Memorial Day, 2012

Our Eureka American Legion and VFW Posts became the local veterans who have died—recognition of a real fact as the color guard placed the flag at half-staff for the occasion and then came into the cool hall where the reading of almost 100 names of former members of the Posts became the event of the day.

As each name was read, State Rep. Tim Jones, R-Eureka, stroked a bell in their memory. Emcee was Chris Weber, Adjutant of the 12th District VFW had earlier introduced Rep. Jones who described what we celebrated today. It was a well done ceremony and those who attended remembered many of the names as all were community members.
 
It was hot and I came home to watch the Cardinals win in the afternoon in a cool house and then turned on AMC to watch Veterans Day movies for awhile.  The great battle of Midway in 1942 was the feature. My impression, as always, was the story of the great deeds were diminished by the poor script and the tangled up screen play.

I guess the producers did the best they could at the time, but I have always been critical as the information given was not accurate.

So I suggest you log on to Comdr. Richard Best who was a Navy Academy Grad in 1932 who was on the enterprise and scored hits on two Japanese carriers, first the Akagi and then late in the day on the fourth carrier, the Hiryu.

I was attracted to the story as I read that Ens. Frederick Weber was flying with Best when they hit the Akagi with Weber getting the Navy Cross and having a ship named for his deed. His bomb had hit the steering and made sure of the kill.

Shortly after putting that in my book, I was visiting my daughter Carole in Camarillo, California, and I learned of Richard Best part. We made arrangements to visit Mr. Best at his office and had a nice interview with him in which I was able to let him know that Weber had a ship named for him. The ship is the USS Weber DE-675.

Then in Midway movie, I think Charleston Heston was playing the role of the pilot who sunk the Hiryu and was killed. So, one of my questions to Mr. Best was, "Did you get injured?"

He said no, but on that last flight, he used the oxygen, which had a faulty system and caused damage to his lungs for which he spent the rest of the war in hospitals. He died in 2001.

So this evening, I logged in on Richard Best and found great detail which verified my findings of many years ago. So now 70 years later I am writing this so you know the real history of a great victory in which so many really good fighting men gave their all.

You deserve better. If you have a computer you have all the facts ready for you. Take a look.