FIGHT FIGHT – Book Recommendation

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Ed

Highest recommendation for Kevin Miller’s (CAPT. USN, Ret) newest novel Fight Fight.
I was going to do a normal “book review”/recommendation but decided to just leverage my comments to Kevin along with  his response instead. fight fightI had done a recommendation on his first book Raven One in a somewhat normal/accepted manner, but this book has some deeper levels for me than just good naval aviation fiction so wanted to add some emphasis. Some bit ago the novel Ghost Fleet on a future war scenario was highly regarded.  The books are similar in some ways, but Kevin’s book strikes home (for me anyway) in a much more personal and directly  relatable way to the overall Blown Slick Future Airpower Analysis series and the sub-series on carrier battles in 1942 around the South and Southwestern Pacific island defense chain set up by the Japanese. Continue reading →

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Remembered Sky: A Naval Aviator Lies in State

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Ed

 You Only Live Twice

“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for 60 years, and especially my fellow Arizonians, thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I’ve tried to serve our country honorably…” John Sidney McCain III

Navy Wings

A Naval Aviator lies in state  today – since 1852 only 30 people have done so before him. Yet social media continues to extrapolate their dislike and even hatred backwards to his military career, no matter the truth of those times – found in ample sources. You “only live twice” from the James Bond movie seems an appropriate description and vehicle for discussion of the certain elements in the first life of John McCain and the truth out there for those are interested in truth vs. politics. What follows addresses three issues wrongly stated: Continue reading →

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1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 11 – Guadalcanal – Interlude

Posted on August 23, 2018 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 11

Between the lines

The haste in putting Operation Watchtower together would prove problematic on many levels not the least of which was that this tasking was completely new – none of the commanders knew how to put it all together, from logistics, to air support of ground forces with long term  land, sea, and air opposition, to night battles at sea.

Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, James D. Hornfischer

Composite

The original intent of the Year of the Carrier series was to post discussions on the anniversaries of the major events – Doolittle/Hornet raid and the four ’42 carrier battles. While Hornet’s raid, Coral Sea and Midway battles were time span and focus relatively straight forward, Guadalcanal covers six months with a lot more areas and types of conflict. As such, several aspects of air operations need to be put forward throughout the remainder of the series with some addressed prior to discussion of the third major carrier battle – Battle of the Eastern Solomons . Therefore that will cause a delay in the 24-25 August anniversary post  .

Here are the anticipated areas of discussion: Continue reading →

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1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 10 – Guadalcanal Campaign Major Events Overview

Posted on August 16, 2018 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 10

Watchtower

Guadalcanal is no longer merely a name of an island in Japanese military history. It is the name of the graveyard of the Japanese army.

—Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi, IJA
Commander, 35th Infantry Brigade at Guadalcanal

As noted in Part #9, unlike Midway which was almost entirely a carrier vs. carrier battle, the fight to gain and hold Guadalcanal was a land, sea, land-based air, and sea-based air six month give and take. Each element was dependent on the other and the equality of the Japanese and American carrier airpower played a major part in neither side gaining

LandSeaAir

lasting superiority and drove how each side chose to attack and defend. It was one thing to defend Midway operating in open ocean; being closely tied to the geography of the island and surrounding waters to provide air support was a whole other thing. With intelligence far inferior to that during Midway, staying in one general area exposed the carriers to submarine, land and sea based attack. There was much to be learned – at the expense of all participants.

While the over arching  series is focused on airpower, the sub-series focuses on examining that first year of war in the Pacific and the emergence, growth, and operational use of the aircraft carrier. It seems worthwhile to the endeavor to  comprehend the total land-sea-air conflict environment of the Guadalcanal Campaign if one is to really appreciate the 1942 need for the capability of carrier airpower to be recognized and applied effectively. That particularly requires recognizing the limitations imposed by the threat environment, along with the emerging requirements to support expeditionary warfare (best example, close-air-support communications and coordination was non-existent and was not yet part of navy pilot training). Operational learning in this emerging warfare environment was also critical in regard to preparation for support of the planned operations of 1943-45 along the pathway to Japan itself. Indeed carrier aviation in 1945 would barely resemble that of ’42. Although somewhat lengthy, context and brief reference are necessary. Continued below are abbreviated summaries of the main battles of the Operation Watchtower campaign.

The Battles of Guadalcanal –

Continue reading →

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1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 9 – Guadalcanal

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 9

On Land, on Sea, in the Air – Introduction

9 February, 1943
Major General Alexander Patch, USA, Commander,  Guadalcanal to Vice Admiral William Halsey, Jr., USN, Commander, South Pacific Area,

TOTAL AND COMPLETE DEFEAT OF JAPANESE FORCES ON GUADALCANAL EFFECTED 1625 TODAY… AM HAPPY TO REPORT THIS KIND OF COMPLIANCE WITH YOUR ORDERS … ‘ TOKYO EXPRESS ’ NO LONGER HAS TERMINUS ON GUADALCANAL .

Under extreme secrecy, on the nights of 1, 4, and 7 February 1943, the Japanese had completely fooled the ground and sea commanders, pilots, ships and PT boats of the U.S. South Pacific Forces and evacuated the 10,652  remaining of 36,000 soldiers from Guadalcanal.  Operation KE was  indeed a Pacific  Dunkirk. The Guadalcanal Campaign was over.

Guadalcanal2

This series is about the introduction of the aircraft carrier into naval warfare in the four 1942  carrier vs. carrier battles.  Two of those battles – The Battle of the Eastern Solomons and The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands – were part of the Guadalcanal campaign. Tactically similar in many ways to the Coral Sea and Midway battles, the multi-faceted warfare context (land, sea, and both sea and land-based air) created a much different dynamic than the earlier battles. While this discussion of the Guadalcanal battles will not go into any great detail on the land and sea contests, the story of the carriers cannot be told without the broader context.

The battle for Guadalcanal had been a very close run thing. Continue reading →

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1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 8 – Midway Trilogy Epilogue

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 8

Decisive victory? Depends on how you look

… a fundamental transformation in naval power had just taken place. Carriers usurped the prime strategic role of battleships in that their principal opponents were their enemy counterparts, and they should only to be committed to battle in the proper circumstances .. 

Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway & Guadalcanal , Lundstrom, John B..

0. Carrier Warfare

Today, seventy six years after the battle, Midway still has its paradoxes and conundrums; Continue reading →

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1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 7 – Midway Trilogy (3 of 3)

Posted on June 17, 2018 by Ed

 Blown Slick Series #13 Part 7

 “what did Midway really mean?” 

 “An aircraft carrier is a noble thing. It lacks almost everything that seems to denote nobility, yet deep nobility is there. A carrier has no poise. It has   no  grace. It is top-heavy and lop-sided. It has the lines of a cow. It doesn’t cut through the water like a cruiser, knifing romantically along… It just plows… Yet a carrier is a ferocious thing, and out of its heritage of action has grown nobility. I believe that every Navy in the world has it as its No. 1 priority the destruction of enemy carriers. That’s a precarious honor, but it’s a proud one.” Ernie Pyle, 1945

Midway books2

On 13 June USS Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor. Thus began the celebration, but also, evaluation of the battle operations, the impact on both US and Japanese capabilities and next steps, and of most importance, the beginning of planning to leverage the victory. And so…

“what did Midway really mean?”  Continue reading →

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1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 6 – Midway Trilogy (2 of 3)

Posted on June 10, 2018 by Ed

 Blown Slick Series #13 Part 6

Into the Shredder

The Battle of Coral Sea had provided the first hints that the Japanese high-water mark had been reached, but it was the Battle of Midway that put up the sign for all to see. Midway also marked the gateway to the attritional war that would be fought in the Solomons, a campaign that would irreparably ruin the Japanese Navy by destroying its elite naval aviation cadres and wrecking its surface forces beyond redemption. Midway didn’t produce these consequences by itself, but it created the circumstances whereby the Japanese Navy would be fed into the shredder. *

midway-battle

The Japanese had the overall numbers, they had the experience, they had the initiative, and for all practical purposes they decimated three torpedo squadrons and annihilated the Army Air Corps, Marine, and Navy attackers  from the island. So why did they lose? Continue reading →

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1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 5 – Midway Trilogy (1 of 3)

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 5

 The Battle of Midway 

Paradox and Redemption:  4 to 7 June 1942     

Among the many gems is a reminder to all who study mankind’s self-inflicted cataclysm: “Yet the overwhelming reality during the war…is that nobody knew how it would go.” Winds of War/War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk

Before the battle was joined there was  no way the Japanese could have lost it…once it began, there was no way they could have won it. The Barrier and the Javelin, H.P. Willmott

Battle_of_Midway

The Battle of Midway occurred six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. Under overall command in the Pacific of Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admirals Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance – neither a naval aviator – defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo near Midway Atoll, in the second only battle of aircraft carriers vs. aircraft carriers. Inflicting the loss of all four IJN carriers, the U.S. victory is arguably the most well known, researched, scrutinized and written about  naval battle in history. Military historian John Keegan called it “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.”

Indeed, in the “common wisdom,” the battle has not only been considered the decisive battle of the Pacific war, it has evoked the words/terms miracle, incredible, tide-turning, and no right to win. As noted in 2005 in the much heralded book and basis for much of the re-thinking of the battle,   Shattered Sword,

the defining moment will always be the devastating and seemingly last-minute attack of American dive bombers against the Japanese carrier force at 1020 … hurling down from the heavens to drop their bombs on helpless Japanese  carriers, their decks packed with aircraft just moments away from taking off

Continue reading →

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Memorial Day 2018 – Remembering Smokey

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Ed

Smokey2Remembrance days can be illustrated by stories of war and sacrifice, of great and decisive battles, or of the bravery of whole units who “stood fast” in the face of a massive threat, or most certainly by the above and beyond courage of a single warrior who determined “this will not be allowed on my watch.”  Most often that act is not so much in context of winning a battle, but rather in giving up of life to save one’s comrades.  But memory of all can also be elicited by memory of one, one who chose to be there, to be with those, who like him most certainly loved country, but also resonated with those friends who liked being around others who understood the idea of service at its deepest level, and gave it willingly, joyfully – for love of country most certainly, but also for love of the game. Smokey Tolbert was one of those.  Smokey was my squadron-mate and my great friend. He died over North Vietnam the sixth of November 1972.

“For love of the game” might seem an odd or even inappropriate usage for a day we honor our fallen comrades in arms, but for any who have followed this website over the years, you know I do not take days like Memorial Day, Independence Day or Veterans Day lightly. Service under fire is always about love of those “in the foxhole with you.”  “Love of the game” here reflects those relationships and that service to fellow warriors. I hope you will agree that this denotes and reflects most highly on the very heart of the serviceman when called “under the fire.” Continue reading →

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