Captain Garth Quotes in Midway (1976)

Captain Garth: Can I ask you something personal? Very personal?

Commander Rochefort: Sure.

Captain Garth: You know, it really stinks down here. How often do some of your people take a bath?

Commander Rochefort: Bath? Hell, I don't know. What *day* is it?

Captain Garth: How much can you decipher?

Commander Rochefort: Fifteen percent.

Captain Garth: Really decipher?

Commander Rochefort: Ten percent.

Captain Garth: Ten percent? That's one word in ten, Joe! You're *guessing*!

Commander Rochefort: [slightly hurt] We like to call it "analysis."

Captain Garth: Listen, Carl; I understand my boy, Tom, is in your squadron. How's he doing?

Cmdr. Carl Jessop: Good, he's doing good. Good pilot. Good all around. I think his only problem would be... enemy identification. The boy's got to learn man: you do not win a war by kissing the enemy

RAdm. Frank J. 'Jack' Fletcher: I'd give my retirement pay to know what Nagumo is up to now.

Captain Garth: Same thing we are, Admiral- Sweating it out.

Captain Garth: [On the phone to his boss] They've taken the bait, Sir. It's Midway!

Captain Garth: Admiral, Commander Rochefort has something he would like to tell you.

Commander Rochefort: It's about objective AF, sir, the meaning of AF. Now, our listening posts have been picking up alot of traffic between Yamamoto's staff commanders.

Captain Garth: There has been a heavy volume of traffic, sir, with the recurring references to Objective AF and... what was the other one?

Commander Rochefort: AO. Now, AO is still a mystery, Admiral, maybe a diverson, but I think we've identified Objective AF as Midway. Now, it really had us stymied there, until one of my men remembered an enemy intercept we decoded last March. Now, a Jap reconnaissance pilot radioed his base that he was passing close to AF. Now we plotted every possible course this plane might have taken, and the only appreciable land mass he could have overflown at the time was Midway.

Captain Garth: Joe...

Commander Rochefort: Look, I know it's thin...

Admiral Nimitz: Thin? Damn near invisible.

Commander Rochefort: But I found a way to confirm it, sir.

[Takes out a message and passes it to Nimitz]

Commander Rochefort: If you will have this flown to Midway. It's a fake message, sir, reporting that Midway's fresh water condenser has broken down. Now, it should be transmitted in the clear, so there's no question of Japanese operators getting every word of it.

Admiral Nimitz: [Smiles and nods, passing it over to Blake] Instruct Midway to include that in their housekeeping traffic tomorrow.

Lieutenant Commander Ernest L. Blake: Aye, sir.

Captain Garth: I read the FBI report on you and your parents.

Miss Haruko Sakura: Ask me anything you want to.

Captain Garth: Okay. You're father was frequently seen coming and going from the Japanses consulat.

Miss Haruko Sakura: He has old friends there.

Captain Garth: I see. And what about those Japanese patriotic organizations you belong to?

Miss Haruko Sakura: My father enrolled me in those when I was born! Out of respect for him, I never resigned. But I wasn't active!

Captain Garth: [Nods] I see. And what about those magazines they found in your apartment?

Miss Haruko Sakura: The Prairie Shinburn? Published in Wyoming. My father had deep emotional ties to Japan, but even so, he thought it was a rediculous propaganda sheet.

Captain Garth: Then why did he subscribe?

Miss Haruko Sakura: He's a traditional and honorable man. He was once indebtted to the man who publishes the Prairie Shinburn.

Captain Garth: [to his son, Tom, who he is having an argument with] You better shape up before some hotshot Jap pilot flames your ass!... You're being paid to fly planes, not sit in your room and cry over your girlfriends picture!

Lieutenant Tom Garth: [after telling his dad that he is marrying a Japanese girl] I need your help, Dad.

Captain Garth: I guess you damn well do, Tiger.

Miss Haruko Sakura: Damn it, I'm an American! What makes us different from German-Americans or Italian-Americans?

Captain Garth: Pearl Harbor... I guess.