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Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "American and Japanese Damage Control in WW2" video.
Yes. Outstanding. One thing I emphasize about the Americans as opposed to most other nations - is Henry Ford's Model T. The thing was with this early mass produced car - was that there were enough of these things scattered about during the 1930's that a large chunk of American Youth - had one - or had a friend who had one. Their parents or grand parents had gotten something better - and passed this old thing down to boys who were just ecstatic to have their own car (or work on their friends). Because of that - you had all these teenagers - that COULD work on their own (or their friends) car. What that meant - was that the young American man going into the armed forces who DIDN'T know something about working on machinery - was rare. Other countries, especially those that used a lot of animal transport ... did NOT have that almost universal level of mechanical ability. There's a scene in the movie The Sand Pebbles where Steve McQueen is teaching Mako - not just HOW to operate a steam engine - but WHY it works. There was (without any racist intent) a lot of "monkey see - monkey do" on the part of people raised as peasants using animal transport, in their armed forces training. They were taught HOW to operate a piece of machinery - but they maybe didn't know WHY it worked. As mentioned in the video - there certainly were people who DID understand HOW and WHY it worked - but there were also varying levels of former peasants - who didn't. The thing with a kid who may not have had a car of his own - but helped his buddy out with his - was that he wasn't AFRAID of it - or of breaking it. You didn't want to break a machine - but if you did - it was just one more thing to fix. You compare that to a former peasant who if they are not terrified of the machine itself are horrified at the idea that they might do something wrong - and break it. Indications of the level of youthful mechanical ability might be gleaned from the fact that only the UK & US had fully motorized armies. Everyone else was still using animal transport to a greater or lesser extent. An odd comment on today's youth - is that because of the insurance costs for young male drivers, the fact that many schools have dropped such electives from their curriculum as Band and - Auto Shop - as well as the increasing levels of complexity of modern cars - is that you have fewer and fewer young men who know how to work on cars. When I was young - we ALL did - today ... not so much ... What that will say for future young males going into the military and their adaptability to what they encounter ... I can't say. .
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One thing about the American Navy - is that it has seen a lot of use during and since WWII. Here - there were lessons learned - and lessons forgotten ... One of the things that happened was the lesson about EVERYONE knowing how to be a firefighter. There's film footage of John McCain walking down the nose of his A-4 Skyhawk so he could jump off at a point that didn't have a fire underneath it - and the Fire Fighter in the silver suit that helps him off the deck - then goes back to fight the fire. Then the first bombs went off - and this damage control party was wiped out. Of course - people immediately pitched in to fight the fires - but they did not know what they were doing. One of the things about fighting fires on ships - is that you can use Foam or you can Use Water - but - NEVER both. If you use Water and Foam - the Water will wash the Foam away and it can't do it's job of smothering the fire. These replacement fire fighters didn't know that and were using Water and Foam at the same time. After that - the Navy went back to making sure EVERYONE knew how to be a fire fighter. The other thing they did - was to ban beards. At one point the Navy, trying to recruit people from the hippie generation - had allowed sailors to have beards. During these Vietnam Carrier Fires - those beards interfered with the sealing of the Oxygen Masks they had - and so ... no more beards. Thus - there is the learning of things - and then the preservation of that learning and then the re-learning of things that had been forgotten. This is a problem with all militaries that experience a long period of peace. .
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