Claim your SPECIAL OFFER for MagellanTV here: sponsr.is/magellantv_drachinifel_1124. Start your free trial TODAY or give an amazing gift for a limited time Also: Pinned post for Q&A :)
you mention in this video that Jelicho seemed aware of Japan's 8-8 plan. Would Japan have considered this a breech of Security or was 8-8 a relatively public secret?
Along Roxas Boulevard in the Philippines, there is a mock up of a turret that looks like a replica coastal battery turret. What is the turret really a replica of and if the guns were still live and fired at their set angle, how far into Manila Bay would the shots land?
If the British had not pulled ships out of the area, how do you think it would have impacted Japan's offense? Given that most of the British carriers would have been elsewhere, wouldn't more British ships present just meant more being sunk by Japanese airpower, whether carrier or land based?
I remember a story my Grandad told me (Royal Navy, Escort Carrier HMS Slinger, Running supplies and replacement aircraft/air crews up from Brisbane to US and UK fleets). He was sent across in a bosuns chair to a US Ship to fix something he was uniquely skilled to do. You see pre war he apprenticed to the company that did all the screens and curtains for the cinemas and music halls in south London. And this carrier had taken a hit right in the cinema and it needed replacing (for Morale reasons). They insisted in feeding him as a thanks, the guy in the que in front of him complained "not chicken again" as a whole quarter of Chicken go slapped on his tray! It has been since 1940 that he had last seen a chicken that was not pictured on a soup can! Yes, there were certainly supply differences between the two!
And thus, the long tradition of feeding Royal Navy sailors all they could eat while aboard USN vessels was born lol🤣(USN sailors appreciate British sailors getting them drunk when visiting Royal Navy vessels, everybody wins lol🤣)
Even worse is that the Americans had 2 whole years find out about the problem and to ask the RN to fix, even the Germans figured out to that to fix their torpedo problems was study captured torpedoes from a sunk RN sub and fixed their torpedo issues in 3 months by June/July 1940
Drachism of the day: "Introducing German panzers to the concept of 'there's always a bigger fish' in comically unequal artillery duels during the landings in Normandy"
@@simongeard4824 don't forget the USS Wisconsin she became known for its "temper, temper" incident in North Korea after it retaliated against a Korean battery of 155mm attack with nine 406m salvos which blew the battery in oblivion. It also rearranged the ground around the battery.
My 99 year old dad who was a Lt. Cmndr. often talked about how the British had alcohol an the US didn't. When the opportunity would present itself, the Royal Navy Officers would invite the US officers. The US officers would bring ice cream and cigarettes. Dad also said that when on leave in the UK he would bring cartons of cigarettes. Dad did not smoke and saved his ration for trade. Dad said he could get anything for carton or two of cigarettes. In the early part of the war he would take eggs with him and give 6 eggs in exchange for a 2 egg omlet. He referred to the alcohol used as torpedo fuel as "torpedo juice"
I am for ever annoyed with myself for not getting my aunt on tape to talk about her nursing career on Malta from 1937 to 1942. In my defence, Alice died after a long illness in 1982. I was only 24.
Dad made LCDR at 19 years old. When he was in UK Royal Navy Officers could not believe that he was a real officer of such high rank. Most Royal Navy LCDR were twice my dad's age. In many US states he wasn't old enough to drink. Dad said the only problem he had was getting a date, because the women thought he was too young. He looked younger than he was
@geordiedog1749 USN officers were not known for getting out of control drunk. Although dad did talk about one officer when making a port call in Chile who broke up a bar and had to be bailed out by the skipper. Dad did say he was Irish American, and had a drinking problem. Dad said he was nice enough when sober, but avoided the fellow when off ship. The real problem was that the US increased the size of its Navy so fast that there wasn't the deciplin that RN had. Many were barley sailors. My high school history teacher came from North Dakota and ended up a plank owner on USS New Jersey. He had never seen the ocean before he joined the USN. He was well educated from a deciplined family so he fit well with the USN.
One humorous bit: Initially the BPF's Seafires could only be used for CAP because of their limited combat range. Comander Evans, Implacable's air wing commander, solved this problem in June 1945 by trading a few cases of whiskey for surplus P-40 drop tanks lying around a USAAF depot in New Guinea.
Very detailed and as usual entertaining discussion of the British Pacific Fleet. As an American, I rarely heard about attacking Japanese held southern resource centers, which was the whole reason Imperial Japan went to war in the first place.
Once the Philippines were taken, the Southern Resource Area was effectively cut off from the Japanese Home Islands. Not that they had that much of a transport fleet at that point (end 1944) anyway. Most of that battle was fought in 1943 and 44.
@@Genessyss because this is a Naval history channel. History is full of evil people doing evil things including genocide. I am german, my country is even more guilty of that than the UK: There are alot of very good historians, even on youtube, who specialize in that subject matter. I bet you can find some good stuff on it. That is, if you actually want to and this is not just some brit-hating snide comment....
@@Genessysswhat genocides every where the Brits were there populations still exist and boomed whilst under the British that's hardly a genocide what you seem to be calling a genocide is Britain killing it's enemies
Fun fact, Bankstown Airport in Sydney was handed over temporarily to the British Pacific Fleet from the Royal Australian Air Force as an aircraft replenishment base.
One more thing. I was digging through my Grandad's service records the other day and i found out that his service on HMAS Lismore (A Bathurst-Class Corvette) was when it was deployed to the BPF.
My grandfather was commander of the 27th destoyer flotilla in the BPF from formation to the end of the war. Which means he was one of the first British people to encounter Japanese Kamikazes I'm interested to see if the flotilla his ship (kempenfelt) or he himself gets mentioned in this Edit: no mention so far but I will be looking forward to further parts
Timestamp 28:10 - 28:45 - The main issue with the Fairey Barracuda being used at the time was the powerplant/engine. It was woefully underpowered with the Rolls Royce Merlin engines. Later variants, as shown in the picture, were equipped with the Rolls Royce Griffon engines (propeller rotated counter-clockwise, as the one in the picture) and solved many of the power issues plaguing the Barracuda in service.
this was a common occurance in WWII as aircraft and engines were often made by separate companies. Huge example.. the substandard ground attack aircraft the P-51.. which got the merlin engine and became a high altitude interceptor (possibly also why the Barracuda could not get that engine)
also.. did you mean they rotated counter-clockwise.. or that they had dual-counter-rotating propellers? I have limited knowledge of most Fairey produced items. CCW rotation is uncommon in aircraft because of the 'right hand rule' causing instability vortexes as discovered with newbie Sopwith Camel pilots. (CCW direction from pilot's perspective.. not from groundcrew(i think))
Your comment at 28.44 that the Avenger would supplant the Barracuda needs qualification as it’s a commonly held myth. In fact four squadrons of Barracudas were in training for the four light fleet carriers to be deployed in July 45. They were to perform night dive bombing, a capability unique to the BPF at that time and required for Op Olympic. A further twelve Barra squadrons would have followed had the war gone into 1946. Pending the Mk V, the Barracuda IIs and IIIs were to operate with two rather than three crew to restore performance. Entertaining and astute commentary though, thanks.
Ahh, who would have thunk that the RN carrier groups also had troubles with coordinating their air groups and maintaining radio discipline. Those who frequent this channel, would have surmised those were uniquely American problems ;) I think it was hard lines for those young men, winning a tough 5 year war and then having to go to the Pacific to fight another war. I'm pretty sure none of them cared about the optics to Singapore or Hong Kong natives. They were brave heroes and gave their youth, and lives, for their country.
Norman Hanson's book _Carrier Pilot_ talks about his experience as a Corsair Pilot on HMS Illustrious in WW2. One thing I like about this book is he discusses in several places the fatigue issues associated with carrier operations, including the fatigue issue caused by too much time at war. _The days passed, patrol after patrol. Sometimes morning, sometimes afternoon or evening - often all three. We became tired, we lost appetites. There was no time for laundry to be done and our flying overalls became sweat-sodden and dirty. They were long, long flying days punctuated by brief flashing moments of excitement, fear, and heart-stopping flap. The enemy had a seemingly endless supply of flak ammunition, and the more aircraft we flew over his islands, the better his practice became._ _Tiredness, probably the greatest enemy with which we had to content, was now showing itself quite blatantly ... Most of us began to suffer from 'off' days._ Even very experienced pilots with lots of successful carrier landings could die in accidents as a result of fatigue - and battle damage could make landing even riskier than usual. Another highlight of this book is it makes the disadvantages of using the enclosed/armored hanger system in hot climates very clear. It's actually pretty remarkable that they didn't have serious accidents, given that the medical condition known as 'heat exhaustion' is known to impair judgement, and they had tired overheated people in the deck and hanger crews routinely handling gasoline and explosives. Finally, he gives a good description of going through an Indian Ocean typhoon aboard the Illustrious - a terrifying experience.
@@bluelemming5296 And yet the armoured flight decks allowed the British carriers to shrug off kamikaze hits that would have had an UNarmoured type returning to home port for major repair... swings and roundabouts. Armoured flight decks were of course the original RN carrier philosphy... expecting to operate in areas like the Med where land based enemy aircraft WERE going to be encountered. I think we've all heard the joke about the pipe made onboard an RN carrier after a kamikaze bounced off the flight deck "Sweepers, man your brooms"...
Thanks very much Drach! As a fan of WWII Pacific and USN operations, this is the FIRST detailed description I've encountered of Royal Navy Carrier/Naval/FAA operations in that theater. I'd say Meridian I & II more than validated the RN's value to existing and future Allied operations on the road to the home islands of Japan. I can't prove it, but I suspect Admiral King hated his own mother.:o) Thanks again.
26:54. Probably a mercy for the Japanese that Warspite wasn't sent to the British Pacific Fleet. There would probably be nothing left of Japan if she and Enterprise were to join forces.
So long as they sent plenty of ships to protect HMS Warspite. She was a mighty ship but so were HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse (Force Z under the command of Admiral Tom Phillips) which were sunk on 10 December 1941 by Japanese warplanes, 50 miles from the coast of Kuantan in Malaya. But the thought of USS Enterprise and HMS Warspite a together warms the cockles of my heart.😂
@@maryholder3795So long as there’s no shallow waters, Warspite will do well. Torpedoes avoid her, as evidenced in several occasions like in the Norwegian fjords.
@@kidpagronprimsank05 they were still in the Indian Ocean, just at Mombasa/Klindini/Bombay at times even after Operation C. Warspite even returned back to Ceylon/Trincomalee a couple of times after that raid (and Midway)
@@nickdanger3802didn't Australian cruisers fight in the naval battles of Guadalcanal and off new guinea and A British fleet Aircraft carrier (HMS Victorious) was loaned to the US Navy after USS Hornet was sunk. Also British and Dutch submarines contributed to the US Submarine campaign.
@@tigerland4328 Apologies if this seems terse. my bone of contention lies with Brit versions writing the USN, USCG and Lend Lease out of the Battle of the Atlantic, Murmansk Runs and the Med. concurrent with the Battle of Coral Sea in which the USN lost one fleet carrier, one fleet destroyer and one fleet oiler stopping Japan's New Guinea invasion force, USS Wasp launched Spits to Malta for the second time in two months at Churchill's request. 5,000 carrier aircraft, 38 escort carriers, over 2,000 B24's, 1,000 Lockheed Hudson's, 78 Captain class frigates and 10 Lake class CG cutters were Lend Leased from 1941.
@@nickdanger3802 I agree the US Contribution to the battle of the Atlantic and to a lesser extent the Mediterranean was by no means "small" and without the United states almost unlimited ship building capacity the Atlantic campaign would have been longer. My point is the American actions in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean are pretty well documented in both British and American accounts. However in most American sources British actions in the war against Japan seem to be limited to the sinking of force Z and the fall of Singapore. Even the Burma theatre where British and Indian forces killed 240,000 Japanese and inflicted one of the worst defeats on the Japanese army don't really get a mention. As I said the American contribution to victory in the European theatre cannot be down played but I would argue that neither can the UKs in the Indo-Pacific theatre.
The logistics of WW2 played such a large part in the US war effort, and you don't often hear much about it. But it was critical, and without it, the US would have been next to useless, as we were too far away from the various conflict areas. Being able to move material to where it could be put to good use, was essential. Second to that was a very heavy emphasis on damage control in the USN. Lots of ships were saved that for other nations would have been lost. And even minor damage could usually be either made good or a non-effective on combat ability.
This was really excellent to see. I knew that the British Navy had a lot of Ships available during the later years of the War, I had just not known where they were deployed from or to. For the Empire to assemble and sail such a Fleet and considerably damage the Japanese War Effort with it is heartening to hear. Other videos have reduced the British presence there in 44' and 45' to a blurb. This was pretty cool! Thank you, Dr. Drach.
Thank you for looking into the British Navy contributions in the Pacific. I have recently read the biography of Stevenson, MI-6 and his US counterpart, Donovan. Both provide views of the Churchill and Roosevelt discussions, and the Admiral King, Nimetz and MacArthur obstacles. Fortunately, when these allies fought alongside each other, there was the kind of cooperation that made their combined effort better. The supply train of ordnance, to give the British something to shoot in their naval guns, you present, was unimaginable to Americans. Much less a selection of HE, AP, illumination star shells, is mindboggling. One notable effect of the raids of the formerly Dutch Shell refineries, the Japanese were forced to use raw crude, right out of the ground, to fuel their ships boilers. This had multiple drawbacks. Crude produced more smoke. American aviators and submarines often saw towering black columns of smoke that led them to Japanese warships and transports. Secondly, crude still contained a significant amount of highly flammable gasoline components. Incendiary projectiles, from .50 and up, led to fires that normally refined "Navy Black" would not have supported. Thirdly, the Japanese engineering crews must have struggled to keep boilers operating. I can't imagine that submarine diesel engines could risk operating on crude?
No, I don't think a diesel will run on crude. There were still some refineries operating into 1945, but the IJN sub fleet had been decimated by ASW and use for resupplying bypassed bases (bringing them into even more ASW).
The US logistics train always amazes me. everything had to be designed to operate at long distances for resupply. The Chieftain, for example, had a show on the sherman and why it was designed as it was. The slab sides meant the were easy to pack on a ship, the short barrel gun also packed better, it was reliable and easy to repair as sending back to the US for repair was impossible, etc.
The US pioneered (although didn't invent) the use of CARDBOARD as a packing material for military supplies and materiel. Sounds unimportant? Look at us Brits with our somewhat smaller volume of supplies transported, struggling to pack everything in wooden casings or, alternatively, swallowing the output of a small army of sheet metal workers in the form of tin boxes. Cardboard packaging proved, when correctly used, to be cheap, tough, and rapid to deploy as well as saving a great deal of critical resource material. The Yanks really understood all aspects of logistics and were absolute masters of it.
One would think HMS Victorious would be the seasoned veteran, and thus the most capable, given her stint holding the line in the earlier days of the war. One would also expect her crew felt an abundant sense of machismo now that she was part of a powerful fleet, as opposed to those desperate months when few ships were available for escort or replenishment. I’m sure the experience Victorious got as USS Robin engaging the Japanese forces paid dividends across Task Force 37/57.
Not new here, but thought I would share a few of my dads memories as recounted in various moments over his life. He was a rating on the destroyer Urchin. He volunteered when he was 17 and was only 18 when this all happened. Because hos ship arrived in Trincomalee before the formation of the BPF he was given the Burma Star with Pacific clasp. He recalled the raid on Palembang as their first proper action.....they had had a potential contact with a u boat in bay of Biscay on the world tour to get to the Indian Ocean. Most of the crew on his ship were also only 18 or so, they thought the captain in his mid twenties was old. Looking forward to the next one, thanks very much for your work.
It would be fascinating to see you do a video on the American 6th Battle Squadron of WWI. In so many ways, it was the direct spiritual ancestor and mirror image of the British Pacific Fleet. The discussion of BPF employment relative to the US fleet and integrating their procedures with their larger allied fleet are almost exactly the same issues Admiral Rodman of 6th BS faced when joining the Grand Fleet.
Thanks. That was interesting. There were any number of ways and reasons for attacking the enemy. The Americans were focused on getting to where they could attack Japan Directly. Japan's Strategic Defensive Plan - was to create a series of Island Barriers - for Air Bases - that would screen Japan from being approached by enemy forces. The Americans were focused on penetrating those chains and capturing bases and anchorages from which to move on. One thing that the Allies wanted to do - was cut off Japan's supplies. Japan had launched the war to gain access to materials it didn't have. There were 3 ways to cut them off. Attack the Source of their Materials. Take bases astride their route home. Attack their shipping. The American Navy used submarines to attack their shipping. MacArthur took the Philippines. The British Empire attacked the Source. I knew a little about what the Australians had done but nothing about those carrier raids on the refineries. Thanks again. .
During the 1930 Prohibition Era in the USA, my father was an engineer in the engineering dept of either a Cunard or White Star liners. The ship could not go into New York port with alcohol on board. So the noble off duty officers crewman and passengers made sure no alcohol was left on board. He remarked he made it back to his cabin by following the teak lines on the decks. Which he needed after doing his bit for a "dry" liner. 😂 My point is? It is an amusing family story and that the USS warships were not the only dry ships.
THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I’ve been looking for quality content about the BPF for literally years. I’ve always considered it one of the most fascinating and least covered aspects of the Pacific Theater, and the war in general. But there’s almost nothing save for a few short videos made by just a couple UA-cam creators. There is one channel that features first hand accounts, which used to be called Armoured Carriers, but recently changed its name…can’t recall what they changed it to. But basically I’ve been waiting for Drach to do this for AGES!!! Super exciting. Thank you!!!!
I’m from Leumeah Sydney Australia and have reading and watching naval stuff since the 1980’s. In one of my naval magazines it had a section of several pages of the BPF in Sydney harbour packed with RN ships in lots of bays and alongside the wharves available.
One thing about the different militarizes involved - was that there were people in those militarizes that were very much aware of where things were strategically and where they might go. For one thing - the American Navy had repeatedly attacked Pearl Harbor itself during Fleet Exorcises. The Island was very well defended. It had the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions garrisoning it. It had Army, Navy and Marine airfields. It had 64 PBY Catalina's. It had 4 radar installations - one of which picked up the incoming raid from the Kido Butai. They had received War Warnings that Japan was going to attack us. The problem - was incompetence on the part of the military commanders and inexperience on the part of the men. The British had trained Americans on how to use Radar at a training installation in Panama. The operators knew how to use the equipment and coordination centers had been set up. They just didn't have experience using it all. The United States was completely unprepared for war in 1941 and suffered for it terribly the first year. .
I should say - that all the other Combatant Powers were inexperienced when they started the war - it's just that by the time the US was involved - it's enemies had been at it for some time - and knew what they were doing. .
@@BobSmith-dk8nw That is an unwritten law of war - after a time of peace, the military will be inexperienced and perform poorly at first. The one who wins is the one who clears out the incompetent commanders and learns the lessons quickest.
*Interesting comment on kamikaze attacks and the UK carriers. On a (slightly) lighter note, UK carrier design conferred advantages in heavy weather too. After one dreadful storm in which, tragically, the USN lost a destroyer and several carriers sustained significant damage, the fleet's CO understandably requested status reports in view of the recent typhoon. An attached British carrier responded merely with "What typhoon?"*
Sounds like an urban legend to me. Norman Hanson wrote the book _Carrier Pilot_ , about his WW2 experiences aboard HMS Illustrious. In it he describes an Indian Ocean typhoon the ship went through: _We spent two days and nights trying to dodge it, but it won in the end and on October 26 it hit us with all the force of Nature gone stark staring mad. It continued to hammer us for three days and I have no desire to experience another. Everything about it was terrifying. We crawled along and took fearful punishment._ Keep in mind this is a Corsair pilot. Anything those guys find terrifying should seriously make us think ...
@@joshualetchford2034 True, but, actually I suspect if that incident happened, it was more an example of the British sense of humor than the stiff upper lip. 🙂
Brilliant. I only wish I had had some rum to drink as I listened to this. Interesting how the Brits are learning many of the same lessons the USN had to learn in 1942.
@@bigblue6917 my goodness, sir. I thought nothing of it when the German ships hoist their flag. But then, a ship, the Frederick the Great I think, started to sink. And by god, all of their ships started to sink. The jerries were all over the water, clinging to raft and trying to swim ashore! What a scene that was. I also helped in arresting some of those German sailors as well!
As Supreme Commander Allied Forces in the SWPA, MacArthur actually had nominal control of the BPF. In fact, MacArthur had to approve provision of logistics and infrastructure support in Australia and the forward base at Manus. He had final say over whether or not the BPF went ahead and supposedly did so in order to annoy Admiral King. Fraser's relationship with the Australian government was also toxic because he believed it should fund logistics and infrastructure. It broke down after he complained to the Sydney tabloid newspapers about a perceived lack of financial and other support. One of Clement Attlee's first actions as PM was to apologise for any misunderstandings. David Horner wrote about it decades ago in his book "High Command". The BPF had a huge impact on the Australian economy which was already fully stretched supporting Australian and American forces throughout the Pacific. Saying the RN "chose" Australia as the location of the base somewhat overstates British influence in Australia three years after their withdrawal from the SWPA and the rest of the Pacific in the wake of the fall from Singapore. Alan Brooke's war diaries makes clear British concerns about their relationship with the Australian government as well as the year long dispute with Churchill in 1943/44 over whether to build up forces in India or Australia.
40:05 HMS Euryalus: *Tries to shoot down a Japanese Bomber. Hits HMS Illustrious instead. HMS Illustrious: "Oi! Ya right plonker!" Thanks for sharing, Drach. BPF operations are a very interesting subject. Cheers.
I was actually expecting Drach to quote Jellicoe predicting the Guadalcanal campaign, not Pearl Harbor and the opening phases. I wonder just how much more of the Pacific war also predicted.
Was very pleased when I woke this morning and realized it was time for my Wednesday R. ration! Enjoyed it immensely too as I had never heard of these strikes by the R.N. before now. Thanks Drach!
Excellent, so glad for this, and it being as a series 9n the BPF, I can somewhat understand the logistics, but not Adm. King not wanting them helping end the damn war. But years ago I read a book on the war at sea that covered alot of the whole war, British perspective, it spoke 9f the BPF having to supply its own equipment and such, but a story in this book spoke of the British needing 3 spare avengers, they went to the US fleet supply hoping to get some where they were told, in no uncertain terms, that they only gave out 6 at a time, and for a case of scotch they could have a dozen. This is allied teamwork. And a example of, the CNO don't need to know everything.
Excellent episode Drach !!! I've always been interested in the BPF, and have two excellent books regarding it, David Hobbs excellent compendium and "The Kamikaze Hunters" by Will Iredale, which dealt more with the FAA aviators themselves during their training time in the US and the subsequent missions dedicated to attacking kamikaze bases. They provide a lot of great information that was generally not known about the pluses and minuses of several aircraft types, but the most interesting to me was the tough job of re-supplying and re-equipping the shorter-legged British ships. I found the idea of the HMS Unicorn especially interesting, as it was a big help in naval and air actions. It also had a pretty long service life. After damage to a number of US fleet carriers due to kamikaze strikes, the BPF did yeoman-like work in assistance. I can't wait for the second episode. I would also like commend you for your excellent appearances on Seth Paridon & Bill Toti's Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcasts. I'm hoping that they do an episode or two about the BPF and possibly get you and David Hobbs in as commentators.
First. I live in Singapore and always felt that the fall of Malaya was mostly due to the preoccupation with Europe, but also a colonialist mindset that racially underestimated Japanese intentions and neglected defense infrastructure and training.
The Japanese spearheaded their advance down the Malay peninsula with over 200 tanks. They had far better warplanes operated from nearby bases in Thailand. The British garrison was given nothing to counter this combination of armor and air superiority. Defensive infrastructure and training wouldn't alter the course of events.
@tvgerbil1984 yes they had already recalled most of it to Europe and Japan had found the plans that said "no way can the empire win in a European war and at the same time win a war the other side of the planet without risking losing both, it must concentrate on one and then the other, the UK with its massive industrial output must be defended as a priority"
I (Stephen Clarke [Husband]) would add to that sheer stupidity. If Admiral Philips had called for air support when Force Z started being attacked HMS Repulse would not have been lost. HMS Prince of Wales still would have simply because it would have received fatal hits before the fighters arrived. At that point however Repulse would still have not been hit AT All. Fighters even the Rubbish Buffalos would have disrupted the the bombers and probably shot some down. Air support was however only called for after P.OW. was sunk because that's when Capt Tennant on Repulse became Senior Officer and he was no fool. I don't think they did underestimate the Japanese intentions but they, the British badly overestimated their own ability to hold out and get reinforcements.
@@LordInter Sadly, it was far worse than that. Churchill went into alliance with Stalin in July 1941 and promised to send tanks and planes to Stalin. So the tanks earmarked for Malay & Singapore ended up in Arctic convoys to the Soviet ports of Archangel and Murmansk. No tank ever arrived at Singapore. Instead, Churchill sent the inadequate Force Z of two battleships to Singapore, hoping that would be enough to scare the Japanese away.
I watched Run Silent, Run Deep the other day. By and large it's a good film. However, of the umpteen torpedoes fired by the Nerka, only one failed in any way. That one circled back to the boat which dived deeper to avoid being hit. Later one of the crew says that only one in a hundred torpedoes go wrong. In 1943. The credits thanked the US Navy for its help making the film. It seems a simple conclusion to draw, right? "Armed with working torpedoes" just hammered another nail in.
@@nickdanger3802 In what way was I making that case? I was describing a film in which a scene was clearly the USN covering up the fact that their torpedoes at that time were complete bobbins.
Many years ago Avalanche Press did a scenario book called East of Suez that covered a lot of what Drach is talking about here. Articles talked about a lot of the same issues about deploying the RN to the Pacific in bulk that came up.
Finally, you get around to this video. Thank you as this topic is so very rarely covered naval historians, along with the Japanese East Indian fleet action.
Awesome lecture. In my youth, I read a few of the histories of naval actions in the Pacific but don't remember reading about anything involving the British except for Force Z since what was available was from the U.S. perspective who, so it seemed, brought the Japanese to their knees all by themselves and so avenged Pearl Harbor.
Before the reconstitution of the British Pacific Fleet, the RN began shifting its submarine force to the Pacific theater immediately after the Italian surrender of September 1943. By late 1944, at least 40 British submarines were already operating there, mainly in the Java Sea and Sea of China. Unlike surface ships, the stealth nature of submarines attacted little publicity but they helped to sink many Japanese merchant shippings and even Japanese warships.
I have such a sense of pride over the combined strengths of the US and British forces in the late Pacific War, mixed with some dread that we may soon have significant conflict with a different Asian power (take a guess), yet with vastly less logistical and manufacturing resources. We were mighty in the mid-20th century, can we rise to the needs again?
@@Genessyss The Japanese are owed little apology. Their acts of barbarism during their prosecution of their war aims are well known, as were also seen in other theaters. If you have specifics you're free to list them, but such is the nature of war. Now, would you like to speak to what your people have done in similar circumstances? There is unlikely to be any country with clean hands, unfortunately. And those that might are frequently preyed on (Ukraine).
…does it? What did he say that was so insightful and 4D chess? ‘The naval war will see a naval power attack the enemy’s forward naval bases’ People online: “galaxy brain!”
I found this episode particularly enjoyable. Well done. I’ve always had a bit of fascination with the DEI segment of the Pacific War during the entire period
They were incredibly useful in the Mediterranean! S Class submarines especially as they were far smaller than the T Class, so more suited to the narrow, relatively shallow confines of the Med. Larger Boats such as the aforementioned T Class, as well as the Grampus Class minelaying Boats were hideously vulnerable there, so tended to suffer heavily. Submarines and aircraft from Malta took a continuous toll on Italian attempts to supply both their troops and the Germans in North Arica. And then of course there was all the Special Operations they were involved in. British submarines may not have sunk the kinds of tonnages in the Med that German subs did in the Atlantic, but they were far from useless..... As for the Atlantic, why send them there? After the first few months of the war there was no Axis sea traffic in the Atlantic for the majority of the war. There was literally nothing there for them to sink with the exception of enemy submarines. So they essentially spent very little time there. No point in using submarines in areas they have no targets after all. The exception to that would be the Bay of Biscay... where British subs were active for most of the war.
They we did a lot of work on what today would be called "Special Ops" - landing raiding commandos, spies, saboteurs and beach surveyors (for landings) on enemy coasts. Plenty skilled and dangerous work that would have transferred quite well to the Pacific.
ok I have a silly question. 16:50 what is the Destroyer being refueled ? Flag inferior 24 + what seems to be a 4.7in doesn't return anything except HMS Hasty (H24) but it doesn't have a single funnel, and was sunk in 1942 well before it could even think about reaching the Pacific... I am.. puzzled.
Its HMS Ulysses, she operated under the D24 pennant as part of the British pacific fleet. The BPF as a whole operated under a different pennant system to the rest of the RN, though the RN would switch to the system widely by 1948, and this system was later the one adopted by NATO.
Anything but a 1941-1943 U.S. Mark 14 (sub) or 15 (destroyer) torpedo, including the Mark 10 used by older S-boats. At the beginning of the war they had multiple overlapping problems, and due to the Bureau of Ordinance steadfastly refusing to admit the problems, blaming the captains misusing them instead, the issues were not found and fixed until two years later. British and Dutch subs had higher kill scores than US subs, some of which fired of full volleys of torpedoes and got no hits. The Germans had problems with their own torpedoes in 1939, but had them fixed in 6 months. One of the most shameful episodes of USN history in WW2.
Due to my knowledge of British Naval aircraft in WWII being somewhat limited and the fact that I am a moron, the pic during time stamp 28:09-28:45 at first really took me by surprise. My thoughts were: ”Wow, was the Barracuda that big??”….. “Is that just a really small person??”….. “Is that actually a person??”….. “Boy, that airplane is big!!!”. Then, after viewing more closely for a little bit: “Ohh…..”. Thank you for everything you do, Drach!!! - Jason Hendrix. Lexington, South Carolina
Drach: Going to have to disagree with you on your Third Fleet numbers at Leyte. I think you did not include TG 38.1 (2 CV's and 2 CVL's) which had been detached before the battle to go to Ulithi. They did make some strike attempts late in the battle.That was Halsey's most powerful Task Group.
@@Drachinifel I think we are both nitpicking here. 38.1 didn't fight at Engano, but it tried to get involved at Samar. I think we can say that despite the size of the Fast Carrier Task Force, it wasn't big enough to effectively handle the amount of work that Halsey required of it in October 1944. Actually proves the value of the BPF. Afterwards, damage from Kamikaze's increased the need.
One aspect of GB remaining in the 'The War', post cessation of European hostilities, May 1945, was that Britain would continue to be eligible to receive ongoing American Lend-Lease Aid. The US wanted, for obvious reasons, to terminate this ASAP and proved pretty hard nosed with the Brits and even more so with the Soviets. Ultimately, the best the UK could manage was dollar loans - not at particularly generous rates of interest - which weren't fully paid off until 2003. I believe that American desire to withdraw from the costly Lend-Lease programme was one reason why the USN cold shouldered British naval involvement in the Pacific at the end of the war. The Yanks didn't absolutely need the RN, particularly as that support came, indirectly, at a high price. And, I don't believe the Americans ever intended the British Empire and Commonwealth to be included in the post-war Marshall plan. Yet, the UK ended up as the largest recipient of US Marshall money - which, ungraciously, the Brits used, not to rebuild Britain, but to fund the UK's nuclear weapons programme. If you drill down, you get to Congressional horror at discovering the secret 1941 Quebec agreement which tied the US atomic bomb programme to sharing all its secrets with Britain, ongoing, and to Sen. McMahon's apoplectic fury and disgust (1946) at discovering that British permission for American use of American nuclear weapons (as had had to happen with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki devices) was mandated. No wonder the Americans were willing to pay anything, and to use any method, however devious, to conceal that payment!
Though he was commanding from shore, Admiral Fraser was nearly killed in action during his command of the British Pacific Fleet. In January, 1945 he was on the bridge of the battleship U.S.S. New Mexico, observing the landings in Lingayen Gulf to retake Luzon in the Phillipines. He was standing outside on one wing of the bridge when a Japanese kamikaze dove down and hit the other side of the bridge, killing everyone outside on the other wing, including Fraser's aide. His choice of which side of the bridge structure to watch the landings from was pretty much random, so he escaped basically a 50% chance of death.
If you go through the kamikaze strikes looking at flag vessels, there are a disproportionate number of flags struck in the Philippines, particularly the carriers. Flying an admiral's flag was a good way to attract a kamikaze. You'd think they'd learn to minimize that somehow.
Small and very little-known fact: the RAN provided all of the BPF's medical and dental stores once it arrived in Australia. Suggest this isn't too shabby for a naval medical service that began the war with only around 20 medical and ten dental officers and 80-odd medics for 5000 men, in a country that had to import most of its civilian medical supplies :-)
Excellent....as a lad the steady diet of US fleet carriers was interrupted when I saw some pictures of British carriers in the Pacific. I was aware of British (and other Commonwealth - Dutch) Navel action in the Pacific and needed to know more. My local library was pretty shy on any good books addressing this, only the ships that went down got a mention
R.N. fuel fittings were not compatable for U.S. Navy UNREPS. I guess that was one of the first things they had to fix if they were seeking interoperability.
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Also: Pinned post for Q&A :)
you mention in this video that Jelicho seemed aware of Japan's 8-8 plan. Would Japan have considered this a breech of Security or was 8-8 a relatively public secret?
What would a modernized Tillman 4 maximum battle ship look like if they were built
Along Roxas Boulevard in the Philippines, there is a mock up of a turret that looks like a replica coastal battery turret.
What is the turret really a replica of and if the guns were still live and fired at their set angle, how far into Manila Bay would the shots land?
Was consideraation given to re-commissioning and deploying Italian warships, including their battleships, to the Pacific for Allied use?
If the British had not pulled ships out of the area, how do you think it would have impacted Japan's offense? Given that most of the British carriers would have been elsewhere, wouldn't more British ships present just meant more being sunk by Japanese airpower, whether carrier or land based?
I remember a story my Grandad told me (Royal Navy, Escort Carrier HMS Slinger, Running supplies and replacement aircraft/air crews up from Brisbane to US and UK fleets). He was sent across in a bosuns chair to a US Ship to fix something he was uniquely skilled to do. You see pre war he apprenticed to the company that did all the screens and curtains for the cinemas and music halls in south London. And this carrier had taken a hit right in the cinema and it needed replacing (for Morale reasons). They insisted in feeding him as a thanks, the guy in the que in front of him complained "not chicken again" as a whole quarter of Chicken go slapped on his tray! It has been since 1940 that he had last seen a chicken that was not pictured on a soup can! Yes, there were certainly supply differences between the two!
And thus, the long tradition of feeding Royal Navy sailors all they could eat while aboard USN vessels was born lol🤣(USN sailors appreciate British sailors getting them drunk when visiting Royal Navy vessels, everybody wins lol🤣)
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 your grand dad was a criminal
I can picture that in my head. Been there, done that. People will always complain, and people in the military take complaining to a high art! ^-^
Excelent and fun story! Thank you!
@@Genessyss take it somewhere else
"And armed with working torpedoes"
Yeah, yeah, rub it in
Even worse is that the Americans had 2 whole years find out about the problem and to ask the RN to fix, even the Germans figured out to that to fix their torpedo problems was study captured torpedoes from a sunk RN sub and fixed their torpedo issues in 3 months by June/July 1940
@@UthurRytan to fix something you must first admit something was wrong, and that was the main problem...
@@jlvfr I'll take 'Reasons to Shoot BurOrd Top Brass Out of a Torpedo Tube' for $1000, Alex.
@@tanall5959 Can't spell "brass" without "ass"...
To be fair they got us there 😂😂😂
Drachism of the day: "Introducing German panzers to the concept of 'there's always a bigger fish' in comically unequal artillery duels during the landings in Normandy"
That one made me hoot with laughter 😂
Still not as bad as the Texas using the main battery for counter-sniper fire...
@@simongeard4824Don’t bring a 7.92mm to a 10x14 inch fight.
@@simongeard4824 don't forget the USS Wisconsin she became known for its "temper, temper" incident in North Korea after it retaliated against a Korean battery of 155mm attack with nine 406m salvos which blew the battery in oblivion. It also rearranged the ground around the battery.
@maryholder3795 Indeed, though I think Texas still takes the "no kill like overkill" title.
The Empire Strikes Back
Better than any movie too.
@@rickyfrax5602 The Criminal Empire Strikes back...there I fixed it for you.
@@Genessyssyawn
@@MattVF genocide bores you...innit?
@ yawn
My 99 year old dad who was a Lt. Cmndr. often talked about how the British had alcohol an the US didn't. When the opportunity would present itself, the Royal Navy Officers would invite the US officers. The US officers would bring ice cream and cigarettes. Dad also said that when on leave in the UK he would bring cartons of cigarettes. Dad did not smoke and saved his ration for trade. Dad said he could get anything for carton or two of cigarettes. In the early part of the war he would take eggs with him and give 6 eggs in exchange for a 2 egg omlet. He referred to the alcohol used as torpedo fuel as "torpedo juice"
Have you ever considered getting your dad to record his memories? It'll all be interesting to anyone on here.
I am for ever annoyed with myself for not getting my aunt on tape to talk about her nursing career on Malta from 1937 to 1942. In my defence, Alice died after a long illness in 1982. I was only 24.
Dad made LCDR at 19 years old. When he was in UK Royal Navy Officers could not believe that he was a real officer of such high rank. Most Royal Navy LCDR were twice my dad's age. In many US states he wasn't old enough to drink. Dad said the only problem he had was getting a date, because the women thought he was too young. He looked younger than he was
I get the impression that USN staff would often concoct any excuse to get over to a RN vessel in order to get utterly shitfaced as an adjuvant.
@geordiedog1749 USN officers were not known for getting out of control drunk. Although dad did talk about one officer when making a port call in Chile who broke up a bar and had to be bailed out by the skipper. Dad did say he was Irish American, and had a drinking problem. Dad said he was nice enough when sober, but avoided the fellow when off ship. The real problem was that the US increased the size of its Navy so fast that there wasn't the deciplin that RN had. Many were barley sailors. My high school history teacher came from North Dakota and ended up a plank owner on USS New Jersey. He had never seen the ocean before he joined the USN. He was well educated from a deciplined family so he fit well with the USN.
We don't hear nearly enough about the British Pacific Fleets contribution to the Far Eastern Campaign. Great vid Drac!
@@Bans94 we also don't hear anything about the centuries of warcrimes done by the brits.
🔔 end
@@tonibolsach right back at you 🤡
@@Genessyss make your own videos then lad. Nobody is stopping you
@@Genessyss Who gives a toss
One humorous bit: Initially the BPF's Seafires could only be used for CAP because of their limited combat range. Comander Evans, Implacable's air wing commander, solved this problem in June 1945 by trading a few cases of whiskey for surplus P-40 drop tanks lying around a USAAF depot in New Guinea.
"DEAL!"
As US ships and bases were "dry", whiskey or rum was a good exchange. 😂
As a former SeaBee, I always appreciate our Battalions getting a mention...and...such a positive mention!
Very detailed and as usual entertaining discussion of the British Pacific Fleet. As an American, I rarely heard about attacking Japanese held southern resource centers, which was the whole reason Imperial Japan went to war in the first place.
I didn't know either so that's both sides of the pond having someone illuminated.
Count me in, sitting landlocked in Central Europe (with keen naval interests none the less :) ).
Japan did not have much of a tanker fleet by late 1944
Once the Philippines were taken, the Southern Resource Area was effectively cut off from the Japanese Home Islands. Not that they had that much of a transport fleet at that point (end 1944) anyway. Most of that battle was fought in 1943 and 44.
Drach, please make more videos about the Brits in the Pacific during WW2. It’s an under covered area of history.
agreed, in general i thoroughly enjoy the stories of the little actions that make the big actions possible
@@dogloversrule8476 why doesn't he make some videos about the genocides and massacres the brits did? History is full of those.
@@Genessyss because this is a Naval history channel. History is full of evil people doing evil things including genocide. I am german, my country is even more guilty of that than the UK: There are alot of very good historians, even on youtube, who specialize in that subject matter. I bet you can find some good stuff on it. That is, if you actually want to and this is not just some brit-hating snide comment....
@@Genessysswhat genocides every where the Brits were there populations still exist and boomed whilst under the British that's hardly a genocide what you seem to be calling a genocide is Britain killing it's enemies
@@Genessyss How about videos on the US genocides and massacres? You could start with the Native American tribes.
Fun fact, Bankstown Airport in Sydney was handed over temporarily to the British Pacific Fleet from the Royal Australian Air Force as an aircraft replenishment base.
One more thing. I was digging through my Grandad's service records the other day and i found out that his service on HMAS Lismore (A Bathurst-Class Corvette) was when it was deployed to the BPF.
My grandfather was commander of the 27th destoyer flotilla in the BPF from formation to the end of the war. Which means he was one of the first British people to encounter Japanese Kamikazes
I'm interested to see if the flotilla his ship (kempenfelt) or he himself gets mentioned in this
Edit: no mention so far but I will be looking forward to further parts
Me: I wish Drach would cover the BPF
Drach: proceeds to drop this fire video
Timestamp 28:10 - 28:45 - The main issue with the Fairey Barracuda being used at the time was the powerplant/engine. It was woefully underpowered with the Rolls Royce Merlin engines. Later variants, as shown in the picture, were equipped with the Rolls Royce Griffon engines (propeller rotated counter-clockwise, as the one in the picture) and solved many of the power issues plaguing the Barracuda in service.
this was a common occurance in WWII as aircraft and engines were often made by separate companies. Huge example.. the substandard ground attack aircraft the P-51.. which got the merlin engine and became a high altitude interceptor (possibly also why the Barracuda could not get that engine)
Rolls-Royce having cancelled its original design powerplant, the Exe.
also.. did you mean they rotated counter-clockwise.. or that they had dual-counter-rotating propellers? I have limited knowledge of most Fairey produced items. CCW rotation is uncommon in aircraft because of the 'right hand rule' causing instability vortexes as discovered with newbie Sopwith Camel pilots. (CCW direction from pilot's perspective.. not from groundcrew(i think))
The Fairy Gannet had a pair of contrarotating propellers up front powered by a jet engine.
Gannet had two turbo props with contra rotating but unconnected propellers. It could cruise on one engine.
Your comment at 28.44 that the Avenger would supplant the Barracuda needs qualification as it’s a commonly held myth. In fact four squadrons of Barracudas were in training for the four light fleet carriers to be deployed in July 45. They were to perform night dive bombing, a capability unique to the BPF at that time and required for Op Olympic. A further twelve Barra squadrons would have followed had the war gone into 1946. Pending the Mk V, the Barracuda IIs and IIIs were to operate with two rather than three crew to restore performance. Entertaining and astute commentary though, thanks.
Ahh, who would have thunk that the RN carrier groups also had troubles with coordinating their air groups and maintaining radio discipline. Those who frequent this channel, would have surmised those were uniquely American problems ;)
I think it was hard lines for those young men, winning a tough 5 year war and then having to go to the Pacific to fight another war. I'm pretty sure none of them cared about the optics to Singapore or Hong Kong natives. They were brave heroes and gave their youth, and lives, for their country.
Norman Hanson's book _Carrier Pilot_ talks about his experience as a Corsair Pilot on HMS Illustrious in WW2.
One thing I like about this book is he discusses in several places the fatigue issues associated with carrier operations, including the fatigue issue caused by too much time at war.
_The days passed, patrol after patrol. Sometimes morning, sometimes afternoon or evening - often all three. We became tired, we lost appetites. There was no time for laundry to be done and our flying overalls became sweat-sodden and dirty. They were long, long flying days punctuated by brief flashing moments of excitement, fear, and heart-stopping flap. The enemy had a seemingly endless supply of flak ammunition, and the more aircraft we flew over his islands, the better his practice became._
_Tiredness, probably the greatest enemy with which we had to content, was now showing itself quite blatantly ... Most of us began to suffer from 'off' days._
Even very experienced pilots with lots of successful carrier landings could die in accidents as a result of fatigue - and battle damage could make landing even riskier than usual.
Another highlight of this book is it makes the disadvantages of using the enclosed/armored hanger system in hot climates very clear. It's actually pretty remarkable that they didn't have serious accidents, given that the medical condition known as 'heat exhaustion' is known to impair judgement, and they had tired overheated people in the deck and hanger crews routinely handling gasoline and explosives.
Finally, he gives a good description of going through an Indian Ocean typhoon aboard the Illustrious - a terrifying experience.
@@bluelemming5296 BL ............thanks for the extra !!!!!
It's almost universal that pilots lose radio discipline in their early combat flights and seems to have to be relearned all the time
@@bluelemming5296 And yet the armoured flight decks allowed the British carriers to shrug off kamikaze hits that would have had an UNarmoured type returning to home port for major repair... swings and roundabouts. Armoured flight decks were of course the original RN carrier philosphy... expecting to operate in areas like the Med where land based enemy aircraft WERE going to be encountered. I think we've all heard the joke about the pipe made onboard an RN carrier after a kamikaze bounced off the flight deck "Sweepers, man your brooms"...
Thanks very much Drach! As a fan of WWII Pacific and USN operations, this is the FIRST detailed description I've encountered of Royal Navy Carrier/Naval/FAA operations in that theater. I'd say Meridian I & II more than validated the RN's value to existing and future Allied operations on the road to the home islands of Japan.
I can't prove it, but I suspect Admiral King hated his own mother.:o) Thanks again.
26:54. Probably a mercy for the Japanese that Warspite wasn't sent to the British Pacific Fleet. There would probably be nothing left of Japan if she and Enterprise were to join forces.
So long as they sent plenty of ships to protect HMS Warspite. She was a mighty ship but so were HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse (Force Z under the command of Admiral Tom Phillips) which were sunk on 10 December 1941 by Japanese warplanes, 50 miles from the coast of Kuantan in Malaya.
But the thought of USS Enterprise and HMS Warspite a together warms the cockles of my heart.😂
@@maryholder3795So long as there’s no shallow waters, Warspite will do well. Torpedoes avoid her, as evidenced in several occasions like in the Norwegian fjords.
@@maryholder3795 A small consolation, but HMS Warspite and HMS Enterprise was in fact in the same fleet during the whole Operation C debacle
Sorry to say, but Warspite (and most of warships of RN) were kicked off Indian Ocean in 42.
@@kidpagronprimsank05 they were still in the Indian Ocean, just at Mombasa/Klindini/Bombay at times even after Operation C. Warspite even returned back to Ceylon/Trincomalee a couple of times after that raid (and Midway)
I served on the USS Sacramento AOE-1 in the 70's. Looking at the UNREP operations brings back memories.
I can remember doing UREP and VERTREP simultaneously.
The Pacific theater has been seen as almost a sole US venture, so this provides some valuable balance showing allied effort
starting in March 1945
Don’t oversell it
@@nickdanger3802didn't Australian cruisers fight in the naval battles of Guadalcanal and off new guinea and A British fleet Aircraft carrier (HMS Victorious) was loaned to the US Navy after USS Hornet was sunk. Also British and Dutch submarines contributed to the US Submarine campaign.
@@tigerland4328 Apologies if this seems terse. my bone of contention lies with Brit versions writing the USN, USCG and Lend Lease out of the Battle of the Atlantic, Murmansk Runs and the Med.
concurrent with the Battle of Coral Sea in which the USN lost one fleet carrier, one fleet destroyer and one fleet oiler stopping Japan's New Guinea invasion force, USS Wasp launched Spits to Malta for the second time in two months at Churchill's request.
5,000 carrier aircraft, 38 escort carriers, over 2,000 B24's, 1,000 Lockheed Hudson's, 78 Captain class frigates and 10 Lake class CG cutters were Lend Leased from 1941.
@@nickdanger3802 I agree the US Contribution to the battle of the Atlantic and to a lesser extent the Mediterranean was by no means "small" and without the United states almost unlimited ship building capacity the Atlantic campaign would have been longer. My point is the American actions in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean are pretty well documented in both British and American accounts. However in most American sources British actions in the war against Japan seem to be limited to the sinking of force Z and the fall of Singapore. Even the Burma theatre where British and Indian forces killed 240,000 Japanese and inflicted one of the worst defeats on the Japanese army don't really get a mention. As I said the American contribution to victory in the European theatre cannot be down played but I would argue that neither can the UKs in the Indo-Pacific theatre.
Wonderful video covering an oft overlooked and vital role played by our British allies!
The logistics of WW2 played such a large part in the US war effort, and you don't often hear much about it. But it was critical, and without it, the US would have been next to useless, as we were too far away from the various conflict areas. Being able to move material to where it could be put to good use, was essential.
Second to that was a very heavy emphasis on damage control in the USN. Lots of ships were saved that for other nations would have been lost. And even minor damage could usually be either made good or a non-effective on combat ability.
This was really excellent to see. I knew that the British Navy had a lot of Ships available during the later years of the War, I had just not known where they were deployed from or to. For the Empire to assemble and sail such a Fleet and considerably damage the Japanese War Effort with it is heartening to hear. Other videos have reduced the British presence there in 44' and 45' to a blurb. This was pretty cool! Thank you, Dr. Drach.
Thank you for looking into the British Navy contributions in the Pacific. I have recently read the biography of Stevenson, MI-6 and his US counterpart, Donovan. Both provide views of the Churchill and Roosevelt discussions, and the Admiral King, Nimetz and MacArthur obstacles. Fortunately, when these allies fought alongside each other, there was the kind of cooperation that made their combined effort better.
The supply train of ordnance, to give the British something to shoot in their naval guns, you present, was unimaginable to Americans. Much less a selection of HE, AP, illumination star shells, is mindboggling.
One notable effect of the raids of the formerly Dutch Shell refineries, the Japanese were forced to use raw crude, right out of the ground, to fuel their ships boilers. This had multiple drawbacks. Crude produced more smoke. American aviators and submarines often saw towering black columns of smoke that led them to Japanese warships and transports. Secondly, crude still contained a significant amount of highly flammable gasoline components. Incendiary projectiles, from .50 and up, led to fires that normally refined "Navy Black" would not have supported. Thirdly, the Japanese engineering crews must have struggled to keep boilers operating. I can't imagine that submarine diesel engines could risk operating on crude?
No, I don't think a diesel will run on crude. There were still some refineries operating into 1945, but the IJN sub fleet had been decimated by ASW and use for resupplying bypassed bases (bringing them into even more ASW).
Greg mentioned a great contribution of the British Pacific Fleet to the victory over Japan. Thanks for covering this largely unknown story.
The US logistics train always amazes me. everything had to be designed to operate at long distances for resupply. The Chieftain, for example, had a show on the sherman and why it was designed as it was. The slab sides meant the were easy to pack on a ship, the short barrel gun also packed better, it was reliable and easy to repair as sending back to the US for repair was impossible, etc.
Not to mention many places to attach rigging for cranes.
The US pioneered (although didn't invent) the use of CARDBOARD as a packing material for military supplies and materiel. Sounds unimportant? Look at us Brits with our somewhat smaller volume of supplies transported, struggling to pack everything in wooden casings or, alternatively, swallowing the output of a small army of sheet metal workers in the form of tin boxes. Cardboard packaging proved, when correctly used, to be cheap, tough, and rapid to deploy as well as saving a great deal of critical resource material. The Yanks really understood all aspects of logistics and were absolute masters of it.
One would think HMS Victorious would be the seasoned veteran, and thus the most capable, given her stint holding the line in the earlier days of the war. One would also expect her crew felt an abundant sense of machismo now that she was part of a powerful fleet, as opposed to those desperate months when few ships were available for escort or replenishment. I’m sure the experience Victorious got as USS Robin engaging the Japanese forces paid dividends across Task Force 37/57.
There is a tale to be told there.
Unless Armoured Archivist has already done it.
@@myparceltape1169 I recall watching one some time ago.
@@myparceltape1169 He has... years ago.
@asterixdogmatix1073 What a brilliant discovery !
Not new here, but thought I would share a few of my dads memories as recounted in various moments over his life. He was a rating on the destroyer Urchin. He volunteered when he was 17 and was only 18 when this all happened. Because hos ship arrived in Trincomalee before the formation of the BPF he was given the Burma Star with Pacific clasp. He recalled the raid on Palembang as their first proper action.....they had had a potential contact with a u boat in bay of Biscay on the world tour to get to the Indian Ocean. Most of the crew on his ship were also only 18 or so, they thought the captain in his mid twenties was old. Looking forward to the next one, thanks very much for your work.
It would be fascinating to see you do a video on the American 6th Battle Squadron of WWI. In so many ways, it was the direct spiritual ancestor and mirror image of the British Pacific Fleet. The discussion of BPF employment relative to the US fleet and integrating their procedures with their larger allied fleet are almost exactly the same issues Admiral Rodman of 6th BS faced when joining the Grand Fleet.
This was such a detailed video, thank you!
Great video. The BPF is often regarded as an afterthought in WWII commentary, so its great to hear about it.
Thanks. That was interesting.
There were any number of ways and reasons for attacking the enemy.
The Americans were focused on getting to where they could attack Japan Directly.
Japan's Strategic Defensive Plan - was to create a series of Island Barriers - for Air Bases - that would screen Japan from being approached by enemy forces. The Americans were focused on penetrating those chains and capturing bases and anchorages from which to move on.
One thing that the Allies wanted to do - was cut off Japan's supplies.
Japan had launched the war to gain access to materials it didn't have.
There were 3 ways to cut them off.
Attack the Source of their Materials.
Take bases astride their route home.
Attack their shipping.
The American Navy used submarines to attack their shipping.
MacArthur took the Philippines.
The British Empire attacked the Source.
I knew a little about what the Australians had done but nothing about those carrier raids on the refineries.
Thanks again.
.
With the US Navy being a dry navy, are US Navy drydocks extra-dry?
This might explain all the olives I found in the basin of the drydock after pumping out.
During the 1930 Prohibition Era in the USA, my father was an engineer in the engineering dept of either a Cunard or White Star liners.
The ship could not go into New York port with alcohol on board. So the noble off duty officers crewman and passengers made sure no alcohol was left on board.
He remarked he made it back to his cabin by following the teak lines on the decks. Which he needed after doing his bit for a "dry" liner. 😂
My point is? It is an amusing family story and that the USS warships were not the only dry ships.
@@maryholder3795Thank you for the story and the laugh 😂
THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I’ve been looking for quality content about the BPF for literally years. I’ve always considered it one of the most fascinating and least covered aspects of the Pacific Theater, and the war in general. But there’s almost nothing save for a few short videos made by just a couple UA-cam creators. There is one channel that features first hand accounts, which used to be called Armoured Carriers, but recently changed its name…can’t recall what they changed it to.
But basically I’ve been waiting for Drach to do this for AGES!!! Super exciting. Thank you!!!!
I’m from Leumeah Sydney Australia and have reading and watching naval stuff since the 1980’s. In one of my naval magazines it had a section of several pages of the BPF in Sydney harbour packed with RN ships in lots of bays and alongside the wharves available.
One thing about the different militarizes involved - was that there were people in those militarizes that were very much aware of where things were strategically and where they might go.
For one thing - the American Navy had repeatedly attacked Pearl Harbor itself during Fleet Exorcises. The Island was very well defended. It had the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions garrisoning it. It had Army, Navy and Marine airfields. It had 64 PBY Catalina's. It had 4 radar installations - one of which picked up the incoming raid from the Kido Butai.
They had received War Warnings that Japan was going to attack us.
The problem - was incompetence on the part of the military commanders and inexperience on the part of the men.
The British had trained Americans on how to use Radar at a training installation in Panama. The operators knew how to use the equipment and coordination centers had been set up. They just didn't have experience using it all.
The United States was completely unprepared for war in 1941 and suffered for it terribly the first year.
.
I should say - that all the other Combatant Powers were inexperienced when they started the war - it's just that by the time the US was involved - it's enemies had been at it for some time - and knew what they were doing.
.
@@BobSmith-dk8nw That is an unwritten law of war - after a time of peace, the military will be inexperienced and perform poorly at first. The one who wins is the one who clears out the incompetent commanders and learns the lessons quickest.
The British had radar stations on the Malay Peninsula too. The Japanese still managed to take air superiority and bombed Singapore at will.
@@tvgerbil1984 Having radar was not the game-changer it was in BoB, having the better fighter and lots of them was what gave Japanese the edge.
*Interesting comment on kamikaze attacks and the UK carriers. On a (slightly) lighter note, UK carrier design conferred advantages in heavy weather too. After one dreadful storm in which, tragically, the USN lost a destroyer and several carriers sustained significant damage, the fleet's CO understandably requested status reports in view of the recent typhoon. An attached British carrier responded merely with "What typhoon?"*
I suppose they were used to the atlantic, the atlantic is notoriously 'lumpy'
Very interesting. I was going to give this post a thumbs up, but it is in *all bold* so I had to down vote it.
Sounds like an urban legend to me. Norman Hanson wrote the book _Carrier Pilot_ , about his WW2 experiences aboard HMS Illustrious. In it he describes an Indian Ocean typhoon the ship went through:
_We spent two days and nights trying to dodge it, but it won in the end and on October 26 it hit us with all the force of Nature gone stark staring mad. It continued to hammer us for three days and I have no desire to experience another. Everything about it was terrifying. We crawled along and took fearful punishment._
Keep in mind this is a Corsair pilot. Anything those guys find terrifying should seriously make us think ...
@@bluelemming5296 What the British experienced and what they'd admit to on radio via a stiff upper lip are possibly quite different. :P
@@joshualetchford2034 True, but, actually I suspect if that incident happened, it was more an example of the British sense of humor than the stiff upper lip. 🙂
Brilliant. I only wish I had had some rum to drink as I listened to this.
Interesting how the Brits are learning many of the same lessons the USN had to learn in 1942.
Excellent presentation Drach.
Last time I was this early, the german still hadn't sunk their own ships in Scapa Flow
In that case we are expecting a full report of what happened. And no you can't use Wikipedia as there was no internet back then.
@@bigblue6917 my goodness, sir. I thought nothing of it when the German ships hoist their flag. But then, a ship, the Frederick the Great I think, started to sink. And by god, all of their ships started to sink. The jerries were all over the water, clinging to raft and trying to swim ashore! What a scene that was. I also helped in arresting some of those German sailors as well!
As Supreme Commander Allied Forces in the SWPA, MacArthur actually had nominal control of the BPF. In fact, MacArthur had to approve provision of logistics and infrastructure support in Australia and the forward base at Manus. He had final say over whether or not the BPF went ahead and supposedly did so in order to annoy Admiral King.
Fraser's relationship with the Australian government was also toxic because he believed it should fund logistics and infrastructure. It broke down after he complained to the Sydney tabloid newspapers about a perceived lack of financial and other support. One of Clement Attlee's first actions as PM was to apologise for any misunderstandings. David Horner wrote about it decades ago in his book "High Command".
The BPF had a huge impact on the Australian economy which was already fully stretched supporting Australian and American forces throughout the Pacific. Saying the RN "chose" Australia as the location of the base somewhat overstates British influence in Australia three years after their withdrawal from the SWPA and the rest of the Pacific in the wake of the fall from Singapore.
Alan Brooke's war diaries makes clear British concerns about their relationship with the Australian government as well as the year long dispute with Churchill in 1943/44 over whether to build up forces in India or Australia.
Omg ive been listening to your really old videos recently, so a new release is exciting
40:05
HMS Euryalus: *Tries to shoot down a Japanese Bomber. Hits HMS Illustrious instead.
HMS Illustrious: "Oi! Ya right plonker!"
Thanks for sharing, Drach. BPF operations are a very interesting subject.
Cheers.
Gotta Love Jellico. One of the best.
I was actually expecting Drach to quote Jellicoe predicting the Guadalcanal campaign, not Pearl Harbor and the opening phases. I wonder just how much more of the Pacific war also predicted.
Marvellous Drach !! British Pacific Fleet needs more recognition. Remarkable History !!
I found Andrew Boyd's "The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters: Linchpin of Victory 1935-1942 " worth a read as well.
Was very pleased when I woke this morning and realized it was time for my Wednesday R. ration! Enjoyed it immensely too as I had never heard of these strikes by the R.N. before now. Thanks Drach!
This channel is a terrific resource. Thanks
Excellent, so glad for this, and it being as a series 9n the BPF, I can somewhat understand the logistics, but not Adm. King not wanting them helping end the damn war. But years ago I read a book on the war at sea that covered alot of the whole war, British perspective, it spoke 9f the BPF having to supply its own equipment and such, but a story in this book spoke of the British needing 3 spare avengers, they went to the US fleet supply hoping to get some where they were told, in no uncertain terms, that they only gave out 6 at a time, and for a case of scotch they could have a dozen. This is allied teamwork. And a example of, the CNO don't need to know everything.
PLEASE, more BPF content. I yearn for more
Excellent presentation. The photographs used added greatly to understanding this aspect of the war.
Excellent episode Drach !!! I've always been interested in the BPF, and have two excellent books regarding it, David Hobbs excellent compendium and "The Kamikaze Hunters" by Will Iredale, which dealt more with the FAA aviators themselves during their training time in the US and the subsequent missions dedicated to attacking kamikaze bases. They provide a lot of great information that was generally not known about the pluses and minuses of several aircraft types, but the most interesting to me was the tough job of re-supplying and re-equipping the shorter-legged British ships. I found the idea of the HMS Unicorn especially interesting, as it was a big help in naval and air actions. It also had a pretty long service life.
After damage to a number of US fleet carriers due to kamikaze strikes, the BPF did yeoman-like work in assistance. I can't wait for the second episode. I would also like commend you for your excellent appearances on Seth Paridon & Bill Toti's Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcasts. I'm hoping that they do an episode or two about the BPF and possibly get you and David Hobbs in as commentators.
First. I live in Singapore and always felt that the fall of Malaya was mostly due to the preoccupation with Europe, but also a colonialist mindset that racially underestimated Japanese intentions and neglected defense infrastructure and training.
ive always put it down to concentrating the efforts to where they were needed most/first and they werent wrong
The Japanese spearheaded their advance down the Malay peninsula with over 200 tanks. They had far better warplanes operated from nearby bases in Thailand. The British garrison was given nothing to counter this combination of armor and air superiority. Defensive infrastructure and training wouldn't alter the course of events.
@tvgerbil1984 yes they had already recalled most of it to Europe and Japan had found the plans that said "no way can the empire win in a European war and at the same time win a war the other side of the planet without risking losing both, it must concentrate on one and then the other, the UK with its massive industrial output must be defended as a priority"
I (Stephen Clarke [Husband]) would add to that sheer stupidity. If Admiral Philips had called for air support when Force Z started being attacked HMS Repulse would not have been lost. HMS Prince of Wales still would have simply because it would have received fatal hits before the fighters arrived. At that point however Repulse would still have not been hit AT All. Fighters even the Rubbish Buffalos would have disrupted the the bombers and probably shot some down. Air support was however only called for after P.OW. was sunk because that's when Capt Tennant on Repulse became Senior Officer and he was no fool. I don't think they did underestimate the Japanese intentions but they, the British badly overestimated their own ability to hold out and get reinforcements.
@@LordInter Sadly, it was far worse than that. Churchill went into alliance with Stalin in July 1941 and promised to send tanks and planes to Stalin. So the tanks earmarked for Malay & Singapore ended up in Arctic convoys to the Soviet ports of Archangel and Murmansk. No tank ever arrived at Singapore. Instead, Churchill sent the inadequate Force Z of two battleships to Singapore, hoping that would be enough to scare the Japanese away.
i´ve been waiting for this video for several years. finally.
I watched Run Silent, Run Deep the other day. By and large it's a good film. However, of the umpteen torpedoes fired by the Nerka, only one failed in any way. That one circled back to the boat which dived deeper to avoid being hit. Later one of the crew says that only one in a hundred torpedoes go wrong. In 1943. The credits thanked the US Navy for its help making the film. It seems a simple conclusion to draw, right?
"Armed with working torpedoes" just hammered another nail in.
if you think you can make a case for RN AA, carrier aircraft and underway replenishment being superior to the USN, please do so
@@nickdanger3802 In what way was I making that case? I was describing a film in which a scene was clearly the USN covering up the fact that their torpedoes at that time were complete bobbins.
Jack Warden was so good. Right!?
Thanks for this episode! I have always been fascinated by the BPF, so it’s great to get some insights into its operations.
All new detailed information for me, and therefore most welcome! Thank you, Uncle Drach. 😁
Excellent
Wonderful story. Thank you.
A most excellent video of a most excellent pre-operation and operation. Thanks.
Many years ago Avalanche Press did a scenario book called East of Suez that covered a lot of what Drach is talking about here. Articles talked about a lot of the same issues about deploying the RN to the Pacific in bulk that came up.
Great episode Drach. Thanks for the info.
Finally, you get around to this video. Thank you as this topic is so very rarely covered naval historians, along with the Japanese East Indian fleet action.
japanese east indian fleet...so maybe the kamchatka wasnt as crazy at it sounds?
Awesome Drach!
As the famous quote goes "Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics"
Amateurs play WoW, professionals play WITP-AE.
As far as I’m concerned the difference between an amateur and a professional will always be writing your own compiler.
Awesome lecture. In my youth, I read a few of the histories of naval actions in the Pacific but don't remember reading about anything involving the British except for Force Z since what was available was from the U.S. perspective who, so it seemed, brought the Japanese to their knees all by themselves and so avenged Pearl Harbor.
probably because the RN was not in the Pacific in 1942, 1943 and 1944
Before the reconstitution of the British Pacific Fleet, the RN began shifting its submarine force to the Pacific theater immediately after the Italian surrender of September 1943. By late 1944, at least 40 British submarines were already operating there, mainly in the Java Sea and Sea of China. Unlike surface ships, the stealth nature of submarines attacted little publicity but they helped to sink many Japanese merchant shippings and even Japanese warships.
Excellent! Cannot wait for the rest of the story!
I have such a sense of pride over the combined strengths of the US and British forces in the late Pacific War, mixed with some dread that we may soon have significant conflict with a different Asian power (take a guess), yet with vastly less logistical and manufacturing resources. We were mighty in the mid-20th century, can we rise to the needs again?
I assume our strategy with China would be strangling their trade. So maritime powers are going to be fighting over islands and places like Taiwan.
@@davidg3944 are you also proud of all the massacres the brits did around the world?
@@Genessyss What nationality are you so we can point out everything your ancestors have gotten into?
@@Genessyss The Japanese are owed little apology. Their acts of barbarism during their prosecution of their war aims are well known, as were also seen in other theaters. If you have specifics you're free to list them, but such is the nature of war.
Now, would you like to speak to what your people have done in similar circumstances? There is unlikely to be any country with clean hands, unfortunately. And those that might are frequently preyed on (Ukraine).
Its a troll. Posted the same comment several times.@davidg3944
Can't wait for the next instalment. So interesting. Thank you
Just shows that Jellicoe really knew his naval strategy
…does it? What did he say that was so insightful and 4D chess?
‘The naval war will see a naval power attack the enemy’s forward naval bases’
People online: “galaxy brain!”
@@looinrims His comments probably never made it to the USN before the end of 1941 . . .
@@EllieMaes-Grandad pov you never read any of the US war plans for Japan
Great video!!
I found this episode particularly enjoyable. Well done. I’ve always had a bit of fascination with the DEI segment of the Pacific War during the entire period
Coffee, stogies, and rum rations...great way to start the day!
A welcome addition to my WW2 knowledge. Awaiting the next episode anxiously.
Not a massive ship guy, really enjoy your videos focusing on fleet actions and operations. Other outstanding walk through of this forward deployment.
Thank you, I hope the Pacific Fleet's role at Okinawa is on your to-do list.
As an American, I've heard very little of this before. Thank you for this (and subsequent) presentations.
Have you done a video on the RN submarines? I don't see how they would be super useful in the Atlantic and Mediterranean when the RN had sea control.
They were incredibly useful in the Mediterranean! S Class submarines especially as they were far smaller than the T Class, so more suited to the narrow, relatively shallow confines of the Med. Larger Boats such as the aforementioned T Class, as well as the Grampus Class minelaying Boats were hideously vulnerable there, so tended to suffer heavily.
Submarines and aircraft from Malta took a continuous toll on Italian attempts to supply both their troops and the Germans in North Arica. And then of course there was all the Special Operations they were involved in.
British submarines may not have sunk the kinds of tonnages in the Med that German subs did in the Atlantic, but they were far from useless.....
As for the Atlantic, why send them there? After the first few months of the war there was no Axis sea traffic in the Atlantic for the majority of the war. There was literally nothing there for them to sink with the exception of enemy submarines. So they essentially spent very little time there. No point in using submarines in areas they have no targets after all.
The exception to that would be the Bay of Biscay... where British subs were active for most of the war.
@@alganhar1 And the Norwegian coast...
They we did a lot of work on what today would be called "Special Ops" - landing raiding commandos, spies, saboteurs and beach surveyors (for landings) on enemy coasts. Plenty skilled and dangerous work that would have transferred quite well to the Pacific.
Logistics, Logistics and no Singapore make for a much harder go for the British !
Great video!
Informative.... and a great collection of 'relevant' pics too..... 👍
Google the PDF for The Short but Brilliant Life of the Pacific Fleet.
This pdf was where i first learned of the British Pacific Fleet. Excellent info.
Fantastic to see a BPF video as ever since reading the Kamikaze Hunters I've been hoping for a Drach video on the topic.
What an excellent and informative video.
ok I have a silly question. 16:50 what is the Destroyer being refueled ? Flag inferior 24 + what seems to be a 4.7in doesn't return anything except HMS Hasty (H24) but it doesn't have a single funnel, and was sunk in 1942 well before it could even think about reaching the Pacific... I am.. puzzled.
Its HMS Ulysses, she operated under the D24 pennant as part of the British pacific fleet. The BPF as a whole operated under a different pennant system to the rest of the RN, though the RN would switch to the system widely by 1948, and this system was later the one adopted by NATO.
@Thraxus well, the more you know ! thanks mate !
Really enjoyed this video.
Such great information! Most of which I didn’t know! Only wish it was longer:)
4:52 I'm an American. What is a "working torpedo"?
It's a Navy hotdog. They get you by.
Anything but a 1941-1943 U.S. Mark 14 (sub) or 15 (destroyer) torpedo, including the Mark 10 used by older S-boats. At the beginning of the war they had multiple overlapping problems, and due to the Bureau of Ordinance steadfastly refusing to admit the problems, blaming the captains misusing them instead, the issues were not found and fixed until two years later. British and Dutch subs had higher kill scores than US subs, some of which fired of full volleys of torpedoes and got no hits. The Germans had problems with their own torpedoes in 1939, but had them fixed in 6 months. One of the most shameful episodes of USN history in WW2.
@@gregorywright4918 Yeah, I'm surprised no sub commander tried using their deck gun to send BuOrd a message...
@@simongeard4824 They didn't let subs up to the Washington Navy Yard...
@@gregorywright4918 You mean they didn't want pissed-off sailors with working guns anywhere near them?
See Bees are amazing, acceptance is earned!
Late Drach, early me!
Due to my knowledge of British Naval aircraft in WWII being somewhat limited and the fact that I am a moron, the pic during time stamp 28:09-28:45 at first really took me by surprise. My thoughts were: ”Wow, was the Barracuda that big??”….. “Is that just a really small person??”….. “Is that actually a person??”….. “Boy, that airplane is big!!!”. Then, after viewing more closely for a little bit: “Ohh…..”.
Thank you for everything you do, Drach!!! - Jason Hendrix. Lexington, South Carolina
Great work , thanks for the history lesson.
Drach: Going to have to disagree with you on your Third Fleet numbers at Leyte. I think you did not include TG 38.1 (2 CV's and 2 CVL's) which had been detached before the battle to go to Ulithi. They did make some strike attempts late in the battle.That was Halsey's most powerful Task Group.
@timschoenberger242 hence why I was careful to say they fought the battle with the listed ships, as opposed to the entire fleet composition :)
I believe Halsey sent them south to refuel.
@@Drachinifel I think we are both nitpicking here. 38.1 didn't fight at Engano, but it tried to get involved at Samar. I think we can say that despite the size of the Fast Carrier Task Force, it wasn't big enough to effectively handle the amount of work that Halsey required of it in October 1944. Actually proves the value of the BPF. Afterwards, damage from Kamikaze's increased the need.
One aspect of GB remaining in the 'The War', post cessation of European hostilities, May 1945, was that Britain would continue to be eligible to receive ongoing American Lend-Lease Aid. The US wanted, for obvious reasons, to terminate this ASAP and proved pretty hard nosed with the Brits and even more so with the Soviets. Ultimately, the best the UK could manage was dollar loans - not at particularly generous rates of interest - which weren't fully paid off until 2003. I believe that American desire to withdraw from the costly Lend-Lease programme was one reason why the USN cold shouldered British naval involvement in the Pacific at the end of the war. The Yanks didn't absolutely need the RN, particularly as that support came, indirectly, at a high price.
And, I don't believe the Americans ever intended the British Empire and Commonwealth to be included in the post-war Marshall plan. Yet, the UK ended up as the largest recipient of US Marshall money - which, ungraciously, the Brits used, not to rebuild Britain, but to fund the UK's nuclear weapons programme. If you drill down, you get to Congressional horror at discovering the secret 1941 Quebec agreement which tied the US atomic bomb programme to sharing all its secrets with Britain, ongoing, and to Sen. McMahon's apoplectic fury and disgust (1946) at discovering that British permission for American use of American nuclear weapons (as had had to happen with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki devices) was mandated. No wonder the Americans were willing to pay anything, and to use any method, however devious, to conceal that payment!
3.75 billion USD at 2% for 60 years, yea real hard asses
Though he was commanding from shore, Admiral Fraser was nearly killed in action during his command of the British Pacific Fleet. In January, 1945 he was on the bridge of the battleship U.S.S. New Mexico, observing the landings in Lingayen Gulf to retake Luzon in the Phillipines. He was standing outside on one wing of the bridge when a Japanese kamikaze dove down and hit the other side of the bridge, killing everyone outside on the other wing, including Fraser's aide. His choice of which side of the bridge structure to watch the landings from was pretty much random, so he escaped basically a 50% chance of death.
If you go through the kamikaze strikes looking at flag vessels, there are a disproportionate number of flags struck in the Philippines, particularly the carriers. Flying an admiral's flag was a good way to attract a kamikaze. You'd think they'd learn to minimize that somehow.
Small and very little-known fact: the RAN provided all of the BPF's medical and dental stores once it arrived in Australia. Suggest this isn't too shabby for a naval medical service that began the war with only around 20 medical and ten dental officers and 80-odd medics for 5000 men, in a country that had to import most of its civilian medical supplies :-)
Excellent....as a lad the steady diet of US fleet carriers was interrupted when I saw some pictures of British carriers in the Pacific. I was aware of British (and other Commonwealth - Dutch) Navel action in the Pacific and needed to know more. My local library was pretty shy on any good books addressing this, only the ships that went down got a mention
R.N. fuel fittings were not compatable for U.S. Navy UNREPS.
I guess that was one of the first things they had to fix if they were seeking interoperability.
they probably developed an adapter
Awesome. Thank you