November 11, 2003

Sinking Hopes

Dean Esmay weighs in on the media's one-sided portrayal of combat in Iraq - focusing only on dead American soldiers and not reporting on how many of the enemy are being killed or captured, and isolating each death as a separate event rather than reporting on events in a strategic light. In a comment below his post, one wag tried to revive the "Vietnam quagmire" meme by commenting, "I seem to recall another conflict where we had a good 'kill ratio': Vietnam."

But the point of Esmay's post and mine about the media ignoring enemy deaths in Iraq isn't to track the "kill ratio." The point is the media focuses on only one side of each battle.

These are photos of the USS Yorktown taken during the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942, during World War 2 in the Pacific. You can click the photos to see larger images.

The first photo shows the Yorktown as it is under attack by Japanese torpedo bombers:

The second photo shows the Yorktown ablaze:

The Yorktown sustained a lot of damage. The second photo shows the scene on board shortly after she was hit by three Japanese bombs. The dense smoke is from fires in her uptakes, caused by a bomb that punctured them and knocked out her boilers. The Yorktown was still burning an hour later while crew attempted to make repairs.

Salvage crews pushed guns, aircraft and other removable weights over the side, counterflooded the ship to reduce the list and did many other things to try to save the ship. The USS Hammann, a destroyer, stayed alongside Yorktown to provide power, water and other assistance.



Midday June 6, however, an undetected Japanese submarine fired four torpedoes, hitting Hammann and Yorktown amidships on their starboard sides. The Hammann sank in minutes, and many of her crew were killed or badly injured in the water when her depth charges exploded as she sank. Yorktown remained afloat, however, lasting through the night despite large torpedo holes on both sides amidships. But as the sun rose on June 7, 1942, the Yorktown slipped beneath the waves and sank three miles to the bottom of the ocean.

Imagine if the press had reported that, at the Battle of Midway only that the Japanese had attacked and sunk the USS Yorktown. Americans reading and hearing that press coverage, not knowing that the U.S. had sunk four Japanese carriers and wreaked great damage on the navy of the Empire of Japan, might have begun to lose hope in the war effort.

If all you know of the Battle of Midway is the sinking of the Yorktown - if all you know of the Battle of Midway is these pictures - then you don't know the truth about the Battle of Midway.

You don't know that the Japanese lost four of the six aircraft carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor - the Akagi, the Kaga, the Hiryu, and the Soryu, sent to their deserved final resting place - and more than one hundred of Japan's best pilots. You don't know that the United States victory at Midway derailed the Japanese offensive in the Pacific, postponed their plans to invade New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, and turned the tide in the Pacific. You don't know that, in a strategic sense, the United States started to win World War 2 in the Pacific at the Battle of Midway.

I understand why the press covers the deaths of even a single American soldier in Iraq. In a war where we have accomplished so much at so small a cost in human lives, each death of an American soldier is news precisely because we have lost so few. Can you imagine Dan Rather reporting from the Battle of the Bulge, or Normandy on D-Day, or Iwo Jima on the death of one American soldier? Of course not.

During past wars, the death of one soldier was not news as it happened hundreds and even thousands of times a day. But if the press is going to report each death of an American soldier in Iraq, it should be fair and put those deaths in context. And part of that context is how the enemy fares after attacking U.S. troops

We lost the Yorktown at Midway. But we started to win the war that day, too. Just like we're winning today in Iraq.

The big difference? Back then, the American press wasn't ashamed to be on our side:

UPDATE: Darren Kaplan has some related thoughts.

UPDATE: A ton of phenomenal Battle of Midway/Yorktown photos here - and a real nice shot of the Hiryu burning, with a huge hole in her flight deck. And this page provides details on the destruction of the Japanese cruiser Mikuma at the end of the Battle of Midway.

UPDATE: I have deleted this photo from this post, purporting the show the Yorktown having rolled over shortly before slipping beneath the waves, because there is growing evidence the photo is not of the Yorktown and that the Yorktown did not roll over before sinking.

UPDATE: Here's a story about the Battle of Midway through the eyes of some men who survived it.

The U.S. lost two ships, and 147 carrier and land-based aircraft at Midway. Japan lost five ships, and 322 carrier-based aircraft. 362 Americans were killed in the Battle of Midway, along with an estimated 3,057 Japanese.

Midway survivor Airman Lee McCleary: "I'm not a hero. The heroes are the guys who didn't come back."

You're wrong, Mr. McLeary. You are a hero, too.