Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. Thanks. This was excellent. Like much that is Historical, when you get down into the wee details of things it is amazingly complex, convoluted and confused. And with the major acts of History, as with the average human being, we tend to blunder through our existence doing what seems to be a good idea at the time. Then - with 20/20 Hindsight - sit in judgment of those that came before us. .
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  2. Yes. The FAA did some very valuable development work on the Corsairs. One thing about the USN though - was that they had a perfectly good fighter in the F6F so they didn't really need the F4U's whereas the FAA, after being stuck by the RAF with ... not such good Carrier Aircraft - was much more interested in developing the Corsair. Even after the FAA had figured out the Corsairs glide path solution it was also the modification to it's landing gear the USN had undertaken, that took more time to implement. Here the Corsairs were used as land based aircraft for a long time - partly because they didn't want to have double the logistics by supporting two different fighters aboard the carriers. It was with the advent of the Kamikazes - that the USN very much wanted the additional speed of the F4U's in order to intercept them as far from their ships as they could. .
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  3. Thanks. That was interesting. I was aware that they'd added more fighters but not how much more and not exactly when. One thing about Santa Cruz - was that the US had sent one of it's Carriers and her escorts off to be refuel - the Japanese had two smaller carriers - and thus a significant number of aircraft more than the Americans. Also - the presence of extra hulls really mattered - as it was in attacking these smaller ships that the US expended some of their effort in several battles. As to the VS units carrying 500 lb. bombs - I would expect that this was true of them WHEN they were flying Scouting Missions - as they could have been fitted with the larger bombs when used as Strike Aircraft - I just don't know if they were. .
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  4. There was a cartoon at the time depicting an American Destroyer racing to intercept a torpedo headed towards the Saratoga. An exaggerated depiction of the Saratoga's Captain is shown leaning out of the bridge and yelling at the destroyer: "I'll take it!" This is the best thing I could find on the Wake Relief Effort http://www.cv6.org/1941/wake/wake_2.htm As best I can tell, it was attempted to bring Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga to support Wake but the ships were scattered and to far away to get there in time. Had Kimmel issued different orders before he was replaced by Pye ... ??? Who knows? The impression I got - wasn't that Pye was afraid of Hiryu and Soryu - but of the entire Kido Butai - as he didn't know where it was. The Japanese responded quickly to their first defeat at Wake - faster than the Americans responded to reinforce it. It is a theme of the early war that the Japanese were acting faster than the Allies responded. For example - Langley and a transport were trying to bring aircraft intended for the Philippines to Indonesia. They had about 50 aircraft, some intact on the Langley (which couldn't launch them) and some in crates on the transport. Langley was sunk before it could unload and those aircraft the transport unloaded had to be destroyed to prevent their capture by the Japanese when they over ran the port. Also a theme of the early days is Western Forces surrendering to Japanese they might have done better against than they did. As to Midway - the Saratoga had been sent out from the West Coast with a large number of aircraft, many as cargo. Meeting up with Enterprise and Hornet - most of these aircraft were handed over to these ships to replace aircraft lost and damaged in the battle. .
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  5. Yeah ... there are a lot of sad stories about the men trying to defend against the Japanese at the beginning of WWII but then there are a lot of sad stories about Japanese trying to defend their homes against us at the end of it. These of course being bookends to all the sad stories occurring in between. As Yamamoto said "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto He did run wild for the first half of 1942 but the second half turned into a slug fest between Japan and the Western Allies. At the end of that year both Japan and the Allies had lost a lot of men and machines - but - the Allies could replace them - and Japan could not. .
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  6. Yes. There may have been other ships with names as ironic as Vanguard but not more so. .
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  7. IIRC ... Germany finished paying her WWI Reparations in 2010 ... .
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  8. Thanks. That was interesting. I had no idea about the Naval War in the Adriatic during WWI. .
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  9.  @mryhdy6266  We'll never know. Their plan was to do what the North Vietnamese did in Vietnam and just outlast us but things were different in WWII. The press in WWII - was on our side - whereas in Vietnam they turned against us. Different people - different times. We should have won WWII no matter what - but - then again - we should have won in Vietnam too. .
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  10.  @DavidBowiesCock  Oh! OK. Well that explains that. .
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  11. Of course - if you already have this in digital format - the OCR part of it may not be needed. It would depend on whether or not you have something that can process the digitized version of the Japanese into English. Having a human translator do it all manually could be your best option. .
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  12.  @WALTERBROADDUS  This might have to do with the comment in the video about bulkheads that were supposed to be water tight - not being water tight ... .
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  13.  @Drachinifel  Yeah ... my buddies Naval Rules were something like that. We'd all played Jutland so we were used to moving around little bits of cardboard on the floor with maneuvering gauges. My contribution at the time was to the torpedo rules ... lot of beer spilt over that ... We did a round robin of the worlds navies, French, Italian, British, German, Japanese and American. That's the order they finished in, except the Americans beat the Germans and the Japanese. Of course - these were "balanced" scenarios so each side had the same number of ships (and of course no aircraft). We also fought a game of Great Naval Battles on my Lan. Two guys were the Germans and the guy who did the Naval Rules and I were supposed to be the Americans ... but he didn't show up ... so I was a very, very busy boy ... Americans were limited to Pearl Harbor type ships. Tirpitz took a steering hit early on though ... and that scuppered the Germans plans to use their speed. I had 3 16" gun battleships and one 14" and those 16" guns just took the Germans apart. We meant to do that again but ... somehow ... we never did ... All that was like 40 years ago ... .
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  14. As to Kaiser Wilhelm II and the British Royal Family - Willi's Mother was Queen Victoria's oldest Daughter - making him - her first Grand Child. Willi spent a good bit of time in Britain and absolutely loved the RN. My personal opinion is - that had he the option (which of course he never would have) of choosing to be an Officer in the RN - or Kaiser of Germany - Willi would have chosen the RN. Having had one of his arms ruined in birth - and his mother having the British devotion to Horses - she MADE him learn to ride. Given the number of times he fell off - Willi hated riding. But he loved the sea and had his own personal yacht where he preferred to spend his time. Given his being an Officer of the RN - not a possibility - Wili seems to have decided to build a Navy of his own and doesn't seem to have realized that the British would not be happy about this. This rather useless High Seas Fleet was in fact something of Germany's undoing. Besides the men, materials and money lavished upon this Navy - it was the mutiny of it's Sailors that played a real part in Germany losing WWI. In High School I played the Avalon Hill Game - Justland - a lot. I lent my game to someone who never returned it - but - in recent years bought a copy off EBay. I liked playing the Germans and the ships of the High Seas Fleet are old friends of mine (in the game). Still - it would have been better had the Germans kept their Navy on the smaller side - and not violated Belgian Neutrality. Had they done so - they would probably not have had - as in 1870 - Britain as an enemy - and won WWI against Russia and France. .
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  15.  @royquigley2594  What he no doubt meant - was the when FDR said the Doolittle Raid had come from Shangri La - that was really the Hornet - so the Hornet had two ships named after it - one for it's real name and the other for the euphemism FDR used in referring to it. .
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  16.  @OhSome1HasThisName  No. Decolonization got started long before WWII - and in fact was caused by WWI. Your mistake is seeing the end of the process as when it got started. The reason for Colonialism was commerce. It was merchants that wanted colonies - not governments. The Governments didn't want them because they knew what they would cost. Nevertheless - the merchants - sometimes by doing things on their own (such as with the British East India Company) would get their nations roped into things. After WWI bankrupted most of Europe - Governments attitudes towards their colonies changed drastically and they became much less willing to continue to support the structure that had let all those merchants make all that money. After WWII - they just didn't care about anything but cost cutting and their Empires were on the block. Some nations, such as France, tried to hold on to parts of their Empire but were in the end unwilling to spend the money it would take to do so. As to some nations having other nations backs? Well there are none who can be counted on in all situations. The presence of some Labor Governments in the UK led to some things that were not helpful to the US - such as giving the Soviets Rolls Royce Nene engines to put in their Mig-15's ... .
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  17. I recently posted something else where that it is ironic that Thatcher came out of the Falklands War a big hero - when a lot of this was her fault. The thinking of her government was - that the UK could not afford to keep both a Conventionally Armed and Nuclear Armed Navy. In order to stay in the Atom Club - she had elected to largely forgo a Conventional Navy and just retain the missile boats. With this in mind - the Invincible was to be sold to Australia and the Hermes to India. There was even another Amphibious Support Ship which they were going to sell to Argentina. It is a tragedy and a travesty that the Eagle and Ark Royal were scrapped without CATOBAR replacements. The same can be said for the way the new Queen Elizabeth Class were built. Ski Jump Carriers are the choice of 3rd rate powers. The RN deserved better. Harriers or VSTOL F-35's are great for what they are able to do - and let such as the US Marines operate fixed winged aircraft from their Amphibious Assault Ships - but they are no match for catapult launched aircraft with full ordnance loads. And of course - AEW aircraft would have made all the difference in the Falklands. With Phantoms and Buccaneers if the Argentinians had invaded - which they would have been stupid to do - with two real aircraft carriers in support of them a lot fewer British Sailors would have had to die. .
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  18.  @maxkronader5225  Uh ... no. There was no other day. There was never going to be another day - and - the Japanese under Kurita KNEW that going in. Japan's strategy for he war - was to make the Americans bleed so much - they would quit. Pretty much the same strategy used by the Vietnamese Communists during the Vietnam war. So - the purpose of the Japanese military was not over all victory - they were NEVER going to WIN the WAR. You were never going to see the Yamato sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. Their purpose was rather to make defeating Japan so costly to the Americans - that they would reach a negotiated settlement. If they could do that by winning battles - that is what they wanted to do - but even if they lost the battles - they hoped to bleed the Americans until they would negotiate a peace. Because of this - the entire Japanese Battle Plan for Leyte Gulf - was to bleed the Americans - not win. They were NEVER going to win the battle. And - THIS - was their last shot. The Japanese Navy needed two things - naval maintenance, supplies and equipment - which they got in Japan - and fuel - which they got in Indonesia. Because of the American Blockade of Japan - they couldn't get parts to Indonesia and they couldn't get fuel to Japan. So - the survivors of this battle mostly just sat in harbor until US Carrier groups came along and sank them. The Yamato was given enough fuel for a one way mission - but never got her guns in range of anything before the Carrier Aircraft sank her as they had Musashi. At Leyte Gulf - she was ALREADY in range. She was ALREADY engaged and her guns WERE in action. The Japanese plan HAD WORKED!!!! They had occupied the southern American force - with a force that sacrificed itself to do that. They had drawn the main American battle fleet off - with a force that sacrificed itself to do that. And - despite losing some of their ships - the main striking force - the Center Force - HAD come in contact with the Americans and was attacking them. Kurita threw away the sacrifice of all those men and ships when he pulled back and then retired. Now - here - you have him falling back on what he was used to doing. For much of the war the Japanese had kept a Fleet In Being - held in reserve for the Final Battle. This Final Battle was their sole hope for actually getting a negotiated peace by winning something - rather than just tiring the Americans out. Well ... the Final Battle was in the Marianna's and the Japanese lost very, very badly there so by Leyte Gulf they were down to just trying to bleed them. But - Kurita got injured himself - that effected his thinking and he went back to trying to preserve his ships - when there was no longer a reason to do so. There was NOT going to be Another Day - and he KNEW that going in. He just forgot why they were there. The worst thing that can happen to a Naval unit - is to have it's Commander injured - but not killed. Their judgment is distorted - as they are personally feeling their ships pain - but - those guys will never give up command. So - they make bad decisions ... As to saving Japanese lives? Yes. Finally, Hirohito, with the impetus of the Atom Bombs - stepped in - and used his prestige (something he could get away with ... once) to ask his country to stand down - and they did. Without THAT - Japan would have fought to the death and millions up on millions of them would have died. .
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  19.  @epl803  Yes. Lexington and Saratoga looked so much alike they put a big stripe down the sides of the Funnels on Saratoga - which you can see in that picture of all the American's Carriers. .
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  20. Yeah. There was a lot of stuff they did with Ranger that the stopped doing with Ranger . Wasp was another smaller carrier. They had a bit of Treaty Tonnage left over after the Yorktown's and they made a smaller Yorktown out of it. The didn't want to send it to the Pacific because it was to lightly built - but with other carrier losses - they did - and it was lost too. .
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  21. Yes. As travesties go - the failure of the State of New York to do something the states of North Carolina and Alabama (states not known for their wealth ...) managed to do - is right up at the top of the list. They have since created memorials from several other ships - but to lose the Enterprise ... never should have happened. .
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  22.  @bkjeong4302  You do understand that the term "Bean Counter" is a pejorative - don't you? And - that using the term "cost-ineffective" - makes you a Bean Counter? The thing with the guns on a battleship is that they are capable of destroying more heavily fortified positions than the guns on a cruiser. To the men who might be assigned to take out such a position - that matters a lot. It may cost more money to take out those more heavily fortified positions but - how much are their lives worth? These guns also had a lot more range than the guns on a cruiser - enabling them to hit targets farther inland. Yes - aircraft can hit those targets with very heavy ordinance but they come, drop their bombs and leave - not to return for hours. The Battleship can just sit right there and pound it's target as long as it has ammunition and it can carry a large amount of that. The thing here - is that you can't know in advance just what kind of operations you will need to conduct and ships like Battleships took years to build - and - will never be built again. So - losing their capability permanently - is a serious problem, especially for the men who might die because they are not there. With my Father having been a career Marine and serving myself as a Marine - I may just have a different attitude towards your cost savings than you do. Another is that all the Gun Cruisers were gone anyway the last time the Battleships were activated. So your argument about a couple of cruisers being more "cost effective" is moot. The other thing about that - that you may or may not have taken into account - is that you have to have two hulls, each of which must have all the things such as engine rooms and crews for those hulls as opposed to having a single hull and crew for a larger ship. So there is the cost of the basic ship - and then there are it's operating costs. Yet another factor would be the concentration of a Battleships fire power - as opposed to the dispersal of the fire power of two cruisers. In a fleet formation - each of these ships (Battleships and Cruisers) has to have about the same amount of maneuver space (so you don't have collisions). Thus - you can concentrate more fire power in a smaller amount of maneuver space with a larger ship. For the WWII Anti-Aircraft Role - you needed to have your AA Ship within a certain range of the ship they were defending to matter at all. If you can only fit ... say ... four ships around the ship you are escorting - you will have a lot more fire power if you have four Battleships in those positions than if you have four cruisers. This fact made the Battleships much more effective than cruisers as AA ships. There are trade offs, such as having more flexibility with more ships - but - these are trade offs. It's not like there are NO advantages to having the larger single hull. Bean Counters lose track of things like that - because all they see is money. Losing track of those aspects of such things - such as how many Marines are going to die in order to save some money - is one of the reasons people whose lives are on the line think poorly of Bean Counters who only see things in terms of how much money they cost. It is a bitter pill for these men to swallow thinking about how many of them are going to die because some Bean Counter shit canned something that would have kept them alive. .
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  23.  @SvenTviking  The problems with the lights was that if they had to fight a more heavily armored ship - such as Ajax and Achilles fighting Graf Spee - those six inch projectiles wouldn't penetrate their armor - where as 8" guns like those on the Exeter would be able to do some damage. Thus - your heavy cruisers could assist your capital ships in taking on an enemy capital ship (like Prinz Eugen assisting Bismarck) but your light cruisers couldn't. The light cruisers on the other hand made great destroyer killers - if the enemy was trying to launch a torpedo attack. So ... you build some of both and hope you have what you need when you need it. .
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  24. Yes. .
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  25.  @rhino1207  Nope. China and Japan started fighting in 1937 - and kept right on fighting until Japan surrendered in 1945. Now - Japan and China were not fighting any European powers in 1937 - but then - Germany, France and Britain were not fighting any Asian powers until 1941. So - if you were to exclude China and Japan from WWII in 1937 - by that same logic - Britain, France and Germany would not have been fighting WWII in 1939. By that logic - for it to be a World War - there would have to be a war in Asia that the Europeans were involved in and a war in Europe that Asians were involved in - which didn't happen until 1941. This certainly is a criteria that could be argued - but that logic would begin the WORLD war in 1941 not 1939. BUT - if you are using the criteria - when did the first Major Combatants begin fighting - that would be 1937 between Japan and China. Germany, France and Britain didn't start fighting until 1939 almost 2 years later. The only reason the start of WWII is listed as Sept.1, 1939 - is because of a European Centric Point of View. Trust me - if you ask someone from China - they're going to say it started in 1937. Now - the Italians invaded Ethiopia in 1935 but that war was over by 1937. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War So that is why WWII did not start in Ethiopia. The other thing here - is that Ethiopia would not be considered a Major Combatant - and as far as it goes - neither would Poland for the same reason Czechoslovakia wouldn't either. Since the British and the French didn't do anything about Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia - it's not considered the start of the war. The same would be said for Japan's invasions of Korea and Manchuria - which were also not major combatants. The Major Combatants of WWII were the Soviets, Germans, Japanese, British, French, Chinese, Americans and maybe the Italians. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Norway and Hungary (and anyone of their stature I've left out (like Albania and Yugoslavia)) were all participants but not major powers in how things turned out. It gets hard to try and place the importance of The Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg. The same would go for the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Now here - what happened in these smaller countries was very important TO THEM - but not so much to the world as a whole. .
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  26.  @genericpersonx333  So - do you think he really believes his own bull shit - or - that he's just a Troll? .
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  27.  @mgt2010fla  First off - paragraphs are your friend. Next - yes - they were trying to drum up support for making the Enterprise a memorial in New York - and that was probably a mistake. The battleships that went to coastal states as a memorial had more support in their name sake states. I can remember putting my dimes in a can for the North Carolina - and - got to go play on her once. Bet toy an 11 year old boy ever had. As to the last four - memorials were seen as money makers - AND - at least initially - the memorials were required to keep these ships capable of being recalled to service. So - they were much more popular. The Missouri being moored right next to the Arizona made a fitting book end for WWII - with the war beginning with one and ending on the other. .
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  28. Once upon a time ... Lee and his Battleships were off Guadalcanal - when a couple of US PT boats - who were not used to seeing American Battleships in Sea Lark Channel ... had the effrontery to challenge him. They didn't seem to believe who he was so he responded with something like (I'm going from memory here) "I'm Ching Chong China Lee! Now get out of my way. I'm coming through". The PT boat skippers - not being of an age where they ever would have heard of his nick name - were confused by it but ... they recognized when they were being yelled at by an American Naval Officer of superior rank - and got out of the Battleships way ... The American Battleships went on that night to add yet another chapter to Why You Don't Fight Battleships With Battle Cruisers ... .
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  29. Thanks. It's always interesting to listen to Historians talking about their works. One of the things mentioned that I've said myself on more than one occasion was that you don't really know how something is really going to work until you actually try and use it - in a situation where the other side has significant capabilities as well. .
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  30. One thing about the different militarizes involved - was that there were people in those militarizes that were very much aware of where things were strategically and where they might go. For one thing - the American Navy had repeatedly attacked Pearl Harbor itself during Fleet Exorcises. The Island was very well defended. It had the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions garrisoning it. It had Army, Navy and Marine airfields. It had 64 PBY Catalina's. It had 4 radar installations - one of which picked up the incoming raid from the Kido Butai. They had received War Warnings that Japan was going to attack us. The problem - was incompetence on the part of the military commanders and inexperience on the part of the men. The British had trained Americans on how to use Radar at a training installation in Panama. The operators knew how to use the equipment and coordination centers had been set up. They just didn't have experience using it all. The United States was completely unprepared for war in 1941 and suffered for it terribly the first year. .
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  31. Uh ... one more thing ... It's "The Battle Off Samar" ... .
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  32. The fact that she had some of the Kamikaze's hit her guns may have saved her. Guns are pretty sturdy things and while the guns were destroyed - they may well have kept those aircraft from doing deeper, more signficant damage to the ship. .
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  33. At one point in time in my youth - me and my War Gaming Buddies - held a Round Robin of the Worlds WWII Navies. We had all played the Avalon Hill Jutland game but one of the guys in the group had created his own set of Naval Rules. Each side would have several Battleships, Cruisers and Destroyers. This was surface combat and Airplanes Ruined that - so no Carriers. . The First match up was between the French and Italians but I don't remember the details of the ships involved. It's to bad I can't remember any more about the French ships used as these may well have been among them. The Italians won - and went on to fight the British - who went on to fight the Germans - who went on to fight the Americans - who went on to fight the Japanese where they won as well. Of course - this wasn't just ship quality that determined the winner - as the players would be the major determinant. I don't believe we had any fixed teams. We'd just have a match at someone's house and choose up sides then. We all drank beer together every Friday Night (unless we had a date) and sometimes played War Games Saturday Night. Sadly, like most groups of young men - ours was destroyed by women. .
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  34. Because of all that - Battleships tended to carry a LOT of ammunition. .
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  35. Thanks. That was very interesting and the footage of all those old ships and planes was great. I've been looking at video footage of ships and planes for over 60 years and it is pretty rare for me to see something I haven't seen before. One thing here - was that it showed that the 8" guns on CV-2 and -3 were not a stupid idea. Given the range of the aircraft they actually had - their chances of running into enemy surface craft were very real. By WWII - things had changed and removing the 8" guns from CV-3 to be replaced by dual DP 5.38" guns was warranted. .
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  36. OK. An Engineer (Naval Engineer (Architect?)) living in his nations capital. Yes. As to the Monitor and the Warrior ... people are always asking questions about miss matched ships that were designed for entirely different purposes. It isn't really which ship is "better" it's how well did these ships do at what they were designed for. Neither of these ships could have done the other ships job. The Monitor would have just sunk - as it did and the Warrior would have run aground - or - not been able to do the job. .
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  37. Thanks. I was familiar with much of this but there were a lot of details I was not aware of. One thing about storms ... they'll do a job on whatever is in their area based on how strong the storm is and how resilient the ships ... regardless of how many ships are in that area. Most storms only claim a few ships - but - one of the risks of getting a large group of ships together - was that if they hit a bad storm - they'll all have to deal with it. There are any number of storms throughout History that have sunk entire fleets. .
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  38. Yeah. I commanded the High Seas Fleet a number of times playing Avalon Hill's Jutland so there's some real nostalgia here to see them as more than over head prints on rectangular cardboard counters. .
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  39. Yeah. Shipyard corruption could be pretty bad. There was a Sino Japanese naval fight where people had replaced the powder to launch Chinese projectiles - with Coal Dust ... That wasn't the sole reason the Chinese lost but - it didn't help ... .
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  40. Well ... that was a somewhat odd video ... but then ... Goeben had a somewhat odd career ... The impression I got from Robert K. Massie's "Castles of Steel" https://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Castles+of+Steel&qid=1591367387&sr=8-1  was that it was in fact the Goeben that, by attacking Russia, got the Ottomans in the war. Massie also made a remark about the influence having a German Battle Cruiser sitting a few hundred yards from their Capital may have had on the Ottomans. He goes on to make the point that doing just that was the whole point of the Gallipolli Campaign. Which ... had the Army been willing to participate before the Turks new what they were going to do - might have worked ... .
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  41. My understanding is that there were Luftwaffe fighter units assigned to protect it. I think the problem was getting them airborne in time to intercept the attackers. .
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  42. Yeah. Those ships really saw some shit. .
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  43. This was outstanding. I was aware of much of it but not the degree to which these early subs had mechanical and electrical problems. Having worked on ships in ... parts of the ship where the a/c didn't work so well ... and ... in parts of the ship where it worked too well ... plus various computer labs - I can attest that - yes - Computers Like it Cold and Dry ... I first read one of Admiral Lockwood's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Lockwood books (possibly Sink 'em All ) when I was 13 years old in 1962. While much of the American Military was cursed with Peace Time Officers that had to be gotten rid of before they got any more people killed for nothing, we were fortunate enough to be able to replace some of them with men of Lockwood's caliber. .
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  44. Jan de Hartog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_de_Hartog based on his own experiences wrote a number of novels about Tug Boats involved in war. Normally used as rescue boats at one point in one of the novels (iirc) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain_(novel) someone gets the bright idea to put depth charges on them ... which, even though they are not the Jellicoe Hand of God type - come close to blowing the stern off the tug. Here's a clip from The Key - with William Holden and Sophia Loren (who is not in the clip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFMUPd7m504 .
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  45. Not at that point. Later - once Henderson Field was activated - then they had aircraft that could and did hit the Japanese (like Hiei) if they were caught in Daylight within range - but here - the only American aircraft in range would have been from the Carriers. They did have some B-17's in the area but they'd never have been able to hit those ships. .
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  46.  @augustosolari7721  If the Japanese had truly understood Mahan - he would have taken out the transports - but they didn't. If you look at the RN - whose resources weren't all that great either - THEY - with centuries of Naval Tradition - understood how to use a Navy. When they went after Bismarck - they went all out. They lost the Hood - but - they made a good hit on stopping the Germans from Commerce Raiding with their surface fleet as the Cargo Ships -were what it's all about. But - the thing with the RN was - all their Captains knew - that if they took on the enemy and hurt them - even if they lost their ship - Britain would build another one. The Japanese could never say that. Do you have a source for the exact wording (translated to English) of his orders? And - how would he know what the Army thought? Had the Army thought anything at the point at which he received his orders? The Japanese Army and Navy weren't known for talking to each other that much. Another factor in all this is the Japanese dogma (from the Battle of Tsushima) of The Decisive Battle where in their fleet would take on the US Fleet in this one big battle that would decide the war. That big battle had actually already come - at Midway but they continued to pursue that strategy and preserved The Combined Fleet at Truk - when committing it to the Solomon's could have made the difference. 1942 was the year the Japanese stood the best chance (and not a good one) of winning the war and the time to go all out with all their forces to defeat the Americans. However they persisted in this strategy of preserving their ships and lost. .
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  47. Yeah. An interim design between the Essex Classes and the Super Carriers beginning with CV-59. As I heard it, the FDR's angled flight deck, which was something of an experiment, was so large they filled the starboard empty spaces in the hull with concrete to counter balance it. I think it was the Midway that was the carrier home ported in Japan for so long it was nick named the Midway Maru. The US definitely got their money's worth out of these ships, with them (iirc) "soldiering" on long after the last of the Essex Classes were gone. They were big enough to use the F-4 Phantom's when the older Essex classes couldn't. .
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  48. Brazilian Expeditionary Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Expeditionary_Force .
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  49. If they were off Anzio ... I don't know what the hell they were doing at anchor ... Those German Radio Controlled Missiles were deadly. They sank an Italian Battleship that was changing sides with them and really caused a serious problem off Anzio. The thing is - the Allies figured out how to jam their radio signals and that was the end of that. .
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  50. These battles were where Halsey was very important. He sent his ships in and took the Japanese on. His ships suffered a lot of casualties - but - as the video stated - the USN could replace what it lost - and the IJN could not. That - and he kept Henderson Field from being bombarded - again. Here it should be remembered - that Henderson Field had been bombarded by Battleships in the past - and still managed to bring itself back on line. So - IF the Japanese had managed to bombard it - again - there is no guarantee how much damage they would have done. Still, having NO damage done to that airfield was much batter and their aircraft would wreak havoc on the Japanese. For the four ships that beached themselves - they were also in range of American Artillery - which blasted them and the area around them so that while a number of the troops they carried got off - even the supplies that were unloaded from the ships - were vulnerable where they sat on the beach. The end result being - that Guadalcanal would go on to become known to the Japanese as "Starvation Island". Later, when Halsey would have trouble with the weather and the source of his nick name ... these battles kept him from being relieved. .
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