as basalt magna carta containing the basic rules and organization of the game that's played to this day friday night at eight eastern on cspan-3 . >> stephen more on american dive bombers this 50 minute talk is a symposium hosted by the national world war ii museum in new orleans. welcome back everyone . >> we been an apartheid arrangement kind of year with the land fighting on guadalcanal and two fantastic presentations but now we will rise up into the air with expert guidance stephen elmore.

stephen is a writers writer, the author of multiple book on the two greatest conflicts in human history . >> the war for texas independence . >> it never fails to that one always works . >> i said multiple books, the battles for hells island, how a small band of carrier dive bombers help save guadalcanal in those would be best for readers in this room today. stephen lives in north texas in the beautiful town and that's not really here or there except that in the conversation that we realize we have daughters.

please welcome stephen moore. [ applause ] thank you so much. you have me for the air portion of this but i will preface this by saying i will mainly talking about the spd dive bomber and obviously there is a marine and army air force present and lots of different folks taking part not only with the carrier battles but with the cactus air force. our challenge in this part of 1942 was to stop japan from getting the control of the pacific the following loss at pearl harbor carrier aviation came to the forefront as far as battle tactics, replacing the old school battleship navy that was the mentality at the time.

there are a few images from december 7, 1941 and in the battle of hells island, what i do is cover the role of the dauntless dive bombers from this period of time, quickly up until their guadalcanal campaign, primarily based around a couple different squadrons of bringing in a number of other ones there. on december 7, improvises coming into pearl harbor and squadrons are coming in on what should be a supposedly routine flight. it turns out to be anything but that but as you can see from the carnage, one of the wreck spd's, airplanes from bombing six in scouting six and a third were shot down that morning. the results are devastating for the pacific fleet, particularly in terms of battle ships that were severely lost or damaged their the enterprise of squadrons regroup with me and get back to the business of war. within a few days, clarence

dickinson attack a japanese submarine and this became the first come back ship sunk by u.s. carrier forces. so, the dive bomber was ideally suited for carrier work for each was manned by a pilot and a rearseat radioman gunner and we happen to be blessed with having one with us mr. paul hilliard. thank you, sir. >> if i slip up somewhere, jump in and let me know if i got the facts wrong. with the top speed of somewhere around 250 miles per hour roughly, this was lower than the japanese hero they would go up against at times. some people would nick name the spd slow what deadly but if you talk to some of the pilots flew the plane, they felt otherwise

they give it credit for being highly maneuverable in being able to absorb a severe amount of punishment got into battle. >> the pilot said 50 caliber wing guns was switched to stray targets or attack enemy aircraft in the air. the rear gunner had a single caliber machine gun . >> enterprises among the first to have dual 30 calibers mounted early in 1942 coming out on the earlier carrier rates. now, the plane can carry a 1000 pound bomb underneath, they could also carry a 500 pound bomb load with the hundred pound wing bomb under each wing. or, it could be rigged with depth charges for antisubmarine patrol duty. it was a versatile dive bomber . >> the navy dive bomber squadrons paid a heavy price in 1942. case in point, was scouting squadron six which went out with the enterprise and in a

short period of time, it had 50% of the pilot, 19 out of 38 either killed, wounded or taken prisoner of war . >> 14 r scouting six is and 36 radio gunners were either killed , captured or wounded within the same six months timeframe. pretty good attrition. >> now, quickly to get us up to water looks now we get a background on what they did in the early months, some of the island rates we are familiar with. this is the first chance to get payback for the japanese, the first coming on february 1, 1942 when the yorktown enterprise air groups go out to attack the marshaling gilbert islands. long-term damage might've been minor but the fact that the american carriers were striking back at all from the jeffries was a significant morale

booster. we followed up with other raids over the next couple months, february and march against wake island, marcus island in new guinea. along the way, we lost more pilot that gained considerable experience . >> now, we try to bring a personal angle to it by talking to people are getting into archives and memoirs and finding out what was going on in their head or what they felt like. an interesting story i came across was for rearseat gunners from the uss lexington were with scouting squadron to and went through training before the war before the war began they made a pledge as america was on the brink of the war. they expect rough times to come and at least one of them was married and a lot of them were single but, they decided if something happens during the war and some of us get killed or don't come back to our pledgor promise, the rest of us or any of us that survive are

going to go back and talk to the wives and let them know, what did he do, what was the last action or what happened so they got a pledge what are they gonna do. you see the pledge in the deck of the uss lexington and lefty kraft, jb jewell and wheeler. so, we will follow them from the start of the war up to the first carrier battle at the orosi and then on to the guadalcanal canal for those who didn't make it that far. if you haven't looked at the book and i will tell you what some of them went through. one of them was lost in an island attack over a japanese harbor blown apart by an antiaircraft shell. another one is lost on a night training exercise, one is spd spins into the ocean during a storm. a third member of the

pledge group party ends up spending four hours or so in the ocean, trying to keep his injured pilot afloat after they had to ditch their spd that he later receives a commendation for keeping the man alive. finally, the fourth man, was so badly wounded in a bomb explosion that some of the medics initially declared him dead and pushing to the side. so, again, none of them had it easy and that is just indicative of what happened with the enlisted men. we hear more about the pilot sometimes but to me there's a lot of good stories that went on from the front and back of the s these. >> now, as we get up past the first raids , we have a we talked about earlier, a couple guys mentioned the doolittle raid, a significant morale boost as well, the enterprise squadrons followed the hornet out there and help escort doolittle's readers to japan.

but, weeks later and after that we have the first carrier versus carrier battle in the coral sea, so on lexington and yorktown there out there and what became history, the first time the opponents are going out without being inside each other from each aircraft in the yorktown and lexington groups, they counted the light carrier, the show, or under the waves but the battle went on for a couple days. these are some of the heroes of the battle from the dauntless standpoint and among here are two successful scouting teams, johnny liska and his pilot and they were given credit for destroying five enemy aircraft from adonis dive bomber, not normally something you would ink about in terms of fighting the japanese. one of the other folks you see here was credited with shooting

down planes from the rear seat with this 30 caliber machine gun and by the end of world war ii, he saw an extended period of time and had the nickname of a scholarly, giving credit for five aerial pills as a rearseat gunner. three of these four guys you see here would go on to guadalcanal and continue the survival pledge i mentioned a minute ago. >> now, at the coral sea we have significant heroes that flew the dauntless dive bomber and among them were two men who earn the medal of honor and one of them said i'm going to make a hit whether it kills me, basically paraphrasing him and he did just that, going down to the deck of the japanese carrier and putting it on board as he said he would but he didn't survive the mission but he would get the medal of honor later. another of the pilots earned a medal of honor for dogfighting with the spd of the coral sea against japanese torpedo planes, bombers and fighters and that is a big

portion that i talk about where, they didn't have enough fighters in the fleet and had to bring in dive bombers to help in the role. we lost lexington in the battle and the yorktown was badly damaged but, she makes it back to burrell harmer where nemitz gives with the days to effect repairs to get back out because they have intelligence to battle the midway that shaping up. so, she makes it back out and as you can see from the illustration, the dauntless had one of its biggest a's on june 4 when the enterprise and yorktown squadrons took out three japanese carriers and they accomplish this in the a miraculous feat of about five minutes. this is vick best making of bombing attack on the flagship carrier there, but the victory was paid by the sacrifice of three peter squadrons and we've heard about tribute 06 three and eight which he with a did,

there was sacrifice that day, not only from the carrier torpedo squad but from marines and navy pilot flying from midway. in a span of five minutes, three flat tops were destroyed. >> now, for seeking three of these carriers, the dive bombers paid a heavy price that day, they launched 64-bit only half the number would make it back to the flight deck on june 4. summer shutdown has some ran out of fuel and the lucky ones were rescued the next day or several days later and if you have the aviators off midway were picked up by the japanese and unfortunately they were interrogated and usually executed but didn't survive. if you are lucky, like the bottom photo, this guy ditched is spd alongside one of the cruisers and was hooked up the same day,

but we lost a lot of dive bombers in that battle so, it continues and there's still one undamaged japanese carrier left in the yorktown, although she's damage that day by bombs and torpedoes, her group goes out and finds that the scouts find the other carrier and so they are left with the makes bag of yorktown and enterprise dive bombers sent out on the same day on june 4 and they find and manage to pounder with bombs, destroying a fourth japanese carrier and one day >> the battle of midway goes on for a couple more days and there was another carrier there , the hornet, but her planes are a whole another story of why they didn't get into action against the carriers on june 4, we won't go there at this point but they did get into the action over the next couple days attacking the retiring japanese cruisers and destroyers out there. one cruiser on june 6, mike uma was sunk and the other was so badly

damaged she would be out of the war for at least a year. said this was the biggest day for the navy up to that point, as far as retribution and getting back revenge against the japanese. primarily this was handled by the dauntless is. some of the pilots would get back to pearl harbor and get into fist fights with airmen who claim they bomb and sunk carriers out there and had done damage but indeed, it was the dive bomber that had achieved the victory for the largest part of midway. it would be the dive bomber that would play a significant role going into the canal. don't get me wrong, this was not all dive bombers or carrier driven bomber squadrons, but that is kind of the focus of what i'm doing here, we could speak for an hour on the fighters, the marine in the navy fighters and john lundstrom has done a tremendous book on the navy fighters at guadalcanal canal. my focus is the dive bombers . >>, if midway was a decisive your turning point. that was

just the start of it. if you talk to some of these guys that served at guadalcanal . >> they made a huge difference, but would continue to play a big role as we get into guadalcanal . >> this was the first major offensive campaign with a couple great speakers talking about that already. but, when the ground forces move ashore, you have the carrier air group giving them life-support and covering them for two days during this early period in august. this photo shows a dirt strip that the japanese started to build named henderson field in honor of the hero from the rain from the battle of midway . >> we would capture that quickly once we went ashore. . >> now, several major naval battles will be fought and also, to aircraft carrier battles but this will be a

pivotal point, trying to keep and maintain control of henderson field because of what it offers as far as operating from the island to protect transports and destroyers and troop ships and carrier fleet . >> now, during the initial part of the campaign, the japanese quickly came to call this island to go gounod jima or hells island. not only was it filled with swamps and vietnam -like jungles but you've got snakes and alligators and mosquitoes that carry all kinds of things like malaria and dysentery. you have a lack of supplies so the japanese come to call this thing hells island because they have to rely on wrap patrol for the night destroyer group to run supplies and ammunition and food to drop it off to be just under the cover of darkness. the americans don't have lanes on the islands for the first couple weeks but once they do

they are not well adapted so they come in that night to restock and that's where you end up with some of these big campaigns at the start of the campaign you see in spd taking off and it's one of the unit commanders that we have planes from the rise covering the landing for two days and as has been discussed, people that keep the carrier safe, lots of criticism from the marine in the army and everyone else about him being cowardly and pulling out there's reasons for on his side but they did and he took the criticism for it. the carrier hornet, they don't have it listed but of course they would take part in the campaign along with the spd squadrons but these are the ones are during the landing days . just talking about a few people that serve talking about

people i thought were interesting, he goes back to the beginning of the war, he was originally with scouting five on your town and was involved in early airstrikes we talked about and earned a couple navy process and different nominations for his valor in combat and he attacked the carrier show how in the battle of the girls the and had been given commendation for using his dive bomber as a fighter plane and defending the yorktown lexington the next day so our brave guy, no one questioned his abilities that is until he gets to the first carrier battle at guadalcanal. this is a few weeks after the landings in august 24 we have the enterprise in saratoga groups up against the japanese carriers that amount try to do battle with them so bernie is one of the pilot sent out from the enterprise to scout out carriers to find them and report them back so they do that

. >> the way he conducted himself would draw the ire of the air group commander and as bernie is strong and his wingman found the japanese carriers and ordered them as they were supposed to, they didn't stick around to make an attack, they went back to the ship arrived back safely and that didn't impress commander, and so he remained in trouble for some time and after the eastern solomons battle in which one japanese light carrier was sunk in the enterprise was damaged by bombs, she goes back and bombing six scouting five, they are rotated back stateside because they'd been out for the beginning of the war from december 7 so they are rotated back, a good pilots could train new air groups and just a few of these guys would stick around with the incoming new air group 10, they went aboard

the enterprise at pearl harbor and among them was the tenant strong, he was ordered to remain behind commander, and because he was to offer him being a coward for not attacking the carriers and you can imagine strong has a desire to prove his name and show he's not a coward and worthy of the fight and he does just that. a matter of weeks later at the second carrier batter the battle of santa cruz. once again bertie strong as part of the scouting at that looks to find and report carriers now, before the battle, he addressed the pilot and bernie got offended because it took it personally and said, if you're not gonna go out there and make bombs count today you should just stay home and let me send good pilots out there that can do something so we took that

personally so when he found the small carrier to do the report they pressed on the attacks and they found the japanese carrier leading the bombs on the hits that were right there but not out of the battle of santa cruz it made a huge difference with two pilots and for that he was recommended later for the medal of honor for the valor. although it would be reduced to a navy class, the third for 1942. >> here's another character of five dive bombers i found interesting. robert gibson had an amy picked up but he was a character that was there from the early days and he got in on the tail end of early battles coming in as a replacement pilot. he was a

junior dive bomber pilot at the battle of midway and got to take a swim that day when york town went down but didn't get a big part of the battle that gained experience and went right back out and was with the enterprise during the battle of the eastern solomons. he was another one that would remain when the enterprise went back out again. so, he goes back out and continues the guadalcanal campaign. i want to say he's one of just two dive bomber pilots that made it to the battle, so we hear about gibson as a battle progresses at guadalcanal . >> then of course there's the cactus air force and thomas miller did a great book and i hear there's someone else working on a new volume about that which i applaud and hope to see that. but, to me it's very interesting because this is the pivotal battle to keep

guadalcanal and help marines and help the guys ashore maintaining hair supremacy from the dark strip we took from the japanese. now, they came to call this the cactus air force and the folks that served on that and again you've got army air force and lots of fighters, marine dive bombers and avengers that come in their navy avenger squadrons and just because of time today i were gonna focus more on dive bombers but there's a lot of people that take part in the cactus air force so i don't mean to diminish the role. , the first group to come up ashore in flight and fight from henderson field is a group called flight 300 that just happened to be the flight number that day from the uss enterprise and during the battle of eastern solomon. when enterprise is so damaged they can land, they have orders to continue on and linda henderson field which in fact

they do now, they didn't have any idea how to land it was almost a comedy of errors getting them down safely without anybody crashing but this was a mixed bunch scouting five and bombings takes air crewmen had been launched during this carrier battle severely are in august in a fourth landing on a dirt strip and an island barely held by the marines close by, still japanese within mortar range and firing range with they have to sleep at night so begins six weeks for the end of's flight 300 dive bomber guys on house island. the leader of the flight was lieutenant turner caldwell that he was the skipper of scouting five. he was a guy named rocky glidewell and rocky had more is flying planes from the rear seat than most of the pilots including even the skipper who had flown with the air group command previously in several squadron commanders and rocky

had more than 1000 flight hours in the rear's. incidentally even a boxer early on in his career and during his early navy days and after a picked up the nickname rocky and he was a scrappy guy for sure what you needed to be live in the environment, the jungle the heat, the terrain, lack of good food and navy guys are forces the and what they wore off the ship that day or what they could scrounge up for weeks on end, wash your clothes in the river or take a bath maybe once a week if you're lucky, you're eating army rations of japanese rice, sometimes filled with forms and maggot , airfield is continually bombarded by japanese forces coming in under covering the night, cruisers, destroyers even battleship at times you got frequent raids coming against airfield from

japanese planes that sometimes just an individual plane that comes in with the thumping of the engine that they come to call washing machine charlie. here comes washing the teen charlie of the 2 pm learning raid and they develop assist him of air raid alarms and when he's coming. that is what the guys look like and pretty rough and the guy in the bottom he got shot in the arm and took one day off and let one guy receipt and that's what these guys are made of and they had to be made of. so, the planes were wiped out from bombardments and you can see the damage in the lower picture, whether it's energy ships or aerial bombardments, the planes are wiped out during the daytime air raid and then scramble to get to the spd's

and get them airborne is quick as they can and if they don't you go lose their plane and they go out the tokyo express and japanese bases and troop positions. anything they can to keep things going. they almost lost the plane a day on average from foul weather, rashes or people being wounded. this is what your camp could quickly become. so in addition to the enemy and all the other bad things you have to deal with how you have tropical front and turn the whole camp into a greg meyer or the airstrip in the mud overnight . >> replacement plans were thrown up and that was the closest base stage planes when available. >> the rear gunner as mentioned before quite a big role and

they helped fly the plane if need be. icons it was part of flight 300 from enterprise and on the night of august 30th he goes out with the marine to attack japanese destroyer a part of the rapper troll coming in but his plane is it, badly hit by antiaircraft fire, he's wounded, he's bleeding and is knocked unconscious and delirious and stupid, flying uncontrollably back under the japanese ship and for the island and and away from the island. then finally the jimmy kimmel decides this guy's not worth it annie puts his thick in the rear seat and he's help find the comments back and he saves them by bringing the plane and and landing it and he's among the few guys that lifted out of there because of battle injuries but at times, the rear gunner and not only shot zeros

but had to land the plane. >> the enlisted men to part working on planes between attacks helping marines to cast them up and scavenge parts and put them back together, this is the boneyard a marine dive bomber shipping it apart and putting planes back together to get them in the air. torpedo eight, which came in and served for a period of time in the cactus air force came to a point, he talked about bombardments wiping out the planes and there was a point and they went to the boneyard and billed to frankenstein tbf avengers and put them together and got them back in the air and that's what you had to do, that was left on the canal, stripping and scavenging anything you could. now, the flight 300 guys, within the first couple days in the first week of being there, these help to sing to japanese destroyers,

but it was just constant action keep the aircraft flying. this is what they look like after some of the attack. within a month, many planes have been lost and are to emily damage to fly and turner caldwell's spd was blown apart by japanese bombing attacks. some of his pilots were wounded or too sick to fly and during the balance of flight 300 it was taken out of the end of september after six weeks on house island . >> were genetically there were extra planes being paired up because of what was called torpedo junction. these were aviators that could be brought in after september not tober to japanese submarines. the waters around the solomons became so deadly that torpedo junction, the carrier of saratoga torpedoed in late august after the eastern solomons was forced to go stateside to make repairs. on september 15, the carrier is

hit by torpedoes and fatally damaged and finally sunk that day. many of her aviators were able to land on the carrier hornet and fly on. among those were scouting 71 which was commanded by john eldridge that he would take scouting 71 into cactus air force to serve at the marines aboard the saratoga commanded by a former football star you got the scouting and this is one of the guys here scouting 71. he's beside his plane and then they didn't want to shave a lot of times for fear of getting infection from rusty razors >> last i knew, nate was one of

the few spd pilots the living that flew with the cactus air force. the big carrier battles in santa cruz , is whittles down the carrier strength above the japanese and the american and the enterprises damage both the eastern solomons battle in the santa cruz battle, it so badly damaged that it has to be taken out of action for a short period of time, but we did lose the carrier hornet, bombs, torpedoes and even as you see in the picture, they would be japanese, khasi, an injured pilot who dives his plane into the carrier superstructure, one of the few planes to get a ship that was intentionally trying to be done so. further damage and attacks that day would cause the hornet to be lost and scuttled, which leaves the last

operational carrier in the pacific to handle the rest of the campaign. >> the biggest push comes in november 1942 when the admiral received intelligence of the japanese have a major undertaking to go for house island, to take guadalcanal back including a major ground assault , battleships and cruisers for surface action and a large convoy of troop transports bringing thousands of new shoulders and, he has no choice but to get the biggie out there to stop. her air group will become a salvation for guadalcanal . her forward elevators and bad habit of sticking in the down position this ever decides when i can use the forward elevator for flight operations and during the course of the action, right after the big night battle, they begin flying off the air group little by little on the

13th a send off the buzzard brigade, torpedo squadron 10 and they help the cactus air force to sink a japanese battleship the first day and the torpedo bomber grew stay the night at guadalcanal. the next day , more of the enterprise are whose will join the cactus air force. general lewis woods is in charge, the marine commander that he has one marine avenger squadron and to marine dive bomber squadrons, but he is happy to bring in these enterprise guys have coming to help save the day. by the next day, by november 14, the majority of the enterprise air group have been flown into guadalcanal. >> this map here i will give you an idea of how busy it became for cactus air force in the enterprise guys. the scout planes went out and they would report that not only retiring warships and bombardment force but found a troop convoy coming in and they

would see a couple different horses in different attacks and you guys have to let me know how i'm doing on time this week it's been a long time talking about each strike and attack, but among the guides the glut the morning, who gets him, i mentioned before, he and the wingmen go in and help polish off one of the japanese cruisers and didn't hit her as they thought they did that they landed near misses that were so damaging and close that it held flood and the cruiser which already had a serious amount of damage. the marine dive bombers and enterprise torpedo planes in the two dive bomber squadrons are literally ferrying back and forth through cactus all night long making strike after strike on warships and convoys in what would be the biggest day for the cactus air force. 15 minutes after gibson's group knocks at the cruiser, two more guys from the inner rise find

them bombardment ships, two of them attack that one amends and his spd is damaged and he crashes his dive bomber into the japanese cruiser, wrecking her gun mounts and killing 37 japanese sailors. >> here is kind of what the frenzy looks like. this picture is a little earlier because you have the control tower and eventually the precode and other structures were taken down because he found they became prime targets for japanese artillery and learned a lot of hard lessons in flying with the air force but the marines in the navy. one of their busiest days continually putting these guys back in the air. there was another attack from the carrier and the ended up landing on the field but one of them was shot down by japanese

zeros that the encounter before he made it there. other spd strikes from the enterprise we continue to ferrying during the day, including a 17 spd strike group that came in along with him of the room reapers so, you've got wildcat fighters from the navy and marines that day. a finish often one of the japanese cruisers and continue to try to repel the incoming troop transport coming in with all the fresh soldiers. they crippled a couple transports and sunk a couple out right, another couple guys i will talk about in the time allowed, bruce mcgraw was a dive bomber pilot and he ended up being on the carrier after the bombing attack when enterprise was damaged and had to go work in a first-aid nation holding a guy and watching him die in his arms i

gave him resolve that he would go back and kill as many japanese as he could with his dive bomber when he got the chance so, he got to do that on november 14 in fact commander com1 told him you go with the transports when you leave here, that's exactly what he did. his first i've going and he had no dive rate so he reached terminal velocity in the three- mile dive going down the hung in there and made his bomb a direct hit that blew out the side of one a chance. three other pilots also achieved hits on the mission against the japanese transport. leonard robinson, nickname was bobby robinson was a buddy and came in on the first strike and had to divert to henderson field because of lack of dual but would go out and make two more strikes that day against warships in the japanese convoy going in. the third mission, his group

had no fighter cover, which he protested loudly before the mission but they still sent him out, one of the guys would survive, many days in the ocean, the robbie made it back fairly and his gunner was wounded in his plane badly shot up and he had a long pursuit find out run japanese heroes he had 68 bullet holds that they could count . so by nightfall of november 19, one of the japanese troop transports for that time had been forced to turn back, to had been sunk out right and others lay crippled, hit by bombs and torpedoes drifting further out to sea. for undamaged transports were still inbound heading for guadalcanal and during the overnight hours they would teach themselves, you can see from some of the

burning holes right here, this is a famous photograph taken from hoot gibson's plane trying to find out where all of the japanese transports went and that's where they found them, along the coast. they ran themselves aground, let the troops out to try to get all the supplies off they could on the beaches and what ensues is just a basic field day for dive bombers and torpedo planes the next day to go in and bomb all the stuff that's been put ashore on guadalcanal. while other strike planes went out to finish off the couple transports still drifting off shore. >> this is the whole and hoot gibson was one of the guys that bomb that ship. the hoax of the transports would remain for months and years and decades the last off

the coast of guadalcanal, some has been destroyed and taken down for safety purposes but scuba divers still go out today and swim around the hoax and tried to win this battle during november 1942 for guadalcanal. it was costly , but you can see from the stats, as far as the japanese, two days of airstrikes and a big naval battle, cost the japanese to battleships, heavy cruiser, three destroyers, 10 troop transports and about 64 aircraft and thousands of lives. as i mentioned, these transports remained for decades but in terms of american costs, we lost two light cruisers, seven destroyers and only about three dozen aircraft in this period of time. it was a huge victory for the american, not just by the spd's by the cactus air force playing a pivotal role in what combined with the ground forces and also the big naval battles offshore.

so, the battle for guadalcanal was the beginning of the end for the japanese on the island. as we know, by sabella brading today's date it didn't happen immediately, there was another few months of fighting that went on before the japanese did the withdrawal. buckeye was a major victory for the u.s., as far as the first major island offensive in the pacific war. >> now, the dive bombers and cactus air force played a huge role in turning back the japanese assault. in the months prior to november , spd squadrons had participated into carrier battles off the canal and made attacks on numerous warships, both from the carriers and from henderson field. hoot gibson, the dive bomber pilot i mentioned a few times reflected on what they accomplish their by helping to turn the tide at guadalcanal. and in quoting him, he said, midway was not the turning point

. nor did we have superiority over the japanese after midway, we didn't have air superiority until november 1942. i don't have to agree with him, midway was a huge victory but this was a big ty turner if you will at guadalcanal. as far as the spd's to wrap up the successes quickly, they'd been through four major carrier battles including the ones in guadalcanal . they helped contribute largely to sinking six japanese carriers and badly damaged others on three different occasions. a battleship, three cruisers and four destroyers had also gone down under spd bombs and avenger torpedoes. the spd's claimed more than 140,000 combatant sons of shipping sunk unassisted and nearly 50,000 tons sunk with shared claims.

in six months time nearly 1/3 of japan's enable strength in carriers, battleships and cruisers had been sunk or disabled by dive bombers. this figure does not include some 15 transports emerging shifts also sunk of which spd's could claim eight of those exclusively. in addition, dive bomber crews claimed nearly 80 japanese aircraft destroyed during this period of time and the significant part is many of these dive bomber crews would go on to be the nucleus of the back for the next few years in the pacific and rebuilding carrier air groups back stateside and the experience would go a long way to help build what would go out in 43 and 44. if you look at the okinawa campaign in 1945, the avengers, divers, not even the fighters others a lot of names leading the squadrons that flew orosi, midway and the battles. >> so, the fighting spirit in the combat experience of those

guys, not only helped turn the tide but would go a long way in making a major difference in the outcome of america's success in world war ii. i know we need to try to wrap this up for questions so, i will throw back to you . >> thank you very much, steve. great presentation. [ applause ] >> we have time -- we will go over a little bit into the break. time for one or two questions but the rest will probably stay for the roundtable >> we had a form here about 10 years ago on midway. dusty cleese, died maybe last year or the year before at age 101 and he got two hits but he said that five minutes was nonsense, less than four minutes it was all over with i guarantee you. [ laughter ] >> dusty cleese was a heckuva

guy and i had the pleasure of interviewing him a couple times when he lived in san antonio, he was kind enough to answer a lot of questions for that. if you haven't read his autobiography that came out in the past couple years, it's a first-rate book on first year of the dive bombers i think it's ever call me a hero. it's a great book. you are right he's a great guy. we will go with one on the floor and one in the mezzanine next year left ear, steve . >> i was wondering why they were using the largest and slowest planes as scouts, is it because of for the range or was nothing else available? >> and, they could sometimes later get the drop takes and have some additional distance. which of course the fighters could two.

it was a very versatile playing. the use the spd for all kinds of missions. the avengers also went out and some of the scouting missions. more often than not, the fighters were not used at 42 for scouting and reconnaissance. long-range missions like that. upstairs to your right, steve. >> i wanted to ask about the logistics of supplying these drive farmers. and listening to all of this, i was wondering, how did they get the bombs in? how did they get the ammunition? and how did they supply them so that they could do what they did? any other replacement groups, committed the wasp, and saratoga and some of the other ones when they brought planes in, they would bring bombs and/or trout torpedoes with them to bring in. other stuff was brought in via shipping and deliver there and offloaded. in fact, some of the guys who go out, the enlisted men would

leave on some of the transports, or some of the ships. and in one case, a japanese dive bomber hit one of these. it was loaded with aviation fuel and bombs. killed some guys from toe to be - torpedo a and some of the dive bomber) ironically, evacuating the island after a long period of time there. but anybody that came in from esprit to santos, they would fly bombs and with them, leave them there. you didn't drop on a target on your mission, it went back out again the next day. so, bombs were precious. >> i think this is probably a good time to give steve another round of applause, and we will have any other questions at the roundtable. thank you, steve. this is a special edition of american history tv. a sample of the compelling history programs that air every weekend on american history tv. like, lectures and history. american artifacts. real america. the civil war. oral histories. the presidency.

and, special event coverage about our nation's history. enjoy american history tv. now, and every weekend on c- span 3. >> vitae not on american history tv on c-span 3, american artifacts series, a tour of the baseball americana exhibit at the library of congress. curator susan rayburn shows us the earliest mentions of baseball and books and diaries from just after the american revolution. also, recently discovered pre- civil war documents known as baseball's magna carta. containing the basic rules and organizations of the game that is played to the state. that is friday night at 8:00 easter here on c-span 3. now on c-span 3 is american history tv. author trent hoan on u.s. naval strategies and naval tactics developed during the six month battle in guadalcanal in 1942 and 43. and how they helped the u.s.