John Ford remembers filming Battle of Midway

It was such a large battle when the fleets fought each other. From what I remember our high altitude bombings on the Japanese fleet was completely ineffective. It was our dive bombers that did the most damage. The Japanese admiral in charge of the fleet made a fateful decision. He sent planes to attack our fleet which prevented him from sending out fighters to defend the fleet because he could not support both offensive and defensive operations, which made his fleet vulnerable to our planes.

I got a keen interest in the Pacific Campaign because essentially all I knew was the Navy supported Marine amphibious operations in island hopping, and we kept inching our way closer to Japan. Then the atomic bombs ended the war. I was quite ignorant. I am still quite ignorant because the whole Pacific Campaign had a lot of moving parts that I can not completely remember.