The statement above by Mitscher is the ultimate arrogant, dishonest, lying aircraft carrier bullshit.

Professor Roger Thompson in his revealing book, Lessons not Learned notes what our former enemy thinks about this aircraft carrier crap:

"If there was any doubt about Soviet intentions...one had only to read the speeches of the Soviet naval commander, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, who had boasted that the United States had made a strategic miscalculation in relying on large and increasingly vulnerable aircraft carriers to project power in the world. The U.S. strategy would fail in wartime, Gorshkov alleged, because 'the combat potential...of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers is inferior to the strike potentials of submarine and air forces"

--Patrick Tyler

The FACTS are that during the Second World War, United States Submarines operating in the Pacific sank 50% of the Japanese ships:

201 x Japanese warships totaling 540,192 tons

1 x battleship

4 x large carriers

4 x small carriers

3 x heavy cruisers

8 x light cruisers

43 x destroyers

23 x submarines.

Of even greater importance to the war's outcome, the submarines sent to the bottom

1,113 x merchant ships

...of more than 500 tons each, for a total tonnage of 4,779,902, only a million tons less than the entire prewar Japanese merchant fleet.

American Submarines sank 55% percent of all Japanese ships lost in the war, more than the U.S. surface navy, its carrier planes, and the Army Air Corps---combined.

The JANNAC study reports:

Total Japanese ships sunk (and tonnage) 2,728 (9,736,068)

sunk by submarines 1,314 (5,320,094)

sunk by surface craft 123 (321,166)

sunk by direct and indirect air attack 1,232 (3,816,653)

sunk by combined air-sea/other attack 46 (249,727)

sunk by mines laid by ships or subs 7 (22,353)

sunk by shore batteries 2 (2,770)

sunk by unknown causes 4 (3,305)

What is not so readily apparent, but which can be extracted from the data in the JANAC study, is the following: By JANAC's figures, while submarines were responsible for sinking 48% (1,314) of the total ships lost by Japan, aircraft were responsible for sinking by direct attack or with mines 45% (1,232). Further, in concert with other attackers, they sank an additional 2% (46 ships). Therefore, air power forces, directly, indirectly, or partnered with other attackers, was responsible for sinking 47% of Japan's maritime losses, a tonnage value of 4,066,380 tons.

JANAC indicates that of the 1,232 ships (3,816,653 tons) sunk by air attack:

--259 (21%) (587,302 tons) were sunk by aerial mines;

--973 (79%) (3,229,351 tons) were sunk by direct USAAF, USN, or USMC attack;

Of this total:

--688 (56%) (1,592,482 tons) were sunk by land-based aviation forces in direct attack or by air-dropped mines.

--520 (42%) (2,101,477 tons) were sunk by carrier-based aircraft.

Therefore of the other roughly 50% of ships sunk by aircraft, 25% of them were sunk by the U.S. Army Air Force, leaving only 25% due to USN carrier planes. Mitscher is a liar. And what that means is that for the cost of 102 x aircraft carriers they sank only 1/4 of the Japanese ships; this result was ONLY POSSIBLE BY HAVING LOTS OF SMALL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ALL OVER THE PLACE SO THEIR SHORT-RANGE PLANES COULD FIND AND REACH SHIP TARGETS. Long-range USAAC/AAF planes at far less costs achieved the same results from land bases as their "aircraft carriers". The most efficient and effective ship killer were our small long-range submarines that could remain on patrol for weeks on end to find and kill with Line-Of-Sight HE torpedo attacks surface ships which are in their own medium, the sea. For the modern USN to foist this large aircraft carrier lie began by Mitscher is a dangerous mis-direction of our nation's funds. Big aircraft carriers = Big budgets and the smaller, complimenting systems get squeezed out in a Navy and marines run by greed and ego. Form is killing FUNCTION. If we are to effectively use the CONCEPT of a ship carrying short-ranged airplanes, WE NEED LOTS OF SHIPS CARRYING AIRPLANES not just a dozen large carriers, however ego and budget gratifying.

The American fleet submarine may be TRUTHFULLY called the most successful naval weapon of World War II. However, aircraft carriers got all the publicity by the USN propaganda machine since there's far more money and prestige from Congress and plain fun sailing the seas and coming in to exotic ports from large aircraft carriers as a chest-beating "Samarai" than slinking around like a "Ninja" in a covert submarine. Who gets more chicks, muscular Tom Cruise (Top Gun) or dumpy Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October)? What's a bigger ego biscuit, commanding 5, 000 men on a carrier playing "Captain Kirk" or being "Sean Connery" commanding 300 men arm pit-to-arm pit in a submarine? Regardless of form being worshipped over function, it was the submarine fleet that destroyed most of the Japanese merchant cargo ship fleet, isolating the home islands, crippling Japanese industry, and preventing resupply and reinforcement of Japanese island garrisons so our ground forces could evict them with air/land/sea maneuver.

From America's entry into World War II after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, until the Japanese surrender was signed on 2 September 1945, American submarines were responsible for sinking more than half (55%) of all Japanese ships. This, despite the fact that the submarine forces comprised less than 2% of the Navy, and spent the first 18 months of the war battling the cheap-skate Navy bureaucracy over defective torpedoes while Japanese Long Lance torpedoes out-ranged ours by a factor of 3 and packed a HE warhead wallop that when it struck, killed our pre-Washington Treaty weight limit ships.

Therefore, what Mitscher said is not only a monstrous and grotesque self-serving lie for the large aircraft carrier "mafia" its a slap-in-the-face against all those thousands of men who died doing vital tasks unrelated to large carriers that actually won us our victory. It displays the large aircraft carrier hubris of the Navy that exists to the present day and threatens us with a naval disaster that could topple us as a nation from being a super power to a has-been. As you will see, this large aircraft carrier "assassination" could come at the hands of a SUB-NATIONAL "terrist" group not just a rival nation-state navy. If the U.S. Navy and dumb marines keep focusing on GWOT land attack badly done and continue to live in a la-la land of denial that their sea-based platforms are at alarming and fatal risks, a strategic defeat at sea will be inevitable; if we want to emulate the Persian fleet at Salamis we are right on track.

The Myth of Midway Being the Turning Point of WW2 and the Large aircraft Carrier Ego Trip

The U.S. Navy mythology goes that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and sank all our capital battleships, leaving us with just large aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, PT boats, blimps and seaplanes ie; Just about everything there is in a fleet---except battleships with heavy armor and big guns to sink the enemy's battleships and everything lesser. Half a year later, we then met the Japanese fleet at Midway with our fleet still (-) battleships, and our aircraft carriers sank them in a 4-2 exchange ratio. Then from then on it was "all downhill for the Japanese who no longer had the edge in aircraft carriers and couldn't replace them and the needed pilots yadda yadda yadda fucking lying yadda."

Its my recent revelation that this is all a lie.

Its the Germans, Stupid. Who says World War 2 even ended? Germany had the atomic bomb and we over-ran it in the nick-of-time

Here is the shocking, frightening truth about why we fiddled around in the Pacific.

JAPAN WAS NOT MUCH OF A THREAT.

The MORTAL threat to America IS (notice we did not say "was") GERMANY and fascism. Japan was baited to attack at Pearl Harbor so FDR could get Americans who DID NOT WANT TO FIGHT GERMANY would indeed fight our real mortal foe.

The shocking truth is that Germany DID create and use atomic bombs and WE OVER-RAN THEM WITH GROUND MANEUVER NOT ONE SECOND TOO SOON. Not one second. The margin between them nuking New York city with long-range bombers was only a matter of DAYS. When Germany set off its first nuke in a test the German officers against Hitler set off a bomb trying to kill him in desperation, which slowed him down. We are talking critical days here. General Eisenhower said 6 months. 6 months of delay reaching Berlin and we'd all be speaking German now.

German JU-390 long-range 6-engined heavy bomber and a blast map of New York showing the expected devastation

We also forever change our opinion on strategic bombing in WW2 over Germany. The strategic bombing wasn't about making the German people give up to win the war for the glory of air power egotists IT WAS ABOUT STALLING AND INTERFERING WITH THE GERMAN "WONDER" WEAPONS PROGRAMS when EVERY SECOND COUNTED. The final solution is GROUND MANEUVER that destroys the labs and kills or captures the scientists making these weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Its all covered in Joseph Farrell's important book, "Reich of the Black Sun" below:

So basically the "Midway Myth" large aircraft carrier worship is grotesque. The Pacific theater was a side show. When you study the actual weapons the Germans had and nearly had you, will realize FDR's "Germany First" strategic policy was not just justified IT WAS NOT EVEN ENOUGH. Japan was not the only people who have been nuked, and not just in WW2. U.S. Naval Aviation News of July 1950 even admits that if the German U-boats had snorkels sooner, we probably couldn't have projected a land army onto France to march on Berlin from the west to end the war. In fact, we got a lucky break in that the German U-Boats were NOT much advanced over WW1 types when WW2 began, making it possible for them to be detected and defeated since they needed to surface to recharge their batteries and were actually slow in the water as the BBC documentary below reveals:

Type XXI XXI U-boats, also known as "Elektroboote", were the first submarines designed to operate entirely submerged, rather than as surface ships that could submerge as a temporary means to escape detection or launch an attack.

Type XXI submarine diagram

The Type XXIs had much better facilities than previous classes, with a freezer for foodstuffs and minor conveniences for the 57-man crew such as a shower and wash basin. It was much quieter, and enjoyed a hydraulic torpedo reload system that allowed all of its six torpedo tubes, which were in the bow, to be reloaded faster than a Type VIIC could reload a single tube. The Type XXI could fire 18 torpedoes in under 20 minutes. The total warload was 23 torpedoes, or 17 torpedoes and 12 sea mines. Greatly increased battery capacity, roughly three times that of a Type VIIC, gave these boats enormous underwater range. They could travel submerged at about five knots (9 km/h) for two or three days before recharging the batteries, which took less than five hours on the radar-invisible snorkel.

Because of its streamlined hull design, the Type XXI could travel faster underwater than on the surface, albeit only for a limited amount of time. This, combined with longer dive times at reduced speeds, made them much harder to chase and destroy by ASW surface ships. It also gave the boat a 'sprint ability' when positioning the boat for a line-of-sight torpedo attack. Older boats had to surface in order to sprint into position. This often gave the boat away, especially after aircraft became available for convoy escort.

Between 1943 and 1945, 118 boats of this type were built by Blohm & Voss of Hamburg, AG Weser of Bremen, and F. Schichau of Danzig. The boats were built faster than earlier types as the hull was constructed from 8 pre-prepared sections which were assembled after being transported from the various factories they were made in. However, Allied mythology says only one, U-2511, had begun a combat patrol by the end of World War II. This was in part a result of the lengthened training process, as the crews had to be trained to operate the new, sophisticated technology. Most boats were scrapped or scuttled after the war, but eight were taken by the Allies for evaluation and trials. The United States received U-2513 and U-3008, which were commissioned into the United States Navy. U-3017 was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS-N41, and U-2518 became French submarine Roland Morillot. U-3515, U-2529, U-3035, and U-3041 were commissioned into the Soviet Navy as B-27, B-28, B-29, and B-30 respectively. Those boats influenced new Soviet submarine classes known by the NATO reporting names Zulu and Whiskey, although the Whiskey class was smaller and less sophisticated.

A ninth XXI also saw service after the war: U-2540, which had been scuttled at the end of the war, was raised in 1957 to become the research vessel Wilhelm Bauer of the Bundesmarine. It is the only XXI remaining.

Specifications

Displacement: 1621 tons/1819 tons, 2100 tons fully loaded
Length: 76.7 meters overall, pressure hull 60.5 meters
Beam: 5.3 meters pressure hull, 8 meters overall
Draft: 6.3 meters
Height: 11.3 meters
Propulsion: 4000 hp (3 MW) surfaced = 15.6 knots (29 km/h), 4400 hp (3.3 MW)
submerged = 17.2 knots (32 km/h)
Range: 25,000 kilometers (15,500 miles) at 10 knots (19 km/h) surfaced, 550 km (340 miles) at 5 knots (9 km/h) submerged
Crew: 57

List of Type XXI Submarines

Romeo class submarine: The Soviet Project 633 submarine class derives from the Type XXI boats.

See also Groundbreaking submarines

Drebbel's submarine (1620)
David Bushnell's Turtle (1775)
Plongeur (1863)
Ictineu II (1864)
USS Holland (1897)
Type XXI Elektroboote (1943)
USS Albacore (1953)
USS Nautilus (SSN-571) (1954)
Zulu-class SSB (1955)
USS Narwhal (1967)
Alfa-class SSN (1977)
German Type 212 AIP powered submarine (1998)

As the estimated 250, 000 Germans fled the Allied/Soviet ground maneuver forces closing in, a fleet of Type XXI Air Independant Propulsion (AIP) capable submarines broke out through the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap and annihilated even the U-Boat defeating naval ASW convoy trying to block them. Only 1 man survived this battle, an ASW destroyer Captain and he said he never wanted to ever have to face such deadly submarines ever again. Essentially in WW2 we were using and fighting against SUBMERSIBLE TORPEDO BOATS with limited ability and speed to fight underwater and not actual submarines like we have today. The only reason why we were able to win against the German U-Boats in the Atlantic was because they had to surface or use a snorkel to get air to run diesel engines to recharge their batteries and attain 20 mph speeds. When they did this we could spot them from the air using seaplanes and other ASW aircraft from shore and small escort aircraft carriers. We have never fought an entire war against AIP nuclear or exotic D-E and other drive submarines who can stay submerged and are as fast if not faster than surface ships. It will be a blood bath just like the Type XXI U-Boat break-out battle.

After the 1946-7 Operation HIGH JUMP expedition by Admiral Byrd was fended off by the "4th Reich" Nazis, something drastic had to be done. We went nuclear. In 1958 we, the Russians and British nuked Nazi Germans in their secret bases in Antarctica. Thus,

WORLD WAR 2 NEVER REALLY ENDED.

Notice the allied navies took capture German type XXI U-boats and renamed them as their own but didn't advertise this fact that they needed ideas from the former or actual enemies. Furthermore, the facts will also show the "turning point" in WW2 in the marginally important Pacific War was actually Pearl Harbor when America got off her ass and starting attacking the Japanese with her air-dependant submarines. The next "turning point" was when we and the Australians stopped the Japanese land conquest in NEW GUINEA with land-based ground troops and aircraft. The "Midway Myth" is a pile of lying self-serving Navy aircraft carrier and marine egomaniac bullshit. Don't buy into it.

First, if we were so "desperate" for aircraft carriers and battleships after Pearl Harbor, why did we send the aircraft carrier USS Wasp and battleship Washington with 2 cruisers and 8 destroyers to the Atlantic? If we were so hurting for aircraft carriers, why was the USS Ranger that already was in action in the Atlantic not sent back to the Pacific?

The Ranger was busy launching U.S. ARMY P-38s, P-40s and P-47s off her decks. Oh, we forgot! Army planes can't operate from NAVY carriers only "superior" Navy pilots can do that, you know the ones that take-off and barrel-roll their planes into the ground to "show the Army how its done".

From U.S. Naval Aviation News 1 October 1946

Maybe the REAL REASON why the Ranger was retired was so its HISTORY of operating Army planes in combat could be covered up in the post-war era where such facts would be inconvenient to USN/Mc budget and ego? U.S. Naval Aviation News December 1, 1946 reports on the retirement of the Ranger:

www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1946/1dec46.pdf

www.ww2pacific.com/42march.html

Mar 26, 1942[<-----notice the date]

Washington (BB-56), Wasp (CV-7), Wichita (CA-45), Tuscaloosa (CA-37), and 8 DD, sail from Portland, Maine to reinforce the British Home Fleet.

A-HEM.

We were NOT "hard up" for aircraft carriers or battleships, EVER in WW2. We built 124 escort carriers for crying out loud. The Navy egomaniacs were "hard up" for RESPECT from the Japanese after we let them ambush us at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese disrespected us so bad after Pearl, their combined fleet SAILED TO THE INDIAN OCEAN to attack the British fleet at Ceylon they were so bored and having nothing to do. We stopped the Japanese ON LAND almost immediately in New Guinea long before there was any "Midway Miracle" in the middle of 1942. And General MacArthur's forces stopped the Japanese WITHOUT ANY AIRCRAFT CARRIERS. U.S. Army troops were on the OFFENSIVE in New Guinea long before the second lie of Guadalcanal being our first offensive action was conjured up.

The best way to expose this Midway large aircraft carrier myth is to lay out events had Midway not occurred and the Japanese kept their 4 large aircraft carriers.

ALL an aircraft carrier is good for, is to launch/recover airplanes.

These airplanes can shoot down other airplanes (AAW).

These airplanes can sink other ships if they can get through these ship's own airplanes and air defenses (AsuW).

These airplanes can bombard land targets but not better than battleships, cruisers and destroyer guns can to sweep off enemies near the shore for ground troops to maneuver, this mission is land attack (LA).

These airplanes can spoil the attacks of submarines and keep them away from the main body of your surface warships and supply ships (ASW) necessary to keep your ground troops functioning.

In summary WW2 aircraft carriers could do the following missions IF they have the aircraft to do them;

AAW = Anti-Air Warfare

AsuW = Anti-Submarine Warfare

LA = Land Attack

ASW = Anti-Submarine Warfare

Former DoD Director of Air Warfare Chuck Myers writes:

"I'd like to try to clarify the primary value of aircraft carriers (long forgotten by my deep-strike oriented Navy/MC and USAF):

(1) establish air superiority (killing enemy pilots in the air) over areas where we are trying to transition from sea-to-land and/or where we have troops in contact with the enemy ground forces

(2) under the cover of our fighters, perform MAS for our grunts. That's primarily it."

So basically, aircraft carriers are TEMPORARY, TRANSITIONAL platforms for temporary AAW and limited LA missions. Their vulnerability does not make them ideal for sinking other enemy fleets...yet that's what the USN was pre-occupied with during WW2 and is now in love with deep-strike strategic bombing (LA). In WW2 we had over 70 small carriers to do ASW and other missions over the VERY LARGE SEAS OF PLANET EARTH, now we have ZERO while still living on THE SAME PLANET EARTH.

Therefore, the actual minimal strategic threat from Japan in 1941 was not from her fleet but from her land troop conquests extending out to cover half the Pacific Ocean meant to gain natural resources to FINISH HER LAND CONQUEST OF CHINA..

From, there more powerful land-based airplanes could be deployed from runways or seaplanes from lagoons to deny commerce from the U.S. to those parts of the world. The Japanese land conquests were primarily done using seaplanes from seaplane tenders, they did not need aircraft carriers to project land power ashore. They had battleships, cruisers and destroyers to bombard beaches just like we had after we repaired our battleships at Pearl Harbor and put them back into service. FYI we had 25 total battleships in WW2, only 2 were lost during the entire war---2....that's 1 and 2. So much for the Peal Harbor wiping-out-our-battleships myth. We gobbled up the Japanese held islands using Army General MacArthur's brilliant bypassing tactics which the arrogant and stubborn Japanese accepted and played right into our hands. We seized the islands we required to interdict Japanese cargo ships by Army ground troop invasions backed by battleship and cruiser fire spport and 5th Air Force aircraft close air support. We were also skilled at rapid land runway construction via matting and pierced steel planking to get superior performing P-38 Lightnings and F-6 Hellcats and F-4U Corsairs on the scene to sweep the skies of the flight performance deficient Japanese planes. Once the Japanese supply lines were interdicted, they should have left their untenable bypassed islands but didn't because of vanity and pride--which we obliged. We let the Japanese stay on the bypassed islands to bleed them as they struggled just to stay alive fighting the battle against the earth (TBATE). As they struggled to just stay fed, we ambushed their cargo ships and planes we knew they needed, running up huge kill score statistics for our mass-produced war machines to have ample targets. The concept of REFUSING BATTLE is just as foreign to today's egotistical U.S. military as it was to the Samarai-mentality Japanese and our own marines of WW2. Not content to bypass, the Navy/Mc constantly gave the Japanese samarai fleshy bodies to kill in needless frontal assaults along a meandering strategic direction taking the long way to the Japanese home islands.

Strategic Mis-Directed Madness: Why Didn't We Attack the Japanese Home Islands DIRECT from Alaska?

As I was watching the history channel's 3D documentary on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor they said something about Midway islands "not being that far from Japan" etc.

It lead me to the ultimate question:

WHY DID THE U.S. NAVY AND MARINES DINK AROUND TAKING ISLANDS THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY FROM JAPAN IN A BLOODBATH OF SELF-VALIDATION (re: Clint Eastwood's latest USMC marine worship flick) WHEN THE JAPANESE HOME ISLANDS FROM ALASKA ARE NOT EVEN THAT FAR AWAY?

Invade Japan From the North using our island "Land Bridge" and Land-Based Aircraft and Troops

TIME magazine asked this very question at the time in 1942!

www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,885895,00.html

What Then?

The U.S. this week faces its bitterest defeat since 1814: the loss of all the southwest Pacific except Australia. And Australia is in peril. If Java falls, if the United Nations lose their last bases within striking distance of the Japanese, what kind of war can the U.S. then wage in the Pacific?

Hit & Run. The Navy and its air service can harass Japanese shipping and outposts by surface, submarine and aircraft-carrier raids, constantly striking and then retiring to the main U.S. base in Pearl Harbor. Such raids cannot win the war. They cannot even protect U.S. shipping routes to the Allied forces in Australia and the Middle East, or supply lines to Russia, India and China.

Attack from the North. Tonguing out from Alaska, 1,150 miles into the north Pacific toward Tokyo, lie the U.S. Aleutian Islands (see map, p. 17). The outermost U.S. base, Dutch Harbor, is 2,550 miles from Tokyo-well beyond effective bomber range. But the Aleutians stretch halfway to Japan's little-known naval base at Paramoshiri in the Kuriles, which means that they could be either targets for Japanese attack or U.S. steppingstones toward Japan. Heavily armed, carefully balanced striking forces might take off from Alaska and the Aleutians, perhaps get the use of Russia's naval base at Petropavlovsk, fight for footholds in the Kuriles, then strike directly at Japan itself. A more immediate possibility for attack in the north is bombing from Vladivostok, only 580 air miles from Tokyo. For that offensive the U.S. must have: 1) Russia's consent; 2) more bombers than have yet been delivered to any front.

Attack from the Center. Given the means and the offensive will, the U.S. can do more than raid from Pearl Harbor. Assault forces of carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and transports with supporting troops can strike to recapture Wake,* then Guam, eventually establish a forward base in Japan's Marianas. Similar forces could fight step by step through Japan's Marshall and Caroline Islands, finishing what the Navy spectacularly began in February with hit-&-run raids.

With this spearpoint in the Marianas and Guam, U.S. forces would still be 1,350 miles from Tokyo, but they would again be in position to threaten Japan's vital supply routes. And the Navy would be in a better position to aim striking forces at Japan. But for all-out attack via the Aleutians and the Marianas, the U.S. must amass more carriers, more shipping, more aircraft. Then it must fight for the bases. All this means that full-scale attacks from the north and center are possibilities for the future. How far in the future depends mainly on how fast the U.S. musters its offensive will and spirit, gets additional aircraft carriers into service, and reconstructs its naval thinking around the assault airplane.

Attack from the South. If Java falls, Australia will thus remain an all-essential base for present operations in the far Pacific. Desolate, vulnerable northern Australia would be hard to defend against determined Japanese attack. But Australia's Prime Minister John Curtin was speaking for as well as to the U.S. last week when he said that southern Australia must be held. There the U.S. can amass land and air forces; there it can base the naval forces necessary for an attempt to recapture the Indies and drive on toward Malaya and Japan from the south.

* Last week Tokyo reported an attack on Wake by a typical task force: two cruisers, an aircraft carrier, six destroyers. The Japanese said they suffered minor damage, minor casualties. Said the Navy Department in Washington: "No information."

www.hlswilliwaw.com/aleutians/Attu/html/battle_for_the_aleutians_format.htm

First thing, it would mean we would have to approach Japan from the Aleution islands in Alaska and take a Kuril island to act as our land-based aircraft "carriers": and start B-17 and B-24 bombing of the Japanese home islands immediately. Might be bad for Boeing B-29 long-range bomber business but that's too damn bad. The FACTS are the can-do WW2 generation DID take the Aleution islands without whatever whining crap anyone says today. They DID build runways. They DID launch bombing raids when the weather cleared.

www.hlswilliwaw.com/aleutians/Attu/ppt/The%20Battle%20of%20the%20Aleutians_3.ppt

AND.......

They were raiding the Japs on the island Paramushiru north of the Kurile islands as the presentation from at the time in 1943 shows above.

So the FACTS are we could have placed our emphasis on taking a Kurile island or two and started B-24ing or B-17ing or B-29ing (got to keep Boeing employed) in 1943 or early 1944 without the USMC blood bath in the central pacific.

SIDEBAR: the Russians took the Kuril Islands in 1945 and still hold them today

Despite not being "experienced in amphibious warfare" as the marine racketeers always boast to justify their ego club, the Russians in 49 ships land a division and take the Kuril islands in 1945. So there is no excuse why the "amphibious warfare experienced" Americans couldn't have done the same much earlier.

From Thompson's book on page 80:

"In actuality, the Red Army was responsible for neutralizing approximately 32 percent of Japan's Army, but this fact seldom appears in the typical American discourse on the war. As Admiral Gorshkov suggested, 'victory over Japan demanded a sustained struggle with the enlistment of large land forces, which the allies did not have...that is why the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan was so necessary for the allies, without it, it was not possible to break the determination of the Japanese militarists to continue the war...it is known that in fulfilling their obligations, allies the Soviet army and navy with a powerful blow smashed the Kwangtung army and the Japanese support points on Sahkhalin and the Kurile islands, after which Japan was forced to surrender unconditionally'"

Lessons for Naval Maneuver Air pport (MAS)?

Maritime Patrol planes need to be ARMED to sink whatever it is they find on the spot since with changing weather you may not be able to direct other planes to attack what you find. A burning ship is a great sea marker to find in either case.

Now let's talk about "supply lines". OK?

The continental U.S. is LAND CONNECTED TO ALASKA.

Why didn't we take Kiska/Attu THEN TAKE ONE OF THE KURIL ISLANDS and then have a solid logistics supply line from CONUS to Alaska to Kurile Base (s) air covered by land-based fighters as our "England" and we could have commenced B-17/B-24 strategic firebombing strikes on the wood/paper home dwelling Japanese civilians in 1942-3? Our subs/bombers could have immediately mined ALL the Japanese ports/harbors and helped starve out all the Jap infantry over-extended out there opposing MacArthur. The USAF report towards the end of this web page reveals that air mining of ports and sea lanes is the most effective way to sink cargo ships. We could have been in a position to invade Japan just like we were in Europe against Germany---in 1944. Or just continued to blockade them until the A-Bombs arrived...

Oh the Japanese aircraft carriers! Or our aircraft carriers?

F%^&K AIRCRAFT CARRIERS.

We don't need them to do LAND CONQUEST of Japan--or any place else.

Let the Japanese aircraft carriers come and attack our land-based fighters who have the edge in flight performance and see who is easier to "sink", a few thousand tons of steel held up in the water by Archimedes' trick or A LAND MASS OF PLANET EARTH you can burrow into if you have to?

Land-based "aircraft carrier" beats sea-based aircraft carrier head-on in a duel when the aim is a nation-state's land mass. Once General Kinney's skip-bombing and massed heavy machine gun strafing anti-shipping techniques were put in use by ALL of U.S. land based air forces, the Japanese fleet would be "dead meat" as long-range P-38 fighters provided air cover overhead. If the vaunted U.S. Navy's large aircraft carriers wanted to contribute they could go off into the middle of the sea somewhere and do their feel-good fleet duels and/or they could help protect our supply lines from air and submarine attack with over a 100 supply ship small escort carriers.

What we are saying is this, THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC DID NOT NEED TO BE A "NAVAL WAR" AT ALL! A land-based approach from Alaska direct into the Japanese home islands would have worked far better than the blood bath we had in the central Pacific by the stupid/egotistical Navy/marines.

Its also our conjecture that the REASON why Nimitz & marines emulated MacArthur was because THEY WANTED TO SHOWBOAT. They wanted to showcase their large "fast" aircraft carriers and their marines as rivals to the Army needlessly. They DID NOT WANT what made the most sense, which would have been a land encirclement of Japan from Alaska using land-based aircraft and submarines which would have given their carriers and marines less to do. They didn't want to play "second fiddle". The excuse for the central pacific blood bath to get "bases for B-29s" is a bunch of horseshit when the fact that we could have bombed Japan from the CONUS-Alaska-Kuril land axis of advance. THOUSANDS of men died needlessly for navy/Mc ego. Because we had unemployed marines we sent them in frontally to take air bases thousands of miles away that we did not need.

We built the Ledo road to connect China. We built the ALCAN highway to connect CONUS to Alaska.

We could lay thousands of miles of roads and railroads a lot faster than 4 years of pointless island hopping and ship construction to send thousands of our men to their deaths.

AND IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THIS TRUTH...

YOU SHIP SAFELY ALONG OUR COASTLINE ALL THE WAY TO ALASKA TO THE KURILS UNDER LAND-BASED FIGHTER COVER.

Ever hear of the inter-costal canal that runs all along our eastern coast?

Its the same effect, running ships hugging our coastline versa sending them out unprotected into the blue ocean.

So what was the establishment's excuse to not use the Alaska-to-Japan axis of land advance and prolong the war for greater profits?

The Weather. Classic Battle against the Earth, its too-hard-for-us-to-do-this crap. Compare the preceding can-do account from 1943 to the post-1945 excuse-mongering account:

www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/aleut/aleut.htm pg2-3

"Protruding in a long, sweeping curve for more than a thousand miles westward from the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula, the Aleutians provided a natural avenue of approach between the two countries. Forbidding weather and desolate terrain, however, made this approach militarily undesirable. While spared the arctic climate of the Alaskan mainland to the north, the Aleutians are constantly swept by cold winds and often engulfed in dense fog. The weather becomes progressively worse in the western part of the chain, but all the islands are marked by craggy mountains and scant vegetation. Despite such inhospitable conditions, neither the United States nor Japan could afford to assume that the other would reject the Aleutians as an impractical invasion route."

Is the terrain made of granite? No. Then we can build runways to fly planes. Is the weather being bad a bad thing? No. It means the enemy can't attack us from the air at those times, either.

We are talking about land to land power projection for the most part to Attu/Kiska. Which by the way, WAS ACCOMPLISHED.

We build up in winter via land transport and short sea and air hops. Which by the way, WAS ACCOMPLISHED.

The big sea leap to take one of the Kurile islands creates the B-17/B-24/B-29 base far more effective than Iwo Jima. Certainly within ranges for P-38 and P-51 fighter escorts. Look on a map or a globe. The weather there isn't a show-stopper. So why was it not done?

No, we think the Navy/Mc "mafia" put the kobosh on the Northern advance lest they get no glory. The Navy/Mc wanted to be lazy in the sun and have it easier to fly their planes from their aircraft carriers but instead made it vastly more difficult costing thousands of ground troop lives needlessly. Kiska to the Kurils (we can promise to give them back to Uncle Joe or he can stop receiving war supplies from us to fight Germany) and we now have the Japs coming to us, as we cut their "jugular vein" to their over-extended island conquests by blockading them in their home islands with sea mines and a land-based "aircraft carrier" right there at their door step.

The best way to play out this scenario would be a war game, but we all know the truth is this was the best way and it wasn't done because of Navy/Mc ego.

So then, what was the purpose of Japanese large aircraft carriers if they were not needed for land power projection (LA)?

To sink our large aircraft carriers! AAW & ASuW. If it sounds like circular reasoning, it is. Notice the mission set being ignored on top of the obvious LA: ASW. When the Japanes AAW & AsuW focused aircraft carriers struck at Pearl Harbor, they found no American carriers and only succeeded at sinking two of our elderly gun battleships and pissing off the American people so much that we entered the war with a vengeance against them and Germany. The Japanese Admiral Yamato had walked right into President Franklin D. Roosevelt's geostrategic trap, and then it began to close on him. If you want to talk about turning points, Pearl Harbor was a strategic blunder that cost both Japan and Germany the war because it caused the entire industrial and creative might of the United States of America to join the war against them when both Britain and Russia were on the ropes. Since we are talking operational art and tactics to improve force structure design, let's move on to Midway where the American triumphalist likes to think we got "revenge" for Pearl Harbor to restore his weak ego.

So let's say Midway in mid-1942 didn't happen. Yamamoto stopped being reckless and obsessed with defeating our fleet with his fleet. If he was smart, he'd have avoided confronting "the sleeping giant" Americans and used his Dutch East Indies seized-oil to continue to gobble up mainland China to get some land for the 200 millions Japs crammed on the home islands. Seize a chunk of defendable territory on the Chinese mainland, colonize it and call it a day. Don't over-extend yourself taking islands easily surrounded and logistically cut off and starved to death. The Japanese didn't need to go east at all in the Pacific, and leads one to wonder if Yamamoto (who had attended school in the U.S.) to ruin the militant fascists in his country attacked America too early to as soon as possible get us to stop them with their delusions of world conquest. Its our firm belief that as long as Japan didn't attack America or England directly they could have kept on doing their Chinese genocide and land grab indefinitely. We didn't declare war on them in 1937 to stop them when they first invaded China.

Its right after Pearl Harbor. Like the fantastic portrayal by Jon Voight of FDR in the otherwise awful Ben Affleck movie "Pearl Harbor", we must strike back at the Japanese immediately. We put Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's U.S. Army Air Corps 16 x B-25 long-range bombers on the USS Hornet and strike directly at the Japanese mainland with our own surprise carrier attack, bursting the Japanese ego balloon. Rather than be smart and continue to do this from Alaska, instead we now want to kick the Japanese off these small land masses called islands that don't belong to them with our own ground maneuver troops thousands of miles away to the south.

We want to start in New Guinea and Guadalcanal.

We sail towards them with our fleet sans battleships...and we have our aircraft carrier planes clash with their carrier planes first at 200 miles away from each other long before we get into any Jap battleship's gun range. Call it the "Battle of the Coral Sea" if you like, but essentially, over the next months we would have had the same Midway aircraft carrier dueling but spread out over several small battles and our 4 large carriers, the Enterprise, Saratoga, Lexington, Yorktown would split sinking evenly with the Japs or not. With our interception/deciphering of the Japanese codes, its probable that we'd still sink 4 out of their 6 large carriers and their 3 small carriers. Even if we had lost all 4 of our large carriers, we could have brought the Wasp and the Ranger back from the Atlantic for sure, or we could have just gotten off our asses and started building large aircraft carriers faster and small ones from merchant ships. But guess who was already thinking ahead on this BEFORE Pearl Harbor in 1940?

www.history.navy.mil/download/car-9.pdf

Earlier, on October 21, 1940, CNO had received a memorandum from the President's Naval Aide advising him that President Roosevelt proposed the Navy acquire a merchant ship and convert it to an aircraft carrier, accommodating 8 to 12 helicopters (not yet operated by the Navy) or airplanes capable of landing or taking off in a small space. The purpose of this type carrier was to "provide quick conversions for carrying small planes which could hover ahead of convoys, detect submarines and drop smoke bombs to indicate their locations to an attacking surface escort craft."

What a brilliant tactical understanding by a civilian leader who thought ahead! Notice he had to ORDER the Navy to do this common sense measure to win.

What if we had had NO AIRCRAFT CARRIERS?

However, let's say we did not have a brilliant President with a capable builder like Henry Kaiser who would build 50, that's 5-0 escort carriers by 1944! Let's say not only Midway didn't happen but a worse-case scenario where every large U.S. aircraft carrier we had were sunk at Pearl Harbor or in later on small battles, leaving us at the "mercy" of the Japanese with all 6 of their large aircraft carriers, their 3 small carriers and all of their seaplane tenders. Let's face this aircraft carrier bullshit head on...and not applied directly to the forehead.

Not having large aircraft carriers would light a fire under our aircraft industry to create a seaplane fighter that could have operated from battleships, cruisers, destroyers and supply ships long before the Curtis SC-1 SeaHawks arrived in 1944. So while we were hurrying to conjure up some seaplane fighters and some aircraft carriers would our land offensives have had to wait? Would we be out of business having to wait for some carriers to materialize?

We say not.

EVEN IF WE STILL WANTED TO ATTACK JAPAN THE LONG ILLOGICAL WAY FROM THE CENTRAL PACIFIC. The U.S. Navy's vaunted large aircraft carriers didn't do a damn thing for our Soldiers on New Guinea (SWPA--General MacArthur had no carriers yet he did better than Navy/marines who did) or our marines on Guadalcanal. Once they were dropped off, they were on their own. Again, aircraft carriers are not need for land attack and strategic maneuver.

www.ww2pacific.com/gc1days.html

The three U.S. [aircraft] carriers [Enterprise, Hornet, Yorktown] withdrew before dawn Sunday as they were no longer needed for close air support of the successful landing unaware that the cruiser screen had been attacked and destroyed. The transports followed that afternoon.

The Navy needed BATTLESHIPS to stop the IJN battleships from shelling Henderson field at will, but had none. Cruisers and PT boats firing defective torpedoes, and F-4F Wildcat fighters irritated the "Tokyo Express" enough to make them go away.

In fact, we were already mass-producing FDR's escort carriers and they were leading the defeat of the U-Boats and our first landings against the Germans at North Africa. Note how many carriers were in the Pacific at the time of our "great victory" at Midway. The no-carriers hypothesis was not that much different from what really did happen!

www.history.navy.mil/download/car-9.pdf

Commented CinCLant: "The CVE's proved to be a valuable addition to the Fleet. They can handle a potent air group and, while their speed is insufficient, they can operate under most weather conditions and are very useful ships." Their missions in the invasion of North Africa completed, Sangamon, Chenango, and Suwanee were dispatched to the Pacific. By the end of 1942, U.S. carrier strength in the Pacific had been reduced to the Enterprise and the Saratoga.

The first major carrier-supported amphibious landing in the Pacific was the capture of the Gilberts and Marshalls [in 1943]. Eight escort carriers participated...

So with 2 or 0 carriers would we or did we pack up our bags and flee back to Australia or Hawaii?

No.

Neither ground maneuvers nor naval actions stopped just because we were down to 2 large carriers. Nor would they had we had ZERO CARRIERS. Nor should they. Land power projection is not dependant upon aircraft carriers even if it comes itself in surface ships.

How could this be so?

Why didn't those mean 2 remaining Japanese large carriers and 3 small ones sail on down to New Guinea or Guadalcanal and snuff out the Americans there if the aircraft carrier is such the doomsday weapon?

This happened; The Battle of the East Solomon Sea.

www.ww2pacific.com/eastsol.html

The Wasp came back from the Atlantic to help the Enterprise and Saratoga, the battleship North Carolina and a flotilla of cruisers. Our pilots in F-4F Wildcats with armor and self-sealing fuel tanks flamed 70 of the Japanese aircraft that didn't. We sank one of their light carriers so the Japs retreated not dropping off 1, 500 ground troops to expel us from Guadalcanal.

No, wait we said worse case. What could all 6 of the Jap large carriers and 3 smaller ones have done to stop our ground troops that had already landed? Deliver an additional 1, 500 troops that would have banzai charged themselves into our machine gun fire and died or starved to death?

Who would stop them? (Who DID stop them?)

The obvious answer is our battleships, cruisers, destroyers, PT boats, PBY Catalina patrol planes, Army Air Corps bombers and

our submarines would. They would be heading to us, into our land-based aircraft umbrella, our primitive "surveillance-strike-system". It would be the ill-advised land attack on Midway island except without American carriers and against Guadalcanal.

Again, we remind the reader that during the Second World War, United States Submarines operating in the Pacific sank:

201 x Japanese warships totaling 540,192 tons

1 x battleship
4 x large carriers
4 x small carriers
3 x heavy cruisers
8 x light cruisers
43 x destroyers
23 x submarines.

Of even greater importance to the war's outcome, the submarines sent to the bottom

1,113 x merchant ships

...of more than 500 tons each, for a total tonnage of 4,779,902, only a million tons less than the entire prewar Japanese merchant fleet.

Submarines sank 55% percent of all Japanese ships lost in the war, more than the U.S. surface navy, its carrier planes, and the Army Air Corps combined. 3,505 men and 52 submarines were lost, a lot due to defective torpedoes supplied by the cheap USN bureaucracy.

So no, 7 Japanese aircraft carriers are not enough to control 50 enemy submarines in the Pacific much less the entire world (remember this number). If your aircraft carriers do not have fixed-wing ASW planes/capabilities to stop submarines---like the fatal flaw of the Japanese carriers---then they cannot control the sea. If you don't stop submarines you cannot control the sea. A near dozen aircraft carriers might be able to do AAW if their planes/pilots are better than their foes, they might be able to do AsuW if their planes can get through enemy planes with AAW and air defense AAA, but this does nothing to stop submarines from sinking the supply ships your troops need to survive and SINKING YOU. Moreover, even if you had 100 aircraft carriers dropping bombs on dug-in ground troops doing LA, it isn't going to do much of anything on a planet earth that easily absorbs HE effects. We had 102 aircraft carriers in WW2 and we air-bombarded Japanese-held islands for days on end with battleships, cruisers and destroyers adding their gunfire in and this didn't even dent the burrowed defenders; marines came ashore and were mowed down in the thousands. Without an enemy fleet to sink and no ASW capabilities, aircraft carriers have nothing to do but act as supply ships themselves and hope to not get themselves sunk...which is what the Enterprise and Saratoga did post-Midway for our troops on Guadalcanal, ferry planes to be used on land.

The turning point of the war in the Pacific Ocean was WHEN WE SENT OUT OUR SUBMARINES TO ISOLATE AND STARVE OUT THE JAPANESE holding islands they couldn't keep. The turning point of the war in the Atlantic was when our ASW forces began to dominate the German U-Boats to such a degree that our supply convoys COULD GET THROUGH TO FEED THE BRITISH. From England, we invaded Europe and did "regime change" on Germany to end the war there. Now back to the Pacific.

So what would decide the issue on land there?

The Jap troops needed supplies, we needed supplies. Both came by supply ship convoys or by aircraft hopping a distance at a time. We had the huge "land aircraft carrier" of Australia.

The difference again was submarines.

Ours stopped Japan's supply ships starving their bypassed island garrisons, theirs ignored our supply ships sustaining our forces that leap-frogged into island land masses bypassing the enemy islands and interdicting them from resupply.

The U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor sent out its long-range Gato class submariners and even with defective torpedoes, they denied the Jap troops critical supplies which enabled us to evict them. Helping our subs find the Jap supply ships and fleet in general were thousands of PBY Catalina seaplanes (helped at sea by seaplane tenders), other patrol bombers and our battleship/cruiser seaplanes who could not only radio in where they were, they could attack ships/subs with bombs and depth charges, too. The Japanese never came up with a convoy escort system of ASW means to defeat our subs. Despite having the best seaplanes, the Japanese didn't figure out to supply them like the British Hurricats on British cargo ships to ward off our long-range maritime patrol planes and our subs. The Japs saw war as only a duel between uniformed military combatants, logistics was for "pussies", but a tiger (professional narcissistic warrior) without food will die just as surely as a sheep without food, and sheep (draftee Army/Mc) well-led and fed will slay the weakened tiger every time.

In contrast, our supply ships got through and would have got through even if the Japs had large aircraft carriers and we had none, because our undeterred submarines would have sank their carriers. As it was our subs sank over half their carriers, anyway. The weakness of the IJN was in their ASW capabilities. We were in WW2 dropping sonobuoys from patrol planes to listen for submarine sounds radioed back to the patrol plane to pattern and box in a contact for depth charging and destruction. We had airborne radar. All the Japanese planes had were the "Mark 1 eyeballs" of their crew to visually spot a sub on the surface or a periscope wake; ie; in other words look for their sub prey to make a mistake and give their position away. In fact, our subs sank more of their aircraft carriers than our aircraft dropping bombs and splashing in torpedoes did, a FACT the USN big aircraft carrier lie machine does not want you to know.

If we had got off our asses with seaplane fighters, our battleships, cruisers and destroyers could have held their own against the rapidly dwindling Japanese air strength. As we began to pour superior-performing land-based fighters into land masses taken by our Army/Mc with our superior industrial might, we'd pac-man gobble up the Japanese East Co-Prosperity Sphere a chunk at a time bypassing and starving them out. We created a supply line to Australia from the U.S. of "advanced naval bases" to refuel the fleet and strongpoint the islands with troops and aircraft to protect supply ships.

www.ww2pacific.com/raids.html

U.S. troops are rushed to establish garrisons on the islands that mark the path of convoys from the U.S. West Coast or from the Panama Canal. The first half of the trip is open water.

Convoys from Panama then pass the Marquesas, then in sequence;

Societies, where Bora Bora was to become a fueling station, Samoa, with U.S. and UK bases Fiji, New Caledonia in the Loyalty Islands Brisbane, Australia.

The route from the West Coast

first meets the Line Islands with Palmyra Atoll and Christmas Islands, Phoenix Islands with Canton Island then Samoa, Fijis, New Caledonia and Australia.

These future bases are: In the Line Islands, Palmyra and Christmas Island; Bora Bora in the Society Islands to become a refueling station outside of the projected war zone ; Canton in the Phoenix Islands; Pago Pago in American Samoa ; (there was already British base on Savaii, Western Samoa) ; Suva in the Fijis ; Noumea, New Caledonia to become a headquarters ; and, finally, Brisbane, Australia. Anzac patrols the Fiji to Brisbane portion. The 2nd marine brigade arrives in American Samoa 23 Jan 42 from San Diego, escorted by Yorktown and covered by Enterprise.

Another large convoy comes through the Panama Canal and is screened by Lexington task force on her way from Pearl to the South Pacific. This convoy provides garrison troops for:

Christmas Island, 5000 men about 5 Feb;

Canton, 5,000 men 7 Feb;

Noumea, 10,000 men 14 Feb.

A hydrographic survey of Bora Bora has its charts completed 12 Feb to receive 4,500 men to build a refueling station, escorted by two old cruisers from South American patrol, Concord (CL-10) and Trenton (CL-11).

If the Japs and their aircraft carriers came to attack, our land-based aircraft would have gleefully sunk them ala Cactus Air Force. If they tried to play land aircraft carrier like fortress Rabaul, MacArthur simply bypassed them and with our subs and now land-based low-level attack A-20, B-25 medium bomber aircraft bristling with .50 caliber heavy machine guns and bombs of General Kenney's 5th Air Force wrapped around them, no supplies from Japan got through.

SO THE STRATEGIC LEVERAGE HERE IS NOT THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER, ITS LAND.

CONTROLLING THE LAND IS THE KEY.

WAR IS ABOUT PEOPLE.

PEOPLE LIVE ON LAND---NOT ON THE SEA LIKE A KEVIN COSTNER WATERWORLD.

Not the sea.

Sorry Mahan.

TO CONTROL THE LAND YOU NEED TROOPS. TROOPS NEED MILITARY SUPPLIES (they don't grow on trees). TO GET SUPPLIES YOU NEED TO KEEP SUPPLY LINES OPEN IN THE AIR AND SEA.

SUBS STOP THE ENEMY'S SUPPLY SHIPS GETTING TO THEIR TROOPS TO FIGHT WITH.

SUBS STOP ENEMY SURFACE WARSHIPS FROM INTERDICTING OUR SUPPLY SHIPS.

US. AIRCRAFT CARRIERS STOP THE ENEMY'S SUBS FROM SINKING OUR SUPPLY SHIPS SO OUR GROUND TROOPS GET THE SUPPLIES THEY NEED.

SUBS GIVETH AND SUBS TAKETH AWAY.

To stay alive on land with war implements if you can't make them there (ideal) is by supply ships from land masses where such implements are made.

Since the way to control land surrounded by sea is to SINK SHIPS that might sink your supply ships and you do that with SUBMARINES and LONGER-RANGED AIRPLANES than you find on aircraft carriers, but if that's all you got, that's what you use but without the at-sea accidental losses. Not by dropping unguided bombs which miss, but by

TORPEDOES.

Essentially, very large linearly directed undersea high explosive "bullets" with enough blast to sink ships by exploding a huge hole below their water line so they sink. Subs are the best way to line up secretly to shoot and sink ships because they cannot be seen. Next best are airplanes dropping torpedoes because they are fast and then surface ships because in WW2 they were at least as fast as who they were trying to torpedo.

You may say, wait a minute! What about the Japanese submarines?

They were mis-directed to attack our warships and ignored our supply ships who were guarded by our cargo ship small aircraft carriers. From 1943 on we mass produced so many cargo ship small aircraft carriers in WW2 we had enough to escort both our supply ships and our cruisers/destroyers...the Japanese submarines who tried to ambush these forces were vanquished just like the German U-Boats were vanquished by ASW convoys with cargo ship aircraft carriers.

SO THE REAL LESSON OF NAVAL COMBAT IS NOT THE SUPERIORITY OF THE LARGE AIRCRAFT CARRIER TO DUEL OTHER ENEMY LARGE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS (AKA THE MIDWAY MYTH) TO HAVE NAVIES EXIST TO FIGHT EACH OTHER...ITS THAT NAVIES EXIST TO SUPPORT LAND CAMPAIGNS TO DEFEAT NATION-STATES WHO COULD BE THREATENING OUR ECONOMIC INTERESTS BY TAKING LAND RESOURCES AND USING THESE LAND BASES TO INTERDICT OUR CIVILIAN CARGO SHIPS! Keeping the sea lanes out of range of land-based aircraft means defeating the enemy's submarines; he can build 100 subs for every large aircraft carrier.

THE REAL LESSON OF WW2 NAVAL COMBAT IS THAT YOU NEED LOTS OF SMALL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS TO DEFEAT THE LOTS OF ENEMY SUBMARINES HE MAY HAVE BY SMOTHERING THEM AND SPOILING THEIR ATTACKS BEFORE THEY CAN GET A LINE-OF-SIGHT FOR TORPEDO SHOTS ON YOUR CARGO SHIPS.

Its the submarine, stupid.

If your aircraft carriers do not have fixed-wing ASW planes/capabilities to stop submarines---like the fatal flaw of the Japanese carriers---then they cannot control the sea.

If you don't stop submarines you cannot control the sea.

Here are some telling WW2 statistics

www.world-war-2.info/statistics

Major Warships Sunk In World War 2

Germany, with no aircraft on TOP of the water in the end of and middle areas of their U-Boat patrols to ward off ASW aircraft lost a horrific 1, 000 submarines. The only anti-aircraft weapons they had were AAA deck guns only if they surfaced and exposed themselves to more air attack; bombs and guns and torpedoes could now by visually aimed at them. Germany had ZERO aircraft carriers and this imbalanced force structure doomed them.

Japan had only 8 large and 18 small aircraft carriers with 9 seaplane aircraft carriers. One large carrier never left port, so its really 7. That's it.

www.ww2pacific.com/japcv.html

4 lost at Midway left 3, and all of them were sunk by December 1944. For all the hoopla about Japanese aircraft carriers, the fact is they didn't have that many to begin with and they could have avoided Midway's 4 lost carriers and they still wouldn't have much aircraft to put into the sky to duel America's 102 aircraft carriers. The Japanese were always out-numbered in aircraft because they were always outnumbered in aircraft carriers except in the beginning when we had 4 large carriers to their 6 in 1942 because 2 of our carriers were in the Atlantic.

www.ww2pacific.com/japbb.html

Since Japan only had handfuls of aircraft from handfuls of small carriers and these never were nearly enough even if ASW equipped to stop our submarines from sinking their supply ships or their warships. The Japanese aircraft carriers lost by default, they forfeited the match by not showing up to the fight. They could have kept all 4 of their large carriers and they still would have been outnumbered. They had no sophisticated aircraft ASW and they had no aircraft AAW. Their opposites, American subs and planes were free to attack them for all intents and purposes unopposed. All the Imperial Japanese Navy surface ships could do was AsuW with guns, their excellent torpedoes and the dubious LA mission with guns. Their seaplanes could do AsuW and LA with guns and bombs but only rudimentary ASW by visual sighting. That they sank any American subs is a testament to the utility of the seaplane/tender carrier concept. The following historian agrees:

www.ww2pacific.com/japair.html

Carriers did not have catapults, therefore flight operations depended on speed into the wind as the only aid to launching. Some carriers converted from other designs were slow and had to use more flight deck for takeoff thereby interfering with both flight and storage operations. The Japanese always suffered from gasoline fires when hit, whereas the American carriers learned to first empty gas lines, then to flush them with CO₂ to prevent secondary explosions. During the lull in the naval air war, late '42 to mid '44, Japan should have built Shokaku class carriers, the equivalent of the Essex class, yet only one was build, Taiho. Shipbuilding resources were spent on the supercarrier Shinano and on conversion of ocean liners to escort carriers. In this period Japan launched 1 x CV, 5 x CVLs, and 2 x CVEs. The U.S. launched 12 x CVs, 9 x CVLs, and 50 x CVEs.

Japan never considered anti-submarine activities for carriers. Meanwhile, USN submarines sank the carriers and merchant fleets that were the life of Japan. Japan started the war using their submarines successfully for anti-shipping and anti-fleet activities, but soon felt compelled to disarm much of their submarine fleet to use in supply of remote sites. The USN payed much attention to anti-submarine defense, initiated from the Atlantic U-boat menace, and kept Japan's submarines suppressed, for example, 6 subs were sunk in 12 days by ONE U.S. destroyer escort, England (DE-635).

Britain, essentially lost about 10 aircraft carriers like the Americans and then more gun warships than even the Americans because they would often send them out on their own with no aircraft on TOP of the water to ward off enemy AsuW aircraft or U-Boats from below. They lacked excellent seaplanes to catapult from their battleships/cruisers capable of doing more than observing.

Rethinking the Battle of the Atlantic: A New Northwest Passage to Europe from North America--by Train!

www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm

Watching the new Battlefield II documentary on the Battle of the Atlantic something amazing struck me.

WHY are the supply convoys going straight across the middle of the Atlantic ocean for 2, 000 miles + that a 10 mph cargo ship would then be exposed to u-boat attack for 8.3 days when the "GIUK" distances from the UK to Iceland to Greenland to Canada are considerably less?

How less are the sea routes?

UK to the Shetland Islands: 59 miles
Shetland to Faeroe islands: 182 miles
Faeroe Islands to Iceland: 297 miles
Iceland to Greenland: 289 miles
Greenland to Baffin Island 212 miles
Baffin to Canadian/U.S. mainland: 59 miles

____________________________________

1098 miles!

Here's what I propose. War armaments are taken by land TRAIN from the U.S. to the tip of Quebec where ferries take the train cars across to Baffin island. Concentrated air and sea ASW forces keep the u-boats away, steel nets might even be feasible to totally seal off the Hudson strait only 59 miles wide. From there, the supplies in train cars take a land TRAIN to the Davis strait crossing point where special high-speed ferries or ships take them across to Greenland where again concentrated ASW forces are present guard the 212 miles from u-boats. The cars are off-loaded and connected to a train that takes them to the eastern end of Greenland where special high-speed ferries or ships take them 289 miles across to Iceland where they can then skirt around hugging the coast under concentrated ASW forces protection to then make the 297 miles in a dash to the nearest Faeroe island. There, they can skirt then dash to the northern-most Shetland island and possibly offload their cargoes and let ferries take the supply rail cars the last 59 miles to the UK.

Now you could say "ice/weather".

This is good! We lead convoys with icebreakers and the ice keeps the old technology u-boats away. Does Baffin bay ever get completely iced-over so trucks can drive across to Greenland? If so, we are down to just 2 x 300 mile gaps to cross cargo ships. Surely we can concentrate ASW forces and keep u-boats away.

What do the high-speed ferry ships do now? Do they sail back empty and run the 3 x 300 mile gauntlets of German u-boats?

No!

They are converted by British shipyards into WARSHIPS. Either escort aircraft carriers or supply ships.

What about the merchant crewmen?

They take SEAPLANES or LANDPLANES back the same way they came in short hops.

Relevance for Today?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail

What I propose we do today is we build 3 x 300 mile TUNNELS to bridge the GIUK gap with a 300 mph high-speed train! Under the water there'd be no weather ton contend with just some wiggle to compensate for continental drift, plate tectonics etc. Each one of the 3 underwater tunnels @300 mph would be crossed in 1 hour. The entire trip from North England to the tip of New Foundland 5 hours in comfort--on a train--possibly with your electric or hybrid car with you. ISO container cargo should also come across by train. From there to New York would be another 3-4 hours for a total trip of 8-9 hours in comfort compared to the current 2 hours in security checks and 6 hours in agony on a tube and wing airliner packed like sardines flying the long way across the Atlantic.

Convoy Battles

Date	Convoy Code	Ships	Sunk	Tonnage	German Subs	Sunk
October 1940	SC-71, HX-79	79	32	154,600	12	0
September 1941	SC-42	70	18	73,200	19	2
July 1942	PQ-17	42	16	102,300	11	0
November 1942	SC-107	42	15	82,800	18	3
December 1942	ONS-154	45	19	74,500	19	1
March 1943	SC-121, HX-228	119	16	79,900	37	2

800 x U-Boat subs sank 2,640 ships in the Atlantic

Year	Total Allied Ships Sunk	Sunk By German Submarine
1939	222	114
1940	1059	471
1941	1299	432
1942	1664	1160
1943	597	377
1944	205	132
1945	105	56

British economic survival depended upon supply ships from the U.S., so they had to come up with a complete answer to the U-Boat undersea 3D threat. They flew long-range seaplane and bombers converted into maritime ASW patrol planes to keep the pressure on the U-Boats who now couldn't surface to run diesel engines to recharge their batteries. Their destroyers would hunt U-Boats using radar, sonar and guidance from aircraft, then kill them using depth charges or gunfire, torpedoes or even ramming if they were on the surface. They put Hurricane fighters on supply ships on rocket catapults to ward away German FW-200 Condor maritime patrol planes. In 1940, 1 out of every 2 supply ships were getting sunk, a suicidal 50% rate. By 1943, only 1 out of every 100 supply ships were getting sunk by German subs.

The change was that in the middle of the ocean they now had 124 of FDR's small cargo ship converted and purpose-built aircraft "escort" carriers from the U.S; starting in 1943 this tipped the scales in their favor against the U-Boats.

www.navsource.org/archives/03idx.htm

Of the 124 escort carriers built, 38 went to the Royal Navy:

Designation Original American Name (if any) British Name

(BAVG-1) HMS ARCHER
(BAVG-2) / HMS AVENGER
(BAVG-3) / HMS BITER
(BAVG-4) / HMS CHARGER / see (CVE-30) CHARGER
(BAVG-5) / HMS DASHER
(BAVG-6) / HMS TRACKER
(CVE-6) ALTAMAHA / HMS BATTLER
(CVE-7) BARNES / HMS ATTACKER
(CVE-8) BLOCK ISLAND / HMS HUNTER
(CVE-10) BRETON / HMS CHASER
(CVE-14) CROATAN / HMS FENCER
(CVE-15) HAMLIN / HMS STALKER
(CVE-17) ST GEORGE / HMS PURSUER
(CVE-19) PRINCE WILLIAM / HMS STRIKER
(CVE-22) HMS SEARCHER
(CVE-24) HMS RAVAGER
(CVE-32) CHATHAM / HMS SLINGER
(CVE-33) GLACIER / HMS ATHELING
(CVE-34) PYBUS / HMS EMPEROR
(CVE-35) BAFFINS / HMS AMEER
(CVE-36) BOLINAS / HMS BEGUM
(CVE-37) BASTIAN / HMS TRUMPETER
(CVE-38) CARNEGIE / HMS EMPRESS
(CVE-39) CORDOVA / HMS KHEDIVE
(CVE-40) DELGADA / HMS SPEAKER
(CVE-41) EDISTO / HMS NABOB
(CVE-42) ESTERO / HMS PREMIER
(CVE-43) JAMAICA / HMS SHAH
(CVE-44) KEWEENAW / HMS PATROLLER
(CVE-45) PRINCE / HMS RAJAH
(CVE-46) NIANTIC / HMS RANEE
(CVE-47) PERDIDO / HMS TROUNCER
(CVE-48) SUNSET / HMS THANE
(CVE-49) ST. ANDREWS / HMS QUEEN
(CVE-50) ST. JOSEPH / HMS RULER
(CVE-51) ST. SIMON / HMS ARBITER
(CVE-52) VERMILLION / HMS SMITER
(CVE-53) WILLAPA / HMS PUNCHER
(CVE-54) WINJAH / HMS REAPER

And 86 went to the U.S. Navy:

Many also served during the Korean war:

www.korean-war.com/USNavy/USNavyShips.html

(CVE-9) USS Bogue
(CVE-11) USS Card recalled to active duty, delivered U.S. Army helicopters and USAF/USN/Mc aircraft to Vietnam
(CVE-12) USS Copahee
(CVE-13) USS Core recalled to active duty, delivered U.S. Army helicopters and USAF/USN/Mc aircraft to Vietnam

(CVE-16) USS Nassau
(CVE-18) USS Altamaha
(CVE-20) USS Barnes
(CVE-21) USS Block Island SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-23) USS Breton recalled to active duty, delivered U.S. Army helicopters and USAF/USN/Mc aircraft to Vietnam

(CVE-25) USS Croatan used in 1965 NASA expedition to explore atmosphere during period of solar flares, recalled to active duty, delivered U.S. Army helicopters and USAF/USN/Mc aircraft to Vietnam

(CVE-26) USS Sangamon
(CVE-27) USS Suwannee
(CVE-28) USS Chenango
(CVE-29) USS Santee
(CVE-30) USS Charger
(CVE-31) USS Prince William on active duty after WW2
(CVE-55) USS Casablanca
(CVE-56) USS Liscome Bay SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-57) USS Coral Sea/Anzio
(CVE-58) USS Corregidor recalled to active duty, Korean War; used in 1958 Lebanon crisis to launch U.S. Army STOL aircraft, recalled to active duty, delivered U.S. Army helicopters and USAF/USN/Mc aircraft to Vietnam

(CVE-59) USS Mission Bay
(CVE-60) USS Guadalcanal
(CVE-61) USS Manila Bay
(CVE-62) USS Natoma Bay
(CVE-63) USS Midway/St. Lo SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-64) USS Tripoli recalled to active duty, Korean War as TCVE
(CVE-65) USS Wake Island
(CVE-66) USS White Plains
(CVE-67) USS Solomons
(CVE-68) USS Kalinin Bay
(CVE-69) USS Kasaan Bay
(CVE-70) USS Fanshaw Bay
(CVE-71) USS Kitkun Bay
(CVE-72) USS Tulagi
(CVE-73) USS Gambier Bay SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-74) USS Nehenta Bay
(CVE-75) USS Hoggatt Bay
(CVE-76) USS Kadashan Bay
(CVE-77) USS Marcu Island
(CVE-78) USS Savo Island
(CVE-79) USS Ommaney Bay SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-80) USS Petrof Bay
(CVE-81) USS RUDYERD BAY
(CVE-82) USS SAGINAW BAY
(CVE-83) USS SARGENT BAY
(CVE-84) USS SHAMROCK BAY
(CVE-85) USS SHIPLEY BAY
(CVE-86) USS Sitkoh Bay recalled to active duty, Korean War as TCVE
(CVE-87) USS STEAMER BAY
(CVE-88) USS Cape Esperance recalled to active duty, Korean War as TCVE
(CVE-89) USS TAKANIS BAY
(CVE-90) USS Thetis Bay on active duty in the 1950s as first helicopter amphibious assault carrier, Cuban missile crisis blockade participant with marines embarked, 1962
(CVE-91) USS MAKASSAR STRAIT inactive reserve after WW2
(CVE-92) USS Windham Bay aircraft ferry and training carrier during Korean war era
(CVE-93) USS Makin Island
(CVE-94) USS Lunga Point
(CVE-95) USS Bismarck Sea SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-96) USS SALAMAUA
(CVE-97) USS HOLLANDIA
(CVE-98) USS KWAJALEIN
(CVE-99) USS ADMIRALTY ISLANDS
(CVE-100)USS BOUGAINVILLE
(CVE-101)USS Matanikau
(CVE-102)USS Attu
(CVE-103)USS Roi
(CVE-104)USS Munda inactive reserve after WW2
(CVE-105)USS Commencement Bay
(CVE-106)USS Block Island SUNK IN COMBAT
(CVE-107)USS Gilbert Islands recalled to active duty, Korean War, first to land jets, service in Vietnam war as communications relay ship
(CVE-108)USS Kula Gulf recalled to active duty, Korean War, recalled to active duty, delivered U.S. Army helicopters and USAF/USN/Mc aircraft to Vietnam

(CVE-109)USS Cape Gloucester inactive reserve after WW2
(CVE-110)USS Salerno Bay recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-111)USS Vella Gulf inactive reserve after WW2
(CVE-112)USS Siboney recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-113)USS Puget Sound inactive reserve after WW2
(CVE-114)USS Rendova recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-115)USS Bairoko recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-116)USS Badoeng Strait recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-117)USS Saidor recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-118)USS Sicily recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-119)USS Point Cruz recalled to active duty, Korean War; did largest helicopter amphibious airlift of Indian DMZ peacekeeping troops using U.S. Army helicopters
(CVE-120)USS Mindoro recalled to active duty, Korean War
(CVE-121)USS Rabaul
(CVE-122)USS Palau recalled to active duty, Korean War; first ASW carrier

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(CVE-123)USS Tinian
(CVE-124)USS BASTOGNE CANCELLED
(CVE-125)USS ENIWETOK CANCELLED
(CVE-126)USS LINGAYEN CANCELLED
(CVE-127)USS OKINAWA CANCELLED

CVE-128 Through CVE-139 Unnamed, Never Laid Down.

www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/cv-escrt.html

The U.S. Navy website above notes:

The need for escort carriers came early in the war when German submarines and aircraft were taking a devastating toll on convoy shipping. The heaviest losses occurred far at sea where land-based aircraft couldn't operate. The Royal Navy had experimented with catapult-launched fighter planes from merchantmen; while this was somewhat successful in combating the U-boats, the number of planes that could be embarked was limited. Something else was needed, and in a hurry. Great Britain appealed to the United States for help.

No real specifications had been developed for escort carriers at this time, although the Navy had looked into converting merchant ships for this purpose before the war began. Thus, the quick solution was to build the early CVEs on merchant ship hulls.

The first CVE was USS Long Island (CVE-1), converted from a Maritime Commission freighter. Due to a shortage of merchant ship hulls, four escort carriers were built on Cimarron-class fleet oiler hulls. These four, USS Sangamon (CVE-26), USS Suwanee (CVE-27), USS Chenanago (CVE-28), and USS Santee (CVE-29), were so successful in anti-submarine work and in covering amphibious operations that, after participating in the landings in North Africa, they were deployed to the Pacific. There, the fleet was in desperate need of carriers. [EDITOR: TYPICAL LYING USN URBAN LEGEND BULLSHIT]

These early ships paved the way for a tremendous building program of Jeeps in the United States. Between June 1941 and April 1945, 78 escort carriers would be built and launched - a remarkable feat of wartime naval construction.

In the Atlantic, escort carriers originally stayed close to the convoys they were protecting. Over time, tactics evolved that enabled the Jeep carriers and their destroyer escorts to become independent "hunter-killer" groups. They could attack concentrations of U-boats at will and were no longer required to provide constant umbrella coverage for a convoy. This tactic was further refined by having the escort carrier groups concentrate their efforts in areas where U-boats met their supply submarines ("milch cows").

This operational phase was so successful that three Jeeps - USS Core (CVE-13), USS Card (CVE-11) and USS Bogue (CVE-9) [left] - and their escorting destroyers sank a total of 16 U-boats and 8 milch cows in a period of 98 days. During this time, U-boats sank only one merchantman and shot down only three planes from the escort carriers. This loss of submarines, particularly the milch cows, was a severe blow to the German Navy. With diminished capability for refueling U-boats at sea, and with no friendly bases in the area, Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of the German U-boat fleet, was forced to withdraw his remaining supply submarines and cancel all U-boat operations in the central Atlantic.

Testimony indeed to the hard work, skill and dedication of the Jeeps and the men who served in them. [EDITOR: which the USN will reward you by retiring your ships and using your memory paid for in your blood to pump up their egos to build other ships]

The Brits were the world leaders in radar and fitted it to both ships and planes to defeat the German submarines...the Japanese did not do this and they lost the war because of it.

http://uboat.net/allies/technical/uk_radars.htm

ASV Mk.XI

The ASV Mk.XI was a centrimetric radar intended for the TBR (torpedo bomber and reconnaissance) aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm, the component of the Royal Navy that operated carrier aircraft. It was also known known as ASVX and therefore it sometimes has been called, erroneously, ASV Mk.X.

ASV Mk.XI could be fitted between the main wheel legs of a Fairey Swordfish. In addition to the bulky radome, a Leigh light could be fitted. The radome made the the carrying of torpedoes or large depth charges impossible, so when the target was a ship the Swordfish was accompanied by other aircraft without radar. Against submarines, the radar-equipped Swordfish Mk.III was armed with eight rockets on underwing launches, and also carried flares to illuminate any U-boat it found. Fired at 600 yards, the rockets easily penetrated a submarine's hull.

This radar was also carried by the Fairey Barracuda Mk.III.

ASV Mk.XI had a maximum range of about 60km against ships, and in good conditions and at low altitude (2000 feet) it could detect a surfaced submarine at about 20km. But it could detect a schnorkel only in very calm seas and at distances below 8km. It gave bearings with an accuracy of about 2 degrees.

Assisting the Hurricat CAM ships, CVE "Jeep" escort carriers with ASW planes were Navy long-range LTA blimps, patrol bombers and seaplanes. The December 1, 1946 U.S. Naval Aviation News magazine reports:

Look at some more of the the FACTS:

German Submarine (U-Boat) Combat Losses

Sunk By	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	Total
Aircraft Carrier	0	2	3	36	140	68	40	289
Ships	5	11	24	32	59	68	17	216
Bombs	0	0	0	0	2	24	36	62
Mines	3	2	0	3	1	9	7	25
Submarines	1	2	1	2	4	5	3	18
Other	0	4	5	6	17	43	17	92
Total	9	23	35	86	236	235	122	746

BBC Documentary on How the U-Boats were Defeated: THE HUNTED

PART 1: airborne radar, civilian operational researchers think "out of the box", civilians with fresh outlooks, paint the planes color of the sky!, Germans stuck in their own box: only had 6 junior officers helping Doenitz brain storm

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC6qFBJyjgw

PART 2

Liconia incident, don't ever get separated from your baby, dumbass American patrol bomber pilot fucks up any chivalry from uboats, fortified uboat pens but at sea protection ignored, Doenitz only listened to german military advice in Berlin, no improvements from end of ww1!!! U-Boat design complacency, air coverage gap, Hitler says massacre surviving seamen, Doenitz said no, good for him

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSXgr5o9wUM

PART 3 Horton's war games hones technotactical skills, ONS 5's 11 escorts vs 34 U-Boats battle, had DF gear plus radar

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_erMJxOIuo

PART 4 surface escorts have edge over u-boats now, Doenitz's son kia, 2 years til high underwater speed U-Boat, German crewman sabotaging uboats to stop suicidal cruises

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzxzgj59Ado

PART 5

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW4oRsy-oA4

Their heavy loss of 142 destroyers like America's near 100 destroyer losses shows the price they paid to hunt/kill enemy U-Boats which was successful, but hardly the ALL AIRCRAFT CARRIER CREATED SUCCESS MITSCHER POMPOUSLY DECLARES FOR HIS PET SERVICE MEANS. Surface ships killed just about as many U-Boats as aircraft carrier aircraft, and if you look at 1943, when both worked together, both of their kill numbers went up. People like Mitscher who only want their pet large aircraft carriers do not want to share the power/glory nor do the dirty work of escorting supply ships so they can get through to help the ground forces win nor even to strategically keep an ally's civilian populace alive. All they want to do is stroke their own egos by sinking the other guy's fleet of aircraft carriers even if it has no bearing on what really matters, which in war is what happens on land where people actually live.

America, enjoys a capital armored ship protection plan. After Pearl Harbor, only 1 armored cruiser is sunk by aircraft, and that was by a torpedo. Armored ships that are moving were not sunk by aircraft; those that were not armored were often sunk by aircraft. The other 9 cruisers that were sunk were all sent to the bottom by torpedoes from subs, surface ships or heavy gunfire. With 102 aircraft carriers, mostly converted cargo ship small carriers, 400+ destroyers, long-range maritime patrol planes, and each battleship/cruiser flying their own seaplanes, they smother the Japanese submarines with ASW. They can't stop all leakers, though and Japanese subs still sink half their few surface ships that are lost. With all these aircraft flying overhead in defensive self-protection in knee-jerk reaction to Pearl Harbor air attacks which only destroyed 1 actual battleship, the traumatized American Navy forced the Japanese to realize that humans in aircraft flying through enemy fighters and over massed AAA fires could not hope to release their torpedoes or bombs in an aimed manner and survive intact to fly back to base to rearm.

Japan with No Naval Air Force Turns to Human Guided Cruise Missiles, We Get a Sneak Preview but then emasculate ourselves after WW2

The Japanese concluded they needed guided cruise missiles that would take the inevitable fighter and AAA gunfire hits and still be able to dive into the ships with HE attached. They did not have the technological means to guide aircraft with HE remotely, so they had humans commit suicide in their Kamikaze planes. The battle of Okinawa in 1945 was an awful warning that unarmored ships of ANY type---be they aircraft carriers, destroyers, whatever were at extreme risk to guided missiles. These vulnerable surface ships could be taken out by a smarter not so emotional enemy to remove ASW capabilities to facilitate a fatal collapse of the entire combined-arms synergism of a fleet.

Enter the "Super Aircraft Carrier" BS

From U.S. Naval Aviation News, December 1946

The USN DID NOT LEARN THESE LESSONS; with pompous asses like Mark Mitscher running his mouth, we eventually whittled the WW2 flawed but winning formula down to today's just 11 armored large "super" aircraft carriers, no heavily armored battleships and just flimsy light cruisers and destroyers with nuclear submarines. It all began at the end of WW2 with the advent of the USS Midway "Super Carrier" to feed USN ego and budgetary greed as 78 total aircraft carriers were mothballed (21 big carriers, 57 small carriers and 27 seaplane tenders/aviation support ships). However, there were still some people with common sense on active duty who realized the ocean was still very big and kept 13 big carriers and 9 small carriers for a total of 22 on active duty--twice as many as we have today. They also had 9 seaplane tenders on active service in 1946--today we have none. However, men of common sense are leaving the service in droves and the pompous asses have their knives out. Fast forward to 1948...

www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1948/jan48.pdf

The January 1948 issue of U.S. Naval Aviation News on page 3 reveals the disgusting anti-small aircraft carrier mentality that emerged...

First, the Navy boasts that they have gotten rid of all the shitty little "jeep carrier" CVEs:

that get-the-job-done Harry Kaiser built. But all the CVEs are really not gone because some of the CVE-55 and CVE-6 class were put in storage we know from previous reports and there are the 12 x CVE-105s are in storage mentioned here. We know from previous reports 9 x CVEs were on ACTIVE DUTY. Or have they been retired? mothballed? Sold?

If the Navy has "closed the books" on escort carriers why are NINE CVEs still on active duty?

Are the CVE escort carriers (CVE-122) USS Palau, (CVE-120) USS Mindoro, (CVE-110) USS Salerno Bay, (CVE-112) USS Siboney and (CVE-118) USS Sicily not in the Atlantic ocean conducting operations with about 2, 000 active duty personnel? Are the CVE escort carriers (CVE-114)USS Redova, (CVE-115) USS Bairoko, and (CVE-116) USS Badoeng Strait and (CVE-117) USS Saidor not in the Pacific doing the same thing?

And what of this report of these non-existant "closed book" CVEs being used for current training and missions?

What the fuck is going on here?

These guys REALLY HATE the small carriers and the large carriers with COMBAT records since they retired all of them. They really hate all reminders of how we needed to operate in WW2 lest it get in the way of their avant garde jet fighter crusade against the rival USAF. Somebody at headquarters needs to see a shrink.

If this can't get anymore weirder....IN THE SAME ARTICLE ON THE SAME PAGE that they were defecating on the small carriers...THEY ARE PRAISING THE COMBAT HEROICS THEY MADE POSSIBLE OF THE MEN THAT USED THEM!!!

This hypocrisy reeks to high heaven....when they need the small carrier for institutional ego the Navy brass are quick to use the exploits paid in other men's blood to puff up their image...but at all other times the CVEinderellas can go fuck themselves and be scrapped for $$$ or go away and rot somewhere in storage.

Reality check!

Could the new AD-1 SkyRaider prop attack planes fly from the CVEs?

YES.

Could a new prop-plane (FR-2 Dark Shark with turbojet help would be great) ASW/CSAR/COD aircraft fly from CVEs?

YES.

Could helicopters fly from CVEs?

YES.

Then what is the Navy's fucking functional problem then?

>>>>>>>THE PROBLEM IS THEY WANT BIG CARRIERS FLYING FIGHTER-BOMBER JETS<<<<<<<

The BS fighter jock supercarrier post-war Navy has begun, all other WW2 vital sea control functions be damned. All hail the false god of personal pilot egotism!

In two years this clusterfuck will slam head-on into reality into Korea. Fortunately for the ground maneuver troops, reserve pilots hanging on by flying Corsairs and some SkyRaiders on active duty will be on hand to render effective naval CAS by virtue of their slow speed, low altitude agility and ruggedness, but there will be no SC-1/2 SeaHawk heavy Baltimore class cruiser and Iowa class battleship observation planes--it'll be interesting to see how if any naval gunfire spotting is employed. Remember, the Navy brass don't want cruiser and battleship gunnery to be effective and rob their fighter jet/supercarriers from getting the limelight.

More Fuel = More Vulnerability

www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1949/may49.pdf

U.S. Naval Aviation News from May 1949 reveals the emergence of the supercarrier lust was excused by the jet airplane's composition as a flying fuel tank.

A viscious circle was created; Navy wants to fly faster so it needs jets; jets need more fuel so Navy gets bigger carriers which is what they wanted all along; centralization into fewer platforms (targets) to order around more people to boost ego and budget.

Nevermind, that for the price of 1 supercarrier with 100 jets you could operate 30 small CVE escort carriers with 1, 000 prop-jetslike the FR-2 Dark Shark with greater range and twin-engined reliability albeit at a 500 mph instead of 600 mph....but as know-how increased, the British would invent the angled deck and these could be fitted to the CVEs to operate pure jets if you wanted. Again, note how eager the Navy brass are constantly proclaiming to get rid of the "Last CVE" when we know 9 x CVEs are still on ACTIVE-DUTY and 57 s CVEs are in storage and some will return to duty for the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Our thanks to the British for inventing the dry deck aircraft carrier to operate wheel landing gear planes was to take back the CVE escort carriers we lent them at WW2's end and to sell them at bargain basement prices (see listing above) so these small carriers would not be in the hands of the crafty Royal Navy lest they come up with something clever to threaten the pompous egomaniac U.S. Navy's version of Nimrod's tower-of-babel-but-afloat supercarrier dreams.

Out-of-Control Navy Brass: Building SuperCarriers that Can't Go through the Panama Canal Since 1955!

The Japanese wanted to knock out the Panama Canal with an I-400 submarine aircraft carrier raid in 1945...and we went ahead and DID THE DAMAGE TO OURSELVES BY MAKING SUPERCARRIERS TOO BIG TO GO THROUGH THE CANAL!!!

In a major shooting war with no time to mass mobilize a nation or rev up ship production we win or lose with what we already got on hand...and TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax

EXCERPTS:

Ships classified as Panamax are of the maximum dimensions that will fit through the locks of the Panama Canal. This size is determined by the dimensions of the lock chambers, and the depth of the water in the canal. Panamax is a significant factor in the design of cargo ships, with many ships being built to exactly the maximum allowable size.

Dimensions

Panamax is determined principally by the dimensions of the canal's lock chambers, each of which is 33.53 metres (110 ft) wide by 320.0 metres (1050 ft) long, and 25.9 metres (85 ft) deep. The usable length of each lock chamber is 304.8 metres (1000 ft). The available water depth in the lock chambers varies, but the least depth is at the south sill of the Pedro Miguel Locks, and is 12.55 metres (41.2 ft) at a Miraflores Lake level of 16.61 metres (54 feet 6 in). The height of the Bridge of the Americas at Balboa is the limiting factor on a vessel's overall height.

USS Missouri, one of the Iowa class battleships, makes a very tight fit as she passes through the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal in October 1945. The maximum dimensions allowed for a ship transiting the canal are: [1]

Length: 294.1 metres (965 ft)
Beam (width): 32.3 metres (106 ft)
Draft: 12.0 metres (39.5 ft) in tropical fresh water (the salinity and temperature of water affect its density, and hence how deeply a ship will sit in the water)
Height: 57.91 metres (190 ft) measured from the waterline to the vessel's highest point

A Panamax cargo ship would typically have a displacement of around 65,000 tons.[2]

Many modern ships, known as post-Panamax ships, are far larger than this (and hence cannot use the canal). This is the case for supertankers and the largest modern container ships; much bulk merchandise such as grain products is moved primarily on Panamax (or sub-Panamax) ships. U.S. Navy supercarriers are also in the post-Panamax class; the Nimitz class aircraft carriers are 333 metres (1092 ft) long overall with a beam of 41 metres (134 ft), while the flight deck is 76.8 metres (252 ft) wide.

The USS Essex class large aircraft carriers that can fit through the Panama Canal were able to receive angled decks as the namesake shows in the photo above...so what was the justification for the "supercarriers" that can't? As you will "see", the Navy began to stray from its sea control obligations to the nation starting at the end of WW2 assuming the American Empire had no peer nation-state competitor and we would be free to play shore bombardment from floating air bases...hence the lust for bigger and bigger more comfortable "air bases". As the Soviet Navy improved in the 1970s, alarmed leaders like Admiral Zumwalt tried to wake the Navy up to start using smaller aircraft carriers called "sea control ships" to work-around supercarrier mafia egos, but to no avail.

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SIDEBAR: Panamax Salvation for the Supercarriers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_expansion_proposal

Notice no one mentions that once the canal has a new widened sea lane, 134 foot wide, 1100 foot long U.S. Navy "stupercarriers" will be able to transit through.

www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=200&ct=4

Could this be the REAL driving force behind the project? Good ole' PaxAmericana aka corporate greed?

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You might ask, could other small ships the Navy already has suffice?

Yes, they could, this is why we advocate EVERY SURFACE SHIP HAVING SEAPLANES. Enough of them doing this and you have a defacto Naval air force at sea. In 1945 the United States Navy also possessed 1,728 amphibious ships, which constituted 40 percent of the fleet and enabled the U.S. to project 13 combat divisions. Remember that in WW2 the U.S. Army even operated small observation "grasshoppers" fixed-wing airplanes from amphibious ships. Today, 36 troop-carrying amphibious ships remain in the fleet. By 2010, the number will drop to approximately 32. 12 LHA/LHD are quasi-small aircraft carriers but the only fixed-wing aircraft they can operate are the dwingling 119-or-so crash-prone AV-8B Harrier II STOVL attack planes; in 5 years we will have less than 50 Harrier IIs left; only enough to outfit 2 LHA/LHDs as quasi-sea control ships. The Navy refuses to put ski jumps on the LHAs/LHDs for flight safety or arrestor cables to operate STOBAR aircraft let alone buy STOBAR capable aircraft lest they take the limelight away from the F-18 fighter pilot egomaniac super carrier flying club. The result of these actions is an amphibious fleet that is rapidly reaching the end of its effective service life which is a good thing since packing unskilled marine line infantry that stumbles around on foot and in road-bound, easily ambushed trucks by the thousands in vulnerable surface ships is an invitation to mass slaughter by the enemy. Its not even sound to pack so many men in surface ships even when confronting the forces of the earth. In fact, in WW2, the U.S. Navy LOST MORE SHIPS AND PLANES TO THE BATTLE AGAINST THE EARTH than to their human Japanese/German foes!

Watch the quasi-fictional account of a minesweeper being misdirected by an incompetent Navy Captain during a typhoon in the film "The Caine Mutiny" or read up on how many ships and men Admiral "Bull" Halsey lost during an actual typhoon at war's end which "inspired" young Navy officer/author Wouk to write the book (hint, hint)