Museum Storytelling

The Challenge of

MUSEUM STORYTELLING

By: Scott Pawlowski, Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Collecting artifacts, photographs, letters, diaries and oral histories for museums is a long process. It takes years to acquire enough materials that an entire story can be told through objects, voices and writing. That is, a story which fairly represents what happened from multiple perspectives. This is a lot to accomplish as Pearl Harbor National Memorial (PHNM) grows into its responsibilities under the Dingell Act to talk about the Pacific War. Accounting for the size of the Pacific theater, the number of battles that transpired, the millions of people impacted and how many countries participated across the Pacific will take quite a long time and substantial investments in finances to acquire a meaningful number of objects to adequately tell and illustrate the story.

Take just one example, Midway Atoll. Unfortunately, PHNM’s museum collection only holds slightly more than 100 items from this pivotal battle in 1942. They date predictably from the timeframe of 1939-1942. Here are a couple of interesting items including a preview of our newest donation covering Midway in 1943. They illustrate how over time; museums build collections to tell a more thorough story.

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY JUNE 4-6, 1942

As tensions with the Japanese rose, Midway was deemed second only to Pearl Harbor in importance to the protection of the Pacific West Coast. In June of 1942, the now famous defeat of the Japanese efforts to take Midway would prove this perspective right. But Midway did not just appear in the world in 1941 or 1942. The atoll has a military history dating back to 1867 when representatives from the USS Lackawanna formally took possession of the atoll for the United States and started administering it by the United States Navy.

Due to the deteriorating situation with Japan in the Pacific in 1940, the U.S. Navy stepped up the development of Midway. The first Marines of the 3rd Defense Battalion arrived at Midway on September 26, 1940. As war with Japan seemed closer, more men, aircraft and materials flowed into Midway. On the evening of December 7, 1941, Midway was shelled by destroyers of the Imperial Japanese Navy with some damage and casualties sustained.

But on May 5, 1942, the Navy Section of Imperial General Headquarters ordered ADM Yamamoto to carry out operations to capture Midway and islands in the Aleutians and things got interesting.

United States cryptanalysts headed by LCDR Joseph J. Rochefort at Pearl Harbor deciphered Japanese coded messages indicating the Japanese were next poised to attack a target designated as “AF”, which he felt was Midway. After some brilliant intelligence work, Rochefort confirmed Midway was the target. The battle commenced June 4, 1942 with a PBY patrol bomber from Midway torpedoing the Japanese fleet tanker Akebono Maru. Japanese aircraft from carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu soon bombed installations on Midway and the battle was on! Before the Japanese withdrew from the fight both sides lost vital ships, aircraft and personnel.

Ending on June 6, 1942, the Battle of Midway was one of the most decisive battles in history, and the turning point of the war in the Pacific. For many days after the battle the search went on for downed U.S. aviators, those brave souls who turned the tide in the favor of U.S. forces in the Pacific.

The island’s importance continued to play out for the rest of the war and into the second half of the 20th century as a base for aircraft, submarines and ships.