Under the relentless onslaught of Japanese Mitsubishi A6 Zero fighter planes, the Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers of the USS Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron 8 are massacred as they attempt to attack Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in this dramatic painting by artist John Hamilton titled “Destruction of a Torpedo Bomber.”

Battle of Midway

Remembering Torpedo 8 of Midway

By Mark Carlson

In 1982, Captain Bert Earnest and Commander Harry Ferrier were present at an event to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Read more

Battle of Midway

Battle of the Philippine Sea & The ‘Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’

By John Wukovits

Lieutenant Tom Bronn glanced anxiously at the fuel gauge on his Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. He had been aloft for almost four hours, engaged in a hectic combination of trying to locate Japanese ships he knew to be in the Philippine Sea, diving down to unleash his four bombs at a carrier as dusk enveloped his aircraft, and then embarking on a desperate search for his own carrier, the USS Lexington, in the darkness. Read more

U.S. Navy Helldiver aircraft attack the Japanese battleship Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Painting by Sam L. Massette.

Battle of Midway

Clash in the Sibuyan Sea

By John Wukovits

In warfare, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in the fall of 1944 the empire of Japan found itself in precisely that predicament. Read more

Battle of Midway

Saipan: A Crucial Foothold in the Marianas

By John Wukovits

On June 10, 1944, as his troop transport churned through the Pacific toward the Japanese-held island of Saipan, Pharmacist’s Mate First Class Stan Bowen wrote a letter to his sweetheart, Marge McCann. Read more

Battle of Midway

Turning Point In The Pacific

By Michael E. Haskew

Despite more than a decade of triumphs in Asia and the Pacific, by the spring of 1942 the Japanese military establishment was in a somber mood. Read more

Battle of Midway

Guadalcanal: Victory in the Pacific Theater

by Mike Haskew

On August 7, 1942, American Marines landed unopposed on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons chain. The island was the key to future offensive operations in the South Pacific for either side, and the Marines were determined to defeat the Japanese in their first significant ground assault of the Pacific War. Read more

Battle of Midway

World War II Summary and Synopsis

by Mike Haskew

World War II spanned six long years from 1939 to 1945. The Allied powers, principally The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, defeated the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Read more

Battle of Midway

A Relic of the Pacific Theater

For U.S. forces, the Pacific Theater was orchestrated by two leading commanders: Admiral Chester Nimitz controlled the Pacific Ocean Areas (POA), and General MacArthur was the Supreme Allied Commander of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA). Read more

Battle of Midway

How Pearl Harbor Happened

By Richard G. Higgins

Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, strike leader for Operation Hawaii and 20-year veteran of the Imperial Japanese Navy (Kaigun), strapped himself into the observer’s seat as his Nakajima B5N2 “Kate” torpedo bomber, piloted by Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuzaki, and lifted off from the carrier Akagi on the black morning of December 7, 1941. Read more

Battle of Midway

75th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway

By Michael E. Haskew

Seventy-five years ago this month, the pivotal battle of World War II in the Pacific occurred in the waters surrounding an otherwise obscure atoll, Midway, roughly 1,300 miles from Pearl Harbor, where American involvement in the conflict had begun so suddenly just six months earlier. Read more

Battle of Midway

LIFE Photographer Ralph Morse’s War

By Susan Zimmerman

In an age before television and instant communications, Americans wanted to see what was going on in the world’s “deadliest conflict in human history,” and LIFE magazine was making a name for itself as THE war magazine during World War II. Read more

From Around the Network

  • “The Anaconda Plan” was devised by General Winfield Scott and President Lincoln to squeeze the Confederacy into submission by blockading the South’s seaports.

    Civil War

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    Battlefields

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