IJN Musashi discovered.

MadScientistMatt wrote: Yep. That book is a real testament to the courage of the American sailors. "We are going into a battle against overwhelming odds where survival cannot be expected. We will try to inflict as many casualties as we can." That line sums up their mentality very well.

Didn't Johnston's skipper announce when he took command that he intended to take it into harms way? I'd say he did just that in the most noble way imaginable.

In reply to Ian F:

Yea, Hitler was definitely not logical.

I believe you are right on the Johnston's skipper. Ernest E. Evans was the captain's name. He earned the Medal of Honor for his actions that day and had a ship named after him.

The Samuel B Roberts was also involved in that action, "The Battle off Samar" which was one of many actions that are known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Navy has seen fit to name two other ships after the little destroyer escort. It's also honored as the "Destroyer Escort that fought like a battleship. One crewman Paul H. Carr and the captain Robert W. Copeland later had ships named after them.

There is a book written by Capt. Copeland, "The Sprit of the Sammy B." that tells the history of the ship from launching to its sinking and the fight by it's crew to survive in the water for almost 3 days before being rescued!

Another blunder by the Japanese started with Sino-Russia war. I forget the Admiral's name, but he insisted on watching the Russian Navy get blown out of the water, so ordered the combat shutters on the bridge left open.

No captain wanted to be less brave than him, so very few (if any) of the Japanese ships after that ever closed their combat shutters, leaving their bridges wide open to any and all sorts of damage that could cripple it from the top down.

One of the blunders I remember, but I don't know where it was (somewhere in the Pacific). A bunch of battleships and such are maneuvering around in the dark trying to find and attack the enemy. One of the old school captains on one of the US battleships decided that if the best way to see the enemy was obviously to turn on the huge spotlights that the early battle ships had....

...that ship was obviously immediately the target of every Japanese ship in the area.

I am not entirely sure what the spotlights where supposed to be used for (maybe smaller ships, pt boats etc), but with the implementation of radar, they clearly were less useful.

Yeah, Hitler's decision to fight on two fronts was what ultimately did the Third Reich in. Germany just did not have the resources to truly hurl death blows in both directions. OTOH, the Allies did once we got into the war. Hitler obviously had not truly studied Napoleon's ill fated attack on Russia, if he had things would have gone differently, although still not enough to win decisively.

Yamamoto is known for his remark 'we have awakened a sleeping giant'. He understood quite well what Pearl Harbor would lead to; the political leadership of Japan did not. Had they stuck with taking over China (which would have been fairly simple) and the other Pacific Rim countries then if the attack had taken place, say, five years later it might have been a different story. As it was, at the end they were scraping the bottom of the barrel re: supplies. I remember reading about some US sailors who brought a Japanese sub back, it was running on soybean oil and due to the hurried fuel manufacturing process it hadn't been treated to cut down on algae etc growth. The book said not only did it continually clog engine parts but the whole inside of the sub had a rancid funk.

aircooled wrote: One of the blunders I remember, but I don't know where it was (somewhere in the Pacific). A bunch of battleships and such are maneuvering around in the dark trying to find and attack the enemy. One of the old school captains on one of the US battleships decided that if the best way to see the enemy was obviously to turn on the huge spotlights that the early battle ships had.... ...that ship was obviously immediately the target of every Japanese ship in the area. I am not entirely sure what the spotlights where supposed to be used for (maybe smaller ships, pt boats etc), but with the implementation of radar, they clearly were less useful.

In general, the Japanese Navy much better at night fighting than the US Navy was, especially early in the war. The IJN trained hard at it and got very good at it. The Battle of Savo Island is a pretty good example of how not to fight at night. We lost 4 heavy cruisers, two destroyers, and over 1,000 men. The Japanese lost fewer than 60 men and no ships.

Now, as for the lights: at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, our pilots took off for a late afternoon attack, and returned to their ships in darkness. Finding a blacked-out CV in the middle of the ocean is no easy thing now, let alone then, without high-tech navigation aids. Admiral Mitscher made one of the gutsiest calls of the war in turning on all his ships' lights to help his aviators get home. It made his carriers incredibly vulnerable to submarines, but it saved a lot of highly-trained men.

There were quite a few battles off of Guadalcanal. They didn't want to risk carriers so the destroyers and cruisers did most of the work keeping the Japanese resupply at bay. There's a reason the area around Savo island is called Iron Bottom Sound.

In reply to Appleseed:

Cruisers, destroyers and of course, the legendary "Cactus Air Force" The "Bantam War Book" by the same title was one of my favorites as a kid. Probably read it at least 3 or 4 times. It was truly amazing the damage those guys were able to do with planes that were already obsolete when they were fielded.

2 hour tour of the wreckage:

http://musashi.paulallen.com/