|
Posted on 06/08/2005 10:03:49 PM PDT by SAMWolf
|
|
 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
|
| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
|
|
Setback in the Solomons The tactical judgment of Admiral Robert C. Giffen may have contributed to the loss of the cruiser USS Chicago.  Approximately 700 miles to the southeast, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Robert C. "Ike" Giffen cautiously guided a conglomeration of carriers, cruisers, escort carriers and destroyers toward the Solomon Islands. His superior, Admiral William F. Halsey, after recharging the American defensive stand at Guadalcanal, hoped Giffen's foray would be the first of many U.S. offensive actions in the region. For months the American Marines and Navy had been knocked on their heels by the victorious Japanese, but Halsey's arrival infused renewed energy in the U.S. forces fighting in the region. A speedy series of American land and sea triumphs pushed the foe backward and gave a slim advantage to the United States. As 1943 dawned, Halsey optimistically said: "December had shown us faint signs that the tide was turning. By January no one could doubt that it had begun to run with us." Halsey realized that victory in the Solomons had not yet been guaranteed and that he needed more reinforcements, additional ships and aircraft, and tons of ammunition. Nevertheless, he felt confident that U.S. forces were "strong enough to attempt a modest offensive." He eagerly awaited developments as Giffen's force steamed toward Guadalcanal.  Admiral Robert C. Griffen The action began unfolding in late January, when American aerial reconnaissance spotted indications of a Japanese buildup at their major port of Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, and at Buin, on the island of Bougainville. An increasing number of troop transports and freighters mingled with destroyers at those locations, and Japanese carriers and battleships appeared to be on the prowl north of Guadalcanal. Radio intelligence supported the theory that a Japanese move was imminent. Since the Japanese had repeatedly poured reinforcements into the struggle for the Solomons, American planners at Pearl Harbor concluded that this was yet another such operation. Halsey was under pressure to relieve the 2nd Marine Division, weary from months of vicious combat with crack Japanese land forces on Guadalcanal. The aggressive admiral jumped at an opportunity to combine two operations--he intended to send in troop transports to bring out the 2nd Marine Division while shielding the transports with as much naval power as he could gather in the South Pacific. By doing so, he hoped to entice the Japanese into a surface engagement.  Mitsubishi G4M 'Betty' Halsey's opponent, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, would not be tricked, however. The man who had planned the successful attack on Pearl Harbor had subsequently seen his navy face a reversal in the Coral Sea, catastrophic losses at Midway, and continued pounding in the Solomons. With fuel supplies running low, the Japanese commander could not mount a vast naval operation. Instead, he planned to send Higai and his 32 torpedo bombers--known as "Bettys"--against the Americans. Halsey assembled a formidable force. Six separate groups headed toward the Solomons instead of one unit because each had assembled at a different harbor. Four groups steamed anywhere from 250 to 400 miles behind the two forward groups. The ships in the rear would rush in to meet any large Japanese threat that might unfold in response to the American attempt to land reinforcements on Guadalcanal. The four consisted of Rear Adm. Walden L. Ainsworth's Task Force 67, composed of four light cruisers and four destroyers; Rear Adm. Willis A. Lee's three battleships and four destroyers of Task Force 64; Rear Adm. DeWitt Ramsey's carrier group, centered on Saratoga; and Rear Adm. Ted Sherman's carrier group, anchored by Enterprise.  Cruisers of Task Force 18 at sea en route to Guadalcanal on 29 January 1943, prior to the Japanese night air attack off Rennell Island. Photographed from USS Wichita (CA-45). USS Chicago (CA-29) is in the right center, with USS Louisville (CA-28) in the distance. Note men on Wichita's deck, working on a paravane. As for the two groups of ships that steamed ahead of the rest, the four transports and four destroyers of Task Group 62.8 conveyed the replacements for the 2nd Marine Division. Giffen's potent Task Force 18 consisted of three heavy cruisers--Wichita, Chicago and Louisville--steaming in conjunction with three light cruisers--Montpelier, Cleveland and Columbia. Two escort carriers--Chenango and Suwannee--provided air cover, while eight destroyers--La Vallette, Waller, Conway, Frazier, Chevalier, Edwards, Mead and Taylor--circled the larger ships as a screen. Ike Giffen was not new to command. He had battled German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean and led forces in North African waters, but he had never served in the Pacific, where air assaults on ships at sea were far more common. Giffen came from the old school of naval leadership and was a favorite of Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of naval operations. Giffen commanded by the book, and he even refused to step aboard Halsey's flagship because he detested Halsey's open-necked shirts and ruffled caps.  VICE ADMIRAL JINICHI KUSAKA Giffen guided Task Force 18 out of Efate on January 27, the same day the transport group departed Noumea. His orders were to rendezvous 15 miles off Cape Hunter, on Guadalcanal's southwest coast, late on January 30 with the four destroyers that escorted the transports. The combined force would then steam north through Solomon waters in search of Japanese ships while the transports dropped off Marine reinforcements at Lunga Point. A string of mistakes and poor judgment by Giffen plagued the operation from the start. Because of his experience in the Atlantic, he focused on a possible submarine threat while downplaying the danger from the skies. His decision to keep the slower escort carriers with his faster cruisers and destroyers slowed the entire group to 18 knots, the maximum speed attainable by the baby flattops. The group also encountered delays each time the carriers had to turn into the southeast wind to launch or recover aircraft.
|
And learning the rules of the river. :-)
Boy Do I know that feeling! ;-)
ha! I think you made them up. ;-)
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on June 09:
1640 Leopold I Emperor of Holy Roman Empire
1672 Peter I Aleksejevitsj, the Great, Russian tsar/Emperor
1781 George Stephenson inventor (principal RR locomotive)
1791 John Howard Payne US, author/actor/diplomat (Home Sweet Home)
1893 Cole Porter Indiana, composer/lyricist (Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate)
1900 Fred Waring Tyrone Penn, musician/conductor/inventor (Waring Blender)
1908 Robert Cummings Joplin Mo, actor (Love that Bob, Dial M For Murder)
1915 Les Paul Waukesha Wi, guitarist/inventor (Les Paul guitar) Chester & Lester [w/Chet Atkins - 1976], Trustees Award [1982]; w/Mary Ford: Vaya Con Dios, How High the Moon, Hummingbird, Sittin' on Top of the World; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer [1988])
1916 Robert S McNamara US Sec of Defense (1961-68)/head of World Bank
1930 Jackie Mason(Yacov Moshe Maza) comedian (The World According to Me, Chicken Soup)
1930 Marvin Kalb NYC, educator/newscaster (CBS/NBC)
1934 Donald Duck famous fowl
1934 Jackie Wilson Detroit, singer (Lonely Teardrops)
1934 Joe Santos Bkln NY, actor (Rockford Files, Shamus)
1947 Mitch Mitchell drummer (Jimi Hendrix Experience-Purple Haze)
1958 Donald Michael Santini Mass, murderer (FBI Most Wanted List)
1961 Michael J Fox, actor (Family Ties, Back to the Future, Teen Wolf)
1963 Johnny Depp Queensboro Ky, actor (Donnie Brasco)
No how many of you can honestly say you knew about?
Subterranean Underground Vehicles
Sure, then why was everyone doing it, hmmmm?
If you can't trust the Weekly World News, who can you trust?
It's 7:45 and I'm ready for my jammies and the bed. 5:30 comes all to early.
???
This is the US album cover, the UK version is not quite safe for a family web site.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Thanks EGC. ((Hugs))
CHICAGO (CA-29) was designed for a length overall of 600 feet, 3 inches; extreme beam of 66 feet, 1 inch; standard displacement of 9,300 tons; a mean draft of 16 feet, 8 inches; and a complement of 45 officers and 576 men. [45 + 576 = 621] She was initially armed with nine eight-inch .55 caliber guns; four 5-inch .25 caliber guns; eight .50 caliber machine guns; and six 21-inch surfaced torpedo tubes. She had a designed speed of 32.5 knots. She had armor eight inches thick and was equipped with two catapults amidships.
~~~ One torpedo hit well forward, showering the bridge and forecastle with debris. Three others exploded in the already damaged engineering spaces. Captain Davis passed the word to abandon ship. He had about 20 minutes to clear CHICAGO of all hands, including her wounded. Fleet tug NAVAJO and destroyers EDWARDS, WALLER and SANDS collected the 1049 survivors. Six officers and 56 enlisted men were killed in the action. [1049 + 6 + 56 = 1111]
The USS Houston (CA-30) is forward of USS Chicago (CA-29) on 10 Sep 1940 at Mare Island Navy Yard. USS Ramapo (AO-12) is berth alongside of USS Houston and the USS William Ward Burrows (AP-6) and the YD-33 (150 ton crane) are alongside of USS Chicago. In this picture there is a good view of the AA guns added to the Chicago's aft deck house. U.S. Navy Photo.
The 40 millimeter quadruple mount gun is a medium range anti-aircraft weapon.
Most of the crew worked to keep the ammunition flowing to meet the high rate of fire. There were four shells in each clip used in these guns. If the shells failed to make direct hits, self-destructive fuses destroyed them at about 4,000 yards range.
Effective range: 4,000 yards
Rate of fire: 12 rounds per minutes
Weight of shell: 1.4 pounds
Gun crew per mount: 15-20 men
SOme kind of plot?
Evening Phil Dragoo.
Gotta love those pom-pom guns. :-)
Looks she she had almost double the normal crew
Some sort of Jonah attched to her, I guess.
I had one more thought about the number of survivors. Perhaps that number also includes the survivors from the destroyer which was lost in the action.
I'm going to nit-pick on this latest article. I believe it has a few extra decimal points which shouldn't be there. It describes the 8 inch and the 5 inch guns as being .55 caliber and .25 caliber, respectively. Since the caliber is a designation of barrel length, I don't think the decimal points should be there. (Of course, they are properly on the .50 caliber machine guns, since that is measuring something different. )
If my understanding of naval gun designations is correct, the 8' gun would have a barrel about 36' 8" long, and the 5 inch guns would have barrels of a little over 10 feet in length.
For comparison, current CGs and DDs have 5 inch guns in either 54 or 62 caliber, or more than twice as long as the barrels on the 5 inch guns of the Chicago. (22'6" or 25'9").
Hope you're doing well.
Everybody's doing it, doing it, doing it...
See!
Thanks Phil. Great pictures.
Oh my, if I could ever learn this I'd be...well, I don't know what I'd be but I really do need to learn it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
