[Pilot James] Muri came in to Midway as though he were flying on the razor’s edge of survival…He came in holding right aileron and left rudder, sliding down the sky at a drunken angle. The maneuver was deliberate, for he knew he would have to ease down the weight of the bomber on the right wheel. As it turned out, he was right. The left tire was a mass of chewed and tangled rubber, and any sudden impact on that wheel would have snapped the gear and sent the airplane cartwheeling down the strip

The Marauder touched on her right gear, still heeled over sharply. Muri played her like a master; as long as he could do so with the controls he kept her cocked over. As the speed fell the bomber lurched over onto the left gear. Swiftly Muri and [co-pilot] Johnson together stamped on the brakes. The effort was wasted, they had been shot away.

The impact of hitting the shattered left gear, and rumbling on the wreckage at nearly 100 miles per hour, was “unbelievably violent”. There was a terrific, rattling roar; the Marauder buffeted so wildly that the entire cockpit instrument panel ripped completely from its fastenings and collapsed onto the startled pilots. In the back of the airplane the men were flung about and battered severely.

At long weary last, Old 1391 clumped and groaned its way to a stop. Men came running to the scene, and stopped to stare in disbelief at the torn and riddled airplane, and then at the bloody men who climbed painfully down through her hatches.

Before they left to receive the medical attention they needed so urgently,the crew of the Marauder walked around their airplane. It was hard to believe what they saw.

The left gear was a mangled ruin. Fuel dripped from the tanks: hydraulic fluid and oil spattered steadily onto the ground. Every propeller blade was riddled and chewed. The entire top edge of one wing had been blown off. The radio antenna was shot away. The engines were filled with holes. The dorsal turret was a blood-sprayed shambles. Blood had sprayed the entire interior of the airplane. The navigator’s compartment showed daylight brightly through what had become a sieve.

They counted more than 500 holes, tears, rips, gashes, and other damage to the Marauder. Then they quit counting, because they still had more than half the airplane to cover. They called it a day and clambered into jeeps for the ride to the hospital.

[..]

When the shooting ended, they celebrated the victory at Midway. They had good cause to stand proud–the Navy dive bombers had broken the back of the Japanese Navy and crippled her airpower.

On the side of the Midway airstrip, several men, swathed in bandages, went out for a long look at Old 1391. The Marauder stood at an ungainly angle, her skin punctured and blackened. She was a wreck. They say it is possible for an airplane to look tired. This one looked it.
–”The Other Midway”, from The Ragged, Rugged Warriors by Martin Caidin

Fittingly, she rests on the bottom upright and intact, some of her AA guns still pointed skyward.

To the nation, send your message,
Down the Years, a clarion call
Whate’er the odds, the answer, courage,
Bravery still will vanquish all.

When the call of duty beckons,
Proud to fight for home and nation,
Rise and meet the foe that threatens,
As T’was done on Midway station.

Men of Midway, still on duty,
Down the ages, at the fore
Leading, guiding, still inspiring
As you did in days of yore.

BTW, it’s also interesting to read Robert Zubrin’s analysis of the Pacific war in Energy Victory, where he discusses the crucial role of oil, and specifically that the Japanese ability to replace those lost pilots was crippled by their inability to expend fuel training new pilots in the air.

BTW, I would recommend the movie Midway for anyone interested in learning more about this important battle. It has some serious flaws (notably a distracting Japanese-American love interest), but does do a very good job describing the flow of the battle and the strategic environment leading up to it.

To add to the fun of unscrewing the chronology all US logs are kept in local time, all Japanese logs are kept in Tokyo time.