I supose my point is that neither side could claim to “own” the sea during the campaign, especially at night…it is true, however, that the Allies did own the air, and that during daylight any Japanese ship within 200 miles of henderson field was subject to air attack…By night, however, the Japanese doled out more punishment than they received…re-supply, or the lack of it, caused the Japanese to ulimately concede the Solomons…but that was a mute point, IMO…they got their @sses handed to them in every ground engagement…
That’s true, and largely because the Japanese had so little intelligence (throughout the whole war, for that matter!). They really had no idea of how many US troops were on Guadalcanal, and sacrificed themselves again and again in stupid ‘banzai’ charges against superior numbers of well dug-in US Marines and Infantry. This is not to say by any means that the US troops had an easy time of it, as the Japanese soldiers fought to the last man in most engagements, and of course the Japanese aerial bombing during the day, and naval bombardments most nights must have been absolute Hell! I think in many ways, the US Navy (and the Army and Marines too) got their true ‘baptism by fire’ at Guadalcanal, learned HOW to fight the Japanese and win, and mostly because the Japanese could not seem to recognise, or get organized enough to really concentrate their forces at the ‘point of decision’ that was the battle for Guadalcanal… If ever Yamamoto wanted to fight ‘the decisive battle,’ Guadalcanal was the place to do it!
Truk. The USN and USMC air crews kicked some royal butt. The Japs had become too trusting of their “superiority” and didn’t expect we’d hitting them like we did. Truk Atoll was, I think, the equivalent to Pearl Harbor.
Not a flame or anything, but I really do wish you’d have included the Army Aircorps as well as the other Allied airforces that contributed so heavilly to the final outcome of the events in the Pacific Theater of Operations.
gary
Truk seems to me to be mostly a case of sitting ducks being sunk by airplanes, and not really much of ‘naval engagement.’ You could say pretty much the same thing about Rabaul, Wake, and a number of other actions by the flyboys of both sides. Valuable as these actions were (and make no mistake, they were vital to the defeat of the Japanese), I just don’t see them as naval engagements, per se…
Ditto, what I was looking for was ship vs ship surface engagements with very little or no air support directly involved in the action…
Sydney vs Kormoran. Evidently at point blank range, both sunk. That ‘hard fought and vicious’ enough for you?
Good one…wan’t that between an Australian Cruiser and a German Raider…I think they just recently located the wreck of the “Sydney” and were able to finally determine what really happened…
yes that is hms sydney of the modified leander class light cruiser.
A great example of AAF achievment against the IJN would be the Battle of the Bismark Sea. 5th Air Force and the RAAF nearly annihilated a large Japanese convoy of reinforcements headed out of Rabaul. Skip bombing was introduced with devastating effect along with B-25 strafing gunships. All the transports and most of the escorting destroyers were sunk.
sharpest engagement is a little bit vague tbh. if you mean brutal you could argue the hood vs bismark and the resulting hunt for bismark was borderline tragic. hood exploded killing all but 3 of her crew! over 1400 men gone and when bismark sunk we only rescued 100 or so of her 2200 crew so between the 2 ships around 3500 men were lost which is horrific when you think about ith even spetember 11 wasnt that high
Great nomination…I always cringe when I think of guys going into the cold waters of the North Sea in WW2…at least in warmer waters, men knew if the were sunk they had a fighting chance to survive long enough to be picked up…in most of the Atlantic and North Sea, they knew if they lost their ship they would die of exposure in minutes…
There is another point of difference between the risks of naval forces over land forces. One hit to a ship could possibly result in the loss of the entire crew of thousands of men all at once, where it is extremely unlikely that that type of situation could happen to an army unit. Nuclear weapons aside (which in either case would probably have the same catastrophic results), on a ship, you are literally “all in the same boat”, in the field, you’ve got your own hole to hide in.
Yup, but of course, these days naval battles are pretty much things of the past… Hasn’t been one since WW2, though there was a bit of a dustup at the Falklands. Doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future, but my guess is such time as it does occur, it will be on such an alien basis it will be almost unrecognizable from what has occured in the past (except for the swimming sailors part!). Back in the day when I was deciding which branch of the service to join, my first inclination was towards the Navy, but then I started thinking about all that time at sea, while an Army base was usually near things like booze and women, and of course, if there was going to be another war, it would be WW3, and it wouldn’t matter where you were, or what branch, as everyone would be looking at Armageddon (civilians too). So in the end, I tossed a coin, and the Army won (of course, Armageddon never came, but three other wars in jungles, deserts, and the Balkans instead! Go figger!).
I think the main reason that loss of life is so great in naval warfare is that the troops are so concentrated, and weaponry is usually bigger in one form or another. Then even if 90% of the crew gets off safely; then they have to deal with the elements (cold water, sharks, etc.). I sorta looked at it this way when I was kinda young; “how long can you swim boy?” That plus I always knew they wasn’t ever gonna be foolish enough to let me drive the thing!
Back to loss of life a second. There is weaponry that can cause a catastropic loss of life without ever going to a nuke. Most of it wasn’t there in WWII, but the ideas were there. A 2,000 lb. bomb in the right place is gonna dispatch a lot of people just like a 16" round from a battleship. But the guys in an infantry unit at least have the ability to spread out a little bit. I came within a hair’s breath of joining the Navy more than once, and the only reason I didn’t was because of the ocean itself. At the sametime I was offered a place in the Air National Guard, and the same basic thought came up again; “just how well can I fly?” Still I liked the idea of flying inside a plane at the time, but just not having to leave against my own will! Lastly; I think I’d have never fit into the Navy lifestyle. Even in a combat unit it was too much like stateside. I just can’t see me fitting into that regime, and know I’d have never made it in the regular Army as well. I too much of a missfit all the way around (that and nothing I hate todo worse than swinging a paint brush). But on the otherhand I think Navy life was a better lifestyle.
gary
The best lifestyle is with the Airforce by far. Hardly anyone in the Airforce actually flies around in a plane, and about 80% or more stay on the ground doing logistics, maintenance, intelligence, Radars, etc, etc, etc. You might also note that virtually every airbase is in a lovely location, like Hawaii, Florida, the UK, Guam, Samoa, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc, etc. Yes, they have a couple ‘hardship posts,’ buit they are nothing compared with the places the Army is stationed, not to mentione the constant field training (and by that I mean out in the middle of some horrible jungle, Death Valley, and any number of other charming places), exercises, etc. In comparison with the Navy, sure, a lot of people are likely to die if your ship sinks, but last time I checked, the Navy hasn’t lost any ships lately (20 years? 30 years? More?), while the Army and Marines have been taking casualties in the thousands over the past seven years. It just biols down to one thing. If you are an infantryman in the Army, or the Marines, every single weapon system on the battlefield can kill you! If you are on some big ship somewhere, it is going to take a lot of effort on the part of someone somewhere just to get at you, let alone hurt you! And of course, if you are like 80% of the people in the Airforce, you might never leave ‘home,’ and even if you are a flier, you fly your mission, and then go home. So what are you in danger of? A nuke maybe, but nothing less…
The old story goes like this… Congress gives the Army a big wedge of money to build a base somewhere. The first thing to go in will be training areas, firing ranges, motorpools, mess halls and barracks. When they run out of money, and then ask Congress for more to build things like a PX, a movie theater, commissary, family housing and the like, Congress will ask ‘Do you have training areas? Firing ranges? Motorpools? Barracks? Mess halls?’ If the answer to that is ‘Yes sir,’ then Congress won’t cough up any more dough because you have a functional Army base.
Now we look at the Airforce. Same scenario, Congress gives them a bunch of money to build a base. The first thing to go in will be the golf course, then the ‘dining facilities,’ then the clubs (officers, NCO’s and enlisted), an ‘all-ranks disco,’ theater, then landscaping, a shopping mall, ‘dormitories,’ and family housing. At this point, the Airforce runs out of money and goes back to Congress for more… ‘Do you have hangars and an airstrip?’ No? Then you are not functional as an airbase, so here, have a bunch more money!!’
Yes, the Air Force certaily has far differant mentality when it comes to the welfare of its’ people. I have heard from airmen I ran into over the years that they recieve “hardship” pay when having to stay in Army billeting as opposed to Air Force ones. And while the Air Force ahs their people who also do the sneaky pete/snake eater routine, most of them do not. They do not need the spartan conditions because their likelyhood of encountering such is slim.
All that aside, casualty rates in all our combats since Vietnam and before have been on the decline. In all services. While US forces have taken occasional “bloody noses” in combat since then, they are proportionally far lighter than in past combats. Even when modern Navy ships have been hit such as USS Stark or USS Cole, the casualty count has been smaller than when comparable WWII era ships took hits from similar sized weapons. I would venture that this is due to the greater automation and smaller crews of modern vessels.
Does the possibility for great loss of life still exist? Of course. Against a determined, competent foe, who has effective weapons, it is still posbile to cause those casualties. We are just quite lucky that it has not happened in awhile. Our country became used to “bloodless” (at least for our side) quick easy victories.
after my first flight in the back of a C130, I knew I had been given the correct direction by the man upstairs. What with all that moaning and creaking and just plain loud scraping noises going on I knew that I’d either gotten in the back of somekind of a haunted airplane or I’d best be praying that it lands in one piece (we all here now know the C130 is one of the very best airplanes to ever grace this planet, but the noise just scared me to death.
But alas it only gets better from there. My second flight was to a place called Phu Bai, and once again in the back end of one of those haunted boxes. We landed in one piece and the new local reception committee came out to greet us in a duce and a half. Well evidently these guys on the plane must have made them mad while I was back there just praying that it didn’t fall apart before it landed. Cause they came out shooting a fifty at us. Holes creating windows everywhere, and I can’t find the head to puke in. (I didn’t know I was riding in a bullet magnet!) We get outta there and go back home with plenty of ventalation inside. I told “top” that “I ain’t ever gonna ride in a plane again ever!!!” He thought it was funny.
My third ride was much better. This time I got to ride in an antique DC-3 that was very quiet and smooth (was not haunted). Besides me and the crew, there were two or three pigs, a cow, and a bunch of chickens in there to mask any odors caused by fumes from the engines.
after those first three flights I knew upfront that I didn’t belong inside or around anything that wasn’t glued to the ground. And while on the subject let me also tell you that those whirley birds were not anybetter, but at least the had a better window seat (on the floor of course to get you closer to the ground).
gary
They oughta give the Army guys hardship pay just for having to share the same fine accommodations with the Chair Force… LOL!