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Casualty Info
Home Town American Falls, ID
Last Address American Falls, ID
Casualty Date Jun 04, 1942
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Air Loss, Crash - Sea
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Neeley Cemetery - American Falls, Idaho
Wall/Plot Coordinates (memorial marker)
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
RM2 Louis Dale Hansen and his pilot, ENS John C. Lough, along with other aircraft of Enterprise's (CV-6) air group including Scouting Squadron Six (VS-6) attacked the Japanese carrier striking force at Midway on the morning of 4 June 1942. Their plane failed to return from their mission. First reported as missing in action on 04 Jun 1942, both crewman were presumed dead one year and one day later, 5 Jun 1943.
Comments/Citation:
Service number: 3684916
Distinguished Flying Cross
Awarded for Action During World War II
Service: Navy
Rank: Radioman Second Class
Battalion: Scouting Squadron
General Orders: Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin No. 313 (April 1943)
Citation: The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross (Posthumously) to Radioman Second Class Louis Dale Hansen (NSN: 3684916), United States Navy, for heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as Gunner of an airplane in a Scouting Squadron in action against enemy Japanese forces in the Battle of Midway, 4 to 6 June 1942. With heroic and meritorious devotion to duty, he rendered valuable assistance to his pilot by detailing continuous specific and comprehensive information concerning the disposition and movements of enemy Japanese units. His courage and cool determination in carrying out this vital task in the face of furious and repeated attacks were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
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.
