This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Shaun Thomas (Underdog), OSC
to remember
Dexter, James Campbell, ENS.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Seattle
Last Address Seattle, WA
Casualty Date Jul 19, 1942
Cause Non Hostile- Body Not Recovered
Reason Air Loss, Crash - Sea
Location Kiribati
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Central Pacific Campaign (1941-43)/Battle of Midway
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Description The Battle of Midway in the Pacific Theater of Operations was one of the most important naval battles of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy (USN), under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.
The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.
The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.
The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions.Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—and a heavy cruiser were sunk at a cost of one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories The Battle of Midway Five days later, the "Big E" sortied toward the South Pacific to reinforce U.S. carriers operating in the Coral Sea. However, the Battle of the Coral Sea was over before Enterprise arrived. After executing, with Hornet, a feint towards Nauru and Banaba (Ocean) islands which caused the Japanese to cancel their operation to seize the two islands, Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor on 26 May, and began intensive preparation to meet the expected Japanese thrust at Midway Island.
On 28 May, Enterprise sortied as Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance's flagship with orders "to hold Midway and inflict maximum damage on the enemy by strong attrition tactics." With Enterprise in CTF 16 were Hornet, six cruisers, and 10 destroyers. On 30 May, Task Force 17 (TF 17), with Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher in Yorktown, left Pearl with two cruisers and six destroyers; as senior officer present, Rear Admiral Fletcher became "Officer in Tactical Command." The usual commander of the Enterprise task force, Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, was kept in hospital at Pearl with a stress-related skin condition.
Each side launched air attacks during the day in a decisive battle. Though the forces were in contact until 7 June, by the end of the day on 4 June, the outcome had been decided. The Battle of Midway began on the morning of 4 June 1942, when four Japanese carriers, unaware of the presence of U.S. naval forces, launched attacks on Midway Island. Just three hours after the first bomb fell on Midway, planes from the U.S. carriers attacked. Enterprise launched a failed attack using torpedo bombers, then soon after Enterprise dive bombers attacked and sank the Japanese carriers Kaga and Akagi. Later in the afternoon, a mixed squadron of Enterprise and Yorktown bombers destroyed Hiryu (aircraft from Yorktown also sank Soryu). Yorktown and Hammann were the only American ships sunk, but TF 16 and TF 17 lost a total of 113 planes, 61 of them in combat, during the battle. Japanese losses were much larger: four carriers, one cruiser, and 272 carrier aircraft. Despite losses to her aircraft squadrons, Enterprise came through undamaged and returned to Pearl Harbor on 13 June 1942.
Various sources credit ENS Dexter with dropping a bomb which impacted either on Kaga's bridge or on a fueling cart just forward of it, resulting in the deaths of many of Kaga's senior officers, including her CO.
