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.”
13
JULY 2007..........ISSUE NO. 2007-25..........OUR 10th YEAR
===============
AROUND THE TABLE ===============
Members’
topics in this issue:
1. Letter from a Hornet Air Group Vet
2. From Our Archives: Loss of the Wasp
<> <>
<> <> <>
1. LETTER FROM A HORNET AIR GROUP VET
Ed. note: Oral L. “Slim” Moore was a VB-8
radioman-gunner with pilot W. D. Carter at the BOM. Slim is not a computer user and therefore not a Roundtable
member, but I know him rather well from the annual BOM commemorations in San
Francisco. I was pleased to receive a
long letter from him last week, from which I’ve extracted some excerpts as
shown below. They include a few
comments that Roundtable members should find quite interesting.
---------------------------------------
1 July 2007
Oral
L. Moore
Northern
California
(BOM
vet, ARM2/c, R/G, VB-8, USS Hornet)
I
finished reading your excellent book on the Battle of Midway some time ago, and
intend to read it again. Lots in it I
didn’t know about.
For
what it’s worth, I agree with Walt Rodee on the course Ring flew departing from
Hornet that first day at Midway—265 [degrees] true. You probably know the SBD had a stick,
stowed normally against the fuselage in the rear seat. Doug Carter taught me to ship [engage] it and
relieve him from time to time on long scouting hops. I got in a lot of stick time once I showed him I could fly
straight and level.
We
also agreed I would ship the stick and face forward when he was diving on a
target, being careful not touch it in the dive except if he were hit. I’d then be able to pull out. I had a compass and [always took care to]
remember the course out to a target so I could get us close enough to the ship
on the reciprocal course to get us picked up.
I even practiced landings in the air to prepare for landing on the
water.
[Carter]
was a good pilot and I was always grateful for his skill in getting us back on
board. He’s gone now. The last time we met was at a Hornet-Mustin
reunion in San Diego four years ago.
Roy Gee and Clay Fisher were there also.
Ronnie
Fisher [VT-8 gunner with pilot George Campbell] and I were “boon companions”
and graduated from East Denver High School in 1939, then joined the Navy
together in April 1940. How we wound up
in the Hornet air group, he in VT-8 and me in VB-8, is a long story, but
I’ll tell it to you some day if you wish.
He was the one who gave me the nickname “Slim.”
---------------------------------------
See “Now Hear This” below for additional details about Slim Moore at
Midway and Santa Cruz.
<> <>
<> <> <>
2. FROM OUR ARCHIVES: THE LOSS OF THE WASP
(see issue #24)
---------------------------------------
6 July
2007
CWO4
Larry Jordan, USN-Ret
South
Carolina
woforet@sc.rr.com
I have an interest in the piece from Clay
Fisher about the Wasp. My father is still aboard her. He
went down with the ship on September 15, 1942. Interestingly enough, I
was able to connect up with many of the survivors in 1979 at their reunion
in Charleston and to meet some of his shipmates.
This gave me an opportunity to see a
different side of the man. AMM2/c Paul I. Jordan was 21, and I was 16
months old, so this gave me a chance to learn of the man that I only
knew from my mother. I also had the chance to learn much about the Wasp
(CV-7). The first ship of my 25 year career was CVS-18 [the new Essex-class
Wasp].
Over the years serving in VP squadrons in
the Pacific, I was able to spend time in many of the places that I heard about
from the war, especially Midway. That and being a WWII buff drew me to
[the Roundtable]. It has given me a great deal of pleasure to learn of
the first-hand experiences.
Thanks to Bill Price and to you for
continuing what I consider to be the premier website to honor those who have
risked and, sometimes lost all in defense of our country. I always look
forward to the next issue.
---------------------------------------
===============
NOW HEAR THIS! ===============
News
& info in this issue:
-
More About “Slim” Moore
-
“The Course to Midway”
<> <> <> <>
<>
MORE
ABOUT “SLIM” MOORE
After
receiving Slim Moore’s above letter, I phoned him to clarify a couple of his
points and wound up with a one-hour interview.
He can be very engaging on the phone!
I
was especially interested in his experiences in piloting the SBD from the rear
seat. He explained that Doug Carter was
very proactive in getting him qualified to fly the plane, considering a second
pilot in the SBD to be an obvious advantage in case he was wounded in
action. In addition to the stick, the
rear seat controls included rudder pedals plus an altimeter and compass. But there were no controls for the throttle,
landing gear, flaps, or dive brakes, so he agreed that any landing would have
been a memorable experience!
Moore
instigated one of the BOM’s noteworthy incidents, although the history books
don’t have the details quite right. It
is generally reported that on a June 6th search, Carter spotted Mikuma and
Mogami, the latter with a shortened bow due to its collision with the
other cruiser. Believing he was
seeing a standard heavy cruiser (Mogami) along with a larger battle
cruiser (Mikuma, with no bow damage), Carter told Moore over the
intercom to send “SIGHTED ONE CA, ONE CB” to TF-16. Moore had never heard of a “CB” (battle cruiser) before, and
thought the pilot had said “ONE CA, ONE CV,”
which is what he sent via Morse code.
It was correctly copied that way by Enterprise radiomen and
delivered to Admiral Spruance, who was astounded that another Japanese carrier
could have been in the area. He ordered
scouts in the air to find and verify the report. (Most histories say that Moore’s message was garbled in
transmission, resulting in the “CV” mistake.)
A
short while later Roy Gee, who had reason to believe his radio was not working,
overflew Enterprise and dropped a handwritten message reporting “two
cruisers” but at a position slightly different than the one reported by Carter
and Moore. The led Spruance to believe
he was dealing with two groups of enemy ships, and ordered a full strike from
the Hornet. The confusion wasn’t
cleared up for another hour when Carter landed and corrected his original
sighting report.
Carter
and Moore’s SBD had taken friendly fire from Midway on June 4th when most of
VB-8 landed there. You can see a good
photo of the two men at that time on page 137 of A Glorious Page In Our
History, in which Carter (left) and Moore (right) are examining bullet
holes in their SBD, just aft of Moore’s rear-seat position. (The names in the photo caption are incorrect.) Compare that picture to this one taken by
Clay Fisher at the Hornet-Mustin reunion in 2003:
http://www.midway42.org/temp/moore-carter.jpg
The
fire was less friendly at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942,
when a shell from the Shokaku exploded under Moore’s position just as
Carter was pulling out of his dive.
Shrapnel lacerated Moore’s feet and a large chunk lodged in his leg next
to his shin. He managed to stop the
bleeding with his first aid kit, and eventually made it to sickbay on the Enterprise,
where he was surprised to find himself next in line with Dick Woodson,
another graduate of East Denver High’s class of 1939. The VS-8 gunner and future Roundtable member had taken a painful
hit in his knee and abdomen that would put him in the hospital for five
months. Both men eventually returned to
duty. (Be sure to see Woodson’s wartime
biography on our “Veterans Stories” pages if you haven’t already.)
Moore
eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant (j.g.) before leaving the Navy in
1947.
<> <>
<> <> <>
“THE
COURSE TO MIDWAY” (see issue #18)
That
new Navy web site introduced in our May 25th issue has been greatly
enhanced. If you haven’t checked out
“The Course to Midway” since then, you’re going to want to take another
look. At that time, the sections on
Communications Intelligence, the Doolittle Raid, and Coral Sea were well
developed, but the BOM section was still mostly vacant.
Things
have changed a lot in the interim! Do
take the time to browse through the Midway section, where you’ll see more
extensive video interviews of our Roundtable BOM vets, plus you can now view
both of John Ford’s Midway films there, The Battle of Midway and Torpedo
Squadron 8. In particular, for
those who have been looking for that hard-to-find VT8 movie, here it is.
Other
videos include 1950-vintage USN training films about the BOM, and they are
quite interesting to watch from a nostalgic standpoint. For example the narration will seem quaint
by modern standards, especially the producer’s attempt at simulating a Japanese
narrator trying to speak English. On
the other hand, these movies deliver detailed graphic presentations of the
forces engaged at Midway plus a number of BOM film clips not previously seen
(by me, at least). It’s one thing to
read a Midway order or battle list in any number of books, but it’s quite
another to hear the same OOB read to you while viewing silhouette images of the
various ships being described.
There’s
much more on the site that I still haven’t had time to fully explore, so I
invite all of you to do so and send us your comments. You can find it on our own web site’s “Links” page, or here’s the
direct URL: http://www.navy.mil/midway/
<> <>
<> <> <>
Get
the Roundtable’s Book:
NO
RIGHT TO WIN: A CONTINUING DIALOGUE WITH VETERANS OF THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY
Click
for full information: http://www.russbook.com/
(If
you cannot access the above web site, send a message to the editor for full
details on No Right to Win.)
<> <>
<> <> <>
For
a glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The Roundtable
Forum, go to our home page and click the “Roundtable Glossary” link, or
here is the direct URL:
http://www.midway42.org/glossary.htm
Important
notice to members: when submitting a
message for publication in the Forum, be sure to indicate if you do not
want your e-mail address included in the message header. It will normally appear unless you direct
otherwise. (E-mail addresses are
omitted in the web edition.)
The Roundtable Forum, the Official Newsletter of the Battle of Midway
Roundtable is distributed by
e-mail to registered members at approximately one-week intervals. An abridged edition is also posted on our
web site. For information on joining
the Roundtable and subscribing to The Roundtable Forum, click this
URL: http://www.midway42.org/how_join.html.
All
original content in The Roundtable Forum is copyright 2007 by Ronald W.
Russell (address below). Permission to
forward, copy, or quote from The Roundtable Forum for non-commercial
purposes is granted if the following citation is included: “The Roundtable Forum, official
newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable, www.midway42.org.” Exception: any member’s personal information appearing in the Forum, including
but not limited to his/her e-mail address, should be considered
confidential and private. Permission to
forward, copy, or quote from the Forum does not apply to such personal
information unless authorized by the affected member.
Webmasters: we'll appreciate a link on related
web sites. Please link to our domain: http://www.midway42.org. A banner for the purpose can be downloaded from http://www.midway42.org/logo-bomrt.jpg
Contact
info for members: please e-mail the editor
via the address shown in your “New Member Guide,” or just click REPLY on this
e-mail message. The Military.com
address is secondary for members—please use it only if necessary.
Contact info for non-members: please send all inquiries to: bomrt@military.com
Other
contact info:
Ronald W. Russell, editor
2839 Bristol Lane
Phone 209-367-5819
(fax available upon request)
