JERRY MC CARTHY introduced Captain Gene Jones, Naval ROTC Officer at 
Purdue, who talked about "The Great Naval Victory at Midway". He began by giving us a brief history of Memorial Day. Several communities, in both the North and the South, decorated the graves of Civil War soldiers, but in 1966 Waterloo, NY was designated as the first place to honor the dead. In 1971 Congress designated the last Monday in May as Memorial Day.
The Battle of Midway Island, a lonely outpost of sand and coral in the western Pacific, became the victory the U.S. needed to stop the surge of Japanese dominance of the entire Pacific. Because the Japanese code was broken in April of 1942, the planned attack on Midway was known. In June the Japanese had more naval might assembled at Midway, but the U.S. Navy was able to prevail. It was a turning point in the war against Japan during WWII.
