Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Drydock - Episode 151" video.

  1. 00:31:32 @ Drachinifel Kahili (or Buin) airfield on the Solomon island of Bougainville, unlike what you said, WAS completed and used by the Japanese before it was captured during the 1943. Battle of Bougainville (Yamamoto was on his way to inspect that airfield in a G4M bomber when it was shot down as it approached the strip). You may have mixed it up with the Munda airfield on the Solomon island of New Georgia which was even closer to Guadalcanal and which the USA captured in 1943. before the Japanese completed it (akin the airfield on Guadalcanal the year before...). Trivia- it took some time for the Americans to detect the construction of the Munda airfield as the Japanese did not cut all the trees on the future airstrip, but rather just some and strung wires between them that held the cut trees in place, while they were working on the levelling of the ground below - so it appeared to US aerial reconnaissance for a time that no trees were cut there and no military instalation is being constructed there. Another trivia - instead of attacking Munda directly, the US first captured the nearby island of Rendova and then stationed artillery there to shell Munda making it impossible for the Japanese to complete it while also softening the defenses before attacking. The Japanese tried a similar tactic before at Guadalcanal but the US ability to deliver and protect supplies to the forward combat area was obviously superior and that made the difference for the respective outcomes. The Japanese made a mistake of not beginning and completing at least Kahili and ideally also Munda before the airfield on Guadalcanal. It was a logistical error - they overextended an "airfield too far" (and too soon) from Rabaul to successfully contest with land-based aviation any potential allied counterattack - and paid the price for it. Time was a factor. Guadalcanal was essentially both sides rushing pretty much whatever they could throw there to dislodge the opponent before he entrenched properly (particularly the Japanese counterattacks followed that philosophy).
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  2. 53:25 UK in the 18th century was today's China I'd say. A rising global power with low labor costs. 17th cenury USA/UK was Spain - overpriced (in terms of gold) with all the looted gold from the Americas. My point being - that haul was worth far more to UK than to Spain it was taken from - at the time it was taken.
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