Commemorating victory at Midway

Local military, veterans and community members came together June 4 to commemorate the Battle of Midway.

Rear Adm. James Bynum, chief of Naval Air Training, was the keynote speaker of the event, which was held on board USS Lexington Museum on the Bay.

“This year marks the 76th anniversary of the United States’ victory at Midway Island - the battle that was a game-changer in World War II, shifting power in the Pacific, which Japan had held up until that point in the spring of 1942,” Bynum said.

“There’s a history behind our decision to mark this event,” Bynum added. “Some years ago, we realized we were starting to lose members of the greatest generation who had been in the service during the second World War, some of whom had served at Midway. So, in part, commemorating that victory is a means of saying thank you to the men who were there. It’s also a way to hear firsthand the tales of courage from a very up-close fight.”

The Battle of Midway is often referred to as the turning point in the Pacific during World War II, where the campaign in the Pacific had a momentum shift, and our Navy’s defense posture became an insurmountable offensive posture.

Not only was history made at this small island, but modern naval warfare itself was changed, and the strategy behind victory at Midway was something more.

We consider the Battle of Midway’s legacy, when warfighters in the Pacific engaged in battle after having prepared the battlespace using the most timely intelligence; calculated the odds given the enemy’s order of battle; and then confidently moved into the fold, after having chosen the terms of engagement

As Admiral Nimitz said, “had we lacked early information of the Japanese movement, and had we been caught with Carrier Task Forces dispersed, possibly as far away as the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway would have ended far differently.”

Midway’s legacy continues and carried on through veterans of World War II; Midway’s namesake, which was commissioned only three years after the battle itself; and through generations of Sailors and Marines.

The Battle of Midway ceremony ended with a wreath laying from the Lexington into the Corpus Christi Bay, followed by a moment of silence for those who lost their lives during the battle and World War II.

The Veterans Band of Corpus Christi provided music before, during and after the ceremony.