Comments by "Kenneth Dean Miller" (@kennethdeanmiller7324) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. Thanks for that. I've had my phone stolen twice in less than a week. Third phone I've bought since the day after Christmas. And turning on this new phone after sync with my cloud & seeing that little nugget helped my mood & reminded of why I bother with this electronic device. As I miss the bus that I was waiting for I realized I hadn't looked for it's arrival time.
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  2. THANK YOU DRACH!!! I was "trying" to watch "War Stories" BUT I found that I was watching more commercials than actually anything else. Said "why bother?" And went looking through your stuff to see if there might be anything I missed or something I'd like to hear again. The latter I find myself doing a lot.
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  3.  @naverilllang  Being in the wrong place at the wrong time I guess. Things are getting bad. Someone robbed a bank right here today too. And hell, I'm homeless, and let's face it, when people are steeling stuff from the homeless things must be getting bad! Not only that, but I was in DC on Christmas Eve at L'Enfant Metro and as I was about to sit down, dude grabbed my phone & ran & jumped on the train. And of course the train operator closed the doors right in my face so I couldn't follow. Merry Christmas to me! And it's not like I have an IPhone. It's a cheap Samsung that I paid $70 for.
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  4.  @naverilllang  At least I'm still walking. If I'm still walking that means I can dance. Yeah, all during COVID I paid a lady $20 a night to sleep on her couch. I was there almost 3 years. This past Thanksgiving her son came home & he's a drunk. And a violent drunk. I had to go. Tried staying with a buddy of mine but I didn't know he was schizophrenic. He would be up 3 days at a time & want me to be up too. Finally by Christmas I couldn't do it no more. Might be sleeping in the street but at least I can sleep. Then 2 weeks after I leave my buddy gets killed on the Metro. He had a leash for his dog that went around his waist. He got off the train & wasn't paying attention and Daisy his little pit bull I guess stopped to sniff something & the doors closed with her inside. Train operator was too far away to notice & the train drug him all the way down the platform & he hit his head at the end & I guess the leash finally broke then. They say he was pronounced dead at the hospital but I think he was gone way b4 that. His name was Harry Riley. He was 50 years old with 2 daughters & 4 grandkids. Google: Death at Dunn Loring Metro & you'll see what I'm talking about. So yeah, that's on my conscience now too. All my family is passed away too. Dad, Mom & Step-dad, brother & my wife. All gone. I do have a daughter but haven't seen her since 2002. She was 9 years old. That is rough! And my wife dying Christmas Eve of 2015. That was rough. Still is. But what can I do? Considered suicide but I don't want to go out like that. I believe in doing something right the first time. So if I did suicide, I would be over.
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  5. Yes, the sinking of this ship just goes to show how chaotic WW2 could really be. Ship gets sunk but they really aren't sure what hit her to make her sink. Plus more crew go down with the ship than can get off of it.
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  6. Although being relieved to have fought a battle & won is most understandable. It is never a good thing to celebrate the misfortune of your enemies, especially considering that misfortune could just as easily have been your own. And that misfortune can easily come visit you for celebrating such things!!! Also, war is never a good thing. In war all types of people die, good & evil, honorable & maybe not so honorable. But when faced with kill or be killed, it's not like you can get to know that person before you are faced with having to kill them.
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  7. Yeah, the decision to go with 12" guns instead of 13.5" guns sealed the classes fate to be scrapped sooner rather than later. And the wing turrets didn't really help it's case to remain in active service either. I just rewatched the Battle of Trafalgar so when I saw HMS Neptune I was thinking "age of sail" rather than dreadnought.
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  8. Hey Now, I read a text lately that said they found the Roberts now too & it was in deeper water than the Johnston. Both ships being drawn into the deepest depths by the weight of the balls of the deceased crew members.
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  9. Qualified over 17,000 pilots! That is huge! Having over 17,000 pilots that can land on a carrier, makes you wonder how many pilots in all were trained during the war considering that over 17k were approved for carrier operation, more than likely the number of pilots that were trained & approved for land operations were probably 10x that number.
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  10.  @andrewjones7126  I hope you both recover well & are quickly dismissed from hospital in short order & in good health! Thanks for sharing.
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  11. YES! I just recently saw an interview with Richard "Dick" Best. This man was a pilot that was in charge of himself & two other pilots. He pulled his planes out of the dive on the Kaga in order to go after Akagi. Which he nailed while his other two planes missed. And then on the follow up strike on the Hiryu he also nailed that carrier as well. In his interview, he said that credit for winning that battle should go to the intelligence officers that broke the Japanese code & let us know what the Japanese plans were. Never did he boast about being the pilot that basically sank two Japanese fleet carriers. He viewed the entire thing as a team effort and he was just one man in this very LARGE team. A very humble man, or at least the interview that he gave made him appear very humble. When speaking about the torpedo squadrons, he got choked up & almost went into tears. You could tell that their sacrifice bothered him greatly. And I think he even claimed that although they scored no hits that they were the true heroes of the Battle of Midway. It was the only time I had ever seen him or heard him speak. But it made me think & feel that THAT ALTHOUGH THE USA won a great victory that day, that the victory came with a very high cost. And I could tell that by the way he talked about it. To me, it seemed that he accomplished what needed to be done. And that now, knowing how many died as a result of his bombing accuracy, that it wasn't something that he was very proud of doing. And as a human being it is very understandable. Although it is war, knowing I had killed over a five hundred people in one day would weigh fairly heavy on my mind. And it seemed to me Richard "Dick" Best felt that way too. Yes, he did it. But don't really want to talk about it. Not just a very good pilot but a good & decent human being.
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  12. Like when a merchant ship full of ammonia nitrate had for some reason been leaking diesel fuel into the cargo hold and then, of course, a fire breaks out. So then it doesn't take very long for that merchant ship to explode with the blast being so large it was heard & felt for many miles away.
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  13. I've heard and/or read other versions of this battle. This version is a LOT more detailed than I have heard before. Thanks for being such a good storyteller! A lot of very brave Americans died that day, in order to protect a much larger group of Americans that were vulnerable!! The Johnston & the Roberts were definitely hero ships for the day of October 25, 1944! A second note. Although Admiral Halsey, I'm sure, was a very dedicated sailor & commander, the mistake he made by NOT detaching the battleship task force was epic. And I am sure that after everything had happened, Halsey was probably very upset to commit such a huge screw up! I would bet that had Halsey NOT made this blunder that his name would have been used for naming some great ships. And I also wonder if the battleship task force had been detached & was there when the center force arrived, I wonder how that battle would have went & if there would have been a much larger loss of life or a lesser loss of life.
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  14. Yes, I agree! Fletcher & Spruance together made Midway happen the way it happened! I seriously doubt that if Halsey had remained in charge that the USA would have achieved the major victory that it achieved at Midway! However, also, the Doolittle Raid on the Japanese Home Islands, I believe, Led to the response from the Japanese with them trying to quickly take Midway Island. Cuz they thought that if they took Midway, they could force a quick surrender from the USA. Not realizing that the USA was going all out, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor had sent America into a rage that the world had seldom seen! And the USA',s rage would envelope the entire nation & it would take numerous years to cool down.
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  15. Thank you for that. It's been a rather hum drum Friday today & I needed a good laugh! Right on time too. I hope you have a good weekend. And now I'm about to board a 16A Metro bus to the Pentagon, coincidentally!❤
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  16.  @Schimml0rd  Yeah, if I was going to do it, chances are I'd already have. I lost my wife 7 years ago on Christmas Eve and things have just pretty much sucked since then. Things are worse from early Oct thru Christmas. Oct 2 was our Anniversary, Nov 3 her Bday. It was actually funny she died right b4 Christmas cuz she didn't like Christmas. As a kid growing up her Mom was psycho & ALWAYS went off on Christmas day & would burn most of the gifts. She was a constant runaway too cuz her Mom would make her adopted Dad beat her.
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  17. @rocketguardian2001  Well that is why an Admiral has a staff. Part of the staff gives him the information he needs to make whatever decisions he needs to make to carry out his orders in the best way possible. Once he has gained all the information he needs THEN he makes the decision. And then the rest of the staff goes out to make sure that whatever decisions he has made is carried out. Most of the time, in the military, you have orders to carry out a certain task. Spruance was smart to carry out his orders & not get distracted by other complications. He knew his main duty was to protect the landing troops. And the decisions he made were because he was worried the Japanese would try to flank his landing forces. Cuz he had Intel reports that they may try to do so. So he had to guard against that. Once they finally located the bulk of the Japanese ships & it was obvious there was no flanking maneuver he ordered the attack. Maybe not the greatest carrier strike in history but it was still rather successful. And even though the plane losses were significant they didn't lose many pilots or air crew. But as you were saying, it may NOT take very long to make a decision but it does take quite a long time to hear all the information you need to make that decision. That is, depending on what you have been ordered to do.
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  18. Damn straight! Thing about it is that you do need every shell to be it's best because you fire a lot of shells but odds of hitting the target are not great so if only one shell hits the target you need it to do it's worst (or best). And it could dramatically be the difference in life & death for a lot of people. And from what I understand the US bursting charges were less than the UK bursting charges. Furthermore, the Italians had a problem with quality control on their shells. And had they not had that problem some British ships would have probably been hit on numerous occasions. But instead they just killed a bunch of fish in the general vicinity of the British ships.
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  19. @StevenPalmer-cs5ix  Wow. See how narrow minded our gov't can be? Man, talking about getting screwed over?
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  20. Yeah, the "Infamous Flight to Nowhere! That was Hornets air group. And they accomplished exactly nothing at Midway. And IF, IF that air group had gone in the RIGHT direction it could possibly have taken out the final fourth carrier & saved Yorktown from further damage and ultimately being sunk. So no Mitcher was NOT a "great carrier Admiral!" He just had so many carriers that LOSING would have been difficult! I think Admiral Fletcher, although not an aviator, was a MUCH BETTER carrier Admiral, and just a better Admiral over all.
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  21. Yes, but when you build a very large ship sometimes it doesn't sail particularly well. And when you build a very large ship, that is bigger than most but has excellent sailing abilities then you tend to want them to copy that design. And because of the expense of a first rate, if you have a design that you know works very well, it makes more sense to copy that one rather than design a new ship from scratch that may not sail very well & ends up having to be cut down into a 2nd or 3rd rate. Hence the saying "If it ain't broken then don't fix it!" And when you are paying vast amounts of money for these ships, you want them to be right the first time & copying a ship that works well makes a lot of sense cuz it means that those ships should also work well. I'm sure a lot of the shipbuilders wanted to consider there job as an art. And building a similar ship in today's world COULD BE considered an art. But back then those ships were needed for a purpose and copying ships that were best suited to perform that purpose was more important than trying to sail an "artwork" into battle. I think that is where the French and Spanish messed up. A fighting ship is going to take damage, but can mostly be repaired. Sail an artwork into battle and you may get your artwork surrendered to the enemy with a lot of lives lost in the process.
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  22. Yeah, the 5 Sullivan brothers getting killed on Juno was a very big deal. I remember my Mom talking about it as a child. And hearing my My Mom say anything about WW2 was very rare. Her father was a Marine in Europe but she said that he NEVER said even a word about the war. She did say that he had thick brown hair before he left but when he got back it was ALL completely white.
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  23. I think it's like Richard Pryor said. Someone in the magazine had some Oreo cookies but the galley had been low on milk. And he mixed some whole milk with some of that 2% stuff, dipped his cookie & the shit blew up. The explosion ignited the powder in the magazine & the second explosion broke the Hood in half.
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  24. @Drachinifel Q & A PLEASE? Dear Sir, on occasion or two I've heard you speak of the "Opium Wars". Until I heard you speak of it, I'd never heard of it. Is there anyway that you could do a special about these "Opium Wars"? And, of course, preferably without getting demonitized by YouTube, or having any other penalties that their rather idiotic "bots" may throw your way! Thank you in advance! Your awesome & one of the hardest workers on YouTube! I've been listening about 4 years now btw.
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  25. Not only would most of his material be easily lecture worthy at any prestigious university but ALSO his voice is also really awesome for documentaries as well. All of his stuff is very well written and very well narrated too.
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  26. Definitely a shame that entire Russian fleet were too busy getting killed to be able to enjoy the sinking of the Kamchatka! And also a shame that it was NOT sunk by torpedo boats!!!
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  27. I'd see if I could find the negatives for the photos. Cause back then when you took pictures & had them developed you would receive the photos & the negatives. If you have the negatives, of course, you can produce more of the photos.
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  28. On the issue of Elbonianess, I have a candidate for the exact opposite that worked around the Bureau of Ordinance. How about Admiral Lee fudging paperwork to "procure & install" as many anti- aircraft guns as possible for as many ships as possible. And I think he was able to do the same with radar & fire control systems as well, unless I'm mistaken. An accomplishment that would reap many benefits as the US was plunged into WW2!
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  29. Seems like it was just last month that you hit 500k subscribers. Now you are over 520k. You're audience just keeps on growing! Idk, I do think that it is kinda weird that it said "14 comments" but then I post a comment, listen to the rest of the Drydock, which was about an hour later & notice that it still says "14 comments." Knowing that I had made a comment it should AT LEAST be 15 & in the space of an hour a brand new Drach video has probably gotten at least another 16 comments in the hour after I posted mine makes me wonder how often do they update that little bit of the video? Granted, all in all it's not really going to matter. But I just thought it strange.
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  30. I think Spruance was a lot more calculating than he let on. And that he knew a lot more than he let his staff know too. I firmly believe that a lot of the Admirals in the Pacific were of course in direct contact with Nimitz and that Nimitz was reading a large amount of Japanese messages. And I'm rather certain that Nimitz was rather forthcoming with Spruance. Probably trusted Spruance more than he did Halsey even!
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  31. And another thing. You talking about "turning on the lights" was definitely the right call. I remember an Enterprise pilot talking about it & breaking down in tears cuz it meant so much. And the man was talking about something that had happened what 60 years ago at the time? So they realized what the risk was very keenly. And I also remember that most of the Hellcat's had fuel & were able to wait for the strike aircraft, the Dauntless's & Avengers to make their landings before they had to land. One Hellcat pilot said he finally landed around 11pm.
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  32. Yeah, I had wondered about that too. Even though they arrived to attack the Japanese at almost dark, it still would have helped the strike aircraft a lot if they had spent a good part of the time they were gone closing the distance between them & the Japanese. I'm not sure if they did or didn't but regardless, the toll of losing 100 aircraft isn't very significant considering that when you factor in that over 80% of the pilots & air crew were recovered! And you also have to figure that such an ordeal is going to improve moral immensely among the pilots & air crews. The people in command basically saying "Just ditch your aircraft near a US ship so that we can recover you. We can replace your aircraft!" To know that they are treasured more than the plane they are flying is a very real thing! And the fact that the entire task force put ALL THEIR SHIPS IN DANGER BY TURNING ON THE LIGHTS so the pilots could try to land also put it into the pilots & crews heads just exactly how important they are to the Task Force!!!
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  33. Yeah, the Southern Force didn't stand a chance. Makes you wonder though, what if the Center Force had went that way & the Southern Force ended up at Samar. On one hand, would the Yamato have been able to make it thru that gauntlet? And with the smaller Force at Samar would the Johnston & the rest of Taffy 3 survived. AND if the Japanese Army & Navy had been on better terms they could have coordinated with the kamikaze strikes too. The US knew going into the Philippines was going to be a hard fight !! If Captain Evans had only had a bigger ship... I do wish he had survived that battle! Being part Cherokee myself he makes me very proud of him.
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  34. I don't understand WHY the info about a sonar contact was given to an Admiral INSTEAD of the Captain? The Captain SHOULD have been immediately supplied with the info of a sonar contact. Because the Admiral & the Captain have separate responsibilities! Basically with the Admiral not giving the information to the Captain, he himself was taking the Captain's responsibilities out of the Captain's hands. Because that should have been the Captain's call cuz he is ultimately responsible for the safety of the ship & the crew. And also would probably have a better idea of how experienced his sonar operator is. For the Admiral to ignore the contact is kinda stupid cuz why have a sonar operator if you're not going to follow up on a contact? If the sonar contact had been followed up, it would have maybe saved the ship. By ignoring it the Admiral totally doomed the ship. And totally disrespected the Captain by not giving him the information that could have saved his ship & 57 of his sailors. Plus whatever sailors were lost on the other ships trying to help defend her.
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  35. Drach, this is better than a LOT of the stand up comedy I hear!!! If you ever form a "secret society" & have like a password question & answer challenge, that could be one! Question: Do YOU see torpedo boats? Answer: Kamchatka!
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  36. Yes, if you don't want to answer a certain question then just file it in the fireplace & use the excuse that you must have been low on kindling that particular day. However, answering such a question could actually be fun. Like "Um it may have escaped your notice but we are at war. And airplanes actually flying around to help protect peoples on the ground from enemies that are flying around is much more useful than said airplanes sitting around in a box. Does it really matter if it's the RAF using them instead of the Royal Navy? They were there & they were needed by our countrymen that is fighting the same enemies. It would have been carelessly ignorant to let these aircraft remain in boxes unused when there are pilots there capable of flying & defending their base. Idk, maybe just burning the damn letter WAS best. It's not easy to educate the ignorant & fight a war at the same time! I mean who would believe that the Royal Navy & the RAF are both fighting to achieve the same goal?
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  37. Necessity with the risk of starvation is quite a motivator. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And do it quickly before all your stores run dry. You'd think it would be easier to just patch up the old ship but I'm guessing that was NOT an option or that's what they would have done. I would love to be young again and have the chance to build a wooden sail ship. Nothing huge but not really small either. But no cannons. Just a recreational sail ship.
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  38. That was a pretty cool tidbit to digest on a Saturday morning on the way to get some breakfast & coffee. I had never really thought about Brazil as a country with a Navy nor did I have any idea they actually participated in WW2 either.
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  39.  @Melody_Raventress  Well, photos or not, at least he didn't suffer from a large amount of health problems from being there. A TRUE BLESSING FOR SURE. Look at what happened to the crew of the Indianapolis for merely delivering the parts of the Hiroshima/ Nagasaki weapons.
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  40.  @Damocles54  Miller time. I like that.
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  41. Yeah, I actually thought we would get a video from Drach on Fletcher before we got one on Spruance but I guess I was wrong. Not disappointed cuz he's probably going by requests & I believe Spruance deserves recognition as well. But the things I've heard about Fletcher on this channel I'm fairly certain Drach thinks that Fletcher has gotten a bad reputation from some of the people in the US Navy ie: Turner blaming everyone he could instead of taking responsibility himself. Which actually would have made people think more highly of him imho. However, Fletcher was under orders to not risk his carriers unless he knew he could deal the enemy significant loses. And having his carriers at Guadal Canal for extended periods was a major unnecessary risk. Especially considering how vulnerable carriers and their escorts are during the night hours and if they are guarding a certain land mass they are easier to find. And with the Japanese having the type 93 torpedo in their arsenal that vulnerability was even more than realized at the time. And presence of the carriers would not have stopped the Japanese force that sank the numerous American cruisers during the first Naval Battle of Guadal Canal. The American Cruisers & Destroyers that night made many mistakes. And paid dearly for it. And the fact that going to action stations meant a game of musical chairs while the Japanese used those precious few minutes to tear their ships apart was also a hard learned lesson in futility. The US Navy would have to enact a lot of changes to finally be ready when the Japanese came calling again. And would also have to realize the Japanese had some very deadly torpedoes.😢
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  42. Q & A : I would VERY MUCH enjoy seeing footage of ships battling huge storms. Now we have seen a bit of the Halsey typhoons. But I'd like to see some storms from the North Sea. I mean USS Washington lost an Admiral in a small storm outside of Scapa Flow. I always forget his name too. Admiral Lee's immediate predecessor & I often wonder how well Washington would have done had that Admiral survived & Admiral Lee not been aboard at the "Big Night Battle of Guadal Canal." Idk, I personally believe that it was "divine intervention" and that it saved the lives of numerous US sailors. Admiral Lee was imho one of the smartest Admirals the US had as far as knowing his battleships. Like him turning down a possible night battle cuz of lack of training. Yes, we missed out on what may have been a spectacular victory. But with the lack if training it also could have been a spectacular defeat as well. And I totally appreciate Lee not wanting to risk his men's lives when they had not trained for such a thing. And the chance of losing lives in "friendly" fire incidents is very much more possible in a night battle. Sorry, but anyway, yes big ships in BIG STORMS!! Smaller ships in BIG STORMS. I think the reason in what is known as "the Bermuda Triangle" that there are places where the water is VERY DEEP & then not so deep. And when a ship is in a storm & runs across one of the more shallow spots that the waves grow considerably much bigger than the previous waves & that is why numerous ships have been lost there.
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  43. Very true BUT if they ever do make it a movie I hope & pray that they do it right! Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy with just this. Drach gives enough detail for my imagination to fill in the blanks. And the order to "splice the main brace" whenever a German U-boat goes down is a very gallant send off to the sailor's that didn't make it. And allowing the U-boat survivors to partake in the tradition, since it was the U-boat that they had been on & one being allowed to play an accordion too in my opinion shows the contrast of the difference between the 🇬🇧 Brits treatment of POW's & the German treatment of POW's. I'm sure that things weren't as pleasant for POW's once they made it to shore but after being depth charged & barely escaping a sinking U-boat, I believe that kindness after such an action shows a better sense of humanity. And I personally like that about the British!!!
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  44. Wow. Now that is history coming to life!! Cheers!!!
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  45. Yes, it's a shame that the idea & implementation of an 8" autoloader wasn't thought of early enough to see WW2. A ship such as this would have been a nice surprise for the Tokyo Express coming down the slot at Guadal Canal. But I'm sure they made good use of them during Korea & Vietnam. I think it would have been really cool just to be on board & see the 8" autoloader in action.
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  46. Yes, I definitely agree that in a truly different world HMS Rodney, HMS Warspite & USS Enterprise(CV-6) should have been preserved as museum ships. HOWEVER, I read a little piece written by a sailor that wad aboard "the Grey Ghost" and he thought that having kids running around the deck laughing and eating ice cream & such would have been disrespectful to the sailors that fought & died on that deck. And he felt it was more appropriate for the "old girl" to go to the breakers so that other ships could sport the name of Enterprise IN HONOR of those sailors & the sailors that fought & lived as well!
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  47.  @pedrofelipefreitas2666  Yep, not only that, but also built enough planes for all of them & trained pilots to fly them & sailors & engineers to run the ships too. A logistical nightmare of a gigantic proportion!
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  48.  @88porpoise  "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" I believe is the actual quote. However, it has been several or maybe about 30 years.
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  49.  @korbell1089  Yeah, most islands don't have a wake! But also when you are on a ship & it's moving sometimes it's not easy to tell if something else is moving.
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  50. Ddzang, that is probably the most profound quote I've ever heard of Halsey making. Not that I am knocking Halsey, just haven't heard much of the stuff he is known for saying except for the quote he made after seeing the wreckage & flotsam, jetsam of Pearl Harbor. The "when I am done the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell." Which, of course, boasting such things doesn't exactly impress me but after the death toll of the Pearl Harbor attack especially with Arizona going down with all hands such a quote is understandable if not in fact commendable.
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