Comments by "Kenneth Dean Miller" (@kennethdeanmiller7324) on "Admiral Spruance - Marshall Islands to Philippine Turkeys" video.

@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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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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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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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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@Drachinifel Thanks for including the matter about "Towers" trying to get Spruance replaced by "himself!" Although, I'm very glad that Nimitz & King saw through the request rather easily, it still goes to show how competitive the US Navy is at this time. And how "cut throat" some of these officers can really be. Which also leaves me to be very proud to know the name of Spruance as being a very good Admiral during WW2 & the name "Towers" I hadn't previously heard about until now. If the man had been more supportive of Spruance instead of trying to "throw him under the bus with him driving" IDK maybe if that hadn't happened then maybe King & Nimitz would have saw fit to try to have Towers play a larger role. One in which he might be remembered as a historically relevant officer. But, negative people get negative prizes! But seriously, thanks again for that piece of history. If Halsey at Leyte Gulf had shown the same care Spruance had shown for the landing forces then the Naval Battle of Samar would have been much different than the one we know. Who knows maybe Captain Evans would have even survived the war.
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@rapidrhinos2254 Yeah, I would imagine that such a problem would become quickly obvious when/ if salvo's are not even close to the target. And I would also think that each ship would have certain Officers aboard that knew the fire control suite rather intimately & was in charge of finding, troubleshooting & solving whatever problems may arise. And what to do if separate parts of the fire control are removed during the action of battle. That is something that they try to train for so that when/ if it happens during an action they know how to switch to appropriate back up measures. Which is why most ships have numerous range finders. Plus you firing one gun at a target with a scope isn't like a battleship. A battleship gathers information & fires salvo's to see how close they are. Which they can fire 3-4 shot salvo's and once they know the range fire full salvo's which are 8-9 gun salvo's. So usually once hits start landing more follow & the target is torn to shreds. Where if you are on target with your rifle & scope, you only need the one shot & then you usually change targets.
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@filecabinet827 I seriously doubt a whole squadron or more could take out an Iowa. The Iowa has the speed to dictate the battle and can stay far enough away that an age of sail ship can not hurt it. While the Iowa can tear any age of sail ship apart with one salvo. So with that being said, the only way the Iowa is going to lose is if there are more age of sail ships than the Iowa has bullets. And the Iowa has it's secondary armament too. But then the Iowa can just withdraw. I don't see it being sunk or damaged very badly because of it's speed. The only way that it could really happen is to have maybe 100 ships of the line & who ever is the Captain of the Iowa be a major idiot. And even then the Iowa will still have the upper hand! I mean one 16" "HE" shell would completely annihilate an age of sail ship. The "AP" shells would probably do less damage. But then the secondary batteries could still annihilate so many ships & the Iowa can still just disengage if it runs out of shells. The age of sail ships aren't fast enough to close the range enough to hurt an Iowa. And if they did the only thing they could do is maybe shoot up the superstructure. No cannon balls are going to puncture any vitals cuz of the armor. No. Not going to hurt an Iowa with any number of age of sail ships.
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5 years ago I had become curious about WW2 & had started trying to find out what all happened during the war. Because of that YouTube recommended a video by a guy named Drachinifel. Since then, I've not only learned a lot more about WW2 but a lot more about Naval History in general & the people that helped make that history.
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@Drachinifel ‐------> Q & A <------ I'm curious about the late afternoon/evening carrier strike on the Japanese. We're there Avengers & Dauntless aircraft sent as the strike aircraft with Hellcat fighters for cover? AND if Avengers were sent with the dive bombers did any of them have enough gasoline to get recovered? Or were all the Avengers that went on that mission lost!
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@Drachinifel -----Q & A---- Yeah, yesterday I happened across something written by Lundgren about the Battleship battles of Guadal Canal suggesting that there was a "friendly fire" incident during that battle involving the USS Washington & the escorting destroyers. And I was wondering if YOU were going to try to figure out exactly what happened and do a video about it. Cuz, if you think about it, if that really did happen, then that would explain Admiral Lee's reluctance to open fire on Kirishima until they were sure it was an enemy vessel. And Admiral Lee's reluctance for other night battles as well. And considering the difficulties the Navy had been dealing with at Guadal Canal, the US Navy needed a victory. And NOT one overshadowed by another "friendly fire" incident. That being said, I can understand why such a thing could be "temporarily" covered up. But NOT completely covered up, with the upper levels of command knowing the true story. While I had something else come up & didn't finish reading everything Lundgren wrote about what happened but it does seem something happened that was covered up.
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@Archaeus777 I'd have to say that most Navy's didn't really go by that rule either. I think they also factored in armor effectiveness at given ranges and cost & pretty much decided to risk sailors lives instead of putting "the appropriate" amount of armor. However, some did incline the armor to hopefully help in terms of certain battle ranges. But once two ships are so close it's mainly down to who gets the first meaningful hits. For Example, Bismark vs Hood, Rodney vs Bismark, Kirishima vs South Dakota, Washington vs Kirishima. And I would have to say with the latter two, had Washington not been there, South Dakota may have been toast! S Dakota did turn away & hadn't lost propulsion so maybe it lives without the follow up by Washington. But it can also be argued that Kirishima if given more armor than speed when built could have maybe lived to fight another day. I'm not exactly sure. For one, Kirishima had 14" guns shooting at South Dakota & she sustained some fairly bad damage. But Washington at Kirishima has 16" guns a much more powerful shell & Kirishima has less armor too. But I think it may also be argued that at such a close battle range armor isn't going to help much cuz any armor piercing weapon will penetrate. For one, if you are going to spend millions of dollars on a ship you should protect it as much as possible. But two, also protecting that ship is the people you place aboard her, & they should be trained & given the best equipment possible. AND, THREE with the lesson of South Dakota in hand, a ship should NOT be sent into a battle area without thoroughly being tested!!
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Siapan, Guam & Tinian were definitely the biggest operations of Spruance's career. My Uncle Ken was in the Air Force all his life & spent most of his career stationed in Guam & occasionally the Philippines. So we rarely ever got to see Uncle Ken.
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@john_in_phoenix Anyone that has kept up with all the Drach videos for the past 4-5 years can probably tell you a lot about naval history.
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