Comments by "Dave Sisson" (@Dave_Sisson) on "The Drydock - Episode 131" video.

Well the Australians were exporting chilled meat for the last few decades of the 19th century, so refrigerated ships were not exactly a new thing. But they were expensive to build and operate until well into the first part of the 20th century, thus the fast banana boats like Pongo that were converted into semi-naval vessels.
4
Probably because it sank the Bismarck?
2
Remember that the Americans took care of the eastern part of the campaign against Japan while the British Empire was responsible for the western part. So the British 14th Army, the Indian 2nd Army, etc fought in Burma, the Australian 1st Army fought in New Guinea, etc, while the Americans concentrated on the smaller islands to the east. Thus the British vessels that survived the fall of Singapore, Indonesia, etc were mostly deployed to the Indian Ocean and other places where they had little overlap with the United States. There were a few exceptions such as Australian ships cooperating with Americans in places like the Coral Sea. Meanwhile in the European theatre almost no American ships entered the burning cauldron of the Mediterranean Sea, that was mostly left to the British.
1
@xenophonBC I guess that makes sense,. The American colonies like Hawaii, Philippines, Samoa, etc. were in the east, while the UK colonies like Burma and Malaya were mostly in the west
1
@xenophonBC I know a lot of British carriers were being dive bombed in the Mediterranean Sea escorting convoys to besieged Malta, while others were attacking German forces in Norway. Others were based in Sri Lanka defending the Indian Ocean. But in 1942 and 1943 they did manage to deploy the carrier HMS Victorious to assist the American fleet in the South Pacific where it was renamed USS Robin despite retaining its British crew. BTW, I'm not British, but you seen to dislike them, I've found them to be one of the nicer European nationalities.
1
@xenophonBC I'm not American or British, so I don't know the precise dates, but about that time HMS Victorious was one of 4 British carriers on operation Pedestal to relieve the Siege of Malta (it was one of the survivors). I could ask you why the U.S. didn't send any carriers to help out in the Mediterranean Sea or Indian Ocean, but as I said, both major allied powers had their own theatres of operations with only a very few crossovers.
1
@xenophonBC Nah, just a bogan Australian who writes histories in a non war related field.
1