This topic was posted , thanks BenLurkin.
Posted on 02/19/2023 10:43:13 AM PST by BenLurkin
I believe this is the 9th. See Lost 52 Probject.
On the sub base in the theater on base in Groton, they had battle flags from some of the WWII boats. There were some very impressive flags. A white meat ball for non warship targets and a rising sun flag for warships. My wife and I looked at them every time we went to a movie. We were poor enlisted folks and it was about all we could afford. The friend I had on Cavalla was a machinist mate nuke like me. Seemed like he was always in the med when I was home in off crew. Our wives raised our sons and sewed together. He was from Iowa and me from Missouri. We hit it off when we finally were home at the same time, used to fish together. Navy housing was a bunch of young families trying to get by you could live next door to someone on the boomers other crew and only see them as you turned the boat over in a distant port. Attack boats only had one crew, that’s why we called you guys “ big and black and don’t come back”. Hell of a way to make a living. My first COB had made 21 patrols.
M-diver here too...got to her in refuel in Mare Island, then took her back to Pearl. Good boat...tough life though, especially being freshly overhauled and ready to take any and every mission. Glad I wasn’t married then.
Well, guess we will have to live with a permanent disagreement over this...
You’ll have the advantage over me since, at my age (89), the disagreement will not last more than 10-15 years...
OTOH, as those of us remaining who lived through WWII go to ground temperature, history revisionists can run free...
What are you getting at?
You wrote about Japanese subs:
They focused on our fleet because there were no long columns of supply ships bringing required raw war-fighting resources to the American mainland...
How did we get men and material into the Pacific Theater other than by long columns of supply ships which the Japanese subs essentially ignored because they were "trophy hunting" American/British battleships and carriers??
You knew most of what I wrote. I thought of that after I posted. The attack boats were hell on marriages a lot more than the boomers. Especially if your old man was a steamin demon. Craig my friends old man was trying to make full bird. We lived one unit apart a year before I met him. Then they call you up on watch coming in and want to know if you’re ready to surface. I got chewed out cause I told them “hell yeah, I’m always ready to surface”. Be safe. Regards
Fine on sinking combat ships.
I thought the American(Generally Christian as well) ideal was not to kill or injure non-combatants ;and killing same was one reason we condemned the bad guys.
Major difference in WW1 and WW2 was mass bombing of cities.
YOU go watch Oprah since you seem more familiar with that show. I never did watch it.
Those bombs wound up saving a lot more Japanese lives than American lives.
Not only that, it most likely spared Japan from being divided into a Soviet Zone and a US Zone. And no doubt a Korea-like Civil War probably would have been a result, with the ChiComs joining in on the fun.
I do wonder if destroying two major military bases instead might have done it.
It has been reported that the European city bombing stiffened the resolve if the survivors.
The destruction caused by a single atomic bomb in one instant versus the “familiar” conventional bombs no doubt altered the thinking of everyone.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were legitimate military targets by any measure.
BTW...Japan itself engaged in indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets...
So why didn’t the US simply obliterate the Emperor who approved thr war?
Killing the emperor would have made the Japanese resist harder...when Hirohito told the people to submit, they did, and the war ended immediately.
This topic was posted , thanks BenLurkin.
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