Halsey/Typhoon Cobra

[dave]

QC
Knowing the amount of paperwork required by a state government and figuring the federal is about the same, why was there no report by Ring or Mitscher after Midway? Mitscher threw together a very blah after action report that never mentioned Ring's interception course heading. Walton was ultimately correct and Ring screwed the pooch. Was this a case of the "canoe u" protection society inaction?
Regards
Dave

[quincannon]

No one talked about it much until fairly recently.

Midway was an important tactical and operational victory. It was a morale booster for the home front after six months of getting kicked around all over the Pacific. Remember it was only a month after the fall of the Philippines. There was the sacrifice of Torpedo Eight immortalized in the Ford film. The last thing anyone wanted was to openly admit incompetence on the part of Ring, which would inevitably implicate Mitscher. They sent Mitscher to confession with a few Hail Mary's and kept him on ice for awhile. Ring they sent packing, counting ice cubes in Panama or some such. He eventually got an escort carrier at the end of the war. He did make Vice Admiral, but if you look at his assignments post war I cannot for the life of me see how he was selected based upon them. He was a slick talking pretty boy, but I get the impression that he was not well liked by his contemporaries. Bottom line is that I don't think the Severn River Yacht Club took much of a role in sliding the incident under the bed. I think Ring had an unidentified sugar daddy, but do not have a clue who it was.

Browning, Spruance's inherited chief of staff screwed the pooch big time at Midway as well. I think the only guy who liked him was Halsey.

So the short answer to all of this is you must look at anything that looks like a cover up in the context of what else was going on. Things did not change all that much between 1876 and 1942, and less since. The cardinal rule is you do not hang out your dirty laundry to dry in wartime, especially after you just scored a major whup ass.

[dave]

QC
The sad part about Midway was that men like Ring and Browning take away attention from the real heroes who willingly did their duty as expected and paid the ultimate price. 
The quote below was taken from the Battle of Midway Roundtable web site at www.midway42.org/
I highly recommend this site for anyone who is interested in this seminal event.
Regards
Dave
Ensign William R. Evans, USN, a pilot of Torpedo Squadron 8, KIA at Midway, 4 June 1942 said.

"Many of my friends are now dead. To a man, each died with a nonchalance that each would have denied as courage. They simply called it lack of fear. If anything great or good is born of this war, it should not be valued in the colonies we may win nor in the pages historians will attempt to write, but rather in the youth of our country, who never trained for war; rather almost never believed in war, but who have, from some hidden source, brought forth a gallantry which is homespun, it is so real."



"When you hear others saying harsh things about American youth, do all in your power to help others keep faith with those few who gave so much. Tell them that out here, between a spaceless sea and sky, American youth has found itself and given itself so that, at home, the spark may catch. There is much I cannot say, which should be said before it is too late. It is my fear that national inertia will cancel the gains won at such a price. My luck can't last much longer, but the flame goes on and on."



--Ensign William R. Evans, USN, a pilot of Torpedo Squadron 8, KIA at Midway, 4 June 1942.

[quincannon]

Torpedo Eight was one of the rare examples of against the odds heroism being put on display at or near the time it happened. That is primarily due to the Ford film. Otherwise I do not think all that much attention would have been given to it. It certainly was not given to Torpedo Three and Six who also suffered catastrophic loss under the very same circumstances in the very same action.

I was only after the war, in some instances long after that incidents involving ships that live at least in my memory Little, Gregory, Calhoun, Pope, Pillsbury, Edsall, Sims, the few that fought the many on 13 November, and those small ships that willingly attacked the big boys at Samar, and put a hurt on them, to save the carriers. They should hold the same place in our collective awareness as do Valley Forge and the Alamo.

[deadwoodgultch]

All,
I am enjoying your excursion. What little I know about Navy in WWII I learned, for the most part from the attached.

www.bing.com/videos/search?q=victory+at+sea+full+episodes&qpvt=victory+at+sea+full+episodes&FORM=VDRE

Also from this book, "Combined Fleet Decoded" by John Prados (the secret history of American Intelligence an the Jananese Navy in WWII)

[quincannon]

I cannot imagine that anyone with at least a marginal interest in history that has not watched all twenty six episodes of Victory at Sea. It is probably the best 13 hours of documentary film making ever done. The music itself sends me into a far away place, and I am fortunate enough to have collected most of it on CD's, and play it often especially when I must get myself in the mood for model shipbuilding.

Anyone who has not seen it does not know what they missed. My favorite of course is the Guadalcanal episode, and the Guadalcanal March composed by Richard Rogers. It is the very music alone that depicts these Marines in their moment of triumph after months of adversity. Guadalcanal was the essential win, the rest including Midway, we could have lost and still won the war.

[quincannon]

We also forget that against all odds heroism was not limited to our side. The story of the Kagero Class destroyer Tanikaze at Midway is one for the books.

[dave]

Every Fleet Commander never had enough Tin Cans and DEs for all the tasks they could and did perform. In that spirit I am posting the site below that covers the Fletcher Class cans and provides information on each ship.
QC the Tanikaze's survival from the dive bomber attacks speaks volumes about her skipper and crew's performance. The sky boys who missed had sunk 4 carriers and were the varsity for the US Navy.
Regards
Dave

destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/

[quincannon]

I think it more properly said they were what remained of the varsity, but also keep in mind that it was at that stage of the war, the varsity of the Little Sisters of the Poor's team, not Ole Miss.

That is a great site Dave. One I have used for research many times. Highly recommended.

NOW, something that I have wanted to say for some time and never found quite the right moment. As most of us know the late Richard McCloud used to down play the IJN, mainly from a cultural standpoint. There was merit in what h said up to a point. They were indeed a product of the culture they sprang from, overcomplicated in their approach to the extreme, especially in how they planned, adding layer upon layer to the relatively simple. They were also tied to tradition, to a point where once you read their book, you had them by the scrotum.

All that said, I have referred many times on this board and others, to Amatsukaze and Captain Hara Tamichi. Reading his book for the first time in my late teens was when I came to realize that these men who opposed us, were people just like us. Consider the time, when all Japanese were still the dirty Japs of Pearl Harbor in the American conscience thoughts. No one in those days recognized the fact that the IJN in particular were fine well trained professionals, and a very worthy adversary. Since that time, my level of respect for Hara has grown. I have read and reread his work ten or more times, finding something new of value each time I do.

I think it was in those moments I found a way to respect ones whom I would have opposed, while detesting the cause they served. It was a come to Jesus moment for me. I hope I have expressed my feelings clearly on this

[BrevetorCoffin]

Feb 29, 2016 15:46:44 GMT quincannon said:

I cannot imagine that anyone with at least a marginal interest in history that has not watched all twenty six episodes of Victory at Sea. It is probably the best 13 hours of documentary film making ever done. The music itself sends me into a far away place, and I am fortunate enough to have collected most of it on CD's, and play it often especially when I must get myself in the mood for model shipbuilding.

Anyone who has not seen it does not know what they missed. My favorite of course is the Guadalcanal episode, and the Guadalcanal March composed by Richard Rogers. It is the very music alone that depicts these Marines in their moment of triumph after months of adversity. Guadalcanal was the essential win, the rest including Midway, we could have lost and still won the war.

For what it's worth, great childhood memories of Dad playing the soundtrack in an old Akai M4 reel-to-reel. The World at War was also a fine documentary series.

Best,

David

[quincannon]

There was also one done through they eyes of Churchill, with Richard Burton doing the Churchill voice overs. Watched it religiously when it came out, but have never seen it aired since.

[deadwoodgultch]

www.sonypicturesmuseum.com/collection/880/winston-churchill-the-valiant-years

[deadwoodgultch]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrTkpui7g4Q

[dave]

Getting back to the Typhoon Cobra event, the commanding officer of the USS Hull DD-350 LTCD James Marks was a very poor seaman and commanding officer. He was a martinet who ate meals alone in his cabin and alienated both officers and men. Both books, Sea Cobra: and Down to the Sea: are very harsh in judgement of Marks.

The survivors are unanimous in their condemnation of his commanding skills and his inability to moor the ship in a harbor let alone handle the Hull at sea. His inadequacy was alleged to be a contributing cause to her foundering and the loss of life. Serious accusations which he could not or would not deny.

QC I am stepping in to your area of study but it has to be pointed out that the Farragut class were poorly designed for handling in rough seas. Initially they were designed to be 1,365 ton vessels but they had a narrow beam of 34' coupled with late war additions, such as radar masts and additional anti air craft weapons, increased her top heavy imbalance. Such a ship is very easy to roll and hard to recover and she had rolled over 50 degrees in trial runs after refitting in Puget Sound in October of 1944.

That being said, Marks was still an incompetent seaman and possessed poor leadership skills who was rumored to be the inspiration of Captain Philip Francis Queeg and The Caine Mutiny. That pretty much sums up what type of skipper Marks was.
Regards
Dave

[quincannon]

SATURDAY 19 March 2016 Saint Joseph's Day - Remembering USS Franklin CV13 and all who sailed in her, particularly the above and beyond the call courage of Commander (Chaplain) Joseph T. O'Callahan USNR MOH