mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
|
Post by mac on May 1, 2017 0:58:18 GMT
|
|
|
Post by quincannon on May 1, 2017 16:43:50 GMT
Mac: As you know our ties with your great country go back to a few months before Coral Sea with the ABDA Force, and the Battle of The Java Sea.
We have formed an unbreakable bond, and again as you probably know we have named two warships with Australian namesakes, Canberra, and Harold E. Holt, this latter marking the first time that the USN had ever named a warship after a foreign head of State, and predates the naming of USS Churchill (only the second) by nearly thirty years.
Your naming of HMAS Bataan by reciprocation was and is still much appreciated. There was a time in Korea, where USS Bataan and HMAS Bataan operated in the same task group.
Coral Sea was one of those BUT FOR battles. But For Coral Sea, the action at Midway a month later would most probably turned out very differently, and Guadalcanal would have never made the "to do" list until 1944 at the earliest.
|
|
mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
|
Post by mac on May 3, 2017 22:00:13 GMT
The strategic impact on the Japanese expansion is important here in the "but for" you describe QC. This has me contemplating the idea that some critical losses can result in strategic wins. Cheers
|
|
|
Post by quincannon on May 3, 2017 22:38:04 GMT
Absolutely true.
At Coral Sea the IJN lost Shoho which was no big deal, in that it was a light carrier, with little combat capability, converted I think from a former oiler. The strategic implications were that Carrier Division 5, Zuikaku and Shokaku were both damaged, one more so than the other, but also their air groups were decimated. To indicate the hubris of the IJN, the people in IJN Carrier Divisions 1 and 2, referred to Carrier Division 5 as "The sons of the concubine" meaning in their eyes 1 and 2 were so much better, that they did not need them for Midway. Now consider that Carrier Division Fives ships were only six or eight months old, and were every bit the equal of the Yorktowns, and could have given an Essex a run for its money, them not being at Midway was the effective loss of a third of Kido Butai's combat power. Also consider that the four IJN carriers that were at Midway were clunkers, death traps, very poorly designed ships.
In return we lost Lexington. By 1942, she and Saratoga were both clunkers as well. Neither had the capacity for combat in the Pacific in WWII. Actually losing Neosho (an oiler) caused more heartburn in the fleet than the loss of Lex.
|
|