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Casualty Info
Home Town Ridgeway, MO
Last Address Grant, MO
Casualty Date Nov 14, 1942
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Unknown, Not Reported
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Ridgeway Cemetery - Ridgeway, Missouri
Wall/Plot Coordinates (memorial)
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
The only information available about ARM1c Stanley is that he was a member of VB-10 aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-3) and flew on many missions, one of which led to him being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. No details are given about how he lost his life. Forty-one planes from three different aircraft carriers were involved in missions and only 6 of the 41 returned. The Yorktown was under heavy attack and received a lot of damage, later sinking. It is not known whether ARM1c Stanley was aboard one of the planes that never returned or was killed abourd the ship.
Comments/Citation:
Service number: 3422148
Distinguished Flying Cross
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Aviation Radioman Second Class Forest G. Stanley (NSN: 3422148), United States Navy, for heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight while serving as rear seat gunner in an airplane of a Scouting Squadron in action against Japanese forces in the Coral Sea on 8 May 1942. While his squadron was engaged in a dive-bombing attack upon an enemy aircraft carrier he calmly and accurately aimed his machine gun and fired at an attacking enemy Japanese fighter, causing it to crash into the sea. By his alertness and courage in a critical situation, Aviation Radioman Second Class Stanley, in addition to saving the life of his pilot and preventing the destruction of his plane, contributed materially to the success of our naval forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea. General Orders: Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin No. 309 (December 1942) & 320 (November 1943) Action Date: May 8, 1942 Service: Navy Rank: Aviation Radioman Second Class Company: Scouting Squadron Division: U.S.S. Yorktown (CV-5)
The information contained in this profile was compiled from various internet sources.
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.
