Posted on 06/05/2020 3:43:06 PM PDT by US Navy Vet
What a good presentation. I had not heard of Parshall before
If those men of Torpedo 8 knew what has become of this nation.......they’d be pissed giving up their lives on a suicide mission.
I always wonder how deep down Churchill felt about that. Invading Italy was Churchill's baby, and for the longest time he thought that was the way to go instead of France. And then Rome falls, and then suddenly everybody forgot all about that when D-Day happened.
Who cares about the Battle of Midway? All I care about is the 6 day George Floyd memorial coverage. I mean, you would think it was the 4 days after the JFK assassination the ay is he media is covering it.
I highly recommend Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange.
Watching it w hubby tomorrow.. just hearing all those historic hero names fills me with pride. They were amazing.
The year I graduated and later joined the USN, I worked with a man who fought in Italy and Yugoslavia, a Army infantrymen who went to Europe, and a Tincan sailor who served in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. Vietnam was hot and I had signed up trying to avoid the draft, dad was 82nd Airborne and convinced me to get somewhere besides the Jungle. So I ended up in submarines. Everything they all told me was truth. Kids now days could use a stint in at least basic training.
Yes. Best film I have seen in a long time. Didn't have high expectations when we went but was very impressed.
Parshall says much the same thing in the Q&A. :^) Nimitz also had the intel about the coming attack when and where, from one of our codebreakers, just in time, and shifted everything available to Midway. The US carriers attacked from near the limit of their range, and the Japanese had better range in their planes, but didn't figure out what US naval assets were present before the Japanese carriers turned turtle.
He does do a nice job, doesn't he?
My Father was in the combat engineers. They landed at Utah Beach and ended up as part of the Army of Occupation. I have photos of them playing the 82nd Airborne in football at the Berlin Polo Grounds.
This was July 1945. The crowd was over flowing. Eisenhower and Zhukov were both there.
Rochefort never got the recognition he deserved and was later sacked from intelligence. There was a swamp even back in 1942.
We were very fortunate at Midway but without aggressive action there would not have been a place for that luck.
Nice. It hurts some to realize our history goes untaught and the people that knew the men who made it are disappearing. “Lest we forget”.
The book Midway, (1970’,I think) written by a naval historian is amazing. I consider it one of the most influential books I’ve ever read.
“Nimitz was gambling with just about all the sea power he had left. The guy had brass balls.”
Strangely Nimitz was a submarine guy, for most of the time between wars he commanded subs and sub flotillas.
He did serve on a couple of battleships, cruisers and destroyers but subs were his area of expertise.
During the years between wars Nimitz developed the Underway Replenishment system that would serve him so well in the Pacific.
When Nimitz took over command of the Pacific Fleet 10 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor the Change of Command ceremony had to be conducted on the deck of a submarine (some irony there) as all the battleships were sunk or damaged and the cruisers were either sunk, damaged or away with the carriers which were shuttling planes to Midway and Wake islands when the Japanese attacked.
Fortunately for the US Navy Nimitz was not a timid man. He went to war with the navy he had instead of the navy he wanted. It’s a testament to the mans aggressive attitude and aptitude that he quickly learned how to use the carriers as the workhorses of his navy.
He also had William “Bull” Halsey a great carrier proponent under his command. I wonder how much Halsey influenced Nimitz?
I’ve got a VDH vid going, “Savior Generals”, he discusses Ike’s vendetta against Ridgeway.
We were blessed by having the top admirals we had, IMHO, best ever. Of course, that’s difficult to judge given changes in technology etc.
Technology is an aide that good commanders take advantage of to increase the efficiency and lethality of their forces.
Bad commanders can take the same technology and FUBAR at best.
Until WW2 the US had no real naval tradition.
Nimitz, Halsey, King and those men created a naval tradition for us. One the current generation of Navy leadership is squandering.
BTW. Nimitz, being a submarine guy was instrumental in getting timid sub commanders reassigned and replacing them with more aggressive men.
If a sub skipper returned from patrol with torpedoes he was replaced with someone who would get the job done.
We owe a huge debt to those smart and aggressive pig boat skippers.
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