Year of the Carrier
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 14 – Guadalcanal, From the Start, A New and Different Context; CV Withdrawal (3/4)
Blown Slick Series #13 Part 14 (3/4) “It is true, Marines will take a pounding until their own air gets established (about ten days or so), but they can dig in, hole up, and wait. Extra losses are a localized operation. This is balanced against a potential National tragedy. Loss of our fleet or one or more of these carriers is a real, worldwide tragedy.” Colonel Melvin J. Maas, USMC TF-61 Staff TF-61 at Guadalcanal: three of the for carriers in the Pacific in August 1942 – Wasp, Saratoga, and Enterprise. In a series on carrier operations at the beginning of [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 13 – Guadalcanal, From the Start, A New and Different Context; Problems (2/4)
Blown Slick Series #13 Part 13 (2/4) 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. First Day’s Air Support -Problems Lieutenant Commander Wallace M. Beakley, Commander Wasp Air Group (CWAG), debrief of operations over Tulagi on the bridge wing of the USS Wasp (CV-7), [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 12 – Guadalcanal, From the Start, A New and Different Context; First Day Overview (1/4)
RS Note: With the close of Chapter 2 of the Testimony of Pilot series, this posts continues with the 1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier series picking up with the story of the initial attack on Guadalcanal 7-8 August, 1942. Given the long break here is the link to Part #9 the Guadalcanal Introduction: http://rememberedsky.com/?p=2201 Blown Slick Series #13 Part 12 (1/4) First Day’s Air Support – Overview An hour before dawn on 7 August, Dog Day, Fletcher’s three TF-61 carriers (with Noyes, CTG-61.1, in tactical command) closed Point Victor, thirty miles west of Guadalcanal. … TF-61 was ready to begin the first Allied [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; (Part 11+) – “Why Is China’s Navy Studying the Battle of Guadalcanal?”
Blown Slick Series #13 Part 11+ The National Interest magazine recently published Why Is China’s Navy Studying the Battle of Guadalcanal? by Lyle J. Goldstein a research professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the United States Naval War College in Newport, RI. The following provides key excerpts and points. The original article can be found here. China’s military has not had much combat experience in recent decades, and this is recognized among Chinese military leaders as a potentially serious problem. The reasons for this scarcity of battlefield know-how are obvious and might even be praise-worthy. It has been nearly [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 11 – Guadalcanal – Interlude
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 The original intent of the Year of the Carrier series was to post discussions on the anniversaries of the major events – Doolittle/Hornet raid [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 10 – Guadalcanal Campaign Major Events Overview
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 [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 9 – Guadalcanal
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 [...]
1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 8 – Midway Trilogy Epilogue
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.. Today, seventy six years after the battle, Midway still has its paradoxes and conundrums; […]
1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 7 – Midway Trilogy (3 of 3)
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 [...]
1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 6 – Midway Trilogy (2 of 3)
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 [...]
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Year of the Carrier
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 14 – Guadalcanal, From the Start, A New and Different Context; CV Withdrawal (3/4)
Blown Slick Series #13 Part 14 (3/4) “It is true, Marines will take a pounding until their own air gets established (about ten days or so), but they can dig in, hole up, and wait. Extra losses are a localized operation. This is balanced against a potential National tragedy. Loss of our fleet or one or more of these carriers is a real, worldwide tragedy.” Colonel Melvin J. Maas, USMC TF-61 Staff TF-61 at Guadalcanal: three of the for carriers in the Pacific in August 1942 – Wasp, Saratoga, and Enterprise. In a series on carrier operations at the beginning of [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 13 – Guadalcanal, From the Start, A New and Different Context; Problems (2/4)
Blown Slick Series #13 Part 13 (2/4) 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. First Day’s Air Support -Problems Lieutenant Commander Wallace M. Beakley, Commander Wasp Air Group (CWAG), debrief of operations over Tulagi on the bridge wing of the USS Wasp (CV-7), [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 12 – Guadalcanal, From the Start, A New and Different Context; First Day Overview (1/4)
RS Note: With the close of Chapter 2 of the Testimony of Pilot series, this posts continues with the 1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier series picking up with the story of the initial attack on Guadalcanal 7-8 August, 1942. Given the long break here is the link to Part #9 the Guadalcanal Introduction: http://rememberedsky.com/?p=2201 Blown Slick Series #13 Part 12 (1/4) First Day’s Air Support – Overview An hour before dawn on 7 August, Dog Day, Fletcher’s three TF-61 carriers (with Noyes, CTG-61.1, in tactical command) closed Point Victor, thirty miles west of Guadalcanal. … TF-61 was ready to begin the first Allied [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; (Part 11+) – “Why Is China’s Navy Studying the Battle of Guadalcanal?”
Blown Slick Series #13 Part 11+ The National Interest magazine recently published Why Is China’s Navy Studying the Battle of Guadalcanal? by Lyle J. Goldstein a research professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the United States Naval War College in Newport, RI. The following provides key excerpts and points. The original article can be found here. China’s military has not had much combat experience in recent decades, and this is recognized among Chinese military leaders as a potentially serious problem. The reasons for this scarcity of battlefield know-how are obvious and might even be praise-worthy. It has been nearly [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 11 – Guadalcanal – Interlude
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 The original intent of the Year of the Carrier series was to post discussions on the anniversaries of the major events – Doolittle/Hornet raid [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 10 – Guadalcanal Campaign Major Events Overview
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 [...]
1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 9 – Guadalcanal
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 [...]
1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 8 – Midway Trilogy Epilogue
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.. Today, seventy six years after the battle, Midway still has its paradoxes and conundrums; […]
1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 7 – Midway Trilogy (3 of 3)
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 [...]
1942 – The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 6 – Midway Trilogy (2 of 3)
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 [...]