Comments by "Kenneth Dean Miller" (@kennethdeanmiller7324) on "Guadalcanal Campaign - Eastern Solomons (IJN 1 : 1 USN)" video.

  1. That is awesome. Congrats that your father made it home! My Great-Grandma(Mama Spann we called her) had 2 brothers that signed up to be pilots in WW2. I was never told any of the specifics except one was a pilot flying missions against Germany, & the other was flying ✈ in the Pacific against the Japanese. Both were considered KIA, & neither one ever had their bodies found &/or recovered. Although I'm not sure if that was the contributing factor or not, but "Mama Spann was very reclusive & whenever I tried to talk to her she would rarely ever respond & if she did it was mean & nasty! So, as you might imagine, I stopped trying to socialize with her unless she initiated the conversation, and as long as she wasn't saying something mean.
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  2. But they sank Enterprise 3x... or so they thought!!! Hence the nickname "The Grey Ghost". Before I had ever known anything about that, I had a Grey '79 Camaro that I had given the same nickname cuz I NEVER got pulled over in it. Made numerous trips from Atlanta to DC & Back and mainly drove 90mph the whole drive unless there was construction going on.
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  3. Yeah, I've not read anything by Morrison so I'm not sure what you mean. But Fletcher, in my mind was a damn good Admiral. And Halsey would have been a considered good but he made 3 BIG BLUNDERS! 1) During the Battle of Leyte Gulf he left to go after carriers when he was SUPPOSED TO BE protecting the landing force. Although Taffy 3 managed to make the Center Force retreat, things could have gone a lot worse! Like the entire destruction of the invasion force. A lot of Americans died protecting the flank he vacated to go after an impudent force. 2 & 3) Now MAYBE you could forgive Halsey for sailing into a typhoon once. But twice is rather UNFORGIVABLE especially when lives are lost. I'm fairly certain they had barometers back then, and it's easy to tell when the barometer is falling. Also he waited WAY TOO long to release his Destroyers from picket duty with the typhoon blowing up. Knowing that these ships are top heavy & can't refuel in such weather. They should have been released to do whatever they need to do to save their ships & more importantly the sailors on these ships. However, Fletcher seemed very calculating. If he could deliver damage to the enemy he did so. And when he thought it was best to withdraw so that his force was not vulnerable he did so. And he had decent enough intelligence to make those decisions. And I would have trusted his judgement in those decisions. He only risked his task force when he could deliver reasonable damage to the enemy. And considering at that time the US only had Enterprise, Saratoga & Wasp & knew that Wasp was very susceptible to damage, he did a very good job imho. And it's a good thing Halsey was sick during Midway cuz he may have screwed up & got blown outta the water in a night surface action. And as far as Nagumo. After seeing the devastation that the US aircraft dealt to Musashi. And the fact he had a head wound & probably a concussion, you can't really fault him for not making great decisions. Actually, after the head wound he should have relinquished command to someone else. But luckily for the US, he didn't.
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  4. Steam powered by oil I do believe. Most WW2 ships were powered by steam turbines powered by oil.
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  5. Fletcher could easily say he NEVER lost a carrier battle! AND he directed the victory that was Midway which resulted in 4 Japanese carriers being sunk. If it had been up to Fletcher he would have withdrawn after sinking the first 3. And that would have preserved USS Yorktown. But Nimitz told Fletcher that he wanted that fourth carrier sunk. And because of that Fletcher stayed in the fight to sink the last carrier which resulted in the loss of Yorktown as well. However, it was much easier for the US to replace Yorktown than the Japanese to replace Hiryu or Soryu. I always get those 2 mixed up & forget which was the last one sunk.
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