Remembering Midway // PHOTO GALLERY

NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY PANAMA CITY — On the 72nd anniversary of the first day of one the most storied battles in U.S. naval history, the Navy dive school on Wednesday hosted survivors of the Battle of Midway in a commemorative ceremony.

James Giles and Julian “Gene” Hodges joined the Navy within days of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941. Both men, now in their 90s, lied about their ages to sign up and within six months they were fighting back against the Japanese at Midway.

Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center Cmdr. Hung Cao introduced Giles, who was assigned to the USS Vincennes, and Hodges, who was on the USS Yorktown. Both the Yorktown and the Vincennes sank in 1942; the Yorktown went down at the battle of Midway and the Vincennes two months later in another fight with the Japanese.

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Cao explained the importance of the battle and its repercussions.

“First of all, we’re not speaking Japanese — so that’s a good thing — and they’re the reason why,” Cao said.

At the time, U.S. military leaders planned for the worst: a Japanese invasion and occupation of the West Coast while American forces focused on the fighting in Europe. And that’s what might have happened but for the decisive victory at Midway and the U.S. naval superiority, Cao said.

“That’s why the Battle of Midway was so important,” Cao said.

Before the battle, naval intelligence cracked Japanese codes and learned of the enemy’s plans to capture Midway Islands, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean about halfway between Hawaii and Japan, destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the process and subsequently use the island as a launch for an invasion of Hawaii. American forces seized the opportunity to take the Japanese by surprise, as the Japanese had done months earlier at Pearl Harbor.

The U.S. sank several of the Japanese fleet’s key vessels and destroyed hundreds of aircraft, but the victory was not without a cost. The only Japanese aircraft carrier that survived the first morning of the battle launched dive bombers and torpedo planes that led to the abandonment of the Yorktown. One torpedo exploded near Hodges.

“The concussion of that rascal threw me all the way across the boiler room,” Hodges said.

He dislocated his shoulder and couldn’t reset it, not even two hours later when he abandoned ship. He joked about spending much of the rest of his time in the Navy in and out of various hospitals before he retired to a life of ministry. He still preaches at First Baptist Church in Callaway.

Giles was shot in the arm during a later battle. His wound gave him little trouble, he said, and he changed the topic to the friends he saw killed.

“I was standing less than two feet away from him when he got killed,” he said quietly of his mentor, a man named Barrington who taught Giles how to be an ordnance man.

Giles was discharged from the Navy in 1945. He joined the Air Force in 1948, retiring in 1966 as a senior master sergeant.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Jason Cook received a promotion during the ceremony. He asked that Giles and Hodges participate in the brief ceremony that followed their presentation on Midway.