Great men and planes who helped change history

I remember a gentleman who came up to me just after the Memorial Day Ceremony held at Mojave Cemetery on May 28, 2007, and asked if he could say a few words. He apologized for being so emotional, but he was a Pearl Harbor survivor who had served aboard the USS California (BB-44) and had been in Walmart in Lancaster, wearing his jacket bearing patches from Pearl Harbor signifying he was a survivor of the attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. A teenager came up to him and wanted to know what the patches stood for and he was shocked and dismayed that this young person had not learned in school about what happened on that day that thrust America into World War II!

I was so touched by this man who didn't tell me his name, but briefly shared his important story. Not only did he serve on the ill-fated battleship USS California, but he was also at the Battle of Midway from June 4-7, 1942, the battle that was considered the turning point against the Japanese in the Pacific.

USS California (BB-44), flagship of the Battle Force, was hit forward and aft by two Japanese torpedoes in the early minutes of the Pearl Harbor raid. She was later hit by a bomb and near-missed by another, which caused additional flooding in this magnificent ship.

Despite strenuous efforts, she slowly settled to the bottom of Pearl Harbor, resting on the bottom three days later on December 10. Nearly one-hundred of her officers and men were killed in action during the Pearl Harbor attack. Somehow the man at our Memorial Day Ceremony survived.

I feel that John H. McGoran of Corte Madera, CA another Pearl Harbor Survivor, explained it best in an article online, when he said, "Only one who was there can fully appreciate what took place. As a Pearl Harbor survivor who was at ground zero on 'battleship row,' the morning of December 7, 1941, I feel if you didn't go through it, there are no words that can adequately describe it; if you were there, then no words are necessary."

Isoroku Yamamoto, the same man who conceived the attack on Pearl Harbor, was in charge of the Japanese Combined Fleet in the Battle of Midway. He deployed 162 ships in support of the Midway operation: a strike force of the aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu; an occupation force in twelve transports; along with battleships and cruisers.

This photo shows a very rare flying Douglas SBD Dauntless,( dive-bomber from World War II. It is one of the type aircraft that flew in The Battle of Midway. This aircraft belongs to Planes of Fame in Chino and was at the Edwards Air Show in October 2006.

In the crucial Battle of Midway, the Dauntless did more than any other aircraft to turn the tide of the Pacific War.  Scouting Squadrons and Torpedo Squadrons of SBDs flew from America's aircraft carriers; the USS Enterprise, USS Hornet and the USS Yorktown. At Midway, on June 4, 1942, SBDs left all four Japanese carriers in ruins, and later in the battle sank a heavy cruiser and severely damaged another.  From 1942 through to 1945, in addition to its shipboard service, the SBD saw intensive use with the U.S. Marine Corps, flying from island bases.

SBD Dauntless aircraft accounted for many Japanese aircraft shot down in air-to-air combat. They finished their wartime career as antisubmarine bombers and as attack aircraft, carrying depth charges and rockets.

The SBD was powered with a Wright 1820-66 Cyclone, nine cylinder radial engine, developing 1350 horsepower. The wingspan was 41-feet, 6-inches and the length was 33-feet. The SBD Dauntless featured "Swiss cheese" flaps - dive brakes punched with 3-inch holes - so that it could achieve pinpoint accuracy by diving to the target, dropping the bomb and then pulling out of the near-vertical dive.

Armament included two forward firing .50 caliber machine guns and two 0.30 caliber machine guns on flexible mounts. It could carry up to 1,600 pounds of bombs on a fuselage mount and 650 pounds of bombs on the wings.

U.S. Naval SBD pilot, Norman Jack 'Dusty' Kleiss, wrote a book of his memories during the Battle of Midway with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, entitled Never Call Me a Hero. He intended that the book be released for the 75th anniversary of the historic naval battle that changed the course of history and established the aircraft carrier as the principal strategic weapon of the United States Navy. The Battle of Midway took place June 4-7, 1942.

As they were close to completing the book in 2016, Dusty passed away at the age of 100. He was the last surviving dive-bomber pilot to have fought at Midway.

On June 4, 1942, Kleiss dove his SBD Dauntless in a near vertical dive high above the northern Pacific atoll Midway. Plunging through the air at 240 knots amid immense anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise's elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga, releasing three bombs at the last possible moment, then pulled out of the 9-g dive. The perfectly placed bombs stuck the carrier's deck and Kaga never recovered.

Kleiss returned to the Enterprise and his aircraft was fitted with more bombs for another mission in the afternoon. According to his book, he fatally struck another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Kleiss the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank-losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. All four Japanese carriers were sunk in the battle and the USS Yorktown (CV-5) was lost. She was hit by aircraft bombs and while listing severely, was sunk with torpedoes from a Japanese submarine.

The lives of these men were changed forever and the horrible images they witnessed were indelibly etched into their young minds forevermore.

God bless them and I thank them for their service in the U.S. Navy during World War II and for loving America to the point of laying their lives on the line. I promise all of our WWII veterans we will not forget what you gave for our freedom!

See you on our next flight!