The writers, producers, and especially the narrator does a wonderful job on this series of shows. Happy Trails

My father was one of the SBD diver bomber pilots from the Hornet that was credited with hitting the Shokaku with his bomb. He was able to make it back to the American ships and land on the Enterprise with his wounded gunner. This video gave me chills.

Thanks for posting. My father was a Lt. Commander on the Hornet during these times. I'm fascinated by what he went through, but suffered from ptsd and never spoke of it.

Seems like Ferguson should have received the Navy Cross --- he was badly wounded, recovered the back guns and shot the Japanese plane, and when they ditched he saved the pilot. That is simply incredible!!!

My father was also a dive bomber pilot in VB8 on the Hornet. Lt JG Auman. His bomb hit the Shakaku. He was wounded by shrapnel from a Zero's cannon. He also had to land on the Enterprise. He served in the Navy for 33 years.

Those poor guys who ditched and struggled to stay alive in the ocean long enough to be rescued, but, never got found and saved are the most heart breaking to me.

I greatly enjoy these personal accounts of the Battle of Santa Cruz. This is a very refreshing way of telling history. This series brings out the humanity of the participants. Well done again!

Great report! Thank you for posting!

Excellent material. Great balance of the historical facts and human experience. Looking forward to the next release.

One of the unsung heroes of the Battle of Santa Cruz was the Battleship South Dakota which protected the USS Enterprise. It received extensive battle damage and its captain almost lost his life. There a nice video out on the battleship, then called battleship X.

Compliments on very nice narration. It is esp nice to hear a female voice giving clear, accurate info. Well done.

The last of the quality veteren Japanese aircrews were still part of the making of these sea battles as very expensive for us. That it was the end of them was our only victory in this one but it made more the difference to the IJN than the attrition affected us. Whether desperate or just foolish they bet the farm on underestimates of their advesary's staying power.

Splendid job,just splendid!

In what order should we watch these videos on the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands?

Not to take anything away from the US Navy's glory days of 1944, or the many thousands of unsung seamen whose supporting work on all manner of ships & facilities made any of it possible, but the heroism and sacrifice of those boys in 1942-43, when they were still outgunned and outnumbered, is almost impossible for us to understand today. I mean, sure, Yamamoto was absolutely correct when he said that if Imperial Japan didn't knock the US out of the war within 6 months of Pearl Harbor, its defeat was inevitable, given America's vast, unchallengeable industrial capacity, but those American boys in those early days didn't know this. They weren't privy to that sort of strategic information--it was just their skinny, farm boy arses out there desperately trying to play David to the ferocious Japanese Goliath. I'm the son of that generation. I grew up with the ones who survived, guys I thought of in postwar peacetime America as "the old men" (when they were less than half the age I am now) and even for me it's difficult to really understand the situation they were in. How could young people today possibly be expected to grasp what it was like for my dad's generation when even I only have a vague, second-hand notion of what it was like? Unlike so many crabby old men my age, I tend to cut young people today a good deal of slack because I very much realize that these kids couldn't possibly understand what it was like for their grandparents and great-grandparents. Hats off to them old boys who really were just boys when they faced such overwhelming odds!