Pictured on May 7, 1945, United States Marine Colonel Francis Fenton kneels in prayer over the flag-draped body of his 19-year-old son Private First-Class Mike Fenton, one of over 125,000 casualties (combined American and Japanese lives lost) in the battle for the Japanese island of Okinawa during World War Two.
According to witnesses, Colonel Fenton then stood up, looked around at the other fallen Marines, and said: “Those poor souls. They didn’t have their fathers here.”
After which Fenton returned to headquarters, wrote a brief note to his wife, and went back to commanding his troops still in the field.
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On November 28, 1941, two days after Japan's Pearl Harbor strike force sailed from Japan, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise departed from Pearl Harbor to deliver F4F Wildcat fighters to Wake Island, flying them off on December 2 before turning east to return to Pearl.
Forced to slow by a massive weather system, which also sheltered the Japanese Combined Fleet advancing on Oahu, Enterprise missed her expected return date to Pearl Harbor on December 6. Instead, she was 150 miles west when the first Japanese bombs began to fall on December 7.
Enterprise's scout planes arrived over Pearl Harbor during the attack and, though surprised, immediately went into action in defense of the naval base. The carrier, meanwhile, launched her remaining aircraft in a fruitless search for the Japanese striking force.
Enterprise was put into Pearl Harbor for fuel and supplies on December 8 and sailed early the next morning to patrol against possible additional attacks on the Hawaiian Islands. While the group did not encounter any surface ships, her aircraft scored a kill by sinking a Japanese submarine on December 10.
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