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Posted on 05/18/2008 5:09:10 AM PDT by naturalman1975
Excellent read — thanks for posting this thread, mate!
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It was the first naval battle in history conducted entirely by carrier-borne aircraft---the fleets never actually saw each other.
The Yorktown was not sunk, but damaged. However, its 2-month repair job was accomplished by 1800 technicians (some flown out to the ship en route back to Pearl) in an astounding 48 hours in dock, and it was largely the Yorktown's planes that won the subsequent battle of Midway.
At the same time, the Japanese carrier that was damaged I don't think got back for many months.
From 1942 on, the U.S. built 17 fleet carriers and dozens of "baby flattops" or support carriers. The Japanese built one fleet carrier!
Excerpts:
"A frightful Japanese broadcast has steeled us for the worst. It came though two nights before I left. A Japanese professor was describing New Zealand and how it would be developed by the Japanese...
Maoris, as true members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, will be allowed special priveleges. White men will be used on the farms. He said that the lush fields, the wealth, the cities were in their grasp at last. The day of reckoning with insolent New Zealanders was at hand. Immortal Japanese troops would know what to do."
"The old men--well, your wife's father and mine, for example. They are stationed at the beaches. They know they dare not retreat. They have taken their positions now."
"The home guard is next. They have been digging in furiously. They occupy prepared positions near the cities and the best beaches. The regular army will be thrown in as the fighting develops. Everyone has decided to fight until the end. The cities and villages will be destroyed."
"Many families have gone to the hills. Cars are waiting to take the others at the first sign of the Jap fleet. My wife and the kiddies have gone. Your wife...said to tell you that she will stay until the last."
"It was my humble duty to assist in preparing the defenses of Auckland. I issued several thousand picks, crowbars, and axes. There were no other weapons."
Thanks, Eric. ~S
I remember visiting Perth when I was in the Navy. A local veterans organization invited us over, and we were treated like royalty. The old WWII vets couldn’t thank us enough for our support during the war (like I had anything to do with it!). They were a great group of guys, and I thank them, and their whole country for their hospitality.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/cvlist.htm
Let's not hurry much. There's only a war on.
This says Shokaku went into drydock in FEBRUARY 42. That’s well before Midway. At any rate, one of the reasons for the delay was that the Japanese didn’t have the extra pilots or planes for her even if Shokaku was ready earlier.
27 June 1942:
Leave drydock.
The earlier drydock was obviously normal maintenance.
As for aircraft, if I remember correctly 3 or fewer dive bombers attacked and sank the Akagi, so if you plan to fight a decisive battle you should have all your available planes and ships there, because every plane counts. Which means Zuikaku should not have been left behind, even without a full complement of planes.
As for the Shokaku, perhaps it couldn't have been ready to fight at Midway, but it should have had urgent priority for repairs, which does not see to be the case.
Good post, thanks!
Hmm. Was this battle damage from the Aleutians?? I didn’t think we damaged anyone there.
No, that was the Shokaku from the Japanese Carriers Tabular Records of Movement at the URL I gave in my earlier post. Battle damage from the Battle of the Coral Sea.
ping
It's also well before Coral Sea. - by about 3 months.
Thanks for the ping.
The dates Shokaku was in drydock for Coral Sea damage are listed in Post #12 above. My source for the information is in Post #10 above.
As I said, Shokaku had not even entered drydock before the Battle of Midway was fought.
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