If you're still teaching in a decade, I might have to track you down to be my son's history teacher. I didn't learn anything about the Japanese Navy in school (other than the fact that they lost). These kind of story-based lessons are invaluable.
Hi John, not sure if you saw it but check out the recent "Midway" movie that came out in 2019. Prior in here I took a shot at Hollywood's movie making or lack of it; but that movie was a pleasant surprise. And they present the Japanese side of that battle admirably too, especially at the end.
And I know we are in here for our love of reading, but this now also brings to mind "Letters from Iwo Jima", one of Clint Eastwoods greatest works. The Japanese perspective he presents is a very gripping experience.
The Eastwood pair of Iwo Jima films (Flags of Our Fathers is an excellent, revisionist take on the war) are worth repeated viewing. I enjoyed Midway thoroughly, and when I teach world history I screen it for my students. They are always moved by Yamaguchi going down with his ship, “sir, why did he do that?” I explain that in the past people had stronger notions of authority and accountability than we do, and in some cultures, this was quite extreme.
Holy shit Star Blazers! I loved that show as a kid. Wow me and my friends were into it.
Anyway, great article.
I knew about the Yamato, but not the Shinano.
WW2 is an endless well of incredible stories.
Both ships's stories are blockbuster movies if presented well. Which, as we know, Hollywood is mostly incapable of doing these days.
Watching the Shinano video above, when Captain Abe makes the fatal decision to turn south right into the stalker submarine's path, one can only smile at the familiarity of what we are witnessing. But there is of course melancholy added due to the price paid by these men. Once again, we see the timeline of human history and the results of significant events being driven by decisions that seem harmless, wise, or very unremarkable at the time. An action or decision that needed only a few seconds to complete turns out to be wrong and it reverberates for decades, and then centuries and millennia.
The captain of the sub that sunk the Shinano had previously been relieved for being ineffective and been given a second chance, which up to that point he’d been unable to capitalize on. When he returned to base as reported what he’d taken out they didn’t believe him, as they didn’t have any listing for a carrier that size, and initially credited him with sinking a heavy cruiser. But eventually they figured it out, and he got credit for the biggest kill in submarine history.
Yup. Great info from you, thru and thru. WW2 has been one of my favorite history subjects since I was a toddler. As soon as I began to learn what the hell happened just a few decades before I was born, and the who and the why..I was hooked. I'm not kidding Id be what 8 to 10 years old and Id be raving about Batman and Star Wars and Star Blazers and Spiderman and in the next breath it would be DDAY and Pearl Harbor and did you know about this guy named Hitler? And the Russians were on our side of that War? I just loved learning.
And to this day including your article, I annualy find multple stories like yours that bring all that excitement right back again.
Your use of all of it here in the context of leaders using human life like chattel brings all that back to me too. How such men rise to power continually in our world still puzzles and terrifies me.
It is all very sad, but when faced with an enemy who will only accept unconditional surrender and will invade your home until you give it is there really any other choice? Those who talk about the fanatical loyalty of the Japanese I suppose will talk about the fanatical loyalty of the American patriots to Joe Biden when we have to defend our homeland. 'How they adore Poopy Pants Joe! When they ran out of bullets the American Patriots fought off the invaders with sharpened sticks!' Before the ultimate earthly tragedy, the conquest of the homeland, hope of victory is not necessary for self-sacrifice. These men would lose all that that they had and were whether they fought or not. Why not fight? Why not bring a little justice to the invaders before you die?
I fully share your hatred for the massification of man and the detachment of power from populace. But whatever the justice of German and Japanese war aims--and the way each waged its war--it is difficult to imagine how, other than by the principle of massification, they could have competed with the Allies. Sending men to die when defeat is certain is another matter of course.
On a different note...Star Blazers! So many memories just in the name...
The moral case of the Allies (apart from the horrific Soviet Union) was light years better than the Axis, but all followed the grim logic of industrial war and democratic legitimation by weaponizing the whole of their populace. The 20th century was the great age of democide, states wielding their powers against entire peoples, their own or their neighbors. No one shrank from that.
"The 20th century was the great age of democide, states wielding their powers against entire peoples, their own or their neighbors. No one shrank from that."
Yes--and the Allied leadership was no more personally heroic than that of the Axis.
I can think of a number of commanders at all levels on both sides who engaged in what in the abstract would be heroics. The Axis commanders, however, were generally engaged in campaign-wide atrocities that were the official policy of the powers they served. There were of course comparable episodes on a smaller scale on the Allied side (even discounting the horrific barbarity of the USSR; I’m thinking of the starvation campaign in British Bengal and the firebombing of Japanese cities, etc. but as a whole I would still maintain that the Allies were measurably better.
But then of course there are the Japanese atrocities in the Far East, notably the prison camps. Even though comparatively few died in them, atrocity should not be evaluated only by numbers killed.
Leaving ideology aside, one thing that forced Japan and Germany to be more ruthless is the fact that they were on the offensive for the first half of the war (until 1942?). You cannot afford to be gentle when you're fighting determined partisans. I will address myself to the elephant only to say that, regardless of their ethnicity, deaths of partisans should not be rolled in with whatever number died in concentration camps--again there is a qualitative difference to consider.
I wonder how the Allies would have behaved if they, not the Soviets, had (1) suffered pitiless occupation and (2) taken the overwhelming share in the task of breaking German resistance in Germany.
But it's easy to veer off topic and become an eDGy pest when talking on the internet about the war; apologies if that's me.
I haven’t seen it yet but I plan to. I’m also going to be putting out an essay about the films of Edward Zwick, with a focus on Glory and The Last Samurai, so I’ll deal with the topic again.
> it is difficult to imagine how, other than by the principle of massification, they could have competed with the Allies.
Not that they had any way of knowing this at the time, but Japan at least would probably have won a war of attrition against the US simply because America's will to fight would have broken long before Japan's.
The advantages in artillery and close air support were the most important force multiplier for the US, and would have negated any potential advantage for Japan in fighting spirit, I would think.
By "will to fight" I don't mean fighting spirit of the soldiers, I mean the American people's willingness to continue the war, see, e.g., what happened in Vietnam.
The Battle of Okinawa was in a sense a victory for Japan in the sense you mean, since it did in fact convince the Allies that an invasion of Japan would have been prohibitively costly in lives. However, this knowledge did not result in the abandoning of the conflict, but escalation in the use of (a combination of) air power and bomb power to end the war, negating any hope of Japan outlasting the morale of the US home front.
> it did in fact convince the Allies that an invasion of Japan would have been prohibitively costly in lives.
No it didn't. The US was still preparing for the invasion of Japan, either because the person in question didn't know about the Manhattan Project, or in case it didn't work or failed to force surrender.
Conversely, once the Manhattan Project did succeed as long as the war was still going on, there was no way the bombs wouldn't get used.
A very close friend of mine, Brooks Wachtel and Emmy winning writer produced and directed the TV documentary series Dogfights about war planes. He has also done an incredible amount of work on Navy ships. I will definitely send him this article to get his perspective. Thank you for this, it is so well written.
Brooks just got back to me. He wrote: “The article is pretty accurate. It leaves out a few details - eg. the IJN had intended to save Yamato for the invasion of Japan but when the defense of Okinawa was being discussed with the Emperor, he asked the Admirals what the Navy was going to do... putting them on the spot It was then they realized they would have to commit the Yamato.”
“Also, the USN had originally planned to attack with its own battleships, but the carrier admiral launched his aircraft on his own, and then asked - and got - permission to take out the giant battleship.
We covered the sinking of the Yamato on my show DogFights... Here's the link...”
Yes, Mitscher actually jumped the gun a bit. He was what they called a "brownshoe," someone who had come up through aviation, as opposed to his overall commander in 5th Fleet, Raymond Spruance, a "blackshoe" from the world of surface ships. There was a good bit of tension between the two groups, as the former saw themselves as forward-thinking reformers who would put aviation first over and against the blinkered fogeys addicted to big guns. However, it should be noted that Mitscher (and pretty much everyone else) regarded Spruance very highly (his nickname in the Navy was "the Electric Brain" and Mitscher had Spruance's full confidence as well.
"like many today who seek a “warrior code” of fetishized violence unmediated by moral considerations or any purpose beyond the imposition of the will on others, they distorted authentic teachings that would sit well alongside the best of pagan Greece and Rome into a bastardized modernism that sublimated man’s true high purpose to the political ends of a weaponized personal inadequacy. "
Gun culture has exacerbated this. Any fool can do great damage. I more admire the one capable of immense violence, but also great culture and civility.
Thank you for a gripping account of how the Yamato met it's end. As others have noted, it's fate is too often dismissed as a footnote. Thank you also for pointing me to Toth's book(s) - I hope to add at least one to my library when I am able to find the time to enjoy it.
His trilogy is excellent. You may also like James Hornfischer’s The Fleet at Flood Tide, Neptune’s Inferno, and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. The latter two books are closer looks at particular campaigns and battles.
Wonderful essay. It was shocking for me to learn that the Japanese had no realistic war plan for defeating the USA. They knew it in 1938 and despite their territorial gains from '38 to early '41, they still had no rational plan for defeating the USA in the summer of '41. Their only hope was to inflict enough damage so as to convince the USA to negotiate a peace treaty which left Japan in control of most of East Asia. But the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, key to their plan, eliminated the possibility of a negotiated end to the war which they started.
Everyone knew it would end in disaster but no one could say it. The inertia of their Japanese leadership's moral cowardice dragged them down like infernal gravity.
I'd argue that's more a case of the rather large pacifist faction in the US sabotaging its wars and then claiming to be prophetic for predicting failure.
I would disagree. The US has not won a major war against even a near-peer opponent since WWII, and much of the reason for that is not for want of militarism in either the population or the managerial state. It’s simply that we are unwilling to commit to the kind of sacrifice and destruction required to achieve our goals, so our wars tend to be these interminable half-efforts with meaningless metrics and propaganda substituting for results. I wish it were different in every sense.
> The US has not won a major war against even a near-peer opponent since WWII, and much of the reason for that is not for want of militarism in either the population or the managerial state. It’s simply that we are unwilling to commit to the kind of sacrifice and destruction required to achieve our goals
In other words, for want of "militarism".
Every war the US has gotten involved in, a peace faction has arisen and tried to stop, e.g, Henry David Thoreau for the Mexican War. And if the US doesn't win quickly enough, the peace faction will eventual force a withdrawal.
Congratulations. The last ride of the Yamato has been relegated to a footnote and deserves more historical scrutiny.
I was somewhat confused at your catalogue of the Naval aviation assets flown at the Yamato fleet; all those aircraft were before my time, but I knew quite a few older Naval aviators who flew them and never heard anybody complain about the Corsair. It was a little complicated to handle on the ground, but in the air it was highly regarded by both Navy and Marine pilots. Your reference to the Curtis is the one that threw me. The only Curtis that comes to mind is the SB2C Helldiver, which was roundly hated by those condemned to fly it. It was vastly inferior to its predecessor, the SBD Douglas Dauntless.
The Helldiver was indeed a widely-hated plane- the "Ensign Annihilator" dreaded by those tasked with flying it. The Corsair did ultimately come into its own, but it was only really loved by the Marines; my general understanding is that the Hellcat, much easier to handle, was the prefered choice among Naval aviators. For this I looked at both the Toll books I referenced and Robert Gandt's "The Twilight Warriors." I'd be interested in contrary opinions, as I of course can only report secondhand.
These days it's pretty difficult to come up with anything except secondhand reports. As a young naval aviator half a dozen Dauntless pilots and four Corsair pilots. Can't recall ever meeting a Hellcat pilot or a Helldiver pilot. Most of the latter were already dead.
No question about the hellcat being the best navy fighter plane. All the guys loved it because it could soak up a ton of punishment and keep flying. Even the Japanese pilots acknowledged that. You're an air combat pilot that is pie on your list.
everybody agreed the Hellcat was easy to fly, too. The Corsair could be temperamental, and was a total nightmare during ground operations, because of its tendency to overheat and catch fire. If you were going to fly a Corsair you had to learn to play your cowl flaps like a violin.
Ironically, the Japanese could probably have won a war of attrition, despite America's huge industrial advantage, simply because it doesn't take much for Americans to turn against a war as subsequent history has shown.
Awesome article, loved that my humble article inspired your even better one about this amazing ship and how bravely both sides fought in the Pacific War.
Man, I can't wait to write some more about Japanese history, and to get your opinion when those articles come out. I really do admire your knowledge and familiarity with such topics Librarian, honestly yours is one of the most interesting and fascinating Substacks to read hereon Substack.
If you're still teaching in a decade, I might have to track you down to be my son's history teacher. I didn't learn anything about the Japanese Navy in school (other than the fact that they lost). These kind of story-based lessons are invaluable.
Thank you. I went back and added some short videos for further context should anyone wish a more careful visual walkthrough of what I described.
Hi John, not sure if you saw it but check out the recent "Midway" movie that came out in 2019. Prior in here I took a shot at Hollywood's movie making or lack of it; but that movie was a pleasant surprise. And they present the Japanese side of that battle admirably too, especially at the end.
And I know we are in here for our love of reading, but this now also brings to mind "Letters from Iwo Jima", one of Clint Eastwoods greatest works. The Japanese perspective he presents is a very gripping experience.
The Eastwood pair of Iwo Jima films (Flags of Our Fathers is an excellent, revisionist take on the war) are worth repeated viewing. I enjoyed Midway thoroughly, and when I teach world history I screen it for my students. They are always moved by Yamaguchi going down with his ship, “sir, why did he do that?” I explain that in the past people had stronger notions of authority and accountability than we do, and in some cultures, this was quite extreme.
Holy shit Star Blazers! I loved that show as a kid. Wow me and my friends were into it.
Anyway, great article.
I knew about the Yamato, but not the Shinano.
WW2 is an endless well of incredible stories.
Both ships's stories are blockbuster movies if presented well. Which, as we know, Hollywood is mostly incapable of doing these days.
Watching the Shinano video above, when Captain Abe makes the fatal decision to turn south right into the stalker submarine's path, one can only smile at the familiarity of what we are witnessing. But there is of course melancholy added due to the price paid by these men. Once again, we see the timeline of human history and the results of significant events being driven by decisions that seem harmless, wise, or very unremarkable at the time. An action or decision that needed only a few seconds to complete turns out to be wrong and it reverberates for decades, and then centuries and millennia.
The captain of the sub that sunk the Shinano had previously been relieved for being ineffective and been given a second chance, which up to that point he’d been unable to capitalize on. When he returned to base as reported what he’d taken out they didn’t believe him, as they didn’t have any listing for a carrier that size, and initially credited him with sinking a heavy cruiser. But eventually they figured it out, and he got credit for the biggest kill in submarine history.
Yup. Great info from you, thru and thru. WW2 has been one of my favorite history subjects since I was a toddler. As soon as I began to learn what the hell happened just a few decades before I was born, and the who and the why..I was hooked. I'm not kidding Id be what 8 to 10 years old and Id be raving about Batman and Star Wars and Star Blazers and Spiderman and in the next breath it would be DDAY and Pearl Harbor and did you know about this guy named Hitler? And the Russians were on our side of that War? I just loved learning.
And to this day including your article, I annualy find multple stories like yours that bring all that excitement right back again.
Your use of all of it here in the context of leaders using human life like chattel brings all that back to me too. How such men rise to power continually in our world still puzzles and terrifies me.
It is all very sad, but when faced with an enemy who will only accept unconditional surrender and will invade your home until you give it is there really any other choice? Those who talk about the fanatical loyalty of the Japanese I suppose will talk about the fanatical loyalty of the American patriots to Joe Biden when we have to defend our homeland. 'How they adore Poopy Pants Joe! When they ran out of bullets the American Patriots fought off the invaders with sharpened sticks!' Before the ultimate earthly tragedy, the conquest of the homeland, hope of victory is not necessary for self-sacrifice. These men would lose all that that they had and were whether they fought or not. Why not fight? Why not bring a little justice to the invaders before you die?
The Gerald R Ford is today's Yamato. A sitting duck too valuable to expose to the enemy.
I fully share your hatred for the massification of man and the detachment of power from populace. But whatever the justice of German and Japanese war aims--and the way each waged its war--it is difficult to imagine how, other than by the principle of massification, they could have competed with the Allies. Sending men to die when defeat is certain is another matter of course.
On a different note...Star Blazers! So many memories just in the name...
The moral case of the Allies (apart from the horrific Soviet Union) was light years better than the Axis, but all followed the grim logic of industrial war and democratic legitimation by weaponizing the whole of their populace. The 20th century was the great age of democide, states wielding their powers against entire peoples, their own or their neighbors. No one shrank from that.
"The 20th century was the great age of democide, states wielding their powers against entire peoples, their own or their neighbors. No one shrank from that."
Yes--and the Allied leadership was no more personally heroic than that of the Axis.
I can think of a number of commanders at all levels on both sides who engaged in what in the abstract would be heroics. The Axis commanders, however, were generally engaged in campaign-wide atrocities that were the official policy of the powers they served. There were of course comparable episodes on a smaller scale on the Allied side (even discounting the horrific barbarity of the USSR; I’m thinking of the starvation campaign in British Bengal and the firebombing of Japanese cities, etc. but as a whole I would still maintain that the Allies were measurably better.
Dresden...
But then of course there are the Japanese atrocities in the Far East, notably the prison camps. Even though comparatively few died in them, atrocity should not be evaluated only by numbers killed.
Leaving ideology aside, one thing that forced Japan and Germany to be more ruthless is the fact that they were on the offensive for the first half of the war (until 1942?). You cannot afford to be gentle when you're fighting determined partisans. I will address myself to the elephant only to say that, regardless of their ethnicity, deaths of partisans should not be rolled in with whatever number died in concentration camps--again there is a qualitative difference to consider.
I wonder how the Allies would have behaved if they, not the Soviets, had (1) suffered pitiless occupation and (2) taken the overwhelming share in the task of breaking German resistance in Germany.
But it's easy to veer off topic and become an eDGy pest when talking on the internet about the war; apologies if that's me.
Speaking of Japanese warrior ethos: new adaptation of Shogun is very much worth watching and not ghey
I haven’t seen it yet but I plan to. I’m also going to be putting out an essay about the films of Edward Zwick, with a focus on Glory and The Last Samurai, so I’ll deal with the topic again.
Star Blazers!
Star Blazers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz263xIQmvo
> it is difficult to imagine how, other than by the principle of massification, they could have competed with the Allies.
Not that they had any way of knowing this at the time, but Japan at least would probably have won a war of attrition against the US simply because America's will to fight would have broken long before Japan's.
The advantages in artillery and close air support were the most important force multiplier for the US, and would have negated any potential advantage for Japan in fighting spirit, I would think.
By "will to fight" I don't mean fighting spirit of the soldiers, I mean the American people's willingness to continue the war, see, e.g., what happened in Vietnam.
The Battle of Okinawa was in a sense a victory for Japan in the sense you mean, since it did in fact convince the Allies that an invasion of Japan would have been prohibitively costly in lives. However, this knowledge did not result in the abandoning of the conflict, but escalation in the use of (a combination of) air power and bomb power to end the war, negating any hope of Japan outlasting the morale of the US home front.
> it did in fact convince the Allies that an invasion of Japan would have been prohibitively costly in lives.
No it didn't. The US was still preparing for the invasion of Japan, either because the person in question didn't know about the Manhattan Project, or in case it didn't work or failed to force surrender.
Conversely, once the Manhattan Project did succeed as long as the war was still going on, there was no way the bombs wouldn't get used.
A very close friend of mine, Brooks Wachtel and Emmy winning writer produced and directed the TV documentary series Dogfights about war planes. He has also done an incredible amount of work on Navy ships. I will definitely send him this article to get his perspective. Thank you for this, it is so well written.
Thank you so much and I appreciate you sharing my work.
Brooks just got back to me. He wrote: “The article is pretty accurate. It leaves out a few details - eg. the IJN had intended to save Yamato for the invasion of Japan but when the defense of Okinawa was being discussed with the Emperor, he asked the Admirals what the Navy was going to do... putting them on the spot It was then they realized they would have to commit the Yamato.”
“Also, the USN had originally planned to attack with its own battleships, but the carrier admiral launched his aircraft on his own, and then asked - and got - permission to take out the giant battleship.
We covered the sinking of the Yamato on my show DogFights... Here's the link...”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_8o51YOZY4
Yes, Mitscher actually jumped the gun a bit. He was what they called a "brownshoe," someone who had come up through aviation, as opposed to his overall commander in 5th Fleet, Raymond Spruance, a "blackshoe" from the world of surface ships. There was a good bit of tension between the two groups, as the former saw themselves as forward-thinking reformers who would put aviation first over and against the blinkered fogeys addicted to big guns. However, it should be noted that Mitscher (and pretty much everyone else) regarded Spruance very highly (his nickname in the Navy was "the Electric Brain" and Mitscher had Spruance's full confidence as well.
He loves talking about the history of planes and ships etc. I think he will find your article intriguing. I wish he were here on Substack writing.
I appreciated this.
"like many today who seek a “warrior code” of fetishized violence unmediated by moral considerations or any purpose beyond the imposition of the will on others, they distorted authentic teachings that would sit well alongside the best of pagan Greece and Rome into a bastardized modernism that sublimated man’s true high purpose to the political ends of a weaponized personal inadequacy. "
Gun culture has exacerbated this. Any fool can do great damage. I more admire the one capable of immense violence, but also great culture and civility.
Well done - a very good essay. You're a credit to Substack!
Thank you for a gripping account of how the Yamato met it's end. As others have noted, it's fate is too often dismissed as a footnote. Thank you also for pointing me to Toth's book(s) - I hope to add at least one to my library when I am able to find the time to enjoy it.
His trilogy is excellent. You may also like James Hornfischer’s The Fleet at Flood Tide, Neptune’s Inferno, and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. The latter two books are closer looks at particular campaigns and battles.
You write history very well. If you haven’t yet, you should do a book .
Thank you very kindly. I have not written a book yet; perhaps I will one day.
Wonderful essay. It was shocking for me to learn that the Japanese had no realistic war plan for defeating the USA. They knew it in 1938 and despite their territorial gains from '38 to early '41, they still had no rational plan for defeating the USA in the summer of '41. Their only hope was to inflict enough damage so as to convince the USA to negotiate a peace treaty which left Japan in control of most of East Asia. But the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, key to their plan, eliminated the possibility of a negotiated end to the war which they started.
Everyone knew it would end in disaster but no one could say it. The inertia of their Japanese leadership's moral cowardice dragged them down like infernal gravity.
I think the same can be said concerning many or our conflicts lately.
I'd argue that's more a case of the rather large pacifist faction in the US sabotaging its wars and then claiming to be prophetic for predicting failure.
I would disagree. The US has not won a major war against even a near-peer opponent since WWII, and much of the reason for that is not for want of militarism in either the population or the managerial state. It’s simply that we are unwilling to commit to the kind of sacrifice and destruction required to achieve our goals, so our wars tend to be these interminable half-efforts with meaningless metrics and propaganda substituting for results. I wish it were different in every sense.
> The US has not won a major war against even a near-peer opponent since WWII, and much of the reason for that is not for want of militarism in either the population or the managerial state. It’s simply that we are unwilling to commit to the kind of sacrifice and destruction required to achieve our goals
In other words, for want of "militarism".
Every war the US has gotten involved in, a peace faction has arisen and tried to stop, e.g, Henry David Thoreau for the Mexican War. And if the US doesn't win quickly enough, the peace faction will eventual force a withdrawal.
Congratulations. The last ride of the Yamato has been relegated to a footnote and deserves more historical scrutiny.
I was somewhat confused at your catalogue of the Naval aviation assets flown at the Yamato fleet; all those aircraft were before my time, but I knew quite a few older Naval aviators who flew them and never heard anybody complain about the Corsair. It was a little complicated to handle on the ground, but in the air it was highly regarded by both Navy and Marine pilots. Your reference to the Curtis is the one that threw me. The only Curtis that comes to mind is the SB2C Helldiver, which was roundly hated by those condemned to fly it. It was vastly inferior to its predecessor, the SBD Douglas Dauntless.
Also, I see I made a typo. The Curtiss IS the Helldiver; I started to type Curtiss Helldiver and then it somehow got messed up. I've corrected that.
The Helldiver was indeed a widely-hated plane- the "Ensign Annihilator" dreaded by those tasked with flying it. The Corsair did ultimately come into its own, but it was only really loved by the Marines; my general understanding is that the Hellcat, much easier to handle, was the prefered choice among Naval aviators. For this I looked at both the Toll books I referenced and Robert Gandt's "The Twilight Warriors." I'd be interested in contrary opinions, as I of course can only report secondhand.
These days it's pretty difficult to come up with anything except secondhand reports. As a young naval aviator half a dozen Dauntless pilots and four Corsair pilots. Can't recall ever meeting a Hellcat pilot or a Helldiver pilot. Most of the latter were already dead.
No question about the hellcat being the best navy fighter plane. All the guys loved it because it could soak up a ton of punishment and keep flying. Even the Japanese pilots acknowledged that. You're an air combat pilot that is pie on your list.
everybody agreed the Hellcat was easy to fly, too. The Corsair could be temperamental, and was a total nightmare during ground operations, because of its tendency to overheat and catch fire. If you were going to fly a Corsair you had to learn to play your cowl flaps like a violin.
Very nice and interesting article. Well done.
Ironically, the Japanese could probably have won a war of attrition, despite America's huge industrial advantage, simply because it doesn't take much for Americans to turn against a war as subsequent history has shown.
Awesome article, loved that my humble article inspired your even better one about this amazing ship and how bravely both sides fought in the Pacific War.
Man, I can't wait to write some more about Japanese history, and to get your opinion when those articles come out. I really do admire your knowledge and familiarity with such topics Librarian, honestly yours is one of the most interesting and fascinating Substacks to read hereon Substack.