This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Sgt Ryan Mahana (Alcatraz)
to remember
Marine PFC Raymond Ralph Brown.
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Contact Info
Home Town Clarinda
Last Address Kansas City Missouri
MIA Date Jun 04, 1942
Cause MIA-Finding of Death
Reason Air Loss, Crash - Sea
Location Midway Islands
Location of Memorial Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial - Honolulu, Hawaii
Birth and Early Life:
Raymond Brown was born in Clarinda, Iowa, on January 11, 1912. He was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, by his parents Raymond and Nina; by the age of eighteen he was employed as a clerk in a grocery store.
Enlistment and Boot Camp:
Brown enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve on July 22, 1935. He attended weekly drills in Kansas City under the command of Observation Squadron Ten-M. Until he joined the regular Marines in August, 1940, Brown served with a variety of Marine reserve aviation units in the Midwest.
Service Prior to 1941:
Private Brown joined San Diego based Scouting Squadron Two in October, 1940 he would have seen many of his future Midway comrades there, like John Alvord,Robert Curtin, Elza Raymond, Charles Recke and others. Although older than most of the other enlisted men and officers, Brown was still considered the new man upon his arrival, and as such was assigned to mess duty.
Wartime Service:
Shortly after the war broke out, Brown's squadron renamed VMSB-241 left San Diego for Hawaii, and then moved on to garrison the airfield at Midway Island. They trained with antiquated Vought SB2U Vindicator until late May when the squadron received some newer Douglas Dauntless SBD-2 dive bombers Brown and his pilot, Second Lieutenant Bruce Ek were among those who received one of the replacement planes. Brown would have felt safer with his upgraded armament he now had two guns in the rear of the bomber, instead of one but, with his thirtieth birthday receding into memory, he would have been old enough to recognize that he and Ek (seven years his junior) would be at a serious disadvantage given their lack of experience with the new plane.
Date Of Loss:
On the morning of June 4, 1942, Brown cleaned and checked his guns, mounted them into his seat in the rear of Dauntless #2184, and waited for Ek to arrive from the pilot's briefing. They were airborne shortly after dawn. As Midway receded into the distance, Brown might have seen the smoke and flames rising from the airstrip as the Japanese attackers shot their way through the fighters of VMF-211 and blasted the airstrip. Brown and Ek hoped to exact some retribution on the enemy's carriers before the Japanese could return. The Americans found the carriers, but their bombers were slow, underarmed, and without fighter protection. As fighters from the carrier Hiryurose up to challenge them, the rear gunners began spraying their adversaries, and a few went down. Those planes that were not shot down managed to glide towards the carriers and release their bombs, but the toll was heavy. Brown and Ek disappeared shortly after their dive; no trace of them or their plane was ever found. PFC Brown was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in the battle.
Next Of Kin:
Mother, Mrs. Nina Pearl Brown
Status Of Remains:
Lost at sea.
Memorial:
Tablets of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Other Comments:
Distinguished Flying Cross
The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross (Posthumously) to Private Raymond Ralph Brown (MCSN: 249584), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as a Radioman-Gunner in Marine Scout Bombing Squadron TWO HUNDED FORTY-ONE (VMSB-241), during the operations of the U.S. Naval and Marine forces on Midway Islands against the invading Japanese fleet on 4 and 5 June 1942. He manned a free gun in the rear seat of his plane while under overwhelming fire from numerous enemy fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries. Under the conditions attendant to the Battle of Midway there can be no doubt that he gallantly gave up his life in the service of his country. His courage and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. Action Date: June 4 & 5, 1942
Central Pacific Campaign (1941-43)/Battle of Midway
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
June / 1942
Description The Battle of Midway in the Pacific Theater of Operations was one of the most important naval battles of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy (USN), under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.
The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.
The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself.
The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—and a heavy cruiser were sunk at a cost of one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas.
