Posted on 12/11/2020 11:04:43 AM PST by LibWhacker
Early in the War both sides still thought that the Battleships were the deadliest danger to their plans. The Japanese mainly targeted the battleships at Pearl and left without a second strike against the oil storage facilities.
The Japanese then headed west and proceeded to conquer every target they had planned. US Subs weren’t deployed. In fact the US Navy was unprepared and dominated by a culture that assumed that the Japanese could be easily defeated. You see they thought the Japanese had poor eyesight and balance and believed their planes were made of bamboo and rice paper. Even if the US Subs had been around the torpedoes were terrible. Most wouldn’t explode, even with contact fuses.
Love this story! HAve red it in many forms dozens of times. My allergies act up every time, too. These brave men, the miracle moment when they see the Jap fleet below them with planes and munitions scattered all around, the dives toward their target...so amazing.
I don’t know where you’re at, but if you’re anywhere near Texas, take him to Fredericksburg and the National Museum of the Pacific War (aka Nimitz museum).
Lots of excellent stuff there.
Then why didn’t the Japanese attack with battleships?
Never said that they didn’t see air power as important. They just all thought that the battleships would be the main striking arms. Jeez. There are hundreds of books on this subject if you’d like to learn about it.
Bill had learned to wait until an incoming attacker had lined up and was ready to fire, then he would jink to throw off the attacker's aim, cut engine power, put on the dive flaps, and give the rear gunner a chance to get in a burst as the Jap fighter streaked past. Sometimes the attacker would try and fail two or three times before giving up, unable to defeat a well-handled Dauntless.
Thank you for that Link. I appreciate your work.
**** which is small potatoes compared to WWII. ****
Not small potatoes. Whole planet pegged for slavery, communism, islamism,
coerced breeding through limited choices - race genocide, sex slavery by elites
upon the young of both sexes and the most attractive, eradication of
Christianity, minimal functional education in chosen Agenda 21 regions, death
panels.
I’m not attacking you.
Where did the Japanese Navy go after Pearl Harbor?
Here’s what I was taught in school about the war in the Pacific:
Pearl Harbor.....Doolittle Raid.....Midway.....Iwo Jima.....Nuclear bombs.
There is so much more.
The consequences of losing aren’t small. But I don’t think the battle itself will be anywhere near as costly in lives as WWII was, not to the US nor, with any luck, to the rest of the free world. Could be wrong, of course. I’m not a soothsayer. Just my sense of things.
In addition to the incredible heroism and great skills shown by Navy personnel that day, the hand of Providence was also at work.
Yes, the Japanese girlfriend sub plot is just dumb. Also some of the combat scenes are recycled from Tora Tora Tora.
“The last one on April fools day in 1945 on Okinawa (6th Division)...’
One of the fascinating bits was his description of Okinawa. Besides being April Fools Day, it was also Easter Sunday, the code phrase was ‘Love Day’. He describes things just as they are laid out in the history books. Expect fierce opposition.
Surprised at how easy the landings are. Great amounts of ground gained, then the horror of the next three months. His spelling of Okinawa changed. At first it was something like Oka Nawa, but after a few days he was spelling it right.
I asked the family if they’d like to donate the diary to the museum at Pensacola but they decided to hang on to it.
There were multiple battles off Guadalcanal some we won some lost, some were disasters, the Battle of Savo Island being the worst. We lost four heavy cruisers and had more damaged in that battle alone. The two November 1942 sea battles of Guadalcanal were vicious bar knife fights with US destroyers and cruisers slugging it out at point blank range with Japanese battleships. Some got so close the Japanese battleships could not depress their main guns to fire and our AA gunners were raking the decks with 20mm cannon fire. One USN destroy, I believe had a combat life of about a minute or two before being obliterated by battleship gunfire.
Then the next evening came the USS Washington and USS South Dakota’s with four DD’s taking on the entire Japanese fleet at Guadalcanal. Essentially the USS Washington fought the entire fleet and won the battle.
Can we just have a history discussion without this stuff?
Funniest post of the day.
Watching the movie, it struck me how brave these men were.
I think a bigger mistake for the Japanese at Pearl was not blowing up the oil tanks.
I always think of HG Wells, killing the invaders in War of the Worlds with bacteria and viruses...Sometimes you don’t need to take out the tank. You just need to stop it from moving. Hence, take out the ball bearings.
The attack and Pearl should have diverted one wing to take out the oil tanks. Having to drive back to California for a while would have made Midway a more difficult effort.
I know the third wave was supposed to do that; but I could never understand why it wasn’t a priority during the first two waves.
Why didn’t the Japanese attack the fuel storage tanks?
If nothing else, for the photo effect.
They knew they were empty.
There was an article several months ago about a construction crew working on a hill above Pearl Harbor hitting an unidentified pipeline.
Real quietly, the Navy said,
“Oh, that’s the pipeline from our underground tank farm on the hill. It’s been there since before Pearl Harbor.”
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