Almost 60 years after the end of the Pacific War, a very unusual meeting took place in San Diego last Tuesday, when veteran American and Japanese fighter pilots gathered for a special ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway, soon to become a floating museum. It was an occasion designed for giving pause and taking stock, and it surely succeeded.
The Japanese pilots, all members of the Japanese Imperial Navy Surviving Aviators' Association, were in the United States for a weeklong reunion. Someone had the bright idea of organizing a meeting between the group and some of their American counterparts, veteran members of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society.
At one point during the ceremony, a Japanese Zero and an SBD Dauntless dive bomber, a mainstay of the U.S. Navy's World War II Pacific air fleet, flew side by side overhead. One can only imagine the jumble of feelings this pairing must have inspired in the ranks of former enemies assembled on the deck of the aging ship below.