Mark Matuschak

Dad, Boston sports fan, Marbleheader, Lower East Sider, and WilmerHale partner.

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

84 years ago today, a pilot running out of fuel made a decision that won the Pacific War. Most Americans have never heard his name.

June 4, 1942. Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan's navy is undefeated. Four of the carriers that burned Pearl, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, are steaming toward Midway to finish off the US Pacific Fleet.

At 7:52 AM, Wade McClusky launches from USS Enterprise leading 32 Dauntless dive bombers. Here's the detail nobody mentions: McClusky is a fighter pilot. He'd been given the air group weeks earlier and had barely flown a dive bomber in combat. Now he's leading every SBD the Enterprise has at the most important target in the Pacific.

9:20 AM. He arrives at the intercept point where the Japanese fleet is supposed to be.

Empty ocean. Nothing for miles.

The Japanese had turned. Nobody knew where. And now McClusky owns the worst math problem in naval aviation: his fuel is bleeding away, and every minute he keeps searching, he condemns more of his own pilots to ditch in open water where nobody will find them.

Doctrine is clear. Turn back.

McClusky keeps going. He works a search pattern, squeezing miles out of dying fuel tanks.

9:55 AM. Far below, a single Japanese destroyer is cutting a white scar across the ocean at flank speed. It's the Arashi, racing to rejoin the fleet after depth-charging the American submarine Nautilus. Think about that. A failed sub attack is about to give away the entire Japanese navy.

McClusky reads the wake like an arrow and follows it.

10:02 AM. The horizon fills with the entire Japanese strike force. Four carriers, their decks crammed with planes being refueled and rearmed. Fuel lines snaking everywhere. Bombs stacked in the open.

And here's the miracle: the sky above them is empty. Minutes earlier, American torpedo squadrons had attacked at sea level and been annihilated. Torpedo 8 lost all 15 planes. One survivor, Ensign George Gay, watched what came next while hiding under his seat cushion in the water. Those doomed pilots dragged every Japanese fighter down to the waves. The door upstairs was wide open.

10:22 AM. McClusky pushes over from 14,500 feet. Both squadrons follow him down onto Kaga. It's actually a mistake, doctrine said split the targets, but Lt. Dick Best catches it mid-dive, pulls out with two wingmen, and goes after Akagi alone. His single bomb pierces the flight deck into the packed hangar. It's enough.

By 10:28, Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu, the third hit simultaneously by Yorktown's bombers, are floating infernos. Six minutes. Three carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, gone. Hiryu follows them to the bottom that evening.

The cost of McClusky's gamble was real. Many Enterprise bombers never made it home, some shot down, others swallowed by the sea when their tanks ran dry. McClusky himself was jumped by two Zeros on the way out, took five bullets through his shoulder, and still flew his shot-up Dauntless back to the Enterprise.

Admiral Nimitz said McClusky's decision "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway." Japan never won another major battle.

One borrowed pilot. One destroyer's wake. One choice to keep flying when every gauge said go home.

[alex kershaw @kershaw_alex]

Where the first Americans got off Omaha Beach at 8am this morning. Courage counts. Just a few men changed history here. I owe them my life.

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

June 6th, 1944.

The English Channel is angry and half the men in the landing craft are seasick. Diesel fumes mix with saltwater and vomit while rifles are checked for the fifth or sixth time by hands that need something to do. Nobody talks much anymore because the jokes have all been told and the bravado has finally burned away somewhere behind the English coast.

You are nineteen years old and carrying more weight than you’ve ever carried in your life. You don’t know it yet, but it’s the most weight you will EVER carry in this life. However long or short it may be.

Your rifle rests across your knees. Your life hangs from a few pounds of steel, wood, and training. Somewhere beyond the gray horizon sits a continent that has spent five years tearing itself apart, and in a few minutes you are going to step into the middle of it.

Across from you sits another kid. He can’t be much older than you. His jaw is clenched. His knuckles are white around his weapon. Neither of you says a word because there is nothing left to say.

Then your eyes drift toward his shoulder.

That red numeral catches your eye: “1”.

You’ve seen it a thousand times before. In barracks hallways, on training fields, in motor pools, and on long marches. It never meant much beyond belonging to the same outfit.

Now it means everything.

Because in a few minutes the world is going to ask something terrible of both of you, and there is comfort in knowing that whatever waits on that beach, neither of you will face it alone.

The historians will eventually reduce this day to arrows on maps and casualty figures. Politicians will give speeches. Journalists will write books. None of that exists inside the landing craft.

What exists is fear, and duty.

What exists is the understanding that courage was never the absence of fear. Courage was always charging into the maelstrom anyway.

The shoreline emerges through the smoke. You can see flashes now. You can hear the distant percussion of artillery. Men stop checking their equipment because there is no point anymore. Whatever mistakes were made are already made. Whatever prayers were going to be said have already been said.

The coxswain throttles down.

The boat grinds forward.

The ramp is about to drop.

Into the abyss.

Overlord.

[alex kershaw @kershaw_alex]

The first wave is closing on Omaha Beach. This is why, as a Brit, I tell my American son always to hold his head high. Most of the men in this photo will be killed or wounded in the next couple of hours. My freedom is not free. See more on Substack: https://t.co/EEg00P06y6

[Military History Now @MilHistNow]

RIGHT NOW in 1944, the first of 20,000 Allied paratroopers are dropping into Normandy. The long-awaited liberation of France is underway.

[Paul Rees. ex Rucksack. @HannahIamthest1]

Will you raise a glass tonight 5th June at 23:16.

At 00:16 Double British Summer Time ( 23:16 BST ) on 6th june 1944, D Company (reinforced by two platoons from B Company) 2nd Bn Oxf and Bucks plus RE support landed by glider at Benouville ( now Pegasus ) Bridge. The first gilder, piloted by S/Sgt Jim Wallwork, landed 47 meters from the bridge after a 10k glide...

It was one of the "most outstanding flying achievements of the war", said Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory

The battle for the liberation of Europe had begun.

[Tom Antonov @Tom_Antonov]

Meanwhile in Sainte-Mère-Eglise.
#DDay #normandy #airborne 🍺
📸 by willys_mb_borek

[101st Airborne Div. @101stAASLTDIV]

Before sunrise in Normandy, thousands of flags were placed to honor thousands of lives.

@DeptofWar | @USArmy | @USArmyEURAF | @18airbornecorps | @usabmc | @SETAF_Africa | @173rdAbnBde

[WCVB-TV Boston @WCVB]

Open now on the North Shore: The beloved Kowloon just began taking orders at a new outpost in Revere. Here's a closer look at Kowloon Tiki on the Beach https://t.co/9cVvzUYyWa

[Only In Boston @OnlyInBOS]

37,369 American flags have been planted on Boston Common ahead of Memorial Day.

Every single flag represents a Massachusetts service member who gave their life defending our country, from the Revolutionary War to today.

[Basil🧡 @LinkofSunshine]

Mitt Romney text to McConnell, January 2nd

[BallPark Buzz @BallParkBuzz]

Of all qualified center fielders, Ceddanne Rafaela has the second best OBP (.353) of the group.

I’m not sure I ever expected to say those words. But the growth that Rafaela has made this season is very real.

Quickly becoming one of the top center fielders in the sport.

[Gordo @BOSSportsGordo]

Flamethrowing RHP Tayron Guerrero is getting called up to the Red Sox, according to @ByAndrewParker.

Counter-move at this point is unknown. Guerrero will also need to be added to the 40-man.

[Boston Strong @BostonStrong_34]

WILLSON CONTRERAS DELIVERS AGAIN!

[G.G. @ggeiss_mlb]

Look at Masa, man. So inspirational.

Masataka Yoshida guns the runner down at home to keep the game tied!!

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

James Talarico: “It’s really easy to love your neighbor who looks like you, prays like you, votes like you. The challenge is to love people who look differently, who pray differently, who vote differently”

[WCVB-TV Boston @WCVB]

A World War II Navy Veteran passed away without any living relatives. So a community turned out to give him a hero’s farewell. https://t.co/zj27VB58bO

[Tara Dublin aka Winona Spyder™️ @taradublinrocks]

This is GLORIOUS

David Letterman & Stephen Colbert on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theatre bringing back the classic @Letterman routine one last time

This is how you go out, @StephenAtHome! 😂

And may @CBS implode literally the same way without you

[Hollee (Sydney Sox fan) @RedSoxYapper]

“Ceddanne having a good month, hitting .308, couple of homers”

*immediately hits another one*

[Rob Friedman @PitchingNinja]

Aroldis Chapman's 3Ks in the 9th