Details
MIDWAY-STRIKE AGAINST THE AKAGI
by Robert Taylor
Overall Print Size: 34" x 26"
Edition Size: 1250
Secondary Market
On June 4, 1942, in one of the greatest naval victories of all time, the Japanese fleet was decimated in a mighty battle off Midway Island by a handful of courageous U.S. Navy pilots. It was a blow from which the Japanese Navy never recovered. Japan's strategists had long prepared for a decisive action in which they could destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet, and this they hoped to do at Midway. Admiral Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, was convinced that a threat to Midway Island would compel the enemy fleet to challenge the overwhelming Japanese forces, under whose heavy guns and bombs, he imagined, it could not hope to survive. Arrogant and over-confident, the Japanese were to fall into a trap that would cost them one of the most decisive battles in history, and alter the course of the war in the Pacific. First points went to the Japanese when the heroic U.S. Navy Devastator torpedo bombers were shot out of the sky, Bill Esders being one of the only two survivors who flew off carriers. However, gathering unseen high overhead, flown by the most battle-experienced pilots in the U.S. Navy, were the S.B.D. Dauntless dive bombers. Like hawks swooping on their prey, they came plummeting down from the sky. Within a matter of minutes, half of the entire Japanese Carrier Force was committed to the deep.
Recreating a scene from the Battle of Midway, Robert Taylor's remarkable "MIDWAY-STRIKE AGAINST THE AKAGI" gives us a dramatic pilot's-eye view of the Japanese carrier Akagi, as an S.B.D. Dauntless from the U.S.S. Enterprise lines up his sights and prepares to deliver the coup-de-grace. We are treated to a superb study of the redoubtable S.B.D., with perforated dive flaps fully extended, as it hurtles towards the yellow deck.
In addition to the artist this print is individually signed in pencil by six distinguished Midway pilots:
- Lieutenant Commander DICK BEST
- Major General MARION CARL
- Captain ROBERT ELDER
- Commander BILL ESDERS
- Captain Scott MCCUSKEY
- Ensign LEW HOPKINS
Comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.
PLEASE NOTE: This print has an extremely small blemish in the white border just to the outside of the cream border that surrounds the image. It will never show when framed.
