged aircraft
26:33at low altitude
26:34with no confirmed
26:35starting position.
26:36From that reading,
26:38he calculated
26:38an approximate heading
26:39toward Midway.
26:41Mello was solving
26:42the more immediate problem.
26:44Fuel was pouring
26:45from punctured tanks.
26:46The self-sealing liners
26:48had been shot through
26:49in too many places
26:50to hold.
26:51If they kept losing fuel
26:52at this rate,
26:53they would ditch
26:54in the Pacific
26:54long before they saw land.
26:57Mello crawled
26:58beneath the floor panels
26:59and began transferring
27:00what remained
27:00from the ruptured tanks
27:01into two that still held.
27:04Slow work,
27:05done on his knees
27:06in a fuselage
27:07riddled with daylight
27:08where there should have been
27:09aluminum.
27:10Murray flew a square search,
27:13the standard pattern
27:14when you know
27:14the general direction
27:15but not the distance.
27:17Northwest.
27:18Southwest.
27:18A jog east.
27:21Eyes on the horizon
27:22looking for anything.
27:24Then he saw it.
27:26Smoke.
27:27Black.
27:28Greasy.
27:29Rising from a point
27:30dead ahead.
27:32Climbing high enough
27:33to be visible
27:33from 50 miles out.
27:35He did not know it yet
27:37but he was looking
27:38at Midway.
27:39The Japanese strike
27:40that morning
27:41had hit the oil storage
27:42tanks on Sand Island.
27:44The tanks were still burning
27:45and the calm of smoke
27:47that was supposed
27:48to signal Japanese triumph
27:49was now a beacon
27:50pulling a crippled
27:51American bomber
27:52home.
27:54Moody turned toward the smoke
27:56and held course.
27:57When Eastern Island
27:58materialized beneath the haze
28:00low,
28:01flat,
28:02barely visible
28:03against the glare of the water
28:04Moody lined up for landing.
28:07Left tire gone.
28:09Hydraulics
28:09dead.
28:11Only half the brakes working.
28:13He would have to put
28:14the aircraft down
28:15on one good wheel
28:16and the bare hub
28:17of the left gear
28:17and hope the runway
28:19was long enough.
28:20He never got the chance
28:21to find out.
28:23On his first approach,
28:24the marine anti-aircraft
28:26gunners on Midway,
28:27shaken from the Japanese
28:28raid that morning,
28:29watching for a second wave,
28:31opened fire on Suzy Q.
28:34After surviving
28:35the entire Japanese fleet,
28:37Moody was being shot at
28:38by his own side.
28:40He pulled up,
28:41banked away,
28:42and came around again.
28:44This time,
28:45the marines held their fire.
28:47Suzy Q touched down
28:48on one wheel
28:49and the bare left hub.
28:51The aircraft slewed hard,
28:53brakes grabbing unevenly,
28:54veered off the end
28:55of the coral runway,
28:57bounced across rough ground,
28:58and slammed into an earthen bank.
29:01The impact threw
29:02every man forward.
29:04Then,
29:05everything was still.
29:08Marines were there
29:09in seconds.
29:09They pulled Ashley out first,
29:11careful with the shattered leg.
29:13Then Gogoi,
29:14his face crusted
29:15with dried blood.
29:17Both were rushed
29:18to the aid station.
29:19Mello climbed out
29:20under his own power.
29:22The Moors,
29:23Johnson,
29:24and Moody,
29:25last one out of the cockpit,
29:27standing on the coral
29:28for the first time
29:29since six that morning.
29:31He looked at his airplane.
29:33More than 500 bullet holes.
29:36Every propeller blade damaged.
29:39Left tire,
29:40gone.
29:41Hydraulics,
29:42radio,
29:43interphone,
29:44all destroyed.
29:46Fuel tanks punctured
29:47in dozens of places.
29:49The turret,
29:50plexiglass,
29:51gone entirely.
29:52Daylight showing
29:53through the fuselage
29:54where there should have been metal.
29:56Suzy Q would never fly again.
30:00Shortly after,
30:01Collins' B-26 limped in.
30:04189 holes,
30:05nose gear collapsing
30:06on touchdown.
30:08Two planes back
30:09out of four.
30:10Watson's aircraft
30:12and Satan's playmate
30:13were never heard from again.
30:16Fourteen men,
30:17gone without a trace.
30:19The crew was given
30:20one allowance
30:21before the wreck
30:22was hauled to the beach
30:23and pushed into the sea.
30:25They cut the name
30:26from the fuselage.
30:28Suzy Q.
30:29Five painted letters
30:31and a flourish,
30:32stenciled for a woman
30:33named Alice
30:34on Christmas Day
30:35in California,
30:37six months
30:37and a lifetime ago.
30:39Pulled from the skin
30:41of a dead airplane
30:42and kept.
30:43Muri held the scrap
30:45of aluminum
30:45in his hands.
30:46He understood
30:47what he had done
30:48to stay alive.
30:49The maneuver,
30:50the deck,
30:51the silence
30:52of the guns.
30:54What he did not
30:55yet understand
30:55was what that maneuver
30:56had set in motion
30:57on the bridge
30:58he had just flown over.
31:00Because while Suzy Q.
31:02was limping home
31:03over empty ocean,
31:04Vice Admiral Nagumo
31:06was standing
31:06on the bridge
31:07of Akagi
31:07and making the decision
31:09that would lose Japan
31:10the Pacific War.
31:12And that decision
31:14began in the minutes
31:15right after
31:16an American bomber
31:17tried to fly
31:18through his windshield.
31:20Go back to 7.10
31:21in the morning.
31:22Muri has just
31:23crossed Akagi's
31:24flight deck.
31:26Maze has just
31:26crashed into the sea.
31:28The last of the
31:29Midway torpedo planes,
31:30a single surviving
31:32TBF Avenger,
31:33its turret gunner dead,
31:35is limping south
31:36toward the island.
31:38The attack
31:39is over.
31:41Not a single torpedo
31:42has hit anything.
31:44On the bridge of Akagi,
31:46Vice Admiral Nagumo
31:47surveyed the ocean.
31:48His fleet
31:49was untouched.
31:50His combat air patrol
31:52had destroyed
31:53or driven off
31:54every American aircraft
31:55that approached.
31:57Four carriers intact,
31:59flight decks clear.
32:01The only damage
32:02to his flagship,
32:03two dead sailors
32:05at a gun mount
32:06and two severed antennas.
32:08By any measure,
32:10the morning
32:11was a Japanese victory.
32:13The Americans
32:14had thrown
32:14everything Midway
32:15had at him.
32:16Marine dive bombers,
32:17Army B-17s,
32:19Navy Avengers,
32:20Army B-26,
32:22and accomplished
32:22nothing but
32:23their own destruction.
32:25But Nagumo
32:26did not feel
32:27like a man
32:27who was winning.
32:28He had just
32:29thrown himself
32:30face down
32:31on the deck
32:31of his own bridge.
32:32The admiral
32:33of the most
32:34powerful carrier force
32:35in the Pacific,
32:36flat on the steel,
32:38arms over his head
32:39because an American bomber
32:41had passed
32:41close enough overhead
32:42for his officers
32:44to feel the heat
32:45of its engines.
32:46His staff
32:47had done the same.
32:48And seconds before that,
32:49another American aircraft,
32:51burning,
32:52out of control,
32:53had flown directly
32:54at the bridge
32:55in what every man
32:56present believed
32:56was a deliberate
32:57attempt to kill him.
33:00Here is the detail
33:01that changed the war.
33:02Nagumo had been
33:03holding 93 reserve aircraft
33:06on the hangar decks
33:07of his four carriers,
33:08armed with torpedoes
33:10and armor-piercing bombs,
33:12ship-killing weapons,
33:14insurance against
33:15the appearance
33:15of American warships.
33:17But no American warships
33:19had appeared.
33:20Instead,
33:22wave after wave
33:23of land-based aircraft
33:24from Midway
33:25had attacked.
33:27Suicidally,
33:28it seemed.
33:28And his own strike leader,
33:30Lieutenant Tomonaga,
33:31had radioed back
33:32that Midway's defenses
33:34were still operational.
33:36A second strike
33:37was necessary.
33:39Nagumo weighed the choice.
33:41Every attack
33:42had come from Midway.
33:44Nothing from the sea.
33:46No American carriers anywhere.
33:49His scout
33:50from the cruiser Tone,
33:51which had launched
33:5230 minutes late
33:53due to a catapult failure,
33:55had found nothing.
33:55At 7.15,
33:58with the smoke
33:59from Maze's crash
34:00still visible
34:01off his starboard quarter,
34:02Nagumo gave the order
34:04that would lose the war.
34:06Rearm the reserve aircraft.
34:08Replace torpedoes
34:10with fragmentation bombs.
34:11Prepare for a second strike
34:13on Midway.
34:15On the hangar decks
34:16of Akagi and Kaga,
34:18ordnance crews
34:19began the slow,
34:20dangerous work.
34:21Torpedoes unbolted.
34:24Wheeled to the magazine elevators.
34:26Bombs brought up.
34:27Fuses armed.
34:30Armed aircraft
34:31sat in enclosed hangars
34:32surrounded by loose ordnance
34:34while the changeover continued.
34:36The insurance was gone.
34:39Thirteen minutes later,
34:417.28,
34:42the Tone scout
34:43finally broke radio silence.
34:45Ten enemy ships sighted.
34:47Bering Northeast.
34:49Type unknown.
34:51Nagumo stopped.
34:53Ships?
34:54But what kind?
34:55Transports?
34:57Cruisers?
34:58Or the one thing
34:59Japanese doctrine feared most?
35:01A carrier
35:02that could strike back.
35:04He demanded clarification.
35:07The scout's reply
35:08arrived nearly an hour later
35:09at 8.20.
35:11Five words
35:12that ended six months
35:13of Japanese victory.
35:15Accompanied by what appears
35:17to be a carrier.
35:20Nagumo reversed the order.
35:22Rearm back to torpedoes.
35:24Prepare for a naval strike.
35:26But the hangar decks
35:28were already in chaos.
35:29Bombs half-mounted,
35:31torpedoes half-stored,
35:33fuel lines running.
35:34The ordnance removed
35:36from the aircraft
35:36had been stacked
35:37along the hangar walls.
35:39There was no time
35:40to return it
35:41to the magazines.
35:42Every carrier in the force
35:44had become
35:44a floating ammunition dump,
35:46decks loaded with fuel,
35:48bombs,
35:48and torpedoes
35:49waiting for a single spark.
35:52The spark came at 10.22.
35:55Thirty-seven SBD
35:56dauntless dive bombers
35:57from Enterprise
35:58and Yorktown
35:59arrived almost by accident,
36:01navigating by guesswork,
36:02finding the fleet
36:03at the last moment
36:04before their fuel ran out.
36:06The Zero Combat Air Patrol
36:08was at sea level,
36:09pulled down by
36:10the American torpedo squadrons
36:11that had attacked
36:12minutes earlier
36:13and been nearly annihilated.
36:15The sky above the carriers
36:16was empty.
36:18The SBDs pushed over
36:20into their dives unopposed.
36:22Kaga was hit first,
36:23then Akagi,
36:25then Soryu.
36:26Within five minutes,
36:28three of the four carriers
36:29that had struck Pearl Harbor
36:30were burning
36:31from hangar deck
36:32to flight deck,
36:33bombs detonating,
36:35torpedoes cooking off,
36:36aviation fuel spreading fire
36:38through every compartment.
36:40Kaga survived long enough
36:42to launch two counter-strikes
36:43before she was found
36:44and destroyed that afternoon.
36:46Four carriers.
36:49248 aircraft.
36:52The core of Japanese naval power.
36:54Gone in a single morning.
36:57And the chain that turned
36:59those carriers into pyres,
37:00the rearming and re-rearming
37:03that left live ordnance
37:04stacked on every deck,
37:06began at 7.15.
37:09In the minutes after
37:10four B-26 bombers from Midway
37:12attacked his flagship
37:14and one of them
37:15flew close enough to kill him,
37:16the Japanese called
37:18those attacks suicide.
37:20They called them futile.
37:22They were wrong about both.
37:24The next morning,
37:26Captain Collins caught a ride
37:27to Hickam Field in Hawaii
37:28on a B-17.
37:30He wanted to pick up
37:31a replacement bomber
37:32and get back to the fight.
37:34When he arrived,
37:35an officer met him
37:37on the tarmac.
37:38None of your B-26s
37:39were expected to survive,
37:41the officer told him,
37:42and the battle is already over.
37:45Collins had not known.
37:47Nobody on Midway
37:48had told the surviving B-26 crews
37:50what happened after they landed.
37:53They did not know
37:54that four Japanese carriers
37:55were on the bottom
37:56of the Pacific.
37:58They did not know
37:59that Midway had been saved.
38:00They did not know
38:01that the war had just turned.
38:04On August 4, 1942,
38:07every man from all four B-26 crews,
38:10all 28,
38:11received the Distinguished Service Cross.
38:1414 of those medals
38:15were posthumous.
38:17The citation called it
38:18the first torpedo attack
38:20ever entered into
38:21by an airplane of this type
38:22or by the Army Air Forces.
38:25It was also the last.
38:26The Army Air Forces
38:28never again sent
38:29torpedo-armed bombers
38:30into combat.
38:32That single morning,
38:33four planes,
38:3528 men,
38:3640 minutes,
38:37was the entire combat history
38:39of the USAAF
38:41as a torpedo force.
38:43Ashley and Gogoi
38:44were evacuated to Hawaii.
38:47Ashley's leg,
38:48the one he had braced
38:49against the floor
38:50while feeding ammunition
38:51to Moore with a shattered bone,
38:52would take months to heal.
38:54A few days later,
38:56Mello sat down
38:57with a friend
38:57named Charles Lowe
38:58and told him everything
38:59that happened
39:00inside Susie Q.
39:02Lowe wrote it down
39:03in his diary.
39:04It remains one of the only
39:06first-person accounts
39:07of the attack.
39:09Moody was sent
39:10to Eglin Field, Florida.
39:12The Army ordered him
39:13to create something
39:14that had never existed,
39:16the First Proving Ground
39:17Torpedo Squadron.
39:20The man who had dropped
39:21exactly one torpedo
39:22with a jury-rigged
39:23release mechanism
39:24and missed
39:25was now responsible
39:27for teaching other men
39:28how to do it properly.
39:30He never flew
39:31another combat mission.
39:33The Battle of Midway
39:35was his first day of combat
39:36and his last.
39:39His son,
39:40also named James,
39:41would say years later,
39:43I don't think he minded
39:44one bit not flying
39:46another mission.
39:47Moody rose to
39:49Lieutenant Colonel,
39:505,000 flight hours,
39:52postings in Japan,
39:53in Belgium,
39:54at airbases
39:55across the country.
39:57He retired in 1959
39:59and went home
40:00to Montana.
40:01He and Alice,
40:02the woman whose nickname
40:04was stenciled
40:04on a dead airplane
40:05on a coral island
40:07in the middle
40:07of the Pacific,
40:09settled on Bridger Creek,
40:10east of Big Timber.
40:12Cattle country.
40:14Quiet country.
40:16They raised a son
40:17and a daughter
40:18and lived there
40:19for 30 years.
40:20Alice died in 2001.
40:23Murray moved to Billings.
40:25People asked him
40:27about June 4, 1942,
40:29and his family said
40:30he was always surprised
40:31that anyone remembered.
40:33His daughter Sylvia
40:35told NPR,
40:36he was embarrassed
40:38by the status initially.
40:39He simply wanted
40:40to be sent on
40:41to Australia
40:42and be with his crew.
40:44James Perry Murray
40:46died on February 3,
40:482013,
40:49in Laurel, Montana.
40:51He was 94.
40:53They buried him
40:54in Miles City,
40:55the same town
40:56where he had finished
40:57high school at 17,
40:58enlisted the same week,
41:00and walked away
41:01from everything he knew
41:02toward a life
41:03that would carry him
41:04at 23
41:05over the flight deck
41:06of a Japanese carrier
41:08at the height
41:09of the bridge.
41:11The Japanese
41:12who watched that morning
41:14recorded what they saw
41:15as a suicide attack.
41:17They believed
41:18no sane man
41:19would fly a bomber
41:20at an aircraft carrier
41:21unless he meant to die.
41:24They were wrong.
41:26What James Murray did
41:27was not suicide.
41:28It was the opposite.
41:30A young man
41:31from cattle country
41:32in his first minutes
41:33of combat
41:34choosing the only path
41:36that kept seven men breathing.
41:38He did not fly
41:40over that flight deck
41:41to die.
41:41He flew over it
41:43because it was
41:43the only way to live.
41:46And that choice,
41:47three seconds,
41:49one instinct,
41:50never trained for,
41:51never repeated,
41:52started the chain
41:53of decisions
41:54that sank four carriers
41:55and broke Japan's hold
41:57on the Pacific.
41:59Sometimes the bravest thing
42:01a man can do
42:02is refuse to die.
42:04This story took a long time
42:06to research
42:07and I hope it meant
42:08something to you.
42:09If it did,
42:10hitting that like button
42:11is the single biggest thing
42:12you can do
42:13to help a story like this
42:15find the people
42:16who need to hear it.
42:18If you're not subscribed yet,
42:19now's a good time.
42:20Tap subscribe,
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42:22and you won't miss
42:23what's coming next.
42:24I'd love to know
42:25where you're watching from today.
42:27And if someone in your family
42:28served in the Second World War,
42:29a father,
42:31a grandfather,
42:31an uncle,
42:32tell me about them
42:33in the comments.
42:34Those stories deserve
42:35to be heard.
42:36Thank you for being here.
42:38I'll see you in the next one.