Reading List

[DangerGirl]

Just like the old maxim says, "No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy."

[kham]

I think Georgie had one of the better lines on that : "A good plan violently executed TODAY is better than a perfect plan executed next week" You can't plan on your enemy being predictable, or morons. It will never end well.

[kham]

Barrett Tillman's ENTERPRISE is up next, and it looking pretty good so far.

[PM2K]

I like it best the way Gen. Schwarzkopf explained it to a reporter. Planning battle was like conducting a symphony until some bastard jumps out of the orchestra pit and starts chasing you around with a bayonet..

Never thought I'd have a quote to come close to his "luckiest man in Iraq" comment, but here it is.

[kham]

Ulithi Atoll, circa 1944
Murderers Row

Cue the Imperial March

[bbjohn]

Yamamoto knew Japan could not win a long, protracted war with the United States, which could, along with his training, be the reason he kept seeking a decisive battle which knocked out the U.S. Pacific Fleet in one blow. That was the whole point of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was clear soon after this attack the U.S. Navy still had an effective (make that very effective fighting force) even after though they'd been hit very hard. Yamamoto tried again at Midway, but the U.S. Navy didn't follow his script. Not only that, the American people were enraged by Pearl Harbor and were in no mood to negotiate any sort of peace which left Japan's ruling order in power.

It would be similar to smacking a hornets' nest with a sledge hammer in an effort to kill all the hornets at one time. You'll likely kill a lot of hornets, maybe even most of them. However, those that survive will present themselves as an effective fighting force to counter your sledge hammer. In Yamamoto's case, he kept hitting the nest with a sledge hammer, hoping to finish off the hornets. While he hurt more hornets, those who remained came after him in all their fury.

To say Yamamoto and the IJN got stung would be putting it mildly.

I've heard one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time. Yamamoto and the IJN tried repeatedly to knock out the U.S. Pacific Fleet in one blow.

You may draw your own conclusions from this.

- Big Bad John

[kham]

They never did get away from overly complex battle plans; whether it was institutional stupidity, or national arrogance, or just plain stubborness (to the level of suicidal) You would likely get several answers depending on who you asked.

[Duncan Edwards]

Ulithi Atoll, circa 1944
Murderers Row

Cue the Imperial March

A lot of folks won't get that any more. It's pretty mind blowing when you realize what the photo shows and what it meant.

Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.

- Prime Minister Winston Churchill (after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor)

[kham]

Yeah, nearly 200,000 tons of Newport News steel arrayed there

And that's just whats in view. Throw in the CVLs and CVEs..... There is more firepower just on the big carriers than Kido Butai employed at Pearl. Say around 500 aircraft, and half of them high-performance fighters , likely F6F-5s and F4U-1s at this point

The Big-E is not in that shot, but then she was the only one of her class left, and has a unique profile. Her tripod mast was a dead giveaway.

The last shot was taken from USS Washington in May 1945 showing the kamikaze hit that took her out of the war. The object at the top of the cone of fire is about 2/3 of her forward elevator, blasted about 400 feet into the air.