Belatedly, we should of course commemorate the most significant event at that iconic site
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Milestones
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Frank Petrexa
Tribune
There were several things noteworthy about this battle. In one segment, the American fleet consisting of old battleships (as the press said, "seven of the two battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor are with the fleet"), the American fleet "crossed the T" of the Japanese force, the same maneuver used by the Japanese in their victory over the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1905.
Another was the sinking of the super battleship Musashi by American planes, proving once again (if the Japanese sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales off Malaya early in the war needed more corroborating evidence) that battleships were obsolete.
But the most interesting was that the Japanese used decoys--carriers almost devoid of planes due to huge losses at places like the Battle of the Philippine Sea (commonly called the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot")--to lure almost ALL the capital ships of Admiral "Bull" Halsey's fleet north in pursuit, leaving the landing ships at Leyte without much naval cover (a few small escort carriers and some destroyer escorts) as the third prong of the Japanese battle fleet approached. The escorts launched what planes they had, and the destroyer escorts were order to "charge". They were all sunk, and the Cherokee Indian captain of the USS Johnston, Commander Ernest Evans, went down in history for his persistence and courage, as well as going down with the ship, at one point standing on deck with a bull horn, bleeding from his wounds, directing the engine room crew with all the ship's communications knocked out. The five-inch shells of the destroyers bounced off the Japanese armor, but the Johnston at least was able to damage a cruiser with a torpedo. When the Johnston finally went down, it is said that a Japanese officer stood and saluted. But the Japanese commander was spooked by the attacking ships and planes, unaware that the battle fleet was speeding north away from the action, and withdrew before hitting the transports. "Damn, they're getting away" one sailor is quoted as saying (that's the lore, anyway).
Johnston (DD-557)
“This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.” Those were the words of Commander Ernest. E. Evans on the day USS Johnston (DD-557) was commissioned, 27 October 1943, at Seattle, Washington. Just three...
People do matter.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
During the same battle, escort carrier USS Gambier Bay was sunk by fire from Japanese surface ships. The only US carrier to be sunk that way, and one of the two carriers encountering that fate, the other one being HMS Glorious, sunk in April 1940 by German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.There were several things noteworthy about this battle. In one segment, the American fleet consisting of old battleships (as the press said, "seven of the two battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor are with the fleet"), the American fleet "crossed the T" of the Japanese force, the same maneuver used by the Japanese in their victory over the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1905.
Another was the sinking of the super battleship Musashi by American planes, proving once again (if the Japanese sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales off Malaya early in the war needed more corroborating evidence) that battleships were obsolete.
But the most interesting was that the Japanese used decoys--carriers almost devoid of planes due to huge losses at places like the Battle of the Philippine Sea (commonly called the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot")--to lure almost ALL the capital ships of Admiral "Bull" Halsey's fleet north in pursuit, leaving the landing ships at Leyte without much naval cover (a few small escort carriers and some destroyer escorts) as the third prong of the Japanese battle fleet approached. The escorts launched what planes they had, and the destroyer escorts were order to "charge". They were all sunk, and the Cherokee Indian captain of the USS Johnston, Commander Ernest Evans, went down in history for his persistence and courage, as well as going down with the ship, at one point standing on deck with a bull horn, bleeding from his wounds, directing the engine room crew with all the ship's communications knocked out. The five-inch shells of the destroyers bounced off the Japanese armor, but the Johnston at least was able to damage a cruiser with a torpedo. When the Johnston finally went down, it is said that a Japanese officer stood and saluted. But the Japanese commander was spooked by the attacking ships and planes, unaware that the battle fleet was speeding north away from the action, and withdrew before hitting the transports. "Damn, they're getting away" one sailor is quoted as saying (that's the lore, anyway).
Pearl Harbor sent a message to Halsey. "Where is task force 59. The world wonders." The last sentence was fill to make code breaking more difficult, but given the circumstances Halsey took it rather personally. (One book I have says that "the war was getting too complicated for Halsey", though it must be noted that his leadership and risk-taking played a major role in the victory at Guadalcanal, at a time when the Americans had NO carriers left in the Pacific).Johnston (DD-557)
“This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.” Those were the words of Commander Ernest. E. Evans on the day USS Johnston (DD-557) was commissioned, 27 October 1943, at Seattle, Washington. Just three...www.history.navy.mil
People do matter.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
I thought Enterprise and Hornet took place in the naval battles around Guadalcanal?
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
One other thing to note was that despite the overt bigotry of American society at the time, and the sad treatment of the native peoples ("the loss of their way of life was inevitable, but it was the way it was done that was shameful" one book on "Custer's last stand" said, and the Cherokee "trail of tears" in the Jackson administration is a stain on national honor in my humble opinion), the American Indian (and the "Nisei" American Japanese--the late Senator Inoyue of Hawaii lost an arm in Italy, even as the civilian Japanese were "interned" in camps: there was opposition to Hawaii becoming a state in Congress on racial grounds in 1957) rallied to the flag. It was not only code talkers. The mobilized Arizona National Guard fought in New Guinea under MacArthur ("spics and blanket asses"). One of the marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima commemorated in the statue in Washington was a Pima Indian from Arizona. This is a oversimplified, black-and-white version of what happened to him, typical of the '60's, but he did come back from the war with a lot of emotional scars, and there is certainly truth in it. This is the original by the author, not the Johnny Cash version.
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Maybe you're thinking of the Battle of the Coral Sea, when the Lexington was sunk and Yorktown damaged. It was repaired by heroic efforts in time for Midway, but was sunk there. Hornet was sunk in the battle of Santa Cruz (which was part of the Guadalcanal operation), and Enterprise was so badly damaged she needed to return to the West Coast for repairs. Saratoga was sent from the Atlantic, but hadn't arrived. For a good time after the landing, there was no naval air cover, but "Terrible Turner" (Kelley Turner) made the decision to keep the transports in place. Guadalcanal was a long battle, and for a good portion of it the only air cover was the "Cactus Air Force" ("Cactus being the code name for Guadalcanal) on the "Henderson Field" on Guadalcanal itself. All kinds of people and planes were shuttled in to keep the marines in business--it was the kind of determined, damn the torpedoes effort that wins battles.
The US Navy by and large got creamed at Guadalcanal, by the way.
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Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
And the carrier USS Wasp was also lost during the Guadalcanal operation.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Meanwhile in the Leyte Gulf. On October 25th 1944, the third day of the battle, American air attacks resulted in the sinking of the Japanese carrier Zuikaku. It was the last survivor of the six carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941. Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu had been sunk at Midway (June 1942), Shokaku had been lost during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944.
October 25th seems to have been a favourite day of War God Mars. In 732 that day took place the Battle of Poitiers, during which Charles Martel defeated Arab invaders and stopped the Muslim invasion of Europe. In 1415, the English defeated the French in Azincourt during the Hundred Years War. In 1854, during the Crimean War, at the Battle of Balaklava, a series of misunderstandings in the chain of command, enhanced by personal aversions among the leading officers, resulted into a British cavalry charge on a Russian gun battery – which was however not the position they were supposed to attack. Their deadly ride became immortalized as ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.
And in 1983, US Marines invaded Grenada.
October 25th seems to have been a favourite day of War God Mars. In 732 that day took place the Battle of Poitiers, during which Charles Martel defeated Arab invaders and stopped the Muslim invasion of Europe. In 1415, the English defeated the French in Azincourt during the Hundred Years War. In 1854, during the Crimean War, at the Battle of Balaklava, a series of misunderstandings in the chain of command, enhanced by personal aversions among the leading officers, resulted into a British cavalry charge on a Russian gun battery – which was however not the position they were supposed to attack. Their deadly ride became immortalized as ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.
And in 1983, US Marines invaded Grenada.
Rias
Neko Girl
Pearl Harbour they say in discovery channel president usa know will be attacked but want join war and take some treasures from europe also me think good becuse without help usa me think war longer
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
This is a long bandied about idea that is based on no hard facts. Roosevelt clearly wanted to enter the European War to support Britain and Russia, but faced a large isolationist American public. He also had taken actions (embargos on oil and other strategic goods to Japan) that were very belligerent toward Japan. However, there is no evidence any senior official in the US had any inkling of an attack on Hawaii. If Japan were to make a move, most intelligence and military thinkers expected it closer to the Japanese homeland, most likely the Philippines. For this reason, US forces there were reinforced.Pearl Harbour they say in discovery channel president usa know will be attacked but want join war and take some treasures from europe also me think good becuse without help usa me think war longer
Rias
Neko Girl
Philippines they told in discovery channel and in school general mac Arthur was there and flee from there and later back and reliese philippines people from japan soldiers but they kill many citizens before usa americans back and very not nice they treated americans soldiers who not have time to flee and become prisoners and they dont give they eat
RacingRodent
Consul
Pearl Harbour they say in discovery channel president usa know will be attacked but want join war and take some treasures from europe also me think good becuse without help usa me think war longer
The other part of the question is that the war would certainly have lasted longer. Only the US had the industrial power to take the offensive in Western Europe, Britain could defend itself and by extension most of the World's oceans but that was a far cry from being able to launch an attack on fortress Europe. The Combined Air Offensive is often undersold but it destroyed the Luftwaffe not just on the Western Front but the Eastern Front as well making the Soviet fight back substantially easier. Not to mention the Red Army supplies rode in American trucks and their infantry marched in American boots.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Interesting that you overlooked an important German victory, the battle of Caporetto.
On October 24, 1917, a combined German and Austrian force began a ferocious attack on the Italian lines near the town of Caporetto. The attack was intended to follow new tactics in the hope of surprising the Italians; in this, it succeeded. Among its most dramatic episodes was the progress of Captain Erwin Rommel’s Württemberg Mountain Battalion.
In the course of these two days, Rommel’s men defeated five enemy regiments and took more than 9,000 prisoners. German casualties were only 36, of which six were fatal. In the process, they seized one of their Corps’ primary objectives by themselves.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
And yesterday, I also overlooked the 90th anniversary of Black Thursday on Wall street (24th October 1929).
The crach of the stock market that triggered The Great Depression.
Rias
Neko Girl
this is this situation when in germany banks something with money ? and come to usa banks too and kittys jump from buildings ? me heard in discovery or me wlong?And yesterday, I also overlooked the 90th anniversary of Black Thursday on Wall street (24th October 1929).
The crach of the stock market that triggered The Great Depression.
Rias
Neko Girl
Captain Erwin Rommel "desert fox" me have two figures him scale 1/35 and one figure general mac Arthur from famous generals set figures
RacingRodent
Consul
this is this situation when in germany banks something with money ? and come to usa banks too and kittys jump from buildings ? me heard in discovery or me wlong?
You do like to ask the big complicated questions. There is some link between the contraction of the money supply in the US and the lack of subsequent loans to German banks and companies that cause yet further problems but that was not solely caused by the Wall Street Crash.
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
I don't think anyone knows exactly what caused the Great Depression. And economics is so political, you won't get any straight answers. Galbraith is on one side, and Friedman with his claims that the Federal Reserve in the US screwed up by NOT intervening with a failing bank, causing a cascade of failures is on the other. I think Friedman's "monetarism" has been largely discredited. There are some facts. First, as Galbraith says the stock marked on Wall Street was "leveraged"--people were borrowing money to buy stocks, and if the stocks went down they faced debts they couldn't pay. Second, banks were often lending depositors' money for this, so faced big losses if the loans went sour. Banks were also allowed to use depositors' money to invest in stocks themselves. Third, there was so much money sloshing around in the United Sates because the United States was a major creditor and was insisting on repayment of all the loans it made to others in World War I. (There is some statistical evidence that the Depression started in the United States and spread from there.) This made excessive borrowing cheap and easy. Fourth, there were companies (the forerunners of mutual funds) which issued their own stock and whose sole purpose was to invest in other companies. So, A invests part of its money in B, who invests part of its money in C, etc. This drove the stock market higher, and created artificial gains because all of the "mutual funds" went up as stocks did--as the stock market as a whole went up, C went up, so B went up more because C was worth more, and A went up more because B was worth more. Once things started going south, the whole house of cards collapsed. But the real problem were the loans. If you paid $10 for a stock with your own money, and it fell to $1, you lost your own money. If you had borrowed $9 of the $10 to by the stock, and you had to sell the stock for a $1 to pay off your loan, you still owed $8 and didn't have any money. You went broke and jumped out of a window. If you were a bank, people worried you were in trouble and wanted to pull out their savings and stuff it in a mattress. They queued up with a lot of other people to do that. You had to pay out so much that you didn't have the cash, and the bank failed. If the bank had loans to foreigners, they were "called in". Foreigners, including foreign banks and governments, maybe couldn't pay, and when they tried they too lost their money. The whole thing escalated. In such an environment, NOBODY wanted to buy anything, NOBODY wanted to loan anybody anything (to build a factory, say), and incomes at enterprises went down. So, they had to cut payroll, and the workers suddenly couldn't buy anything either. So, sales went down more, and more companies cut back. People needed money, so they dumped goods on the market at fire-sale prices and prices collapsed. That meant incomes and sales went down more. There was going to be a bottom--people had to eat--but it was a long way down as the cards fell on the table.this is this situation when in germany banks something with money ? and come to usa banks too and kittys jump from buildings ? me heard in discovery or me wlong?
The whole thing was due to excessive debt that could only be repaid if the economy kept growing. This was the basic problem in 2007, too--too many people owed money they figured they could repay by taking out new loans in a growing economy. They lost the bet. In 2007, governments basically made emergency loans (bailouts) by printing money. With a gold standard in 1929, that was not possible, since anyone who could traded cash for gold to stuff in a mattress and gold reserves fell. Most countries had to go off the gold standard, at least for a while until people started to trust paper money again.
That's what I think happened, anyway. It always takes a long time after a shock of this magnitude for companies and investors and ordinary citizens to start spending again. Everybody crawls in a hole with their money in the bottom and tries to preserve what they have.
FrankO
Executioner
And yesterday, I also overlooked the 90th anniversary of Black Thursday on Wall street (24th October 1929).
The crach of the stock market that triggered The Great Depression.
Which saw the rise of racism, nazism and other racist expansionist nationalist parties
Which slowly (over about 8 years) triggered the Second World War
Cue the Great Financial Crisis ... which is STILL with us.
We live in interesting times.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
I would disagree in part.
All of these were well established and rising before 1929 - Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy in 1922, the Pan-German nationalist and antisemitic German Workers' Party, was founded on 5 January 1919. Hitler renamed it the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1920 and became the führer, in 1921. From 1925 to 1933, though always a minority (few know that Hitler never won a majority in a free election) it was a powerful influence on German politics. It is true that the suffering coming in the 30's from the global depression helped him increase his base. Japan had a fascist, racist government from 1924 onward with no economic distress.
The GFC was great, but it is disingenuous to compare with the depression where the depth of human suffering, the widespread effects and the length of time before significant recovery was far greater in the 30's,