And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Great picture of TBD Devastators. Long time ago, mostly forgotten, Into the void, flew these valiant knights of the air, with their obsolete wings of war, into the jaws of the aerial mixmaster of no return. Are these lessons learned or brushed aside by the hubris of peace dividends? As time and conflicts have proven, you go to battle with the tools at hand, with the skills practiced, no matter the odds.
The TBD's obsolescence, though real, was not the problem. After all, the TBF Avengers detached from Hornet's VT-8 squadron and based on Midway, along with the Army's B-26 Marauders also suffered comparable losses in their torpedo attacks as well (5 out of 6 aircraft from each group shot down, and the survivors so badly shot up they never flew again). The one commonality was the Mark XIII torpedoes they were equipped with, which forced them to reduce to an airspeed of about 100 knots to drop them, making them all equally vulnerable to Japanese AAA and fighter cover. Our early war torpedoes were a disgrace, and should have resulted in executions for treason for those involved...
American Democrats wanted to impeach Bush in 2003-2005 because the military was sent to war without adequate IED protective vehicles. They should have been reminded that FDR worked tirelessly to bring America into WW2 and when it finally happened, whole classes of weapons and systems in the American arsenal were either grossly obsolete, marginally obsolete, or simply did not work. America started the Pacific War and fought for more than a year with torpedoes that usually did not explode when they struck enemy warships. Dangerous submarine patrols were carried out and attacks made, but the enemy came away unhurt. Nobody suggested impeaching Roosevelt for any of this. The so called "Greatest Generation" should have been a little more cynical.
Prewar photo as aircraft upper wings wear yellow neutrality color. Blue tails identify the aircraft carrier they're assigned to, in this instance it's USS Enterprise. Fuselage band & cowl colors identify squadron elements, sections, leader, flight/section leader. And, if I'm not mistaken, the peak in the center is Diamond Head.
“ In 1979 the NSA released 2,413 JN-25 orders of the 26,581 intercepted by US between Sept 1 and Dec 4, 1941. The NSA says "We know now that they contained important details concerning the existence, organization, objective, and even the whereabouts of the Pearl Harbor Strike Force." (Parker p 21) Of the over thousand radio messages sent by Tokyo to the attack fleet, only 20 are in the National Archives. All messages to the attack fleet were sent several times, at least one message was sent every odd hour of the day and each had a special serial number. Starting in early November 1941 when the attack fleet assembled and started receiving radio messages, OP-20-G stayed open 24 hours a day and the "First Team" of codebreakers worked on JN-25. In November and early December 1941, OP-20-G spent 85 percent of its effort reading Japanese Navy traffic, 12 percent on Japanese diplomatic traffic and 3 percent on German naval codes. FDR was personally briefed twice a day on JN-25 traffic by his aide, Captain John Beardell, and demanded to see the original raw messages in English. The US Government refuses to identify or declassify any pre-Dec 7, 1941 decrypts of JN-25 on the basis of national security, a half-century after the war.
FDR's criminal mechanizations intended to get the US into the war are pretty obvious to anyone who reads the official history without the filtered lenses of American chauvinism. Lend Lease was an act of war as well as the open shooting war in the Atlantic going on for most of 1941. The Flying Tigers caper in China with American pilots flying ROC warplanes was another example. There was a plan to expand that effort with a 2nd American Volunteer Group to be equipped with bombers to strike Japan. Dec 7 put an end to that at the time, but the concept has really come of age in modern times. Nice find on the JN-25 coverup. It is still important to the establishment Left that their Icons such a FDR are not smeared with the facts. They get to invoke the WW2 crusade whenever it suits them, such as with the Ukraine project. You will notice the strong Putin=Hitler and Russia=Nazi Germany rhetoric used to justify the criminal intervention and secret participation in that war.
Great picture of TBD Devastators. Long time ago, mostly forgotten, Into the void, flew these valiant knights of the air, with their obsolete wings of war, into the jaws of the aerial mixmaster of no return. Are these lessons learned or brushed aside by the hubris of peace dividends?
ReplyDeleteAs time and conflicts have proven, you go to battle with the tools at hand, with the skills practiced, no matter the odds.
Brightly said and the answer about lessons is, no.
DeleteThe Devastors are wearing training squad livery iirc, and early in the conflict.
The TBD's obsolescence, though real, was not the problem. After all, the TBF Avengers detached from Hornet's VT-8 squadron and based on Midway, along with the Army's B-26 Marauders also suffered comparable losses in their torpedo attacks as well (5 out of 6 aircraft from each group shot down, and the survivors so badly shot up they never flew again). The one commonality was the Mark XIII torpedoes they were equipped with, which forced them to reduce to an airspeed of about 100 knots to drop them, making them all equally vulnerable to Japanese AAA and fighter cover. Our early war torpedoes were a disgrace, and should have resulted in executions for treason for those involved...
DeleteAmerican Democrats wanted to impeach Bush in 2003-2005 because the military was sent to war without adequate IED protective vehicles. They should have been reminded that FDR worked tirelessly to bring America into WW2 and when it finally happened, whole classes of weapons and systems in the American arsenal were either grossly obsolete, marginally obsolete, or simply did not work. America started the Pacific War and fought for more than a year with torpedoes that usually did not explode when they struck enemy warships. Dangerous submarine patrols were carried out and attacks made, but the enemy came away unhurt. Nobody suggested impeaching Roosevelt for any of this. The so called "Greatest Generation" should have been a little more cynical.
DeleteBack in those days impeachment was a big deal, now it's just another political tool.
DeletePrewar photo as aircraft upper wings wear yellow neutrality color. Blue tails identify the aircraft carrier they're assigned to, in this instance it's USS Enterprise. Fuselage band & cowl colors identify squadron elements, sections, leader, flight/section leader. And, if I'm not mistaken, the peak in the center is Diamond Head.
ReplyDeleteYep - that’s Diamond Head
ReplyDeleteTry to imagine the sights and sounds and smells of flying those open cockpit aircraft. These guys know what it means to be alive.......
ReplyDelete“ In 1979 the NSA released 2,413 JN-25 orders of the 26,581 intercepted by US between Sept 1 and Dec 4, 1941. The NSA says "We know now that they contained important details concerning the existence, organization, objective, and even the whereabouts of the Pearl Harbor Strike Force." (Parker p 21) Of the over thousand radio messages sent by Tokyo to the attack fleet, only 20 are in the National Archives. All messages to the attack fleet were sent several times, at least one message was sent every odd hour of the day and each had a special serial number. Starting in early November 1941 when the attack fleet assembled and started receiving radio messages, OP-20-G stayed open 24 hours a day and the "First Team" of codebreakers worked on JN-25. In November and early December 1941, OP-20-G spent 85 percent of its effort reading Japanese Navy traffic, 12 percent on Japanese diplomatic traffic and 3 percent on German naval codes. FDR was personally briefed twice a day on JN-25 traffic by his aide, Captain John Beardell, and demanded to see the original raw messages in English. The US Government refuses to identify or declassify any pre-Dec 7, 1941 decrypts of JN-25 on the basis of national security, a half-century after the war.
ReplyDeleteFDR's criminal mechanizations intended to get the US into the war are pretty obvious to anyone who reads the official history without the filtered lenses of American chauvinism. Lend Lease was an act of war as well as the open shooting war in the Atlantic going on for most of 1941. The Flying Tigers caper in China with American pilots flying ROC warplanes was another example. There was a plan to expand that effort with a 2nd American Volunteer Group to be equipped with bombers to strike Japan. Dec 7 put an end to that at the time, but the concept has really come of age in modern times. Nice find on the JN-25 coverup. It is still important to the establishment Left that their Icons such a FDR are not smeared with the facts. They get to invoke the WW2 crusade whenever it suits them, such as with the Ukraine project. You will notice the strong Putin=Hitler and Russia=Nazi Germany rhetoric used to justify the criminal intervention and secret participation in that war.
DeleteTitles would be nice, sir.
ReplyDelete