Books in Progress

I finished “The Fleet at Flood Tide.” The dropping of the bombs contains no new info that I can think of. But there are plenty of interesting factoids about the overall war at the end and in the beginning of the occupation.

Although it took two atomic bombs to flip the switch, it was extraordinary that once the switch was flipped it was amazing for the Japanese to go from suicidal maniacs to calm and compliant servants. It seems obvious that a whole lot of people were looking for an excuse to get out of the death-cult of Japanese militarism that, as they author noted, was allowed by the emperor to become associated with they mysticism of their religion.



We often talk of a “tipping point” in regards to the Left and what it will take to wake people up to the danger. There is some equivalent to an atomic bomb to do this. I’m just not sure what it is.

The book speaks for itself and is better read in full. But virtue-signaling by Johnny-come-latelies (or assholes such as McNamara) are their own kind of monster when they say that bomb wasn’t necessary.

No, it wasn’t. But the author makes the fair point that the blockade-with-bombing that many preferred (Nimitz as well to some extent) would have caused millions of Japanese to die from bombs, starvation, and disease.

When occupation began, many of the American officials were stunned that Japanese manufacturing methods were so primitive. They were also sobered by the fact that the Japanese Army had millions in the home islands and maybe a million or more at its disposals in China and elsewhere. And they had upwards of 10,000 planes, 5000 ready to be used as kamikazes, especially for the Allied landing craft.

Any conventional invasion of Japan would have been costly. I’m not even sure their high casualties estimates weren’t a little conservative.

Another interesting factoid was that they held Spruance back from the surrender ceremonies on the Missouri just in case the Japs had some kind of trap going. Nimitz, Halsey, MacArthur and more were in attendance. If Spruance had been there, they could have wiped out the brain trust. This certainly shows the importance of Spruance who was rewarded when Nimitz named him as his replacement when Nimitz moved up. The book is generally a hagiography of Spruance….probably well deserved.

Here’s an interesting section talking about a type of bomb I don’t ever remember hearing about:



One thing I don’t understand is if they had this “continuous blanket operations,” and their fighters were so effective during the “Turkey Shoot,” how did the kamikazes ever get through in the numbers they did? Or, considering that 3800 kamikazes died, and 47 ships were sunk (and others seriously damaged), maybe those were good defensive numbers. From this page:



It took a while, but eventually all of the Japanese naval vessels were dismantled for scrap. The Nagato, however, was saved for a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll. It probably looked something like this:



She did not go down easily.



I wonder what the “underwater blast” was.

I checked wikipedia on the disposal of the Nevada.  It was the intended target of the first bomb at Bikini, which nevertheless exploded a mile away.  It was also used in the second bomb test.  After this, it was heavily damaged and radioactive.  A few months later, it was used for target practice by Iowa and a couple of other ships (heavy cruisers, I think), and finally disposed of with an aerial torpedo.

I first read about the final travails of Nevada in an article by someone who seems to have shared your father's attitude toward the business -- using it at Bikini, then as target practice.  And none of that sank it -- they had to torpedo it to finish the old ship off.

Makes sense. In one case the book notes that a kamikaze snuck through a sky full of outward-bound American planes.

Most of the scientists as Los Alamos went all namby-pamby. To his credit, Paul Tibbets never did. When he visited Los Alamos, he sort of went in undercover. He changed his regular Air Force uniform to some kind of “special engineers” uniform so as not to upset the delicate sensitivities of the scientists who preferred to think they that were just building some kind of excavation device, broadly speaking. That is, they didn’t want any reminder that they were building something that might actually be used.

It’s clear from this book, unlike any other that I’ve read, that the bomb was not only justified but was the only thing that could have defeated Japan. It’s interesting that had the invasion gone ahead, it would have likely been severely mauled by the typhoon that just happened to hit on the planned dates.

If they hadn’t already invented to the bomb they would have had to do so in order to conquer Japan. And “conquer” is a different word than “occupy.” They had occupied Guam and yet there were Japs who held out until 1972. A conventional invasion of Japan would have likely been an exact repeat (with some awful surprises) of what they faced on Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. There is no reason to believe otherwise.

Plus, it is hinted in this book that the Japanese would have made an all-out suicidal effort to destroy the beachhead. From a military point of view, that would have been a good move for them. And I think it might have worked. Throw in the typhoon, and the Allies might well have gone back to a long-term blockade. It wasn't just a military defeat that was needed. It was an ideological defeat. The bomb did that like nothing else could. It moved the mind of the emperor.

In the old mint at Carson City NV they have the silver service from the ship it is most impressive and made from all Nevada silver. I like to think that my dad is still standing post guarding this silver service
Perhaps if Nevada had been a coastal state the ship could have been made a monument. 

Timothy, that’s sounds like a pretty fair summation of the failures of Pearl Harbor. Had the US Navy been in the trade of smart-looking uniforms and shiny rows of ships to impress some set of roving judges, it was all first-rate.

But it’s shocking to think of how sloppy it all was when their business is defense. And if you can’t even defend your own ships to start with, that is a massive failure. I think the Navy was full of too many career men like Admiral Broderick of “In Harms Way.” I know they did a house-cleaning afterwards. But I don’t think it was possible to purge everyone responsible or there would have been few officers left.

You get a hint from the book I read of how the rivalry between the various branches (Navy and Army, in this case) could be destructive. And the book makes plain that this was particularly a problem between the Japanese Navy and Army.

However, aside from that incident with a Smith on Saipan, the book said the cooperation between the Navy and Army on most of the island invasions was outstanding.

One thing that occurs to me about the attack on Pearl Harbor is, perhaps aside from the special torpedoes, I’m not overwhelmed by the supposed skill of the Japanese. They had one thing to do: maintain radio silence. And they did that. But they botched the diplomatic end of it which added to the backlash they would receive.

In the end, they damaged only 16 of the 100 ships at Pearl Harbor, the worst damage going to the battleships which were even by then somewhat obsolete. Carriers and planes were the new power of the navies and Japan did not touch our carriers at Pearl Harbor (because they were not there, of course…another intelligence failure).

Of the battleships hit badly, the USS Nevada was eventually able to return to service. The USS California was also able to return to service after repairs. In May 1942, the West Virginia was resuscitated. The Cassin and Downes were stripped and ships were built around the salvaged material and given the wrecked ships’ names and hull numbers.

The minelayer, Oglala, was sunk and resurrected in 1942 and continue service until 1965.

Perhaps the worst of the Jap oversights was not hitting our huge oil reserve tanks.

The Japs certainly built many fine ships and planes such as the Zero. But in at least three major navel battles, they found a way to snatch defeat from what could have been victory.

That’s probably not a fair analysis because all militaries should be compared to their rivals. And there was no rival in the Pacific to the Japanese navy at the time. But their actions caused the build-up of a gigantic Navy that consumed them completely. But even then, it didn’t seem like they used well what they had. When they did mass for battle, they would either chicken out or be so indecisive as to be inept.

The American Navy, despite it’s faults, showed far more ingenuity and adaptability. Even production capacity doesn’t tell the whole story, per se, because had our government had the resources available to Japan at the time, I think they could have easily built a Navy twice as powerful as the Japs had. It would appear that Japanese methods of manufacturing were vastly inferior to the mass production knowledge of the United States. Yes, raw materials count for something but that is only part of the story. The raw materials of knowledge, innovation, and adaptability, the United States had in spades.

What could the Japanese do? They could stage large suicide attacks. The Japanese navy and army, in many ways, had advanced weaponry being used by primitives.