USS Enterprise pilots who successfully dive-bombed the Japanese carrier fleet @ Midway tell the story: "last meal" at 4AM, adrenaline of manning planes, taking off from ship, finding the fleet, the fight itself & treacherous return. Fascinating! #VJDay75
"So that morning... way ahead of dawn... around 4 o'clock in the morning. We came down and had steak & eggs for breakfast... The chiefs really knew when there was going to be a real battle... When you had steak & eggs you knew you were in for a real bad day."
"Then you start manning your planes, & you know that you... you are going up there and you are going to have a problem. And you know you're gonna have a problem, that's why you're there. So... that gets the old adrenaline pumping & the old heart begins to pound pretty fast."
"I said they're supposed to be here, they're not here. What are we gonna do now because we're almost at the point of no return... and he [squadron leader Wade McClusky] went another 15 minutes and everybody... everybody was getting nervous."
"Things can get impressed on your mind, so that an image you saw yrs & yrs ago, you can see clearly again. And just as you & I are sitting here, I can see just as clearly, that Japanese ship formation down there, as I saw it that day." --Admiral (then ENS) Lew Hopkins (1919-2008)
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