Midway Interlude

We left San Jose early the morning of June 14th and stopped in Chicago en route to Washington, DC. In DC we'd spend a day and a half in final preparations and visiting with daughter Rachel and her husband Will, before catching at Icelandair flight to Boston and then onward to Reykjavik.

The stop in Chicago was notable in that, next to our gate, in the now-sparse international terminal, was a large and very good exhibit on the Battle of Midway, June 4-6, 1942, for which the airport was named. I suspect few people know this. I suspect even fewer know of the origin of O'Hare airport's name, Lt. Commander Edward "Butch" O'Hare, who, in February, 1942, shot down five Japanese bombers before they could attack the carrier Lexington. The Midway exhibit is excellent, hits all the high points of a complex and compelling story, and features a real Douglas Dauntless dive bomber, which did the bulk of the damage at Midway, sinking all four Japanese carriers. 

Torpedo Squadron Eight, from the carrier Hornet, all fifteen planes
shot down, one survivor; the other two torpedo squadrons fared
similarly, but their sacrifice drew the Japanese defenders to low 
altitude, allowing the dive bombers to do their work; it wasn't
planned that way