Comments by "John Fisher" (@johnfisher9692) on "Guadalcanal Campaign - Eastern Solomons (IJN 1 : 1 USN)" video.

@reaperking2121 You are totally correct. The Japanese plan was to present the declaration of war to Secretary Hull only 30 minutes before the attack was to start, thus giving the US absolutely no chance to respond. Hull declared he had never seen a document so full of lies and distortions. This was a cowardly and purely political face saving attempt to show an 'innocent' face to the world that the Japanese were an honorable nation and not a collection of gutless murderers who only attack when you aren't expecting it. That plan failed due to not trusting a trained typist. As one historian commentated "Japan has never started a war by declaring war before an attack" See the attack on Port Arthur for proof.
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Thanks Drach for an excellent way to spend over half an hour. It looks like the US was quite lucky that the Japanese pilots were greedy to add to the tally when they diverted to North Carolina rather than making sure Enterprise was on her way to pay a visit to Davy Jones.
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@scottmason2557 I think their biggest value would have been a huge propaganda coup and close examination of German ideas. Some of the problem of actually using either of them would be: (a) the enormous cost of repairing them. And those resources would be better spent on their own construction. (b) Equipment incompatibility. The German navy used different standards to the British and the ships would have to be totally refitted or spare parts made just for those ships which would be a waste of manufacturing capability. The German ammunition was also different, even the 15inch shells on Bismarck were much lighter than British 15inch shells. It just wouldn't have been cost effective to take them into Allied service. Completely different paradigm from the age of sail where this was frequently done. The British would not have learned much from examining Bismarck, she was at best an obsolescent design and (given her massive 20% weight advantage) the weakest of all the WW2 BB's. As Drach once commented, Bismarck was an inefficient design, a major flaw to an engineer like he is.
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