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Pacific. Presented by iHeart. This is Danielle Fischel from Pod Meets World. Parents, quick question. When is the last time you won snack time?
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That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges.
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This is our American Stories, and we love to tell stories about our nation's history. Stephen Ambrose was one of America's leading historians. At the core of his success was his belief that history is biography. that history is about people. Ambrose passed away in 2002, but his storytelling accounts can now be heard here in Our American Stories thanks to those who run his estate.
Here's Ambrose telling the story of America's payback for Pearl Harbor. Jimmy Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo. and the Japanese response. The Battle of Midway. The first uh good news To come to the American people, the first good news produced by the American Armed Forces came on April 18, 1942.
Almost five months into the war. before there was any kind of an American counter-strike against the Japanese. It came on April 18th and it came in the form of Timmy Doolittle's famous raid over Tokyo. which is a very risky operation for the Americans to mount. Again, using that what we're now was now becoming recognized as the a wholly new weapon of war at sea, the aircraft carrier.
And the aircraft carriers that we had the the Hornet and the Enterprise and the Lexington and the Yorktown. The only ones we had in the fleet had escaped Pearl Harbor because they weren't there. They were used to mount this raid. which meant they had to sail pretty close to Tokyo, within about 300 miles. Which is for them a very high-risk operation, in order to carry out a raid that had no meaning to it other than the moral.
And morale. And Psychological. aspect to it. What they did was to mount a Operation under the command of the Army Air Force's most famous pilot, General James Doolittle. He'd been training his men for a couple of months for this, how to take B-25s off of the deck of an aircraft carrier.
It seemed impossible to Kate. to get a big two-engine bomber fully loaded with fuel and bombs off of a aircraft carrier. But they practiced down in Florida and got pretty good at it and then practiced at sea and got so they could do it. And on April 18th, they launched too far away from the target. But the carriers had been spotted by a Japanese fishing boat that had been blown out of the water, but you couldn't be sure they hadn't gotten a radio message off already.
So the decision was made to launch Doolittle way too far away. It meant they were going to have to come over to Tokyo, drop their bombs, and then too far to fly back to the carriers, so they'd have to continue on into China to try to get to as far into China as the unoccupied parts. and make their landings.
Well, it isn't the best way to go into action. To be told, go hit your target and then fly on as far as you can, and pray God that you can get to friendly territory, and then pray God you can find a place to land when you get there. In fact, it worked out pretty well. Yeah. The raid itself caused some fires in Tokyo and did some damage.
by no means enough to justify even the expenditure of fuel that had gone into this raid. But it caused some physical damage.
Some pilots were shot down over Japan. Others were not able to make it to Chiang Kai-shek's China. They came down and occupied China. These pilots were. put on trial by the Japanese and and executed.
which infuriated the American people as much as the baton death march did. A majority of the pilots, however, did get into Unoccupied China and eventually got back into the war, including Doolittle himself, who was on the raid. But for all that the raid was terribly expensive and a big diversion of resources and a major portion of the resources available in the Pacific at the time and did so little damage as to be just negligible. Oh, it was a great triumph. It lifted spirits in the United States as nothing else could do.
It was the perfect time and it was the perfect act to help American morale. At a time when it desperately needed some kind of a lift, we struck back. It also had a terrific psychological effect on Yamamato. and the Japanese leadership in general, because Yamamato had promised the emperor that no American bombs would ever fall on Japan. And it had a big effect.
There's little pinprick raid. had a big effect on the strategy of the war. Because it was In response to The disgrace of American planes having bombed Tokyo. That Yanamato and his staff began working on the plans for what was to become the Battle of Midway. Can we?
A battle that Yanamato sought in order to drive the Americans further. East in the Pacific, so that they could never again launch a carrier-based raid against Tokyo. And let's take a look at the Japanese Empire at its peak. at the beginning of May of 1942. Most of Burma was in Japanese hands.
Thailand was a neutral but supporting Japan in somewhat the same relationship to Japan as Franco and Spain were to Hitler. Indochina, of course, had been occupied by the Japanese. The eastern two-fifths of China. was in Japanese hands. as was Manchuria.
as was Korea. To the south, The Dutch East Indies, today's Indonesia. British Malaya. The great fortress is Singapore. All of the Philippines.
Most of New Guinea. The Solomon Islands. and out here to the Gilberts and the Marshalls and the Carolines had all been taken by the Japanese. The Americans had managed to hold on to Wake Island through to uh Christmastime of 1941 and then had lost the this tiny island called called Rake.
so that the Japanese line extended all the way to Midway Island. Which is a pretty grand-sounding name for what's actually a very small little island without much in the way of capacity at all. And eventually the Japanese were to take some American territory up here at the westernmost tip of Alaska in the Aleutian Islands, Atu and Kiska.
So this is an enormous area that Japan had overrun. It was more than Japan was capable of defending. And in this, and at about the same time as happened with Hitler. Who in 1942 launched another offensive into the Soviet Union? They had conquered more than they could defend.
But they had caught in both cases the victory disease. That is, having won a long string of victories, they figured these would go on until they had taken the whole world. The Japanese also had the problem of every time they would take a new possession. Say the Gilberts, for example, or Wake Island, then they would think, well, we ought to go just a little bit further east. and take that next island group out there in order to defend this one.
And they had taken that one in the first place in order to defend this one.
So that the whole logic of events kept them expanding at a time when they should have been contracting and digging their trenches.
So it was. What they didn't have was peace with the United States. And they had the United States very angry, very determined to press on with this war.
So the Japanese thought We've got to take the rest of New Guinea. We've got to take Port Moresby and then we've got to go down and take Australia. And once we've got Australia, the Americans are going to be so far away, and it's such distances to get to any possible. part of our empire that they're going to have to give up the war.
So they began to gather another task force to come down here between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and to come on down into Australia and take Australia. The naval forces that were preceding this invasion force. Came through on May. into the Coral Sea. And on May 8th, they were found by American carrier-based planes in the Battle of the Coral Sea that ensued.
The first battle in history in which No one in the opposing fleet saw each other. It was entirely an aircraft battle between carrier-based planes from the Japanese and from the Americans. The battle was was tactically a draw. Uh the Japanese sank Uh the Lexington. which is 25% of America's carrier strength in the Pacific.
and they very badly damaged New Yorktown. But the Japanese lost a carrier themselves. More important, they lost their momentum. They had been checked. And you're listening to the great Stephen Ambrose, and now you know why I call him great.
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The reviews and ratings are in, and IceCube's big three is the surprise hit of the summer. This Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern on CBS, with playoff elimination on the line, the stars will be flogging to Los Angeles to witness the most physical, fiercest, and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win over Houston to make the playoffs, reeling from last week's savage beating at the hands of Chicago's possessed Montres Herald. Last time these teams met, Miami beat Houston, but they are a dangerous team having their manhood at stake.
Then breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a do-a-die match for both teams. Will LA avenge their previous shocking loss to perennial basketball Boston rivals to survive? Six teams are allowed for four spots and all must win. Don't miss the big three, the three-on-three basketball league everyone is talking about. There's no crying in the big three, and the no-hold spot action starts Saturday at 4 p.m.
Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. Followed by two games on Vice starting at 6:30 Eastern, presented by iHeart. Mm-hmm. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangry.
That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges.
Follow Try This right now wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it. From Bitcoin believers to cautious first-timers, Kraken makes it easy to trade crypto in seconds. With over 350 tokens, tight spreads, and easy funding for your account with Plaid, PayPal, and Apple Pay, Kraken lets you trade, earn, and invest on your own terms. Download Kraken today and get $10 in Bitcoin after your first trade of $10 or more.
Just enter code iHeart10 under Add Invite Code when you sign up. Not Investment Advice: Crypto Trading involves risk of loss and is offered to U.S. customers through Payward Interactive Inc. Terms and Conditions Apply. Homes.com is the only place where you can find specialized neighborhood guides with the in-depth insider info home shoppers want.
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and force them into, let's face it, some unforced errors. Let's continue. with Stephen Ambrose. The Japanese who had up until this time looked as much like supermen in Asia as the Germans had looked like supermen in Europe until the Battle of Moscow in December of 1941, the Japanese now suddenly looked vulnerable. Human.
People who made mistakes, people who overreached themselves. And this all leads us up to The Battle of Midway. Yellow motto, as I said, was A man who had lost face because of the Doolittle raid, who was determined to make that up. I wouldn't want to make it quite that personal. This Battle of Midway is one that the two fleets, the Japanese and American, have been planning.
Really since 1919. this great naval battle that was going to take place in the Central Pacific that was going to decide the fate of the Pacific. The Armato decided This is a pretty good thing on his part, to draw the Americans out into this all-out battle before the Americans could repair the damage done at Pearl Harbor, and certainly before the Americans, who were now in a feverish building program in the States, could produce a new fleet. The Americans would never be weaker, Japan would never be stronger, was Yamamoto's attitude. If we can draw them into this great climactic battle now, we'll win it.
And then we can take Hawaii. And then we can dare the American, take Australia and New Zealand, and we can dare. the Americans to try to come back. The plan that he came up with was exceedingly complex. and called for the whole of the Japanese fleet to be involved in it.
He called Japanese cruisers and destroyers and aircraft carriers back from Japan's far-flung frontier. To gather together in the home islands to get ready for the movement out to. Midway Island. He sent one part of his and then he divided his fleet up. He's been much criticized for this and maybe rightly so.
There's so many little things went wrong for Yamamato in this battle. You really have to. Give him a lot of credit for what he was able to accomplish and wonder if maybe God, I mean, just keep this in mind as I talk about this battle, that maybe God doesn't sometimes really does take sides. Because this American victory at Midway, in some ways, was just dumb luck. Mm-hmm.
Anyway, Yamamato has been much criticized for way too complex a plan. He had one group. with destroyers and an aircraft carrier going up here to the Aleutians. To carry out a bombing attack on Dutch Harbor up here at Unalaska. and to actually occupy the islands of Attu and Kiska.
This was a diversionary Attack designed to make the Americans think that there was a serious threat to Alaska or The possibility that this was a staking operation for an attack into Siberia.
Meanwhile, three different task force would come out of the home islands headed for Midway. The first would be the main carrier task force. Four carrier is strong. Then would come a battleship Aircraft Carrier Mixed Task Force. With one full-size and two small aircraft carriers in it.
And then finally, the main battle fleet. second task force would carry I don't know, a dozen or more transports, a few thousand men who were going to occupy Midway Island, army troops. And then the main task force under Yamamato himself, which would have the most of the battleships, and another and yet another aircraft carrier following along behind. And submarines spread all across the Pacific. Two.
Watch for the American fleet. spread out between Midway and Honolulu in a semicircle.
So, that these submarine also flying reconnaissance missions from the aircraft carriers in this area. to watch for the American fleet, which Yamato assumed was in Hawaii. And on receiving news that an attack on their Midway was underway, which Yamamoto thought they would never get until the attack actually started. The Americans would have to come out to defend Midway and he could have his whole fleet there to meet him. Battleships with 14-inch guns, six aircraft carriers, all of these cruisers and destroyers to meet this American fleet that was really down to three aircraft carriers and a few destroyers.
And American sea power in the Pacific would be gone. at the conclusion of the day. Wasn't a bad plant. But things began to go wrong. Even before it Got started.
The first thing that went wrong goes back to this business of the Japanese that conquered more than was good for them. Their empire had become so large that it was very hard to communicate. Between Tokyo and the outermost fringes of their Empire's frontier. That meant, for example, very practical, very small thing. Nations.
in the period of the radio, of the wireless transmission, have learned to make codes. Because obviously, you send out a message over the radio, anybody can pick it up.
So you put it in code so that anybody who picks it up can't read it. But anybody can break code. I mean, if you can make a code, you can break a code. Never been a code yet that can't be broken. Germans thought they had one.
It turned out they didn't. Japanese thought they had one. Their so-called purple code they thought was unbreakable. Especially if you take proper precautions, one part of which is you change your code every month. Change your settings.
So at the crypto analysis teams that are looking at this stuff. have to start as almost brand new each month. But the Japanese Empire had gotten so big They couldn't get the new code books out. to the units out on the edge of the empire. in time so that the code change that should have come on April 1st, 1942 was not put into effect.
And that meant that all the work that the American Code breakers in Hawaii had been putting in on the Japanese code in March. didn't just come to an end. At the end of March, they could go right on into April because the Japanese were still using the same code.
Now It was obvious from the flow of traffic after the Coral Sea battle. that the Japanese fleet was concentrating. The Yamamato was bringing him in from everywhere and putting the whole of his fleet together, and it was much bigger than anything the Americans had in the Pacific. The question was, where are they going to attack? The code breakers We're reading It depended.
In some cases, you could read even half of a message. In other cases, all you could make out was that a message had been sent. Very, very seldom you could read as much as 90% in the message. But you put the whole thing together. This is incredible.
Should Extremely difficult work. You put it all together. And you can come up with some patterns and some... hard information. The patterns and hard information they came up with were, as I've said, that the fleet is gathering.
Now where is it going to strike? They even knew what the target was. XY was the Japanese designation of the target. They just didn't know where XY was. The man in charge of code breaking in Hawaii, a naval officer named Rochefort.
Said, I think it's Midway that they're after. It disappears. He said, it can't be Midway. They can't be bringing their whole fleet together for so small an objective as that. It's got to be something bigger.
They must be after Hawaii itself. And therefore we ought to to prepare the defenses in Hawaii and forget about Midway. And you're listening to Stephen Ambrose tell one heck of a story. one of the great naval battles in history. Certainly the turning point.
in World War II And now we're hearing the stories of these remarkable code breakers, and what a job that was, what a responsibility. Without that information, How do we act? How do we know what to do? and to have our best and brightest. going to work every day to try and outsmart their best and brightest.
It does not get better than this, the great Stephen Ambrose taking us home. after these commercial messages. This is our American stories. Let's be real. Life happens.
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The reviews and ratings are in, and Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. This Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern on CBS, with playoff elimination on the line, the stars will be flogging to Los Angeles to witness the most physical, fiercest, and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win over Houston to make the playoffs, reeling from last week's savage beating at the hands of Chicago's possessed Montres Herald. Last time these teams met, Miami beat Houston, but they are a dangerous team having their manhood at stake.
Then breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a do-a-die match for both teams. Will LA avenge their previous shocking loss to perennial basketball Boston rivals to survive? Six teams are alive for four spots and all must win. Don't miss the big three, the three-on-three basketball league everyone is talking about. There's no crying in the big three, and the no-hold spot action starts Saturday at 4 p.m.
Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. Followed by two games on Vice starting at 6.30 Eastern. Presented by iHeart. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangry.
That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges.
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Stephen Ambrose was telling the story of Naval Commander Joseph Rochefort's code-breaking prediction that Japan's next attack. would be on a small Pacific island called Midway. His superiors thought the Japanese would try to invade the Hawaiian Islands. Let's return to Ambrose. Daudefort was certain that he was right.
And he came up with an ingenious way of proving it. Mm-hmm. He persuaded his bosses to have the garrison on Midway Island send out a low-level coded message. saying that they were out of fresh water and their desalinization plant had broken down and they needed fresh water. And then sure enough, doesn't Rochefort pick up a message three or four days later from Tokyo to Yamamato's fleet saying, XY is out of fresh water.
You better put some more water on those transports. And he had them. They so the Americans had an advantage that the defensive almost never has in battle. The side on the offense always has this great advantage. They know where and when the battle is going to be fought.
Aha, but this time we knew too. Even better, Admiral Nimitz knew. And Yamamato didn't know that he knew.
So Yamamato and the Japanese admirals proceeded with their plans on the assumption that surprise was going to be achieved. And after all, they had done it so well at Pearl Harbor. They were the experts at this. Bull Halsey was commander of the American aircraft carriers. He was one of the legendary heroes of the war.
But he came down with a severe attack of shingles at this time, and so Admiral Nimitz had to replace him with Admiral Spruance, who took command then for the Battle of Midway. Sprunts had three aircraft carriers, or really two and a half. He had the Enterprise, the Hornet, and the Yorktown.
Now the Yorktown had been so badly damaged in Coral Sea that the Japanese had listed it as sunk. And in fact, it had been towed back to Honolulu. and arrived in Honolulu. at the very end of May. The Naval officers who went on board to look at the damage to the Yorktown which was put into dry dock.
Estimated that we can have this baby fixed up and ready to go to see again in 90 days. Ruan said you got three. You got three days. For the next three days and The w they work 24 hours a day. threw all precautions to the winds, turned on the floodlights at night.
The welders worked 24 hours a day. Three days later, The Yorktown sailed on the 3rd of June. With still a lot of carpenters and welders and civilians on board who were Not at all happy to be going into a middle of a battle in a They got to Yorktown there and got her out. In time. The American uh fleet, the three carriers, Got up to the north.
And a little to the west of Midway When the Japanese began the attack on Midway on the morning of June 4th with their Dive bombers. And their fighter aircraft They did considerable damage to the Facilities at Midway, but they didn't put the airfield out of operation and they took some pretty heavy losses themselves. Through the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon, The various Airplanes on Midway undertook strikes against this Japanese carrier fleet that, as I said, was out in front. The B-17s went after him, B-24s went after him, Marine fighter planes went after him, Marine dive bombers went after him, and not a single hit was scored. Not one.
This was primarily because the Japanese had a very effective air cover over their carriers. And the zero was just a much better plane than anything the United States had. It was faster and more maneuverable. and could attain higher altitudes.
So the attempt on the part of the people on Midway to defend themselves failed utterly.
However, The pilots came back and said, We need to hit Midway again. That airfield is still usable, they still got strength on Midway. We need to hit it again. The Japanese admirals were worried about where are the American carriers. That was always their biggest worry.
Where are the American carriers? They had sent scout planes out. Towards Hawaii to watch for the American carriers, expecting them to come out. That never occurred to him the American carriers were laying out there north. of Midway Island.
The plane although they were cautious enough to have sent planes in every direction. The plane that was going in this direction, which would have taken them right over the top of the American carrier fleet, developed engine trouble. and was an hour late getting off.
So, that the Japanese didn't know that the American carriers were in the area.
Now, the call came for. Let's hit midway again. Japanese planes had landed. Good. lead pilot had gone up onto the deck of the carrier and talk to the Admirals up there and said, We need to hit him again.
Now, at this time, the Japanese were reloading their planes with torpedoes. for the torpedo planes and putting iron bombs on their bombers, their light one-engine bombers, putting on armor-piercing bombs. Thinking Now we've hit midway, we've knocked it out, now the Americans are going to attack us sooner or later, probably sooner. When they do, they'll have revealed their positions, or we'll find them. And we're going after those carriers, and we're going to go after those carriers who are torpedoes and armor-piercing.
Uh bonds.
Now they changed their mind. We're going to go back and hit midway again.
So it was unload all those torpedoes. and unload all those armor-piercing bombs and load them up with bombs that are appropriate to hit the airfield at Midway. This process took about an hour. And it left the Japanese for Some period of time without any fight or air cover, which Young Motto quickly made up for by getting some zeros down and gassed up and re. the new loads of ammunition and got those zeros up for fire cover again.
Meanwhile, Admiral Spruance.
now had word as to where the Japanese were, and although he was at the extreme limits of the range of his fighters. He ordered everyone that could fly into the air and go out after that Japanese fleet and Put it in the bottom of the ocean.
Some planes never did find the Japanese fleet. The torpedo planes did, and they came in, two squadrons of them, and they took the first squadron 100% losses, the next 90% losses, and were unable to. score any hits at all. Probably that was because those torpedoes ran too deep. That is, there were pilots who did everything right and then had to walk helplessly as the torpedoes just went underneath the...
Japanese aircraft carriers. A Uh squadron uh from the Yorktown. carrying bombs, dive bombers. The last in the air that had any chance at all of inflicting any damage whatsoever on the Japanese fleet was just about at the absolute limit of its range. It was going to have to turn around and fly back to the aircraft carriers if there was going to be any hope at all of recovery.
that day. Yeah, McCluskey was the guy's name. He was half Indian there. squadron leader. And Lieutenant McCluskey was just about to give the order when there was bright in the clouds and he looked down and here were the four Japanese carriers.
All of them at this time intact.
Now the United States has thrown everything it had at them. from Midway and from the other carriers and hadn't done the slightest damage. And here they were, the four carriers down there. Let's go, he said, and these dive bombers began coming down on him. The Japanese zeros were all down at water level fighting off torpedo bombers.
Unmolested, these dive bombers came in and dropped their bombs right down the stacks of the Japanese carriers, and within five minutes, the Japanese fleet was gone. Not quite literally. One aircraft carrier was still afloat. But in those five minutes, the history of the Pacific was changed forever. That was the great battle of the Pacific.
For 50 years people had been on both sides been anticipating and looking forward to, and it just went that quick. Three carriers to the bottom. That fourth carrier, the plane that had gone out on the search mission for Yorktown and Hornton Enterprise finally did get off, finally found him, sent back word. That he had found him gave the coordinates the Japanese off their last remaining carrier were able to get a flight out that went out and sank Yorktown. That carrier itself was caught the next day by American planes and was sunk.
So the end score was four Japanese carriers gone, one American carrier gone. Um And the Japanese have been turned back. This was the end of the Japanese offensive in World War II. They were never again to undertake a serious offensive. By sea.
The Japanese Navy hadn't quite ceased to exist. But boy, it was nothing like what it had been. five minutes before McCluskey broke through that cloud barrier. And you've been listening to Stephen Ambrose tell the story of Midway, the back story, the whole story. And a special thanks to Gregg Hengler, and especial thanks to the Ambrose Estate for allowing us to keep these stories coming.
Regrettably, they're not taught in school any more. And they should, 'cause my goodness, would young boys and girls be riveted? To this story? People close to their age, if they're in high school, were doing these things. They were running these missions.
They were going into battle. What a time. to be young and old. to be living through something like this, for better and for worse. The Battle for Midway and Beyond.
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Eastern on CBS, with playoff elimination on the line, the most physical, fiercest, and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win to make the playoffs, and breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a du-a-dime match for both teams. Six teams are allowed for four spots, and all must win. There's no crying in the big three, and the no-holds-barred action starts Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m.
Pacific. Presented by iHeart. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post.
I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow Try This right now wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it.
The day begins at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club at Boston Logan Airport. You get the clam chowder. In San Diego, it's tostatas. New York, espresso martini. It's 10 a.m.
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Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC, subject to credit approval. Homes.com has collaboration tools to help home shoppers search, share, and discuss home shopping with family, friends, and their agent directly through the site. Though it was fun to get that email from your husband about that three-bedroom in the hills, to which you replied via text that you would never live in the hills and you'd like to find a three-bedroom closer to the beach. To which he replied, why are you so uncompromising? A fun way to spend an afternoon, but we think it's just a tad bit easier our way.
Homes.com. We've done your homework. This is an iHeart podcast.
