Midway Battle Commemoration

My Brother-in-Law Tom and Karen’s sister Dorene took the Texas Children’s Choir to Hawaii to commemorate and perform at the 80th anniversary of the pivital Battle of Midway. (4 Jun 1942).

Today, they performed at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. After the commemoration, they met with two of the survivors of the battle, Edgar R. Fox USMC and Julian Hodges, USN. I was humbled that they present each with my Midway poem “Torpedo 8”.

Fox served as a Marine on Midway Island during the battle. He helped defend the island from the initial attack by Japanese carrier aircraft. He very likely witnessed the 6 Avengers of Torpedo Squadron 8 as they took off along with Army bombers for the opening attack on the Japanese fleet.

Hodges tended the boilers on the ill-fated carrier USS Yorktown. Yorktown had its own torpedo squadron that fared slightly better than Torpedo 8 in its later attack on the Japanese. Unfortunately, the Japanese carrier that survived that attack found and attacked Yorktown. The crew waged a valiant fight to keep her afloat, but a torpedo attack by a submarine ended its struggle. Hodges went on to have a long career in the ministry..