When This B-26 Flew Over Japan’s Carrier Deck — Japanese Couldn’t Fire a Single Shot-ZZ

At 7:10 on the morning of June 4th, 1942, First Lieutenant James Murie dropped to 200 feet above the Pacific Ocean, watching 30 Japanese Zero fighters diving toward his B-26 Marauder from 12,000 ft.

23 years old, first combat mission, zero training for what came next.

The Imperial Japanese Navy had positioned four aircraft carriers 150 mi northwest of Midway at protected by 11 destroyers, two battleships, and three heavy cruisers.

Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo commanded the most powerful naval striking force ever assembled in the Pacific.

Muri’s B-26 was never designed for this.

The Martin Marauder earned its nickname Widowmaker for a reason.

Landing speed 150 mph.

Wing loading 53 pounds per square foot.

Small wings, massive engines, unforgiving handling characteristics.

Pilots called it the flying coffin.

Some called it worse.

Nobody at Wrightfield ever imagined hanging a 2,000lb torpedo under a marauder’s belly.

Nobody trained B-26 crews to drop torpedoes at wavetop height while Japanese carriers threw up walls of anti-aircraft fire.

Nobody briefed Murie’s squadron on torpedo attack tactics before they scrambled from Midway’s runway at 600 hours that morning.

Four B-26s took off.

Captain James Collins led the formation.

Murie flew Susie Q, named after his wife Alice’s nickname.

Two crews had never dropped a live torpedo.

The other two had dropped exactly one practice torpedo each.

Between them, four crews possessed zero combat experience and approximately 90 minutes of torpedo training.

Two of those four B-26s would never return to Midway.

The crews knew the mathematics before they climbed into their aircraft.

Navy torpedo squadrons attacking the same Japanese fleet 3 hours earlier lost 45 aircraft out of 51 launched, 45 crews, 225 men.

Most died in the first 8 minutes.

The B-26 Marauder carried a seven-man crew.

Pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, three gunners.

Moody’s co-pilot was Second Lieutenant Pren Moore.

His bombardier was Second Lieutenant Russell Johnson.

Staff Sergeant John Gogoy manned the dorsal turret.

Corporal Frank Melo handled the waist gun.

Private Earl Ashley covered the tail position.

Navigator William Moore tracked their course to the Japanese fleet.

They found Vice Admiral Nagumo’s carriers at 0700.

Four massive flattops steaming in formation.

Akagi, Kaga, Hiru, Soryu.

Between them, these four carriers had launched the attack on Pearl Harbor 6 months earlier.

These four carriers had sunk more Allied tonnage than any naval force in history.

These four carriers held 300 aircraft and 12,000 sailors.

30 fighters rose to meet four B-26s.

The mathematics weren’t complicated.

Moody watched Captain Collins aircraft ahead of him.

Collins banked hard left.

Tracers from zero cannon fire ripped past Suzie Q’s cockpit.

Moody dropped lower.

150 ft.

100 ft.

50 ft above the waves.

The B26’s propellers threw salt spray across the windscreen.

Moore called out the range to target.

3,000 yd, 2,000 yd, 1,500 yd.

Akagi’s anti-aircraft guns opened fire.

25 mm shells created black clouds ahead of the formation.

Heavier shells from the destroyer screen joined in.

The sky filled with steel and smoke and tracers.

Moody held course.

Zero fighters attacked from above and behind.

Goja’s turret hammered back.

The dorsal gun’s vibration shook the entire airframe.

If you want to see how Moody escaped the killing zone around Akagi, please hit that like button.

Every like helps us share these forgotten stories with more people.

And please subscribe if you haven’t already.

Back to Moody.

1,000 yards from Akagi’s bow.

Moore shouted the torpedo release point.

5 seconds 4 seconds.

3 seconds.

Murie’s hands locked on the yolk.

Suzukiq shook from zero cannon hits punching through the fuselage.

Something exploded behind the cockpit.

Smoke poured through the radio compartment.

Moore released the torpedo at 800 yd.

The B-26 jumped upward as 2,000 lbs dropped away.

Muri banked right to clear Akagi’s path.

Then every anti-aircraft gun on the Japanese flagship locked onto Suzie Q.

Shells tore through the wings, through the tail, through both engines, and Murie realized he had exactly one chance to survive the next 10 seconds.

Moody yanked the yolk hard left, not away from Akagi, toward Akagi.

The Martin B26 screamed across the water at 280 mph.

50 ft became 40 ft.

40 became 30.

Japanese gunners tracked Suzie Q through their sights.

Tracers converged on the bomber from every angle.

Moody aimed straight for the carrier’s port side.

20 ft above the waves.

Akagi’s flight deck rose ahead like a steel cliff.

860 ft long, 102 ft wide.

The flagship of Japan’s first air fleet.

Home to Vice Admiral Nagumo and his entire battle staff.

the most important ship in the Imperial Japanese Navy after Emperor Hiroshima’s personal yacht.

15 feet above the water.

Japanese gun crews on Akagi’s deck saw the B-26 coming straight at them.

Some dropped flat.

Others kept firing.

Moody held his course.

The carrier’s bow filled his windscreen.

Steel and rivets and aircraft parked wing tip to wing tip.

10 feet, 5 feet, three feet above the Pacific.

Then Moody pulled back on the yolk and Suzie Q cleared Akagi’s bow by less than 6 ft.

The B-26 thundered down the carrier’s flight deck at mast head height.

Japanese sailors threw themselves flat against the wooden planking.

Anti-aircraft crews abandoned their guns.

Moody flew so low the bombers’s propeller wash knocked men off their feet.

Zero fighters parked on deck rocked on their landing gear from the turbulence.

Vice Admiral Nagumo stood on Akagi’s bridge.

He watched an American bomber pass 20 ft in front of his position traveling at 280 mph.

The noise was overwhelming.

The prop wash shattered three windows.

Nagumo staff officers hit the deck.

The admiral stayed on his feet.

Bombardier Russell Johnson grabbed the nose gun.

He opened fire as Suzie Q crossed Akagi’s deck.

50 caliber rounds raked the flight deck from bow to stern.

Two Japanese sailors died instantly.

An anti-aircraft gun position took direct hits.

Three more sailors went down wounded.

Shell casings poured from Johnson’s gun position and scattered across Murie’s windscreen.

Behind the cockpit, Frank Melo fought a fire in the radio compartment.

The waist gun position was shot to pieces.

Hydraulic fluid sprayed everywhere.

Melo grabbed an extinguisher with one hand and kept firing his gun with the other.

Smoke filled the fuselage.

The aircraft’s electrical system was failing.

Half the instruments showed nothing.

Prren Moore left his co-pilot seat.

He crawled aft through the smoke.

Three gunners were wounded.

had shrapnel in his shoulder.

Ashley took hits in the leg and arm.

Melo’s face was cut from flying metal fragments.

Moore pulled the first aid kit and started working on the wounded while the aircraft shook from continuous zero attacks.

860 ft of flight deck passed beneath Suzie Q in 3 seconds.

Muri cleared Akagi’s stern and dropped back to wavetop height.

Every anti-aircraft gun on every Japanese ship tried tracking the bomber.

They couldn’t shoot without hitting their own flagship.

The B-26 disappeared into the smoke and chaos of the battle.

Muri banked right.

Altitude 40 ft.

Air speed 270 mph.

Both engines running rough.

Oil pressure dropping on the right engine.

Coolant temperature climbing on the left.

Zero fighters swarmed behind him.

Goggoy’s turret was jammed.

Ashley couldn’t man the tail gun with his wounds.

Johnson’s nose gun had fired its last rounds.

Suzie Q had no defensive armament.

No way to fight back.

No way to outrun Zero Fighters that cruised at 330 mph.

The bomber was a flying wreck with a seven-man crew and 150 mi of ocean between them and Midway.

Captain Collins B26 appeared off Murie’s port wing.

Collins aircraft looked worse than Suzie Q.

Smoke poured from one engine.

The entire tail section was shot through.

Both bombers were dead meat if the Zeros pressed their attack.

Then the Japanese fighters broke off.

All of them.

30 zeros climbed away and headed back to their carriers.

Morty watched them go and couldn’t understand why.

He didn’t know that at that exact moment, American dive bombers were approaching Nagumo’s fleet from 20,000 ft.

Muri leveled Suzie Q at 100 ft and checked his instruments.

Air speed holding at 260 mph.

Fuel gauges showed half tanks.

Compass worked.

Altimeter worked.

Everything else was dead or dying.

The right engine’s oil pressure dropped into the red zone.

Temperature climbed past safe limits.

Black smoke streamed from the cowling.

Muri reduced power on that engine.

The B26 could fly on one engine if it wasn’t shot full of holes and carrying three wounded men and a fire damaged radio compartment.

Moore crawled back to the cockpit.

Blood covered his flight suit.

Not his blood.

He’d bandaged three wounded gunners in a smoke-filled fuselage while the aircraft bucked and shook from battle damage.

was stable.

Ashley was stable.

Melo refused to stop manning his gun despite facial lacerations.

Moore dropped into the co-pilot seat.

He scanned the instruments and said nothing.

Both men understood the mathematics.

150 mi to midway.

Fuel for maybe 200 m if the tanks weren’t leaking.

One engine failing, no hydraulics for landing gear, no radio to call ahead for crash crews.

They flew in formation with Captain Collins for 20 minutes.

Collins’s B26 fell behind gradually.

More smoke, lower altitude.

Muri held his speed.

Every pilot knew the rule.

You can’t help a damaged aircraft by damaging your own.

Collins waved from his cockpit.

Murie waved back.

Both bombers continued alone.

Behind them, Vice Admiral Nagumo stood on Akagi’s bridge and made the decision that would lose Japan the Pacific War.

The American bomber attack convinced Nagumo that Midways air defenses remain strong.

B-26s carrying torpedoes, B17s bombing from high altitude, Navy torpedo bombers.

The attacks achieved nothing, but they came in waves.

Nagumo believed more attacks would follow.

His carriers held aircraft armed with torpedoes for attacking American ships.

Nagumo ordered those aircraft rearmed with bombs for attacking Midway’s airfield.

Deck crews began the changeover.

They pulled torpedoes from aircraft and hauled up bombs from the magazines.

The process required 90 minutes.

Torpedoes stacked on the hanger decks.

Bombs stacked beside them.

Fuel lines ran everywhere.

At 0740, a Japanese scout plane radioed a report.

American carrier spotted.

The entire tactical situation reversed in one transmission.

Nagumo needed his aircraft armed with torpedoes again.

He ordered another changeover.

Deck crews scrambled to reverse everything they just done.

Muri knew none of this.

He flew across empty ocean watching his right engine die slowly.

Oil pressure dropped to zero.

Temperature maxed out.

Metal parts inside the Pratt and Whitney R2800 were welding themselves together from heat and friction.

The engine could seize completely at any moment.

50 mi from Midway, more spotted smoke on the horizon.

Japanese strike aircraft returning from their attack on the island.

Two dozen bombers and fighters in formation.

The Japanese formation spotted Suzie Q.

Several fighters broke away and headed toward the damaged B-26.

Murray pushed the left engine to maximum power.

The single Pratt and Whitney screamed.

Coolant temperature climbed into dangerous territory.

The B-26 accelerated to 280 mph on one engine and a prayer.

The Japanese fighters fell behind.

They were low on fuel from attacking Midway.

They couldn’t chase damaged American bombers all the way back to base.

20 mi from Midway, the right engine finally quit.

The propeller windmilled uselessly.

Muri feathered it to reduce drag.

Susie Q flew on one engine now.

Altitude dropped to 50 ft.

The bomber couldn’t maintain height on single engine power with all the battle damage and dead weight.

10 mi out.

Murie saw Midway’s runway through the haze.

The island looked impossibly small.

A tiny strip of coral and sand in the middle of the Pacific.

The runway was 6,500 ft long.

That was plenty for a healthy B-26.

For a shotup bomber flying on one engine with no hydraulics and three wounded men aboard, it might not be enough.

More prepared for crash landing procedures.

He couldn’t lower the landing gear normally, the hydraulic system was destroyed.

Manual gear extension required two men and 30 seconds they might not have.

Mury lined up his approach and discovered one more problem with Suzukiq that nobody had mentioned yet.

The left main landing gear tire was gone, shot away over Akagi’s flight deck.

The wheel rim remained, but the rubber tire had disintegrated from cannon fire.

Morty couldn’t see it from the cockpit, but Moore spotted it during his trip through the fuselage.

Landing on one tire and a bare rim meant the aircraft would pull violently left the moment it touched down.

5 mi from midway, altitude 30 ft, single engine power barely keeping them airborne.

Moore worked the manual gear extension system.

He cranked the handle in circles.

The mechanism resisted.

Battle damage had bent something in the linkage.

Moore kept cranking.

Sweat poured down his face.

The manual extension required 40 complete rotations under normal conditions.

With damaged components, it might require twice that.

Three miles out, the main gear locked down.

The nose wheel wouldn’t budge.

More cranked harder.

The handle wouldn’t turn.

Something was jammed or broken or both.

Landing on main gear without a nose wheel meant the aircraft would pitch forward violently.

The props would strike the runway.

The nose would dig in.

The B-26 would cartwheel or break apart or both.

Two miles from the runway, Moore kept cranking.

His hands bled from the effort.

My held altitude at 20 ft.

The single engine howled at maximum power.

Coolant temperature was 50° past red line.

The engine could fail any second.

One mile out, the nose wheel suddenly dropped.

Moore felt it lock into place through the manual extension system.

All three wheels were down.

One main tire was missing, but all three wheels were down.

That was something.

Mory crossed Midway’s Beach at 15 feet, doing 190 miles per hour.

Too fast.

Normal B26 approach speed was 150 mph on two engines.

On one engine with battle damage, he needed extra speed for safety margin, but extra speed meant extra distance to stop on a runway that suddenly looked very short.

Eastern Island’s runway stretched ahead.

6,500 ft of crushed coral and sand.

Several bomb craters from the Japanese attack that morning.

Ground crews had filled the craters with coral, but the patches showed clearly.

Aircraft wreckage littered both sides of the runway.

Burning fuel sent black smoke across the approach path.

Moody cut throttle on the left engine.

The B-26 dropped toward the runway.

160 mph.

150 140.

The bomber fell like a brick with wings.

B-26s didn’t glide well.

With one engine out and massive battle damage, they didn’t glide at all.

Suzie Q hit the runway at 135 mph.

The right main gear touched first, then the left gear hit on a bare wheel rim.

Sparks exploded from the metal rim, scraping coral.

The aircraft pulled hard left.

Moody stomped right rudder.

The nose wheel slammed down.

Both propellers were still windmilling.

The right prop tips hit the runway and shattered.

Metal fragments scattered everywhere.

The B-26 swerved left despite full right rudder.

Moody stood on the brake pedal.

The brake system used the last pressure remaining in the shotup hydraulic lines.

Suzie Q slowed 100 mph.

90 80.

The runway was running out.

70 mph 60.

Wreckage from a destroyed aircraft blocked the far end of the runway.

Moody aimed for a gap between burning fuel and twisted metal.

50 mph 40.

The B26 rolled to a stop with 800 ft of runway remaining.

Fire trucks and ambulances raced toward the bomber.

Moody shut down the left engine.

The sudden silence was overwhelming.

His hands shook on the yolk.

Moore sat motionless in the co-pilot seat.

Behind them in the fuselage, three wounded gunners waited for medical help.

Ground crews surrounded Suzie Q.

Medics climbed aboard to extract the wounded.

An intelligence officer appeared at Moody’s window and asked for a mission report.

Murray climbed out of the cockpit and stood on Midway’s coral runway looking at his aircraft.

He started counting bullet holes.

He stopped counting at 200.

The ground crew chief walked the length of the bomber with a clipboard.

He counted methodically.

every hole, every tear, every piece of battle damage.

The final count came to 506 bullet holes.

506 separate impacts from Japanese cannon and machine gun fire.

The left tire was destroyed.

All four propeller blades on both engines were damaged.

Every major system showed damage.

The radio was burned out.

The hydraulics were destroyed.

The electrical system was partially failed.

The ground crew chief looked at Murray and delivered his assessment.

Susie Q would never fly again.

Captain James Collins landed his B26 30 minutes after Murie.

Collins aircraft had 473 bullet holes.

One engine was completely dead.

The tail section was barely attached.

His crew had two wounded.

Both aircraft would be written off and scrapped.

The other two B26s never returned.

Lieutenant Herbert Maya and Lieutenant William Moore took direct hits during their torpedo runs.

Both aircraft went into the Pacific Ocean.

14 men died.

No survivors.

No wreckage recovered.

The ocean took them and kept them.

Four B-26 Marauders attacked the Japanese fleet that morning.

Two came back, eight men wounded, 14 men killed, zero torpedo hits achieved.

By every tactical measure, the mission was a complete failure.

Murie sat on the coral runway and watched ground crews swarm over Suzie Q.

They cataloged the damage for intelligence purposes.

Cannon holes through the wings, machine gun holes through the fuselage.

The tail section looked like Swiss cheese.

Both engines were destroyed internally despite running long enough to get home.

The aircraft was a flying miracle that it stopped flying forever.

A maintenance officer approached Murray with permission.

The crew could cut the name from the fuselage before the aircraft was scrapped.

It took an hour.

They used tin snips and careful cuts.

The nose art came away in one piece.

Suzie Q, named after Alice Murie’s nickname.

The metal plate with painted letters was all that would survive.

A bulldozer pushed the B26 to the beach.

2 days later, the operator shoved it into the Pacific Ocean where it sank in 40 ft of water.

Serial number 40-1391, 9 months old, one combat mission, 506 bullet holes, gone.

The immediate tactical results of the B-26 attack appeared minimal.

No hits, no damage to Japanese ships, two aircraft lost.

But the strategic impact was profound in ways nobody recognized until later.

Vice Adwin Lagumo watched an American bomber fly down his flagship’s deck at mast head height.

That image burned into his mind.

American aircraft operating from midway were attacking with coordination and persistence.

B26s with torpedoes, B7s with bombs, Navy torpedo bombers.

The attacks kept coming in waves.

Nagumo made his decision based partly on what he saw that morning.

Midway’s air defenses remained dangerous.

His carriers needed to launch another strike against the island’s airfield.

That meant rearming his torpedo bombers with bombs.

The changeover process began at 0715.

30 minutes later, new intelligence arrived.

American carriers detected.

Nagumo reversed his order.

Rearmmed with torpedoes again.

Debt crews scrambled to undo everything they’d just done.

Torpedoes stacked on hanger decks beside bombs beside fuel lines.

The most dangerous configuration possible.

At 01020, three American SBD Dauntless dive bombers pushed over from 14,000 ft.

They came from USS Enterprise.

Lieutenant Commander Wade McCcluskey led them down.

Behind him, 17 more Dauntlesses followed.

They’d been searching for Nagumo’s fleet for 2 hours.

They found it by following the smoke from the B-26 and torpedo bomber attacks.

The Dauntless dove at 250 mph.

Zero fighters were still at low altitude from chasing the torpedo bombers.

No high cover.

No combat air patrol above 10,000 ft.

The Zeros couldn’t climb fast enough to intercept.

Akagi’s deck crews saw the dive bombers at 8,000 ft.

Too late.

The first bomb hit at 01026.

1,000 pounds of high explosive struck near the midship elevator.

The blast penetrated the flight deck and detonated in the upper hanger.

Bomb stacked beside torpedoes beside fuel lines.

The second bomb hit 10 seconds later.

Another thousand pounder threw the flight deck into the hanger.

More stacked ordinance.

More fuel.

The chain reaction began.

Akagi was Vice Admiral Nagumo’s flagship.

The most important carrier in the Japanese fleet.

The ship that led the Pearl Harbor attack.

Within 15 minutes, uncontrollable fires raged through four decks.

Nagumo transferred his flag to the light cruiser Nagara at 1100 hours.

By 18,800 hours, Akagi was abandoned and sinking.

Kaga took four bomb hits in 6 minutes.

Fire spread through the hangar bays.

The carrier sank at 1925 that evening.

Soryu took three bombs and sank at 1913.

Three Japanese carriers destroyed in 6 minutes of American dive bombing.

But those dive bombers only found Nagumo’s fleet because they followed the chaos created by earlier attacks.

They followed the smoke from burning aircraft.

They followed the concentrated formation of Japanese ships that had tightened their formation to defend against torpedo bombers.

They followed the path Muri and Collins and Maize and Moore had carved through the Japanese fleet an hour earlier.

Murray and his crew spent three days on Midway Island while the Battle of Midway concluded around them.

Japanese forces withdrew on June 7th after losing four carriers and 248 aircraft.

American forces lost one carrier, Yorktown, and 147 aircraft.

The battle shifted the entire strategic balance of the Pacific War.

The crew of Suzie Q received medical treatment.

Go J’s shoulder wound required surgery.

Ashley’s leg and arm wounds were cleaned and sutured.

Melo’s facial lacerations were treated with antiseptics and bandages.

All three men remained on Midway for 2 weeks before medical evacuation to Pearl Harbor.

Mury wrote his afteraction report on June 5th.

Intelligence officers questioned him for 6 hours.

They wanted every detail.

Altitude during approach, number of zero fighters, location of anti-aircraft batteries, the exact moment he decided to fly over Akagi’s deck instead of turning away.

Mury answered every question.

His hands still shook when he held the pencil.

The Distinguished Service Cross arrived three months later.

Not just for Mury, for the entire crew.

Pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, three gunners.

Seven men received America’s second highest decoration for valor.

The citation mentioned extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy.

It mentioned the torpedo attack under impossible conditions.

It mentioned flying through concentrated anti-aircraft fire and fighter opposition.

The citation did not mention that the torpedo missed.

It did not mentioned that tactically the mission achieved nothing.

The Navy understood something that wouldn’t become clear for years.

The B-26 attack created conditions that allowed the dive bombers to succeed.

No historian could prove direct causation.

No battle analysis could draw a straight line from Mory’s aircraft crossing Akagi’s deck to three Japanese carriers burning 90 minutes later.

But Admiral Chester Nimttz believed it.

So did Admiral Raymond Spruent.

The torpedo attacks forced Nagumo to make decisions under pressure.

Those decisions positioned his fleet for destruction.

The B-26s and Navy torpedo bombers died, buying time and creating chaos.

The dive bombers exploited that chaos perfectly.

Murray transferred to Eglundfield, Florida in August 1942.

The Army Air Forces needed experienced B26 pilots to train new crews.

Muri spent the next year teaching pilots how to handle the Widowmaker.

He taught them proper approach speeds, proper power settings, how to fly the aircraft on one engine, how to survive when everything went wrong simultaneously.

He never flew another combat mission.

One mission was enough.

One torpedo attack was enough.

One flight over a Japanese carrier deck was enough for any pilot’s entire career.

The 22nd Bomb Group continued operations in the Pacific theater.

They flew B-26s until September 1943 when they transitioned to B25 Mitchells.

The group participated in campaigns across New Guinea, the Philippines, and Borneo.

They flew until the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

Prren Moore returned to combat flying in 1943.

He completed 35 missions over Europe in B26s.

He survived the war and returned to civilian life in Texas.

Russell Johnson flew 22 more combat missions before rotating home.

William Moore transferred to navigation training and taught navigation to bomber crews until 1945.

The three wounded gunners all recovered.

returned to combat duty.

Ashley and Melo were reassigned to stateside training bases.

All seven members of Suzie Q’s crew survived the war.

In a conflict that killed 405,000 Americans, seven men from one crew surviving was worth noting.

Muri remained in the Air Force after the war.

He served in command positions across the United States and Japan.

He accumulated more than 5,000 flight hours.

He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1962 after 24 years of military service.

He returned to Montana in 1969.

He and Alice bought property on Bridger Creek east of Big Timber.

They lived there for 30 years.

Alice died in 2001.

Murray lived alone on the ranch after that.

The Battle of Midway became the most analyzed naval engagement in American history.

Historians wrote dozens of books.

Documentaries examined every decision.

The dive bomber pilots received most of the attention.

WDE McCcluskey became famous.

Richard Best became famous.

The torpedo bomber crews were remembered as tragic heroes who died bravely.

The B-26 attack on June 4th, 1942 received less attention.

Four Army bombers attacking a naval task force wasn’t dramatic enough for most historians.

Two aircraft lost, zero hits achieved, minimal tactical impact.

The story didn’t fit the narrative of American victory through superior tactics and courage.

But there was one detail historians kept returning to.

One moment that changed everything.

Vice Admiral Nagumo standing on a Kagi’s bridge at 0710 watching an American bomber fly past at mast head height.

That moment lasted 3 seconds.

An American bomber traveling at 280 mph, covering 860 ft of flight deck.

3 seconds that Nagumo replayed in his mind for the rest of his life.

Japanese military culture emphasized aggressive action.

Attack first, attack hard, maintain the initiative.

Nagumo built his career on these principles.

The Pearl Harbor strike exemplified them perfectly.

Surprise, speed, overwhelming force.

The American Pacific Fleet destroyed before it could respond.

But at 0710 on June 4th, an American bomber flew down his flagship’s deck.

American aircraft were attacking from midway in coordinated waves.

B-26s, B17s, torpedo bombers.

The attacks achieved minimal damage, but they demonstrated something more important than damage.

They demonstrated that American forces at Midway remained combat effective and aggressive.

Nagumo’s standing orders from Admiral Yamamoto were clear.

Keep the strike force aircraft armed with torpedoes for anti-ship operations.

American carriers were somewhere in the area.

Finding them and destroying them was the primary mission objective.

Midway Island was a secondary target, but Nagumo watched an American bomber nearly hit his bridge.

He watched torpedo tracks in the water.

He watched B7s bombing from high altitude.

His combat instinct said those Midway based aircraft needed to be destroyed before they could coordinate another attack with American carriers.

So Nagumo ordered the changeover, armed the strike force with bombs for midway.

That order went out at 0715, 5 minutes after Muri cleared Akagi’s stern.

The decision was based partly on tactical assessment and partly on the visceral impact of watching an enemy bomber fly past at eye level.

Deck crews began pulling torpedoes from aircraft and hauling up bombs from the magazines.

The process required 90 minutes under ideal conditions.

These conditions were not ideal.

The fleet was under attack.

Damage control parties were fighting fires.

Combat air patrol coordination was chaotic.

At 0740, the scout plane report arrived.

American carriers spotted.

Nagumo faced an impossible choice.

continue the midway attack and leave his carriers vulnerable or reverse the changeover process and lose another 90 minutes.

He chose reversal, rearm with torpedoes, but the deck crews had already moved hundreds of bombs to the hanger decks.

Torpedoes stacked beside bombs, beside fuel lines, beside aircraft.

Every carrier in the fleet had hanger decks full of ordinance in the worst possible configuration.

At 01020, the American dive bombers arrived.

They found four Japanese carriers with their decks cluttered with aircraft.

Hangar bays packed with ordinance.

Damage control parties already exhausted from earlier attacks.

Zero fighters at low altitude unable to climb fast enough to intercept.

The bombs that hit Akagi detonated stacked ordinance in the hangar.

Torpedoes exploded.

Fuel lines ruptured.

Aviation fuel ignited.

The fire spread through four decks in minutes.

Firefighting systems were overwhelmed.

The damage was catastrophic and irreversible.

Historians debate whether Nagumo’s changeover decision caused the disaster.

Some argue the American dive bombers would have succeeded regardless.

Others maintain that proper ordinance handling would have prevented the catastrophic secondary explosions.

The debate continues 80 years later, but no historian disputes the psychological impact of the B-26 attack.

Nagumo saw an American bomber fly down his deck.

That image influenced his thinking.

That moment contributed to his decision-making under pressure.

Three seconds of an American bomber at mast head height.

Murray never claimed his mission changed the battle’s outcome.

He wrote in his afteraction report that the torpedo missed.

The attack achieved no direct hits.

Two B-26s were lost.

The mission failed tactically.

He believed that until his death in 2013.

The Air Force disagreed.

So did the Navy.

The distinguished service crossitation stated that Murie’s actions under fire demonstrated extraordinary heroism.

The Jimmy Dittle Award arrived in 2003.

The award recognized outstanding contributions to national security through military aviation.

Muri received it in Washington at age 84.

He attended the ceremony with his son James Jr.

Alice had died two years earlier.

Murray accepted the award and gave a brief speech.

He thanked his crew.

He thanked the Air Force.

He mentioned the 14 men who died in the other two B26s that morning.

He said they deserve recognition more than he did.

Then he sat down and refused to say anything else about Battle of Midway for the rest of the ceremony.

Murray died on February 3rd, 2013 in Laurel, Montana.

He was 94 years old.

Natural causes.

He was buried at the veteran cemetery in Mile City with full military honors.

The metal plate with Susie Q painted on it survived.

The plate Murie cut from the fuselage in June 1942.

He kept it for 71 years.

His family donated the plate to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in 2014.

It hangs in the World War II gallery alongside other artifacts from the Pacific Theater.

The paint has faded.

The metal shows rust spots, but the name remains visible.

Susie Q, named after Alice Moyer Murie, who married James on Christmas Day 1941.

The wreckage of B26 serial number 40-1391, remains in 40 ft of water off Eastern Island Midway Atoll.

The ocean has corroded most of the aluminum.

The steel component survived longer.

Coral has grown over the wings.

Fish shelter in the engine the cells.

The aircraft that flew through 506 bullet holes and brought seven men home now serves as an artificial reef.

The men who flew that mission understood something that took historians decades to recognize.

Tactical failure and strategic success are not mutually exclusive.

The torpedo missed.

The mission accomplished no direct damage, but the chaos created by that attack contributed to decisions that destroyed three Japanese carriers 90 minutes later.

No single action wins wars.

No single mission changes outcomes.

But specific moments accumulate into larger results.

Murie flying over Akagi’s deck was one moment.

Navy torpedo bomber crews dying in flames was another moment.

B7s bombing from high altitude was another.

Each moment individually achieved little.

Each moment collectively created conditions for victory.

The mathematics of war operate on scales beyond individual comprehension.

Muri could not know that flying over a carrier deck would influence an admiral’s decision-making.

That admiral could not know his ordinance handling procedures would prove catastrophic when American dive bombers arrived.

Those dive bombers could not know they found the Japanese fleet, partly because earlier attacks had concentrated the formation and created visible smoke trails.

Seven men flew into combat on June 4th, 1942.

All seven came home in a battle that killed 3,000 Americans and Japanese.

Seven men surviving is worth remembering.

They survived because their pilot made a split-second decision under impossible pressure.

They survived because their co-pilot manually cranked landing gear while the aircraft shook from battle damage.

They survived because three wounded gunners kept fighting despite injuries.

They survived because James Murray flew his aircraft home on one engine through 150 mi of empty ocean and landed on a shotup runway with no hydraulics and a missing tire.

The B-26 Marauder earned its Widowmaker nickname.

Honestly, the aircraft demanded perfect technique and constant attention.

It killed pilots who made mistakes.

It killed pilots who didn’t make mistakes but encountered bad luck.

The early accident rate was so high that ferry crews refused to fly B-26s and some air bases grounded the entire fleet.

But in the hands of a pilot who understood its characteristics and respected its limits, the B-26 performed miracles.

Suzie Q flew through 56 bullet holes, lost one engine, lost hydraulics, lost most electrical systems, lost the landing gear tire, and still brought seven men home safely.

That was not luck.

That was engineering and piloting combining under extreme conditions.

If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor.

Hit that like button.

Every single like tells YouTube to show this story to more people.

Hit subscribe and turn on notifications.

We’re rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.

Stories about pilots who flew through impossible situations with nothing but skill and courage.

Real people, real heroism.

Drop a comment right now and tell us where you’re watching from.

Are you watching from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia? Our community stretches across the entire world.

You’re not just a viewer.

You’re part of keeping these memories alive.

Tell us your location.

Tell us if someone in your family served.

Just let us know you’re here.

Thank you for watching and thank you for making sure James Murray and the crew of Suzie Q don’t disappear into silence.

These men deserve to be remembered, and you’re helping make that