painting
notes: label: Description
content: A native of Yankton, South Dakota, Clarence J. Tibado served aboard the heavy cruiser USS Pensacola (CA-24) throughout its entire World War II service, sharing in all 13 of the ship’s awarded battle stars. Wounded during the Battle of Iwo Jima, Tibado received an honorable discharge from the Navy in October 1945 as a Radarman Third Class. Tibido made several paintings of the battles he fought in during the war and donated six of his canvases to the National Museum of American History in 1957.
label: Description
content: On the fateful day of June 4, 1942, the U.S. Navy found the Japanese naval force off Midway Island and fatally hit three Japanese aircraft carriers. A fourth Japanese carrier, Hiryū, launched her aircraft to strike back at the American force. Sighting the carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) in the afternoon, the Japanese bombers and torpedo planes struck home with three bombs and a torpedo. As depicted in Tibido’s painting, “Battle of the Midway,” Pensacola, then screening the carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6), steamed to the stricken Yorktown to provide suppressing antiaircraft fire. Arriving with the American carrier dead in the water and listing, the cruiser provided suppressing fire and assisted in shooting down four attacking enemy torpedo bombers. Unfortunately, Yorktown suffered two torpedo hits on her port side from Nakajima B5N “Kate” torpedo bombers, the geysers from the torpedo impacts depicted here by Tibido along with five of the attacking torpedo planes. Yorktown’s severe wounds crippled her and the following day a Japanese submarine, I-168, hit the carrier with two more torpedoes and Yorktown subsequently sank on June 7th.
label: Description
content: Painted immediately after the battle from memory, Tibido’s painting vividly portrays the intensity of the Battle of Midway, a conflict that altered the course of the Pacific War, halted Imperial Japanese expansion in the eastern Pacific, and remains one of the greatest victories in the annals of the U.S. Navy.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Military and Society: Armed Forces History, Naval
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Clarence J. Tibado
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: AF.58059-N
label: catalog number
content: 58059-N
label: accession number
content: 214259
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Painting
label: Other Terms
content: Painting; Oil
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 16 in x 12 in x 1/4 in; 40.64 cm x 30.48 cm x .635 cm