On the morning of June 4, 1942, Lt. Cmdr. Dick Best cranked on the engine of his Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber and raced off the flight deck of the USS Enterprise. The pilot climbed to 20,000 feet over the North Pacific Ocean, joining a massive fleet of American bombers, fighters, scouts, and torpedo planes bound for a remote string of islands known as Midway Atoll.

Midway, as the name suggests, is located roughly about halfway between Hawaii and Japan. The US Navy built an air station there in August 1941. Now, six months after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, a fleet of Japanese warships, including four aircraft carriers — the Akagi, the Kaga, the Hiryu, and the Soryu — were attempting an invasion of the island.

Best’s 18plane bomber squadron descended to 14,000 feet as they approached the atoll. Up ahead, columns of thick black smoke rose into the sky, signaling that the Battle of Midway had begun.

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