for 40 years, c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country, so you can make up your own mind. 1979, c-spanble in is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span -- or unfiltered view of government. next, u.s. navy veterans of the battle of midway share their recollections of the 1942 win over the japanese navy. tim: i'm executive director of the american veteran center. welcome and thank you for being here. this is our 20th year of the event. it is a very special year for us and we are very happy you are here. we want to thank the navy memorial for their hospitality for this weekend. they've been great partners over the years. my only word i have to kick things off is for all of the students that are with us this

weekend. i encourage you to take all of this in from where we start with veterans at the battle of midway 75 years ago through the 75 years of american military history. this is your own past and present and future so this is a great opportunity and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the most of it. i would like to welcome admiral frank thorp to say a few words of welcome. >> welcome to the navy memorial. as you all know, our mission here is to honor, recognize, and celebrate the men and women of the sea services, past present and future, and to educate the american public about your service. it is a tremendous honor for us to be here and on a day like today, we use the term sea services, but we are all in it together.

these gentlemen represent the idea of being in it together. i want to say one thing about why i am honored and why we are honored to be here today and the opportunity you have today. when i looked at the program here, and i look at words like trailblazers, legends, these are in the agenda. the last ace, leadership, saving lives, the greatest generation, the medal of honor. why we fought. valor, witness to history, and right here, the turn of the tide. it is an honor for us to be here. i hope you get a lot out of the next couple days because as was just mentioned this is an opportunity of a lifetime that we have in the next couple days to be able to listen to these

great americans who gave of themselves, set an example and paved a path for us to walk. welcome to the navy memorial, i hope you appreciate the hospitality and when i say that what i am really saying is i hope we can make the hospitality as great as it can be to make your experience as great as it can be. [applause] >> without further ado, i'm going to welcome craig horn who will be our mc throughout the day, to introduce our first panel. thanks everybody. craig: good morning. my name is craig horn. this is my 20th year as well with the annual american veterans conference. we are going to begin an adventure as we look back so that we can see further ahead.

it has often been said that ignorance of the past can create irresponsibility in the present and recklessness in the future. this morning we are going to begin with the battle of midway. it is my pleasure to introduce richard frank, a historian of the second world war. he was a consultant for the hbo world war ii special on the pacific and in that he wrote, "the pacific war will inspire a long overdue reawakening of the strategic importance, sheer scale, and unsurpassed savagery of the wars unleashed by japan. the battle of midway was the turning of the tide." please welcome mr. richard b. frank. [applause]

richard: thank you for those kind remarks. we are here on the 75th anniversary of the battle of midway. it is on the perennial list of the most important battles of world war ii, it is often cited as the single most important naval battle in united states naval history. it is usually listed as among the most decisive naval battles in all of history. it is an enthralling story that has been told a number of times. we do not have time to go into all the details of it today. in a sparse outline, let me point out -- the battle ultimately was one of a great triumph against odds. the foundation was intelligence, particularly radio intelligence developed by american radio officers with british and australian support. the key figure is lieutenant commander joseph rochefort who was the commander at pearl

harbor. joe is now legendary figure, he is better remembered than dozens of admirals who served in world war ii. he is also an inspiration, those of you who are feeling that your efforts are not properly appreciated, you should remember that when joe rochefort was in the officer program -- in the officer training program, one of his evaluators wrote this individual should not be trusted with important responsibilities. the information that rochefort provided enabled admiral chester nimitz to station his carriers off the island of midway. after the event, we learned there was more back story. president roosevelt had appointed admiral chester nimitz, but nimitz's immediate boss did not think nimitz was fit for the job and showed it in

various ways. in the weeks leading up to the battle of midway, nimitz and king were in conflict over what the japanese move were going to be. king believe the japanese were going to the south pacific and nimitz believed it was midway. he was in the position of explaining to his boss why he was right and his boss was wrong, which he did. the battle itself was commanded by admiral frank kutcher and admiral raymond spruance. it is a battle that came down to the professionalism and skill and valor of the ships complements of our task forces off midway, most notably our aviators suffered tremendous losses, both those who flew from midway and those who flew from the carriers. among those were the members of torpedo squadron 8. they launched 15 aircraft. all 15 were shot down. of 30 crew men, only one

survived. only six of 41 torpedo planes returned to an american flight deck. dive bombers also suffered heavily. we are fortunate today to have with us three actual veterans of the battle. i talked to them beforehand and there was a natural chronology to the sequence of their recollections about that event. without further ado, we are going to go to that. i'm going to move through that. we also had scheduled this morning captain jack crawford, who unfortunately is not yet here with us -- john crawford. should he get here in time, maybe we will hear from him. we are going to start with jack holder, who in 1941 in 1942 was with patrol squadron 23. jack, you are with the squadron at the time of the attack on pearl harbor. jack: i joined december 12, 1940.

richard: then you deployed from there to the battle of midway. jack: i got there in 1942. richard: your aircraft -- he was flying in a catalina pby, a patrol bomber. it had great range and considerable vulnerability. if it ran into japanese zero fighter aircraft. your position on the aircraft was as -- jack: flight engineer. richard: what did that involve? jack: years ago, aircraft had an engineer -- they required a lot of instrumentation, unlike airplanes today. aircraft today, the pilot has all the control. pby, the pilot cannot start a pby without the flight engineer. richard: these were full of fuel

systems and stuff like that, you are monitoring things like that? i do not know that the flight engineer actually started the plane. his aircraft was not just one of the search aircraft that would fly a critical mission at the battle of midway. it flew the most important mission that morning. because the intelligence we had been provided, the pbys had been set up to conduct surveys of certain sectors. the japanese carriers were expected. but actually, there was an aircraft ahead of you that saw the incoming japanese flight. jack: i was in a second aircraft. we left midway on a deviation of seven degrees and the pilot of the plane to our left -- when they spotted the fleet first, when they reported position, we saw the same thing.

richard: you reported the presence of two japanese carriers? jack: yes. richard: i should point out that although there were 4 japanese carriers, this initial sighting only saw two of them and this would cause ripples, because they knew there should be four carriers present. what is interesting is when we were talking about this, there is this moment when you see the japanese carriers, but you continue on with your mission for hours after that. jack: 13 hours. richard: as you are flying that mission, you do not know what is going on at midway. jack: that's right. we left in the afternoon. we lost all contact with midway. we do not know if we still control it or the japanese had it. richard: their bombing attack had knocked out the radio and you guys cannot pick up

anything. you did not know who held midway. what did you do? jack: we continued to search and do exactly what we were supposed to do. we reported missing ships. early in the afternoon we struck gold, we caught a submarine attempting to submerge, all hatches were closed, we dropped the first 500 pounder on the fantail and dropped another five right behind the tower. we flew circles around it watching it sink. we had a great day. richard: since you didn't know what was going on at midway, what did you do toward the end of the mission? jack: after we found that we had lost contact, we had an option -- we could take a chance on going back to midway or we could set out to sea.

it was unanimous, we set out at sea, threw out a sea anchor, drifted all night. i took a sleeping bag and climbed on top of the wing, tied myself the antenna, and spent the night. at sunup we made contact with midway and large we had been -- and learned we had been successful. we are also told there was a destroyer loaded with navigation fuel, floated the shoals, we took navigational sun shots, refueled, went to midway. richard: also part of the missions that pbys flew with the battle was searching for our downed aircrew. jack: we spent all of the next day searching. we found two gentleman and a life raft but we were low on fuel. we radioed a sister ship, they landed, picked up the gentleman,

took him to midway. richard: let me go on to bill norberg. bill, tell us how long you were on the enterprise? bill: i went on board in september of 1941 and stayed until august of 1945 when the bomb was dropped on nagasaki. richard: how many commanding officers did you have to break in? bill: nine. richard: and your actual job? could you describe how you moved through those jobs? bill: i started as a yeoman first-class and worked in the captain's office my entire term aboard the enterprise. through a bunch of successes i was able to move rapidly and i was put in charge of the office when i became a first-class yeoman.

i had that job for about 23 months. richard: you had the whole war on what is the most famous ship in the navy's history, the uss enterprise? bill: amen, brother. richard: i should point out for historians, someone like this is a wonderful person. he is near the great and powerful as they talk and make decisions and you can go to people like this who can find what really happened as opposed to what is in the memoir from the admiral. before we get to midway, you had a story i wanted to have you share with people. this is on the transit -- enterprise delivered the doolittle raiders and you are cruising through -- it is dark and it is foggy and you had an encounter with the high and mighty? bill: i did. i delivered a message to the captain up to the admiral. bill: i did.

i delivered a message to the captain up to the admiral. started climbing down the ladder and instead of hitting that steel catwalk, i hit something kind of soft, and i recognized william f. halsey. i was kind of shivering in my shoes, but i took off like a shot after i said "yes, sir," to him, and he never caught me. [laughter] richard: we have the last surviving american seamen who outran admiral halsey. [laughter] bill: i had another affair on that same cruise. i was standing the midnight watch, and i was feeling sleepy, and i was on the bridge and lean -- leaned my head against the bulkhead, and i leaned against the general quarters alarm and woke up the whole ship.

boy, i will tell you, i scooted off in a hurry, took off my coat because somebody said i do not -- somebody, i said i do not know who, but he was wearing a pea coat. richard: that is the resourcefulness with which our armed forces are known. [laughter] richard: let's move on to the actual battle itself. you're up with the captain on the captain's bridge. so, you are there all day long. you hear the messages. the remember any particular messages? bill: about 9:30 in the morning, i understand from this gentleman right here that his message came through. japanese fleet spotted including -- spotted, including two carriers, from my recollection. richard: you saw the takeoff of the enterprise aircraft? bill: a very little bit before the admirals said everybody,

take off. richard: you are there on the bridge, and eventually, the aircraft comes back, and there are not as many coming back as went out. bill: exactly right. richard: we were talking about this relationship of the air group and the ship's company as very close. tell us about how the reaction of the crew was when the aircraft comes back? -- come back? bill: first of all, the ready room scene was very bad. i did not hear of any tears being shed, but it was very close to that. among the torpedo squadron, first of all, we sent out 14 torpedo bombers, only four came back. and, it was bad. but then again, as our planes came back, many had failed to make it. i think probably there were 20

some altogether from the enterprise that were unable to come back. everyone of us could feel that we were losing something great. richard: you mentioned among the flyers, two of the most successful and famous and admired, dusty and dick, do you remember those gentlemen? bill: i remember them quite well. dick best was the skipper of the bombing six group, and he led the attack on the carrier. for some reason, there was a mix-up, and 28 or 29 planes and only three attacked.

best led the way and he made a perfect dive and landed his thousand pound bomb or in one of the most vulnerable spots. in that carrier, the bomb went down through the flight deck, detonated in the hangar deck, and what should they have there but a full complement of japanese torpedo planes all cast -- all gassed up and armed to the teeth. it was just a holocaust waiting to happen. and that's what happened. richard: and then he went out and he would fly a second mission despite the fact that he had very serious problems. bill: he did, sir, he was batting 1000 about point and he went out later that afternoon, -- at that point and he went out later that afternoon, his plane not having been shot up very badly, and he helped the last surviving character and scored another hit, which gave him a 1000 batting average. he never flew again for the navy after that, unfortunately. he had an oxygen problem and he

inhaled some caustic soda, which resulted in a rapid case of tuberculosis. it took some several years to recover from it. he retired from the navy, recovered from that, and lived a very productive civilian life until the year 2001. richard: i was fortunate enough to meet him. as bill says, the enterprise dive bomber groups, there were two squadrons, and as bill said, what happened when they saw the japanese carriers, there was a mixup, the lead squadron was supposed to go to the park carrier, the trailing squadron was supposed to go to the trailing carrier, they all started diving on the nearest carrier. dick best had the presence of mind to realize that this would leave the other ship uncovered and he led his group of three planes down and scored this hit. if he had not scored this hit on

, the ship would have continued on through the battle. he is one of the great heroes of the battle. and dusty, whose memoir was recently published, although dick best is a thousand, dusty was only three out of four. is that right? he hit three ships. richard: his wonderful memoir called "never call me a hero" just came out. now, you stayed on the -- aboard the enterprise the whole war. the enterprise's greatest moments were to come later at -- later in the year at guadalcanal. let me stop right here, and you can rest your heels. let me go to john, and he was aboard the yorktown, right? tell us about when you got to the yorktown.

john: i joined the navy like these fellows, prior to the war. i was in high school down in georgia, and had to cross the street to get on the school bus that sat in front of the post office, and they had this big sign with the pilots goggles standing on the wing of an airplane with a parachute hanging, and it said, "high school graduates, join the navy and learn to fly." that was for me. to cut my story short, it was in latter '43 before i got flight training in norman, oklahoma. but anyway, i graduated from boot camp on friday, december 3, 1941 in norfolk. and sunday, the japs blew a hole in my order to go to pensacola, and they sent all of us guys to the fleet that had returned from

the north atlantic patrol. the yorktown was a dry dock in newport news. it was a large ship. the first carrier i saw. got underneath the yorktown and scraped the barnacles off it. then, we went to sea up to san canal andugh the arrived the day after christmas and stayed a couple of days and took a convoy of marines, a whole battalion, down to samoa and dropped them off. we did not go in. our little carrier, our little battle fleet, two cruisers and four destroyers, we went west and another carrier came over the horizon, and then sbd took off and landed on our ships and

this guy got out of the backseat and we thought about halsey -- i was watching, looking down at the deck, and this guy got out of the plane and the plane handler flapped them on the back and said "hey, chief, that was a good landing." and he took his -- off and he had three stars on there. he had come over to confirm what our admiral fletcher, and they -- admiral jack, they called them, they put their heads together, and without approval from us, we went and bombed the marshal islands, which was the first retaliatory strike of the war, and then we went to pearl harbor, and we got there on february 2. bodies were still breaking loose from the wreckage and floating to the surface.

all sorts of mess. so, people like me, who -- if you want to speak to someone with a little bit of authority and yorktown, you sent them to see me, because i had as little as everybody. these bodies, we would put a canvas under, you cannot touch -- could not touch them. i hate to tell you this, but we -- i hate toreat tell you this, but we would roll them in. we developed great hate for our japanese friends there because these boys were killed, a lot of them in their bunks. we stayed there for a while and we gathered up our skirts and we were underway for 104 days and we fought the battle of the coral sea. we got shot up, and we went down to an island which is about a

thousand miles east of australia and got everybody settled in and got a message from pearl harbor. back then, they call it commander in chief cincus, they decided that wasn't good for morale, so they changed it. but we got a message. i remember standing back on the flight deck watching us to even -- watching us, and oil streaked all the way to pearl, and we were concerned that the japanese summer rains would find that streak and follow us. we went into pearl, right in the drydock, and got rid of the likes of me and brought professionals aboard. i never saw so many shipyard workers. we were told to get out of there in 72 hours.

admiral nimitz and his staff were walking in the drydock to get all the waters out, 72 hours later, i am getting ahead -- richard: just briefly, as john said, yorktown was hit by several bombs at coral sea. originally, they thought this would be a three-week job to repair in a navy yard, but admiral nimitz had realized the japanese were going to make this effort at midway, so he ordered yorktown back to pearl harbor and gave the dockyard people the orders that she has to be ready for sea in three days. 72 hours. it was a frantic effort to do all of this. our other yorktown veteran, mr. crawford, reported aboard at this time. he was fresh out of annapolis, and he told me that when he reported aboard, he was sent to

the executive officer to get his assignment. the executive officer is absolutely exhausted, but we know this was a frenzy in order to get the ship repaired, replenished, everything set to go in three days. he told mr. crawford he would get back to him later. you was trained as a radar officer, but he was never going to see radar on the yorktown. what i want to do, john, is you -- is i want you to describe where your battle station was. john: let me insert something for your record. the battle of midway would've been fought with the same six carriers that bombed pearl harbor. we sank one and heavily damaged the other two. so they only had four carriers thanks to the battle of the coral sea. the enterprise was our sister ship.

we are part of the enterprise -- proud of the enterprise. she is the one that lucked out. she is the only one of the original group of the yorktown class that survived. so anyway, we got underway at the end of the 72 hours, we worked day and night, and we between malachi and oahu, recovering planes, and we take in the firing group first, and the fighter squadron -- the skipper -- landed first, and a young ensign came and build up a little airspeed and floated on top of him and his propeller just chopped him open. left meatballs and streaks of blood on the superstructure. his son is a naval academy graduate, lives in charleston, and we see him every june the fourth when we have the reunion. anyway, we went on out, because

nimitz had told us to take position 150 miles northeast of midway. what you call point luck. -- he called point luck. our admiral, admiral fletcher, was sopa, and the one you had on the enterprise wound up taking over after we got shot up. i'm getting ahead of myself. but anyway, on the day of june the fourth, i was a sky lookout and i could hear the admiral and the captain talking below me. and we heard the pby, the first one, say they had spotted the main force, and nothing else. i heard the admiral say, "where the hell are they?"

later on, we got another message, i guess from your pby that they had spotted two carriers. we knew that was where the japs were. the admiral said to signal the enterprise and tell them to launch a full deck load. from the enterprise and the hornet. we will follow as soon as we recover our scout. because we had the scout duty that day. so anyway, they launched, our scouts returned -- richard: this is one of the details of the battle that sometimes gets confused. the yorktown had launched the local surge with their scout bombers that morning. so, she did not have her deck already spotted for the launch enterprise and hornet did, so fletcher tells the admiral on the enterprise to launch and he says -- yorktown had to recover the scouts before they could launch the aircraft. and actually, honestly, the yorktown air group was better

organized and functioned than any other air group at that time and they were able to get their strikes up. by this time, are you back with the 50 caliber at this point? john: no, we were general quarters all day. and i was a sky look out, and we were in a chair a half hour, and then a half hour, and then off, and then i went back to my gun. at the coral sea battle, i had a 50 caliber, we did not have hurricane bows in those days except for saratoga and lexington. the bow stuck out about 30 feet 30 feet above the flight deck, and on the port side was a 50 caliber and in the

middle was a gun mount with two 20 millimeters, and on the starboard side was a 50 caliber. i had learned to lead, my daddy taught me how to lead and they said i did pretty good in the coral sea. -- my daddy had taught me how to il, and they said i did pretty good in the coral sea. i do not know whether i did or not because everyone is shooting at the same time. they gave me a larger field of fire and set me up on the after end of the island structure. i had a 50 caliber, and i could cover part of the starboard quarter and all the way forward on the poor corner. -- fort corner. richard: let me move this along. you're at that station, the japanese retaliate after we knocked out there three carriers, the remaining carrier launches dive bombers and a second strike of torpedo planes and this second strike of

torpedo planes, you're going to fire at all of them, but there -- but the torpedo plane attack was particularly spectacular from your perspective. john: the first attack that hit us was the dive bomber. we were zigzagging, they came in more or less on the starboard side, and i cannot fire, because the director was there, and this one plane, i was looking up at 1.1 in the 20's in the 50's was firing at them and this one plane, i was looking at it and the wing broke off, and i heard it just like you would take a plank and break it over your head. his wing came off and a bomb came out from underneath, and it evidently did not have a vain because it tumbled in right past my face and hit the flight deck by the number two elevator and wiped out a bunch of guys, my boot camp friends, i cannot talk -- i could not talk about it for years. but anyway, it knocked me out. when i came to, my loader was

shooting at the plane, and i pushed him aside and went back to firing. the reason i tell you that is because later on, they found out my long had collapsed and i had shrapnel in my neck and leg. a battle at sea is like a thunderstorm in the summertime. you just raise hell for a little while, and then it is over. and then, the nice part about not get is, if you did sunk, you could go down and take a hot shower and have a hot meal. richard: you're watching the torpedo planes approach from the port side. your firing at them. -- your firing at them. -- you are firing at them. when you see the torpedo strike the yorktown, tell us what you saw. john: they came in and the bunk master was roaming around and they came in on our porch quarter. there were 20 millimeters along

the catwalks, and i'm firing over their heads, and i can see these guys coming in everybody is shooting. one of the torpedo planes dropped a fish, pulled right up in my face and i thought he was going to fly into me. why he did not drop, i will never know. i almost emptied a canister in his face. he turned and went alongside the island structure and disappeared. i have a quick story about that. ruth ann and i met the guy later on at the 50th anniversary, and he said it was him. anyway, getting back to firing at those things. -- those planes. the torpedoes were coming in. i just stopped firing at the planes because they were dropping. it did not do any good. they hit the port quarter, and the catwalk went up like that in -- and those four marines started end over end, splashing the water on the flight deck and they hit the ship and it was like you took your dungarees and put them in a bucket. the whole ship came to a halt.

we had stopped earlier from the bombs and had just gotten under way and the signal flags set by -- my speed, 18 knots. get away from the torpedoes like we did at coral sea. richard: i'm going to have to rope is in because i want to move on to mr. walch. john: i will shut my big mouth. richard: your mouth was doing just fine. as the rest of you. let me get myrry, notes right. george had some comments he wanted to make about the context of midway and a proposal he had. i will let you go, but we are down to about 11 minutes here. george: i don't know where to begin, because i've prepared what i was going to say, but i listened to these gentlemen, and

in some ways there are things they have said that i disagree with, and i would like to begin debating, but we are not here to debate. >> no debate. george: i was a dive bomber pilot, but i was not at the battle of midway. i came along later. at the time of midway, i was training in pensacola. but i was a dive bomber, and in 1989, we had a reunion of our squadron in chicago. i began wondering why there was nothing written up about the dive bombers at the battle of midway. everything was about the torpedo bombers, there was no book about divebombing, there was the -- no description of it, the military channel gave reports on weapons of every nation for all time, the egyptians, the greeks, the romans, the british,

the submarines, the seals, everything was written up, but never any details about the technique and the power of divebombing. that still exists, there is still nothing else. this book that just came out is the first book that gives any account of divebombing at all. at that time, i began to wonder why. i started researching. so for the past 25 years, 27 years, i've been researching the battle of midway, and i have come to the conclusion that there is still a lot to be told, still a lot that has not been disclosed about what happened. there is a lot of misinformation now, particularly the information that has been put out by the authors of the 21st century, since the turn of

the year 2000, we have had books put out about the battle of midway, and i disagree about -- with what they have had to say. having said that, i urge you to look at the blogs that i have on google. i have 10 blogs up and running about the battle of midway and i have a lot of information, in fact, there are page views from the russians. i get as many page views from the russians as i do from the united states. i think maybe they consider me a dissident, because in some ways, i do disagree with the official status of the battle of midway as far as the navy is concerned. richard: if i can move you on, when we talked on the phone -- george: i will get right on that. wouldn't it be nice if all of us over here today could do more to honor the veterans of the battle

of midway? we can. we need a new battle of midway film. a film made in 1976 with henry fonda and charlton heston does not do justice to the importance of the battle of midway. the battle was not only important, it was a desperate gamble, and the story has never been fully told. at the time of the battle of midway, the japanese had advanced from the south pacific and the indian ocean and were threatening the british at the suez. they sank the british capital

ships with the prince of wales in the china sea, and shortly after, pearl harbor. in february, they went all the way down to australia and they sank a bunch of merchant ships in the harbor of port darwin, australia. in february of 1942, they annihilated nine cruisers and 18 destroyers of the british/american and dutch asiatic fleet. >> the australians were there, too. if i don't say that, my australian passport will be canceled. george: in april of 1942, just before midway, they had five carriers in the indian ocean, and they drove the remnants of the british navy out of the raidedocean and went and

as far as madagascar. they sank the british carrier and its escort. they sank dozens of merchant ships. they also destroyed all the tankers that were carrying oil from the mideast. that were headed to america to feel or war machine. that access to mideast oil was vital for america. -- fuel our war machines. that access to mideast oil was vital for america. the german war staff had to report to hitler on february 14, 1942, if germany and japan joined hands at the indian ocean, the final victory should not be far off. i guess the point i am making is that the battle of midway was not about the japanese and the u.s. and the pacific, it

affected all of world war ii. it affected north africa, it affected russia, it affected china. there was a threat to cut off the lend-lease supplies to the -- from the u.s. to the british troops in suez. russia, and tof the chinese. it had a worldwide effect. it was extremely significant. on april 14, 1942, a midnight meeting of the british defense commission. field marshal halbrook spoke. if japan's advance was not -- along the southern shores of asia was not halted, they would cut off three quarters of a million fighting men in the middle east and bring about the dreaded junction of the axis partners.

turkey would be surrounded, and russian oil supplies would be threatened. after the war, churchill called that spring of 1942 "the most dangerous moment of the war," where they were facing defeat at the hands of the german and the japanese if they could combine. churchill appealed to roosevelt, he needed help. roosevelt's reply came in several forms, but i believe one of the answers that was given by roosevelt was the battle of midway. there was really no other reason to fight the battle of midway. richard: let me -- george has made a critical point, which is

that we tend often to think of midway as something that happened in the pacific between japan and the u.s. relating to the pacific war. but it truly just as he described, they truly had ripples all across the globe. general dwight d. eisenhower who was a chief planner for general marshall wrote a memo in february of 1945 when he said the three essentials for winning the british in, the russians in, and preventing a linkup of japan and germany across the indian ocean. this reinforces the same point. if the japanese and germans had achieved this linkup, it would have, at a minimum, have protracted the war immensely. we are down to just a couple minutes left. i wanted to say that i much appreciate our panelists today. i think we have time for water

two quick questions. does anyone have any question to ask anybody on the panel? yes, right here? i think we will be down to one question. >> george, did you talk about intelligence and the code breaking and how that contributed to the success of the battle? richard: that is more than a -- quite simply, the japanese naval code was kept in place for much longer than necessary, that gave us time to blank through the ciphers. they are not reading complete messages. they are getting little bits and pieces of it and that is where

rochefort's great genius was, to take the bits and pieces and see the bigger pattern. in view of our other panels, we will have to call an end. i believe our panelists deserve a salute as some very great americans. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> tonight, on the communicators. >> we were fortunate very early on to convert our old telephone booth if the structure is a wi-fi kiosk. they are located across the city provides a area that that setsommunicating a predicate for what can be done with sensor technology, how we

can regulate our lighting system. there is much that can be done on that platform alone. clarkeresswoman yvette tonight on the communicators on c-span two. president, remarks by trump at a veterans day ceremony parade in new york city. you can watch his comments at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, then mike pence at a wreath-laying ceremony in virginia. and wasered remarks joined by veterans affairs secretary robert wilkie. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact to you. coming up tuesday morning, andrew does addario previews the first public impeachment inquiry hearings this week.

then e.r.a. coalition co. president and ceo talks about efforts to ratify the equal rights amendment. -- accuracy and medium .edian president watch c-span's washington journal. join the discussion. collect tomorrow lawmakers and civil rights advocates look at the importance of the deferred action for childhood arrival program, known as daca. live tuesday at 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span two. also missouri republican senator josh hawley looks set u.s. issues. at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span. more on national security and geopolitical challenges with

republican senator todd young. >> watch the c-span networks live this week, the house intelligence committee hold the first public impeachment hearings. the committee will hear from three state department officials, starting wednesday at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span three, top diplomats in ukraine william taylor and secretary of state george kent will testify. at 11 a.m. eastern, former ambassador to ukraine will appear before the committee. >> our c-span campaign team is traveling across the country,

visiting key battleground states in the 2020 presidential race, asking what voters they want presidential candidates to address. >> the candidates have to do with environmental rights. i have seen the consequences and the aftermath of the flint water crisis and currently the detroit water shut off, which doesn't get enough attention. i want to see my candidates come up strong with policies that will invite environmental racism and environmental justice. >> the next election is going to be pivotal. it we are going to be looking forward to hearing about all of the things in our economy. their thoughtsin on the national debt and health care. those are two items that are intertwined. nearly half of every dollar we spend is on health care.

running a massive deficit. that deficit is of considerable bycern given the warnings other generals and just the public in general. to see thed like candidates most highlight is climate change. economic development is important but we can't do economic development if we don't have an environment. making certain our world is a better world. >> voices from the campaign trail, part of c-span's battleground states tour.