FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM The 60th anniversary of the battle of Midway was remembered yesterday during a ceremony aboard the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor. Battle of Midway vet William Tunstall spoke of his experiences aboard the USS Hornet during the battle. Tunstall was among eight veterans honored for their role in the battle.

Veterans of Midway
recall Navy sacrifice

8 men are honored for their part in the
battle that changed the war in the Pacific

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Early in his Navy career, Ensign William Tunstall was told, "As long as there is naval aviation, people are going to die."

That advice came from a senior aviator after Tunstall, a Portland, Ore., resident, lost a close friend aboard one of two scout planes in a pre-World War II aviation accident off the West Coast.

"It's advice I have never forgotten," he said.

After watching planes take off in World War II battles never to return, Tunstall still cannot forget the shipmates he lost in the Battle of Midway 60 years ago today.

Yesterday, Tunstall, 82, was among the eight veterans from the Midway campaign honored for their part in the battle. Six months after the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor had been nearly wiped out, the victory at Midway, located 1,250 miles northwest of Honolulu, was the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

He was on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet when Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle's B-24 bombers took off for the raid on Tokyo on April 16, 1942 -- the U.S. retaliation for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Two months later at Midway, he watched from the deck of the Hornet when the squadron, which was credited with locating the Japanese carriers, took off.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Battle of Midway veteran Rollin Schwirtz, left, got a handshake yesterday from William Tunstall. Schwirtz spoke to the group about his experiences during the battle. He was aboard the USS Hammann, which was sunk during the battle, and he received a Purple Heart.

On June 4, 1942, Tunstall, then 22, was only an enlisted sailor on the Hornet and a plane captain responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of a TBD-1 Devastator dive bomber flown by Ensign William Abercrombie.

When the call came to launch the aircraft of Torpedo Squadron 8, the 15 dive bombers planes in his group were late in taking off.

"I didn't find out the reason for the delay until much later, but apparently, the squadron commander, Lt. Cmdr. John Waldron, didn't agree with his superiors on the location of the Japanese fleet.

"So after he and the squadron took off, they went off in a different direction and eventually found the enemy."

Waldron and the 30 pilots and gunners in Torpedo 8 attacked the Japanese task force northeast of Midway in the first wave and were shot down. Only one of the them survived.

Speaking at yesterday's ceremonies on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri, Tunstall said: "I still think of those people. When I think of the USS Hornet and Torpedo Squadron 8, the tears come out."

Tunstall and other Midway veterans are expected to revisit Midway later this week as more ceremonies are held to honor what Rear Adm. Robert Conway, commander of Navy Regions Hawaii, described as "the greatest naval battle fought in this country."

Midway continued to serve as a naval station it was until closed in 1993. Today it is a wildlife refuge managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.