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THE ROUNDTABLE FORUM
Official newsletter of the Battle of Midway
Roundtable
"To promote
awareness and understanding of the great battle
and to honor the men who
fought and won it."
25 JULY 2008..........ISSUE NO.
2008-28..........OUR 11th YEAR
=============== AROUND THE TABLE ===============
Members' topics in this issue:
1. Medals for the Hornet Air
Group at Midway
2. How Experienced Were the BOM's SBD
Pilots?
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1. MEDALS FOR THE HORNET AIR
GROUP AT MIDWAY (see issue #26)
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13 July 2008
CDR Clayton E. Fisher, USN-Ret
Southern California
BOM vet, SBD pilot, VB-8, USS Hornet
The basis for the awards at the BOM were inconsistent. Most of the DFCs were awarded to both pilots
and aircrew for flying strikes during the BOM.
Roy Gee and myself, VB-8 pilots,
were awarded the Navy Cross for obtaining bomb hits on ships other than
carriers. Looking back, we were just
doing what we were trained to do. We
probably should have been awarded DFCs.
Compared to the NCs awarded to our ground troops for doing some pretty
heroic things , they really earned their awards.
To get an award somebody had to write the citation. I assume Ring's citation was approved by the
C.O. of the Hornet. I think the
citation was based on his leading the SBD attacks on the enemy cruiser the
afternoon of June 6th. It was a pretty
routine attack; very little AA if any.
The DFC list includes awards for individual actions at the Battle of the Santa
Cruz Islands. I recommended my gunner
George Ferguson to receive a DFC for shooting down a Zero fighter in company
with two other gunners from our flight section. George has always claimed our section gunners shot down three
Zeros. George also received a Purple Heart for gunshot and shrapnel wounds to
both his legs.
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2. HOW EXPERIENCED WERE THE BOM’s SBD
PILOTS? (see issues #24, 25,
26)
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14 July 2008
Tom Fritz
Wisconsin
From Enterprise's Scouting Six Action Report for the Thursday
morning attacks...
“7. The conduct of
all pilots and gunners was magnificent. Although only seven of the sixteen
pilots had previously dropped live bombs, all pilots pressed home their attacks
and released at low altitude. A high
percentage of hits was the result.”
Here's the link to the reports...
http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19420604-vs6.htm
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Ed. note: all BOM after-action
reports that I’ve been able to find are accessible on our web site as well as
on the No Right to Win companion CD.
On our web site, click the “After-Action Reports” link on the home page.
=============== NOW HEAR THIS! ===============
News & info in this issue:
- Photo of the Week
- Computer Hint: Directory Printer
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PHOTO OF THE WEEK
The 66th BOM anniversary event in San Diego, aboard the USS Midway museum
ship on June 7th, included an especially unique feature. As each BOM vet who was present was
individually introduced, his live video image was projected on a large movie
screen with an inset that showed a photo of him during the BOM era. It was a very effective technique, something
like a high-tech expansion of the “then and now” vet photos on our web
site. Here’s an example, and this is
Clay Fisher:
http://www.midway42.org/temp/cv41-fisher.jpg
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COMPUTER HINT: DIRECTORY PRINTER
If you use Windows Explorer or My Computer to check the contents of your
computer’s folders and subfolders, you’re limited to what you can see on
screen—there’s no way to print a folder’s menu without an added utility. A printed copy of a folder’s contents can be
handy for any number of reasons, such as a convenient topic reference of the
old e-mail messages in our Roundtable archives (available via Zip files or on
the No Right to Win companion CD).
The utility that I use and recommend for printing a folder’s contents is the
“JR Directory Printer,” which works in all versions of Windows (I think it
will work in Vista, but I haven’t tried it.
It works great in XP and Win98.)
This free program is small and simple, only 194 kB. It dates from 2001 and is virus-free. If anyone would like to try it, send me a
request and I’ll e-mail the .exe file to you with instructions.
Another recommended directory printer, from the current PC World
magazine, can be seen and downloaded from this link:
http://find.pcworld.com/60919
If anyone downloads and tries that one, please send us a report.
Get the Roundtable's book:
Click for full
information: http://www.russbook.com
If you cannot access the above web site,
send
an e-mail message for full details on No Right to Win.
For a
glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The Roundtable Forum,
click here or go to our
home page and click "The Roundtable Glossary" link.
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Official Newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable is copyright 2008 by
Ronald W. Russell (see the “About the BOMRT” page). Permission to forward, copy, or quote from this web edition is
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