THE ROUNDTABLE FORUM
Official newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable
"To promote awareness and understanding of the great battle and to
honor the men who fought and won it."
23 April 2006....................Issue No.
2006-17......................Our 9th Year
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AROUND THE TABLE ...............................................
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MEMBERS'
TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE
1. Peter Gaido: "The Bravest Man I Ever Met"
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"PETER GAIDO: 'THE BRAVEST MAN I EVER MET'"
Ed. note: I'm departing from our usual format this week with the
following offering from Dusty Kleiss. This is not a message to the
Roundtable, but an excerpt from another web site on which some of Dusty's
wartime memoirs are posted.
The subject is AMM1/c Bruno P. (Peter) Gaido, radioman-gunner for ENS Frank
W. O'Flaherty of VB-6. The two ditched on the morning of 4 June 1942, and
were captured and murdered by the Japanese.
If you'd like to see the web site from which this excerpt is taken, the URL
is:
http://www.burtonia.com/ww2/kleiss/friends.html
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From: N.
J. "Dusty" Kleiss (BOM vet, ENS, VB-6, USS Enterprise)
I first met AMM3/c Peter Gaido as I was preparing to make my first carrier
landing. He asked me, "can I go with you?" I replied, "this is my first
carrier landing and I am supposed to have only sand bags." He said,
"you got wings, ain't cha?" and replaced the sandbags with his stout
frame. With that supreme confidence I made a half dozen perfect landings.
Peter Gaido later displayed his character as he observed a Japanese bombing plane
attempting to crash into the Enterprise. He jumped into an empty
SBD, fired a machine gun at the approaching plane and continued firing at it as
it sheared off the tail of his SBD, and continued firing as the Japanese plane
moved in the opposite direction until it hit the ocean. He tried to
remain anonymous of this action but Vice Admiral Halsey finally found him and
promoted him on the spot to AMMl/c.
He flew with Ensign O'Flaherty during the Battle of Midway. They dropped
their bombs on the Japanese carriers but later had to make a crash
landing. They were picked up from their rubber boat, rescued by the
Japanese, interrogated, murdered, and their bodies thrown back into the sea.
Peter Gaido was the bravest man I ever met.
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For more on this sorrowful episode, including a photo of Gaido, see A
Glorious Page In Our History, pp. 114-115.
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HEAR THIS! ..................................................
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NEWS
& INFO IN THIS ISSUE
--Ambush
at Midway (Video)
--Japanese
Intelligence
--Forum
Notes
--TV
This Week
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AMBUSH AT MIDWAY (VIDEO)
Last year, Yorktown vet Sam Laser sent me an assortment of VHS tapes
to use as source material for my book about the Roundtable. I
finally watched the last of them in February, and was amazed to
find among the collection an excellent television production on the BOM that I
hadn't previously seen. It's Turning Points of History: Ambush at
Midway, and it appears to be a production of the BBC Canada network.
Or at least, that's who televised it, most recently on January 27th of this
year, according to a Google search. Apparently, it was originally
produced in 2001.
Unlike other BOM videos that we've reviewed in the past, this one does not
appear to be generally available for purchase. That's too bad, because it
may be the best of them all. It's certainly on the same level as Thomas
H. Horton's Discovery Channel production and Oliver North's War Stories episode.
Its thoroughness and accuracy are aided a great deal by the participation of
current and former Roundtable members. In particular, John Lundstrom and
Stephen Budiansky helped a great deal in keeping the facts straight, and
VS-6 vet Dusty Kleiss provided an abundance of first-hand experience from
one who had been in the midst of it all.
As good as it was, the perfect BOM video still has yet to be made. There
were a number of factual errors, but generally just the nitpicking kind that
would only be noticed by the likes of us. For example, (a) there was
the usual passing remark that the Japanese flight decks were
"crammed with armed and fueled strike planes" when hit by the SBDs,
(b) a comment was made that the IJN lost two carriers at Coral Sea,
and (c) Dusty Kleiss was credited with hitting the Akagi with his
bomb, rather than Kaga. (It was the program announcer who said
that, not Dusty.) And of course, there were the usual mismatched
background scenes of ships and aircraft, but I think we can accept that as
normal. The closing credits did include a statement that
certain non-authentic film clips were used to illustrate various
concepts. Such forthright honesty on that issue is refreshing and rare.
In summary, this is a very good video rendition of the Battle of Midway, as
good as any of them and as good one can expect without an unlimited budget
and one of us doing the final editing. It's regrettable that the program
is not more widely available, as I'm sure most of our members would want to see
it.
John Lundstrom told me he vaguely remembers the interview but never saw the
final production, and John Greaves says he hasn't seen it on Canadian TV.
Did anyone else in Canada (or anywhere) catch the broadcast on
January 27th? Does anyone else have a recorded copy?
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JAPANESE INTELLIGENCE
As near as I can recall, we have rarely discussed the merits of Japanese intel
during WWII (one thread comes to mind from about 3 years ago). Paul
Turner in Australia sends along an interesting example, a page from Torpedo
Junction by Robert Casey that shows the enemy's understanding of the
F4F Wildcat, circa 1941-42. Click the following URL to view the
image. It's high-resolution, so allow time if you're on a dialup:
http://www.midway42.org/temp/jap-intel-f4f.jpg
Now, who is going to translate the text for us?
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FORUM NOTES
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Congrats to Major Bill Geissler, USMC on his retirement from
the Corps as of last September. Bill says he is now employed as
"one of those [annoying] government contractors!"
Seriously, he has been and remains an excellent resource for Marine historical
data and information, due to his ready access to the USMC Historical Division
at Quantico, VA.
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TV THIS WEEK
Here are television listings of possible interest for the period of April
24 - May 1 (eight days). The times shown below may not be the same
in your area--be sure to check your local guide.
Channels:
AMC = American Movie Classics
DISC
= Discovery Channel
HC
= History Channel
FNC
= Fox News Channel
PBS
= Public Broadcasting System
TCM
= Turner Classic Movies
Thur, April 27
8:00 AM (HC) Secret Superpower Aircraft:
Bombers. This is one of those listings that is off-topic for
the Roundtable, but one that will be appealing to our many aviation
enthusiasts. The program starts with the Soviets' reverse-engineering of
the B-29, and proceeds through the development of the B-2.
9:00 AM (HC) Secret Superpower Aircraft:
Fighters. Same as above, beginning with the Soviets' frustration
over MIGs that couldn't catch British reconnaissance aircraft.
10:00 AM (HC) Secret Japanese Aircraft
of WWII
2:00 PM (HC) Secret Superpower
Aircraft: Bombers (repeated)
3:00 PM (HC) Secret Superpower
Aircraft: Fighters (repeated)
4:00 PM (HC) Secret Japanese Aircraft
of WWII (repeated)
Fri, April 28
9:00 PM (HC) Grounded on 9/11. Another
off-topic entry, but also of unique interest. It's the story of U.S. and
Canadian air controllers dealing with 6,500 aircraft that suddenly had to be
landed at the nearest airport on 9/11/01.
Sun, April 30
1:00 PM (HC) The Three Wars of the
Battleship Missouri
2:00 PM (HC) Inside the Great Battles:
Iwo Jima
3:00 PM (HC) The Last Stand of the Tin
Can Sailors
4:00 PM (HC) Pacific: The Lost
Evidence: Guam
5:00 PM (HC) Pacific: The Lost
Evidence: Pearl Harbor
6:00 PM (HC) Pacific: The Lost
Evidence: Guadalcanal
8:15 PM (TCM) Wake Island (1942)
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For a glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms
used in The Roundtable Forum, click the following URL or go to our home page
and click "The Roundtable Glossary" link.
http://www.midway42.org/glossary.htm
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