Jacques was an amazing human being….. he helped save so many ocean species that illegal fishermen were poaching everything from endangered species of fish to whales to dolphins, etc……. A lot of people don’t know that he had a bounty on his head from Russian poachers and Japanese poachers too….. He brought special attention to the protection of natural occurring coral reefs, and pushed the governments of the US and Mexico to create artificial reefs in the Gulf to preserve and protect endangered fish, mammals amd marsupials from going extinct . That man was a hero, to this day his organizations are still going strong. The same could also be said about Steve Irwin “ The Crocodile Hunter” 🐊
Yamamoto didn't "pass away", we shot him down. It was a deliberate execution, we knew his flight path from crypto intercepts and used long range P38s to ambush him.
@@scootergeorge9576 As a result he got his ass shot down. Serves him right. He turned over a lot of American and Australian POW’s to Unit 731. Yamamoto got off light in comparison.
I had dinner years ago with the man who helped Yamamoto "pass away." Rex T Barber, Marion Carl, Kenneth Allen Jernstedt, and other local aces were our guests of honor. Will we see such men again?
@@PartyhatRS are you now? Well, Mr. President, I would like to talk to you about our interstate bridge... Anyway, it isn't up to you to decide facts. I worked for a software company, Dynamix, that was going to release a new flight sim "Aces Over the Pacific." We invited Pacific Aces of Oregon out to a formal dinner as a publicity event. Rex Barber was one of our guests of honor. Sorry you weren't invited.
I had the same reaction "passed away"? More like taken out in a brilliant and brave operation that cost American lives but crushed the spirit of the Japanese.
@@EddieVBlueIsland The government of "1984" was a Totalitarian system, not Socialist. "Animal Farm" depicted a marginalized group who staged a rebellion for equal rights, and were eventually betrayed and mislead by a dictator figure. My question is how is that relevant?
I was on an LST during the Vietnam war and we pulled into truk Island. It was amazing to me at that time how many old Japanese ships were still visible in many states of deterioration. Truck island was a beautiful place but there was still much war debris in the water and on land. This was back in 1964.
as a person who was raised in chuuk after moving there from guam at the age of 1, i do recall seeing an abandoned plane in the shore literally just about 15-20 feet from where we lived not making too much out of it bc i was still very young(about 5 or 6 y/o). but looking back now, i understand so much more
@@steventhompson399 It is I have been there Twice. The diving is AWESOME but thats all there realy is to do there. And the diving is mostly all deep like 100 ft + dives so more on the advanced side.
Care needs to be taken when diving these wrecks. Quite a few of the ships were sunk with large amounts of ordinance on board including the 18-in rounds for the Yamato class battleships. This ordinance has been chemically becoming unstable over the decades. Also keep in mind each of these ships are probably graveyards. I saw the Jacques Cousteau special when he expire the wrecks Truk lagoon. They explored a lot of the ships with ordinance and they also found a lot of remains of the crews.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer The Japanese governmant put a bounty on all human remains. So most all remains have been returned to Japan thus you wont find any bones unless you plan on doing some very deep driving.
I can imagine the talk between Macaurthur and Nimitz. "Chet, I need your ships and aircraft to hammer the hell out of truk! Meanwhile my boys will be stomping ass on New Guinea!" Nimitz replies, "I'll put Bill Halsey on it. He's crazy enough to get it done!"
Yamamoto "passed away"?! Sounds like he died peacefully at home surrounded by his loving family. I don't think so. When the U.S. broke the Japanese code his official business itinerary and travel schedule was learned, so the U.S. Army Air Corps sent a diplomatic squadron of P-38 Lightnings to urge him to cease and desist his illegal activities. It worked like a charm. This information provided by the son of a WWII Veteran who served in the Pacific Theater and was able to come home safely and not have to go on a tour of Japan in a large part because of a great U.S. Diplomat Ms Enola Gay.
I have said it before but it deserves another comment your voice, the clipped fast cadence and your phrasing are perfect for these subjects. I appreciate and stand in awe of the synchronicity of voice cadence and research. Thank you sir
I was stationed at Truk for 8 months in 1992 so I have some interesting trivia for you. If you look at the map in the video you will notice the reef. That reef is actually the rim of a volcano. The depth outside the reef is about a mile to the sea floor I believe. Inside the reef the depth varies from 150 to 300 ft. I lived on the main island of Weno (formally called Moen). I could see Fefan and Udot very easily from my quarters. It takes about 40 minutes by small boat to go from Weno to Fefan. Weno is about 25 square miles in size. Near the west/northwest side of the reef there is a small island rectangular in shape and approximately 25 yards by 300 yards in size. In the middle of this island there are two Japanese 4 inch artillery guns (I believe they were 4 inch, but I'm not sure about the exact size) pointing towards the reef. They are mounted on round concrete pads with ring and pinion gears fixed to the bottom of the pads to allow the guns to rotate. The guns are well hidden by the palm trees and they were never removed. Near the island of Fefan you can see a Japanese zero upside down in the water just a few feet below the surface. There is also a ship nearby that is visible from the surface. Its mast sticks almost straight up, and you feel like you can touch it when the water settles down. There is a small pill box at the water line on what is now the main hotel grounds. And finally, yes it's pronounced Truck, not Trook. The modern name is Chuuk which is pronounced Chewk.
@@smurra3 No, I didn't find anything other than a couple of awesome seashells. There is no memorabilia left from WW2 other than what is contained in the sunken ships, and that is supposed to be protected. Regarding a military presence in Micronesia, there is only one left, and that is in Palau. The Civic Action Teams (CAT) started around 1969. As a trust territory, Micronesia requested assistance from the US. The US had an interest in helping Micronesia because it simply meant that our military would have access to the islands and use of their flight lines. The Navy started the first CAT team in Palau and remained in charge of the program throughout its history. Some time later, the Army and Air Force were brought in to man some of the CAT locations. There were a total of 6 CATs on 6 different islands. I was in the Air Force, and we were responsible for Pohnpei and Truk. Each CAT tour lasted 8 months. There were never any actual bases at any of the locations. We had a small compound which had a team house and a few workshops like a carpenter's shop and an electrician's shop, etc. We essentially lived and worked in the community. I was a mechanic and we had a few work bays at the local public works. Each team consisted of 13 members, and conditions were very spartan. All personnel worked in a civil engineering based career field, and our mission was to help the islanders with infrastructure development. Our orders even had the word "ambassador" on them. Each team consisted of: 2 carpenters 1 plumber 1 electrician 2 heavy equipment operators 2 mechanics (me) 1 land surveyor 1 medic 1 NCOIC 1 commander and I'm forgetting the last position... While I was there we built roads and butler buildings. We also built a schoolhouse and an agricultural building. We even worked with the peace corps on a few jobs. It was a wonderful experience. Sorry for the long answer.
All the videos I watch from Dark Seas are first class and I get much enjoyment along with an education about WWII on the High Seas. As a Radar Operator on a ship in Vietnam I have always been interested in Sea Battles. Thanks for the excellent Narration also.
@@kdrapertrucker "Yamamoto's body, along with the crash site, was found the next day in the jungle of the island of Bougainville by a Japanese search-and-rescue party, led by army engineer Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Hamasuna. According to Hamasuna, Yamamoto had been thrown clear of the plane's wreckage, his white-gloved hand grasping the hilt of his katana, still upright in his seat under a tree. Hamasuna said Yamamoto was instantly recognizable, head dipped down as if deep in thought. A post-mortem disclosed that Yamamoto had received two 0.50-caliber bullet wounds, one to the back of his left shoulder and another to the left side of his lower jaw that exited above his right eye. The Japanese navy doctor examining the body determined that the head wound had killed Yamamoto. The more violent details of Yamamoto's death were hidden from the Japanese public. The medical report was changed "on orders from above", according to biographer Hiroyuki Agawa." wiki
I have never ever heard the term “passed away” when someone is killed in combat murdered or jumps off a cliff. I think after almost 80 years we don’t have to be PC about WW2.
Nothing PC about "passed away", seeing as it's a term that's been around for over 150 years. It's a weird choice for a general that was killed in a combat action, but then human beings in general are squeamish about death, with all the euphemisms that have been invented for the word "dead" or "killed" over thousands of years of human language.
@@thebeast8429, by whose measure does he earn respect. He planned a failed operation that was ultimately design to get the United States to sign a peace agreement after they attacked us that then would allow the Imperial Army to continue its conquest of other countries natural resources. This failure caused them total defeat of their country in less than 4 years later and being the recipient of the only use of nuclear weapons on its people. I don’t think he did anything that would also give him any respect from the American side. He died in the same manner that he afforded us, a surprise attack. So exactly who are you placing in the hero worship column of respect due him?
I dove there around 2000. Underwater, exactly as it was 2/18/1944. Indescribable shipwreck, munitions, all covered with soft corals every color of rainbow. A must for all divers. Japanese removed all accessible remains from wreckage and had a mass funeral ceremony. Fabulous trip
It is unlikely that those sailors ever got to be a part of that. That was more Japanese Army than Japanese Navy. Many years ago I read a book written by a veteran of the Pacific Campaign. He mentioned that on one island they had taken they found some unusual items in a cave. Initially they thought they were some sort of strange floatation device. The writer of this book said he later came to realize what their true purpose was. They were sex toys. And not the kind meant for him and her. Instead they were the kind meant to replace her.
As such they should have been ready and their ships armed, unlike the American ships. American ships dump all their stuff off before going into harbor due to an explosion on a ship that was devastating. So the IJN ships were armed and ready to go. There really is no comparison.
War isn’t fair and if I was Yamamoto I would of done the same. We knew they were moving on the pacific colonies of France and most likely Britain and the United States were likely. Roosevelt was going to ask for a declaration of war against Japan he just didn’t have to since Pearl Harbor
Japanese intended to declare war one hour before they attacked Pearl Harbor Unfortunately due to bureaucratic delays( having fired all the secretaries) They weren't able to get the declaration of war drawn up in time
Sam grey did they extend that courtesy to the Germans? It’s quite something when you get to write history because the Americans and Germans were in open warfare in the Atlantic months before Hitler declared war
I lived in truk, now chuuk, when I was a young child so not much memory from that time. Later I went back in 1973 to see my parents. My mom was running a small hotel. There were some guys there looking for a submarine sunk there but not yet found. They found it. But what was interesting was that they had a huge pile of still photos of this attack. So I could see progressive bombings and hits. There was a big boat that was dodging bombs and got damaged. I could see it head for land. It made it because it was beached in front of the hotel. For many years with my travels through truk or to truk, we could see the masts of the ships sunk. Long ago no longer sen. And yes, cousteau stayed at the motel. Mom showed me some collectables he left there. Ps, truk is a sunken volcano, not a barrier reef.
Well, yes, it is a sunken volcano, but that still provides substrate for a reef. Reefs can develop on sunken volcanos you know, in fact its quite common. Really anywhere in the tropics within reach of currents and with suitable substrate at a suitable depth will eventually form a reef.
@@alganhar1 well, you are correct to a point. There are islands that were or are from upheavals and then developed reefs or coral growth. These were not from volcanic activity. Saipan, palau, yap as examples. But chuuk was a volcano. It then sunk and through the millennia had coral grow on it. Im sure that ponape is also volcanic due to its rock structures that I now cannot remember the names of. They were used to build nan madol. But yea, they all have coral growing on them forming reef barriers. I'm not that knowledgeable about all this. Just going off of what I was told and saw myself.
My Dad, as a Marine, was in the Marshall & Marianna Islands in WW II in '44. Don't know if he took part in the Truk battle though. He passed away in '95.
I had the great fortune of travelling to Micronesia, and diving on many of the wrecks in Truk Lagoon. Spent two weeks in Chuuk, one of them on the Odyssey liveaboard. Fortunate to see all kinds of equipment: Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, Airplanes, and of course, the ships. Absolutely fascinating. If you're a scuba diver, this HAS to be on your bucket list.
They became little isolated Japanese communities or Ex Patriot Japanese , Rabaul was another one they grew wild pigs and quite a bit of plant food. They sat out the war and got very skinny
Accurate tale. My dad was a bomber pilot in the Pacific. So medaled was he, we had a photo of him receiving the Silver Star from Admiral Halsey in our bathroom. Obviouly, he didn't like any of this at all and that only scratches the surface. My mom just thought that we needed to know about what an incredible life he led before we got to know him. I've been to Truk twice for diving. Best was on the liveaboard Truk Aggressor doing 23 of max 25 dives in 5 days. It's stunning down there in that lagoon.
I too dove on the Truk Aggressor. Thousands of tons of ordnance, planes, tanks, trucks just as they sank on February 18, 1944, all covered in soft corals in every color of the rainbow. A must for every diver.
@@vikingspud Definately worth the trip mate, deepest wreck is around 50m, we only managed 42m though, good vis warm water, shorts n T-shirt is all ya need.
Excellent work on these videos and watching them has renewed my interest in WW2 Naval history in the Pacific. I also like your narration style. Thank you doing these videos on the history of Navel warfare.
I was on a dive trip to Truk in February 1944. During the week I was there the 50th anniversary of the attack was observed with a formal ceremony. The coolest thing I saw while diving was inside a hold of a ship filled with the 18-inch shells to be used in the biggest guns on the battleship Yamoto.
The huge amount of copper needed for the drive bands in the manufacture of those shells was very costly to the IJN. Copper was an extremely precious war material at the time. Along with wire, it was also heavily used in man-portable anti-tank shells. (along with other smaller shells)
Please continue this series id love to hear more about the American advance toward Japan. Island by Island and all the oter smaller unknown battles that took place as the Americans pushed foward i love ww2 content as i get older its like it becomes more interesting
Good old Cousteau, what adventures this man had on and under the seas. Poet,philosopher, inventor, adventurer, discoverer, narrator, producer, loved his TV series on their divings.
I've spent several weeks diving in Truk/Chuuk. Lots of wrecks. Most are freighters, but there is a submarine and a destroyer. A few planes as well. Most of the shallower ships have been cleaned up, with any bones being shipped back to Japan. But, when you get down to around 200 feet inside the wrecks, you can still come upon some weird stuff. I saw a foot still inside a sneaker in an engine room.
I saw some thigh-bones at 64m in the engine-room of the Aikoku Maru. I remember it quite well despite being on a CCR, with air-diluent. It was also a quite long horizontal swim in, and some tight restrictions on the way out due to a relatively fresh bulkhead collapse over a walkway, where the first diver kicked up some silt trying to get past, but ultimately swimming beneath the walkway to get out, swimming through the quite narrow supports. I even have it on video somewhere!
If I remember correctly Koga was shot down in the Philippines aboard a sea plane and carrying with him plans of how to defeat the Americans during the Battle of Leyte Gulf
A fine video, only real problem is that the surprise attack didn't really come that much as a surprise since the Japanese were able to evacuate all of their heavy ships after the B-24 recon was spotted. A real surprise attack on a fortified Japanese fleet anchorage came with the first Carrier Raid on Rabaul, on November 5th, 1943.
There were significant elements of surprise, based on what I've just now read. Rod Macdonald: _Knowing Japanese search patterns from intercepted radio-traffic, Task Groups 58.1, 58.2, and 58.3 successfully approached Truk undetected, and took up a holding position some 90 miles offshore late on 16 February 1944._ This explains how the remaining Japanese were caught with their pants down to their ankles. The known loss of 250 aircraft, many on the ground, and quite a few barely off the runway, and yet somehow you discount "surprise" as a factor. Then a "real" surprise must be when _all_ of the cheerleaders jump out of the cake.
I would like to hear about the Sea going tugges that saved damaged ships especially in the North Atlantic. My Uncle command several sea going tugges. Three were torpedoed that he commanded.
There is a considerable amount of USN combat camera film taken during the actual raid. It's too bad so little of it was used in this video. The saga of the IJN destroyer Oite, crammed with hundreds of survivors from a sunken IJN cruiser, caught in North Pass and unable to maneuver, under heavy air attack with just one or two operable light machine guns desperately returning fire, evading numerous attacks until finally hit and exploding, taking everyone to a watery grave, is worthy of at least a few minutes of mention. The destruction of the Aikoku Maru, crammed with ammunition and over 2,000 soldiers, attacked by a TBM that conducted a mast-head bombing run, firing every available AAA gun on board that could be brought to bear, hitting the TBM hard, thereby causing the Avenger to fly into the forward hold and detonating a massive explosion that destroyed the ship and killed almost everyone on board and the three-man TBM crew, is another story worthy of mention. The fact that most of the IJN fighter pilots were on "leave" is briefly mentioned, but the reality is that they were on a different island than the one with their airfield that morning and were literally caught with their pants down in a brothel. Anyway, Operation Hailstorm is a worthy subject . It's too bad more of the actual story wasn't told.
Much of the old footage unfortunately is still owned by someone, so still comes under copyright rules, which is why you rarely see truly new footage on UA-cam channels such as this. Very few of them have the income to pay to use footage that is not part of the public domain. Usually if the situation is as you have mentioned, it is due to the majority of the available footage being under copyright thus unusable....
@3:04 Battleship in a fully floating dry dock ..an early example of a fully submersible dry dock complete with heavy cranes and barge/ship docking . Incredible those ideas and supporting technology ...1940's ..
My Grandpa was a pilot on this OP and growing up I was fascinated in WW2 and all the “spoils of war” he had brought back that he left to me like a Japanese Samurai Sword with jewels in the handle, a bloody rising sun flag taken off dead Japanese soldiers, & a ton of photos. I distinctly remember this story bc as he said “it was like shooting fish in a barrel & when we were done with them that place looked like the craters on the moon”
Spent more than 10 years (from 1997 to 2008) on the island of Weno, Chuuk State (Truk) in the Federated States of Micronesia, and yes those IJN ships are the main dive attraction of the place. My employer Mr. Tosiwo Mori Irons, a local businessman on the island, of Japanese decent and a relative of former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told me stories of the brutality of some IJA soldiers on captured American pilots that he witnessed during WW2 when he was still a boy, that is why he told me it was really surreal to see both Japanese tourist divers and American tourist divers enjoy diving together in those wrecks. As for me I have all nothing but good memories of my stay in Truk and Ponape islands...PACIFIC PARADISE.
That's exactly right! Was scrolling through to see if anyone made that point. The US got verification that Yamamoto was going to be on a plane and knew the course of the plane, had several fighters waiting and the designer of the Pearl Harbor attack became only a memory.
I love the way The Dark channel presents stories. I'm pretty sure that it's a real guy reading a script (rather than a bot mispronouncing every third word) and the way he does it adds some suspense to the story. Another fine telling of the perils and triumphs of WW2
Thank you for your work on these video's. Since the 50's. I have only depended on VICTORY AT SEA (26 programs) for WW2 navy images. TRUK was quite a secret from our known history. Well done.
That's pretty well spelled out in the movie ; ' Tora ! Tora! Tora! ' " We're translated these intercepts faster than the Japanese embassy right here in Washington "
Howdy Jim Hackney - I lived on Kwajalein from 63 to 65 back and left 66. My parents lived there for 11 years, brother another 5 and our cousin SAR plane for 10. We also were on the rim of a volcano our water was very deep in spots and off shore very deep. Kwajalein atoll was 70+ miles across the ends.
My grandfather on one side was a merchant sailor throughout the war while my other grandfather was in the army in the Philippines. One thing their stories shared was their hatred for everything Japanese
I just went and watched the Jaques Cousteau documentary in 1969 exploring these shipwrecks! I had no idea they were actually going to show the remains of the Japanese sailors🤯 piles of bones😱
The Japanese have recovered many of the remains, but there are so many that you can still see bones scattered inside the hulls of some of the sunk ships. Especially the deeper ones like the San Francisco Maru. Chuuk has no tourism other than diving. Many divers want to see bones so the dive guides, all locals, routinely replenish the supply. Once bones are exposed to the current, they quickly disintegrate. So, it's not unusual for the guides to place a skull on the bridge of a ship and replace it with another recovered from inside the hull when the first one disintegrates. Personally, I wished they left the bones alone. But once again it's all they got to boost tourism. Seen it myself many times diving the wrecks. I no longer visit the engine rooms. Hulls have deteriorated and that's a good way to get trapped and drown if a nearby diver kicks up silt so you can't find your way out. Happens sometimes. I only dive with experienced friends. Too many wannabes with a freshly printed advanced open water certification get into trouble because they think they know it all and push the limits beyond safe.
@@cokiea57 no certificates, no dives. That's the law in Chuuk. At a minimum you need advanced open water. Recommend wreck, nitrox, advanced life saving, etc.
@@cokiea57 because no reputable dive shop will take you diving unless you show your certificate. Got mine in Florida from an excellent teacher. Dive masters don't want people who aren't trained killing themselves and maybe the dive master too. I loved diving but it's a dangerous sport and a person needs to respect that.
Sadly, Battleship Texas is fighting an enemy far more relentless than either the Germans or Japanese. Rust and corrosion resulting from being moored in brackish water since 1948 are threatening the ship like nothing since the Battle of Okinawa when kamikazes were looking for targets. I fear that if sufficient money isn't obtained soon, it may be too late to save her. She is a national treasure and I sincerely hope the other museum ships don't share her fate.
Maybe the pinnacle with respect to the size, but mostly sat idle due to fuel shortages and the Japanese fear that they would be sunk by our Naval air arm. The Japanese referred to the Yamato as the ‘Truk Hotel”. This was typical of the Japanese psyche after their defeat at Midway. They were reluctant to expose these huge capital ships thereby making them worthless. The IJN only committed them at the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, which at that time they had become the battleship version of the kamikaze. The fact that the supposed “water tight” hull design was a huge vulnerability was exploited by our Naval air arm, sending her to the bottom.
@@davidoltmans2725, Nazi Germany did the same thong with the Terpitz. They could have really caused some serious problems for the Allies but Hitler was too afraid to allow it out into the open waters. Like the Yamato, it didn't help because both were wasted and wound up being blown to bits by aircraft attacks.
@@richardcline1337 Problem with the Tirpitz is had she been committed as you suggested she would have ended up like her sister the Bismark. The problem was the Allies Navies VASTLY outnumbered the Axis, even before the USA started its ship printing in earnest! At any one time Tirpitz would have faced at least 4 Battleships in British waters, usually around six, and because of where the British Isles lie there are only a few routes into the Atlantic, all well covered by both air and Naval patrols. Had she been completed earlier, and then combined with her Sister ship the Bismark and the two Gneisenhaus then *maybe* they may have proven a viable threat combined, but it never happened. And please do not point to the inking of the HMS Hood.... That was a fluke shot, a one in a million roll of the dice. You can not base the combat ability of a ship on such a fluke, as can be shown by Bismarks last battle in which she managed to land precisely no hits upon HMS Rodney or HMS Prince of Wales despite the fact the battle closed to essentially a gun to the head range in Battleship terms.
Man I’m glad we got revenge on the imperial Japanese but lemme tell you, Japanese people, especially today, are some of the NICEST, and MOST respectful people ive ever talked to, I come from a city in florida with a large Japanese population, most run small hole in the wall stores (and make a pretty good living I can’t lie) and they are the coolest people. (And their food is the best)
@@dougclark5653 Actually, what most often gets us into war is our assumed role as free societies' protector of Democracies around the world. Also, our strong commitment to stopping atrocities wherever possible is poor nations. America has stood for freedom around the world for over 100 years. That's our credo. Until Trump, our position was never "America first". Americans have died in many foreign lands is the cause of human decency. I'm not saying that we have never been misled into wars, but that is the exception and not the rule. There is a reason that our country has been admired and respected by far more people over the decades than any other. That is why so many people strive to come here. You might want to look at our history as a whole. The past few years have damaged this country in many ways, but, at 73 I'm still proud to be an American for our striving to make this a more perfect union and for standing up to the bullies of the world.
My grandfather fought them in Mindinao and other parts of the Phillipenes and he was nearly obsessed with Japanese culture for the whole rest of his life from 18 - 94 years old. He visited many times, learned the language, watched all the Japanese and American war films that were ever made. He told my father and myself he didn't understand how they lost the war although he absolutely hated them during that time because he respected them and feared their courage.
@@ronlheureux7623 Yet Trump was responsible for quite a few historic peace deals, stood up for the US military and US in the world and supported his allies. Yet with Biden we have lost Afghanistan while abandoning US citizens there, abandoned our allies around the world (The same as Obama did) and has given in to the Chinese and their aggression, we have also watched our own boarder disappear while we American citizens are told to show our vacination paperwork to travel in our own country. The incredible hate that the Democrats have for their own country makes Trump look like a saint in comparison.
Yamamoto didnt "pass away".. he was targeted and the plane he was a passenger in was shot down and crashed in a blazing fireball. The man who planned and carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor was punished for his actions
I'm very glad that you mentioned the remains of the sailors remains so often thier never mentioned on either side .. Ships do not sail alone takes men and women who give their lives for the country of there birth ..
Dove during typhoon, 110 knot+ winds. Only got 16 dives that trip, but being able to dive in a typhoon attests to security as a harbor. Few residents venture out of lagoon, met pro UW photog that went outside lagoon for pix, boat pilot had never been outside, dropped off guide and photog, panicked, left, came back told everyone they were eaten by sharks, the two drifted in open ocean for 36 hours, photog finally reached island somewhere. Guide perished. Chuuk is a bucket list destination for every diver.
Animated maps would be the next big improvement for your channel when laying out where everything was and comings/going between them. Keep up the good work.
Agreed! The over-reliance on contemporary film animations (grainy, black-and-white, oversimplified - prob. from newsreels entirely lacking in detail) is a minus-point.
Good video. Aside from the Yamamoto “passed away” gaff which has been pointed out numerous times already, the battleship Yamato is pronounced Yah-Mah-Toe, not Yah-Moe-Toe. You’re welcome.
In February 1977, I spent two weeks on Truk Lagoon wreck diving the sunken Japanese ships and planes and exploring the Japanese tunnels and defenses on the various islands. Back then, Truk was pretty rural in that it only had a few paved roads and a few stores. It did have a large motel that was built to accommodate Japanese tourists who came there every year either out of historic curiosity or to honor the dead. However, when I was there, there were only three guests at the motel. It had a large dining area that would seat perhaps more than 100 guests, but we were the only three there at the time and we were all wreck diving. The motel showed movies every night but it was just a 16 mm projector of WW II gun camera and some old Victory at Sea episodes. There was a very small reserve Seabee detachment on one of the other islands, but I don't know what they were doing there. I had some amazing dives on sunken Japanese ships and aircraft. I was an underwater photographer as a hobby and so I also got some amazing photographs of the wrecks and the cargo inside some of the wrecks. I wanted to dive a sunken submarine, but it was at 300 feet and I wasn't comfortable diving more than 100-120 feet. Besides, even I could reach the submarine I would only have had about 1 minute of air left before I had to begin to surface and decompress. I'm 76 now and permanently retired. I've had a pretty adventuresome life. I grew up in the Air Force because my dad was a B-17, B47, and B-52 pilot. I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam 1968-69. I was trained to collect intelligence a the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). I spent two years in a Latin American country supporting counter-insurgency and collecting intelligence. It was very dangerous but not as bad as Vietnam. I served a tour at US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) before retiring from the military in 1989. I spent 7 years as a Division Manager with a company supporting force structure analyses for USSOCOM and 3 years as an employee at Booz Allen developing new technologies for Special Operations. During those 10 years I supported Special Operations exercises in the Middle East as technical support for new technologies. I resigned from Booz Allen to become an independent consultant for DOD high technology military programs primarily in support of the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) as well as for clients working with the Navy, Army, and Joint Special Operations Command. I those capacities, the travel requirements were extensive and I was sent to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Hawaii, and countless locations around the US. In the final 25 weeks of 2015, I was on the road 22 weeks, getting home just a few days before Christmas. I decided to retire permanently because I was tired of hotels, restaurants, rental cars, missed airline connections, taking the red eyes to get to my next assignment, and especially the problems in some of the international locations. For example, I was told to fly to Bangkok, Thailand and when I got to the airport to call a number that I had been given. Whoever that was arranged to pick me up to drive to the southern part of Thailand to support the special operations part of a major US / Thailand exercise for 5 weeks. As the exercise was winding down, I was told to support another special operations exercise by Delta Force and Seal Team 6 in Thailand for another 2 weeks. We were billeted in an abandoned building so accommodations were pretty much non-existent, but I described about half of the exercises I supported. My poor wife and I did vacation in Germany and Italy several different times, and one year just before Christmas we decided one night to spend Christmas in Bermuda which was a delightful experience. In my "spare time" I earned my private pilots license with commercial and instrument ratings, I was a glider pilot, I took basic to advanced aerobatics. I was a SCUBA diver and underwater photographer, I put over 60,000 miles in motorcycle touring and I don't know how many more riding my motorcycles to and from work for 3 years. I was a sky diver, white water canoer, rock climber (which I didn't particularly like because there were no safety ropes--just climbing with hands and feet), and while stationed in Hawaii, I sailed around most of the Hawaiian Islands when I'd take annual leave from the Marines (I wasn't married at the time). I could go on with camping, x-country skiing, hiking, etc. but you get the idea; I had a pretty interesting life. So, what's my point? Out of all the experiences I had, Vietnam hands down was the most intense. I think then flying, sailing, motorcycle touring, and sky diving all produced "highs". But wreck diving Truk Lagoon was definitely a major highlight of my life. Some of my other exploits have begun to fade, but Truk Lagoon is still crystal clear in my mind.
Well, if it wasn’t a surprise, the numbers of dead Japanese, burned up planes, and destroyed ships tells a bit of a different story. Don’t know how that happened!
Dove many of the wrecks here in Chuuk. The reef system protects the area from currents or waves so everything is in pristine shape. Unfortunately the lack of current also means that there is a lot of particulate in the water. It is one of the MUST dive locations for all Scuba divers.
Not for me it is not. Why is it many American's seem to think that Truk is a must? Interesting sure, and if I am in the area it may be considered, but I have a list of sites as long as both my arms I am more interested in first. Wish people would stop saying things like 'a must for all scuba divers'. No site is anything of the sort if you are more interested in something else. Personally I am a marine Biologist, so the history is of less importance to me than the marine life down there, and there are PLENTY of wrecks I can dive to look at how marine life builds up over time far, far closer to home....
The story of fort drum would make a good video. It was literally a static concrete fort with multiple navel guns. It was kind of like cat and mouse because both the US and the IJN kept capturing and losing the fort. In the end the US decided to get rid of the fort once and for all. The US ended up pouring a LOT of fuel into the top of the fort and burned the whole inside. The thing is that most of the occupants in there were in the mess room which was on the very bottom meaning that with the laws of gravity a lot of the gas poured went to the bottom where most the the Japanese men were. It’s crazy that whoever set off that fuel was able to kill hundreds of troops with one item. It would again make a great video.
Well, the Marines and Army infantry were forced to burn thousands of Japanese soldiers alive during the Battle of Saipan, bc their General ordered them to fight to the death. Eventually, flamethrowers were used to “clear out” caves and foxholes. On an island about 12 miles long by 5.5 miles wide, around 29,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, bc they refused to surrender. I dk how many died via flamethrower, but can you imagine the smell?? My father was there, a 19 year old Marine, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Ever.
The inital reason the US defenders had to give it up wasn't because of a shortage of supplies or ammo, it was because the water distillers broke down and they didn't have any way to get drinking water. Had that not happened the Japanese would have had a much tougher time capturing the area.
3:34 Yamamoto didn't just "pass away." He was skillfully located and shot down over Bougainville Is. by pilots of the USAAF, executing "Operation Vengeance" 10 months earlier.
"At Dawn We Slept". Best book ever written about 7 Dec 1941 ever written. I'm sure it would give you some amazing material for your channel. Highly recommended.
"Passed away" That's one way to describe it I guess ... Reminds of the preacher joke where a little boy could be seen riding his tricycle back and forth on the patio, stopping every now and then with sounds of a hammer on concrete, from the living room. He ran in to see his Mom, completely missing the presence of the visiting church pastor, and said -- "Mom! Mom! I chased a mouse with my trike all over the patio. I ran him over on his back and just rode and rode over his head. I got off and beat his head and back with my hammer, and" (Now seeing the preacher) said with a bowed head "and the Lord called him home".
A man was ice fishing one afternoon, when he heard a voice from above call to him, "there's no fish down there!" The man looked around, didn't see anyone and went back to fishing. The voice from above called to him again, "there's no fish down there!" The man looked up and said, "is that you, God?" The voice from above said, "no, I'm the ice rink manager, there's no fish down there!"
Should do a video on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (wwII) and how it basically had 9 lives and couldn’t be sunk no matter how badly it was damaged and it participated in almost every major battle
Sadly the most decorated and revered carrier of the war was treated like so much watste material after it was over. It should be the USS Enterprise, CV-6, sitting in Pearl Harbor now and not that wannabe Missouri. The Missouri does NOT belong there. Some have said it would have cost too much to repair or restore her but they knew then that her sister ship, the Saratoga, was going to be used as a target ship so they could have removed enough to restore the Enterprise but the naval brass at the time was just too short sighted to even think of it. This country owes it's life to the Enterprise because at one point in the way she was the ONLY operational carrier standing between us and the Japanese.
Great content, Dark Seas! Sounds like the narration was recorded then played back at higher speed, but easily solved with a custom playback speed @ around 0.85.
you have to ask why, in the spirit of historic accuracy, this would be so deliberately and glaringly "misrepresented" . . .? . tell the story the way it was
You have to love the irony of war. Reminds me of what my grandfather(he was part of the ground force that landed on the Guadal Canal invasion) taught my 3 brothers and me while growing up. "Be careful you don't come across trying to be the playground bully because sooner or later the real brute force will rain down upon the perceived threat to prove once again who is really in control of the playground ".
Jacques Cousteau had a program on television when I was a kid back in the 70s that was a great program
I watched that as a kid. It was awesome!
I think prior to that great series was Hans and lottie has, beautiful programs 👍
The undersea world, with Jaques questo
Jacques was an amazing human being….. he helped save so many ocean species that illegal fishermen were poaching everything from endangered species of fish to whales to dolphins, etc……. A lot of people don’t know that he had a bounty on his head from Russian poachers and Japanese poachers too….. He brought special attention to the protection of natural occurring coral reefs, and pushed the governments of the US and Mexico to create artificial reefs in the Gulf to preserve and protect endangered fish, mammals amd marsupials from going extinct . That man was a hero, to this day his organizations are still going strong. The same could also be said about Steve Irwin “ The Crocodile Hunter” 🐊
i remember it and the Nat Geo print edition that chronicled it.
Yamamoto didn't "pass away", we shot him down. It was a deliberate execution, we knew his flight path from crypto intercepts and used long range P38s to ambush him.
Perhaps, but we had the advantage of having better intel than they assumed.
Not our fault they didn’t secure their info better.
Plus Yamamoto was know for his near obsessive punctuality.
And as a result, Yamamoto passed away.
@@scootergeorge9576 As a result he got his ass shot down. Serves him right. He turned over a lot of American and Australian POW’s to Unit 731. Yamamoto got off light in comparison.
@@pauldavis9387 - I have never heard of Yamamoto being involved in any atrocities. You're going to provide some proof before I believe you.
I had dinner years ago with the man who helped Yamamoto "pass away." Rex T Barber, Marion Carl, Kenneth Allen Jernstedt, and other local aces were our guests of honor.
Will we see such men again?
i get it helped him pass away means killed him
I think heroes live among us unknown as such even to themselves, until they're needed most. Natural disasters bring their hero potential to light.
@@thomasblanchard6778 well said.
Lol and I'm Joe Biden
@@PartyhatRS are you now? Well, Mr. President, I would like to talk to you about our interstate bridge...
Anyway, it isn't up to you to decide facts. I worked for a software company, Dynamix, that was going to release a new flight sim "Aces Over the Pacific." We invited Pacific Aces of Oregon out to a formal dinner as a publicity event. Rex Barber was one of our guests of honor. Sorry you weren't invited.
After Yamamoto "passed away."
I guess that's one way to to put being killed by a .50 cal round to the head from a P-38 Lightning.
Don’t think a Goody’s Headache Powder or an Excedrin Aspirin will relieve his migraine headache. Sorta along the lines of Abr Lincoln & JFK
It was either that or the sudden stop into the side of that mountain....
I had the same reaction "passed away"? More like taken out in a brilliant and brave operation that cost American lives but crushed the spirit of the Japanese.
This is how reality is handled by socialist as stories like "1984" & "Animal Farm" shown.
@@EddieVBlueIsland The government of "1984" was a Totalitarian system, not Socialist.
"Animal Farm" depicted a marginalized group who staged a rebellion for equal rights, and were eventually betrayed and mislead by a dictator figure.
My question is how is that relevant?
I was on an LST during the Vietnam war and we pulled into truk Island. It was amazing to me at that time how many old Japanese ships were still visible in many states of deterioration. Truck island was a beautiful place but there was still much war debris in the water and on land. This was back in 1964.
Was it the Barnstable County?
I did a cold weather cruise in Norway on that.
as a person who was raised in chuuk after moving there from guam at the age of 1, i do recall seeing an abandoned plane in the shore literally just about 15-20 feet from where we lived not making too much out of it bc i was still very young(about 5 or 6 y/o). but looking back now, i understand so much more
@@drayko4157 wow
So, I learned that one of the largest diving spots and tourist attraction in the world was brought to us by the US Navy. 🇺🇸
Lol it looks awesome to dive there, thanks WWII for making such a great vacation spot
Don't forget to Thank the Imperial Japanese Navy for their part . Without it there would be nothing interesting to see.
@@steventhompson399 It is I have been there Twice. The diving is AWESOME but thats all there realy is to do there. And the diving is mostly all deep like 100 ft + dives so more on the advanced side.
Care needs to be taken when diving these wrecks. Quite a few of the ships were sunk with large amounts of ordinance on board including the 18-in rounds for the Yamato class battleships. This ordinance has been chemically becoming unstable over the decades. Also keep in mind each of these ships are probably graveyards. I saw the Jacques Cousteau special when he expire the wrecks Truk lagoon. They explored a lot of the ships with ordinance and they also found a lot of remains of the crews.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer The Japanese governmant put a bounty on all human remains. So most all remains have been returned to Japan thus you wont find any bones unless you plan on doing some very deep driving.
I can imagine the talk between Macaurthur and Nimitz. "Chet, I need your ships and aircraft to hammer the hell out of truk! Meanwhile my boys will be stomping ass on New Guinea!" Nimitz replies, "I'll put Bill Halsey on it. He's crazy enough to get it done!"
Yamamoto did not “pass away”
He got his ass “Blown Away “.
I read another comment that said he was struck by “lightning.”
@@gawainethefirst and became the Japanese Thor.
A .50 BMG through the back of the head and out of his eye.
Because we had broken the Japanese "purple code." We knew when/where he would be flying and sent some fighters to go take him out.
P 38 enema. See ya.
Yamamoto "passed away"?! Sounds like he died peacefully at home surrounded by his loving family. I don't think so. When the U.S. broke the Japanese code his official business itinerary and travel schedule was learned, so the U.S. Army Air Corps sent a diplomatic squadron of P-38 Lightnings to urge him to cease and desist his illegal activities. It worked like a charm. This information provided by the son of a WWII Veteran who served in the Pacific Theater and was able to come home safely and not have to go on a tour of Japan in a large part because of a great U.S. Diplomat Ms Enola Gay.
One of the very few instances in WW2 where a commander was specifically targeted. More of a sour grapes moment than a constructive military operation.
@@freddieclark Judging by your moronic comment, you obviously don't know who Yamamoto was. You also do not know what strategy is either..
@@freddieclark Yamamoto was a POS murderer. Hopefully, he died just a painfully as all of the civilians and troops the Japs murdered all over Asia.
@@johnpauljones9310 It seems you do not know what you are talking about.
18 April 1943, the 168th anniversary of Paul Revere's Midnight Rude.
I have said it before but it deserves another comment your voice, the clipped fast cadence and your phrasing are perfect for these subjects. I appreciate and stand in awe of the synchronicity of voice cadence and research. Thank you sir
I was stationed at Truk for 8 months in 1992 so I have some interesting trivia for you.
If you look at the map in the video you will notice the reef. That reef is actually the rim of a volcano. The depth outside the reef is about a mile to the sea floor I believe. Inside the reef the depth varies from 150 to 300 ft.
I lived on the main island of Weno (formally called Moen). I could see Fefan and Udot very easily from my quarters. It takes about 40 minutes by small boat to go from Weno to Fefan. Weno is about 25 square miles in size.
Near the west/northwest side of the reef there is a small island rectangular in shape and approximately 25 yards by 300 yards in size. In the middle of this island there are two Japanese 4 inch artillery guns (I believe they were 4 inch, but I'm not sure about the exact size) pointing towards the reef. They are mounted on round concrete pads with ring and pinion gears fixed to the bottom of the pads to allow the guns to rotate. The guns are well hidden by the palm trees and they were never removed.
Near the island of Fefan you can see a Japanese zero upside down in the water just a few feet below the surface. There is also a ship nearby that is visible from the surface. Its mast sticks almost straight up, and you feel like you can touch it when the water settles down.
There is a small pill box at the water line on what is now the main hotel grounds.
And finally, yes it's pronounced Truck, not Trook. The modern name is Chuuk which is pronounced Chewk.
Thank you for a very informative comment.
Cool man!
Is that where ChuBaka came from?
Did you find any cool stuff to take home? Is there a US Navy presence there? Is there an Airbase there or barracks ? TIA
@@smurra3 No, I didn't find anything other than a couple of awesome seashells. There is no memorabilia left from WW2 other than what is contained in the sunken ships, and that is supposed to be protected.
Regarding a military presence in Micronesia, there is only one left, and that is in Palau. The Civic Action Teams (CAT) started around 1969. As a trust territory, Micronesia requested assistance from the US. The US had an interest in helping Micronesia because it simply meant that our military would have access to the islands and use of their flight lines. The Navy started the first CAT team in Palau and remained in charge of the program throughout its history. Some time later, the Army and Air Force were brought in to man some of the CAT locations. There were a total of 6 CATs on 6 different islands. I was in the Air Force, and we were responsible for Pohnpei and Truk. Each CAT tour lasted 8 months. There were never any actual bases at any of the locations. We had a small compound which had a team house and a few workshops like a carpenter's shop and an electrician's shop, etc. We essentially lived and worked in the community. I was a mechanic and we had a few work bays at the local public works.
Each team consisted of 13 members, and conditions were very spartan. All personnel worked in a civil engineering based career field, and our mission was to help the islanders with infrastructure development. Our orders even had the word "ambassador" on them.
Each team consisted of:
2 carpenters
1 plumber
1 electrician
2 heavy equipment operators
2 mechanics (me)
1 land surveyor
1 medic
1 NCOIC
1 commander
and I'm forgetting the last position...
While I was there we built roads and butler buildings. We also built a schoolhouse and an agricultural building. We even worked with the peace corps on a few jobs. It was a wonderful experience.
Sorry for the long answer.
All the videos I watch from Dark Seas are first class and I get much enjoyment along with an education about WWII on the High Seas. As a Radar Operator on a ship in Vietnam I have always been interested in Sea Battles. Thanks for the excellent Narration also.
“After Yamahmotto passes away.” Lol, I think you mean after he was shot out of the sky.
Yamamoto took a .50 slug to the head when his bomber was shot down.
Yup. Thinking the same thing. As if he contracted covid.
Yamahmotto? Is that a brand of motorcycle?
@@kdrapertrucker "Yamamoto's body, along with the crash site, was found the next day in the jungle of the island of Bougainville by a Japanese search-and-rescue party, led by army engineer Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Hamasuna. According to Hamasuna, Yamamoto had been thrown clear of the plane's wreckage, his white-gloved hand grasping the hilt of his katana, still upright in his seat under a tree. Hamasuna said Yamamoto was instantly recognizable, head dipped down as if deep in thought. A post-mortem disclosed that Yamamoto had received two 0.50-caliber bullet wounds, one to the back of his left shoulder and another to the left side of his lower jaw that exited above his right eye. The Japanese navy doctor examining the body determined that the head wound had killed Yamamoto. The more violent details of Yamamoto's death were hidden from the Japanese public. The medical report was changed "on orders from above", according to biographer Hiroyuki Agawa." wiki
The admiral’s flight plan was learned from intelligence intercepts, however this information source was not revealed at the time.
I have never ever heard the term “passed away” when someone is killed in combat murdered or jumps off a cliff. I think after almost 80 years we don’t have to be PC about WW2.
I think its more about showing respect, the man earned respect.
@@thebeast8429 that's possibility but maybe we were surrounded by the weakest generation known to mankind
Nothing PC about "passed away", seeing as it's a term that's been around for over 150 years. It's a weird choice for a general that was killed in a combat action, but then human beings in general are squeamish about death, with all the euphemisms that have been invented for the word "dead" or "killed" over thousands of years of human language.
@@rikk319 weird choice, but not PC. try not to contradict yourself in 2 sentences
@@thebeast8429, by whose measure does he earn respect. He planned a failed operation that was ultimately design to get the United States to sign a peace agreement after they attacked us that then would allow the Imperial Army to continue its conquest of other countries natural resources. This failure caused them total defeat of their country in less than 4 years later and being the recipient of the only use of nuclear weapons on its people. I don’t think he did anything that would also give him any respect from the American side. He died in the same manner that he afforded us, a surprise attack. So exactly who are you placing in the hero worship column of respect due him?
I dove there around 2000. Underwater, exactly as it was 2/18/1944. Indescribable shipwreck, munitions, all covered with soft corals every color of rainbow. A must for all divers. Japanese removed all accessible remains from wreckage and had a mass funeral ceremony. Fabulous trip
After all the torture and torment they put the poor girls and ladies “Comfort Women” through, I believe they got their “proper burial”.
It is unlikely that those sailors ever got to be a part of that. That was more Japanese Army than Japanese Navy. Many years ago I read a book written by a veteran of the Pacific Campaign. He mentioned that on one island they had taken they found some unusual items in a cave. Initially they thought they were some sort of strange floatation device. The writer of this book said he later came to realize what their true purpose was. They were sex toys. And not the kind meant for him and her. Instead they were the kind meant to replace her.
Yamamoto didnt pass away, he died after being struck by Lightning 😉
I see what you did here, welll played. 👍
I see what you did here, welll played. 👍
Lightning is right p 38 style
Yep, that's right.
A very fast lightning, no less.
Yamamoto didn't (pass away) he was killed by US army P-38 fighters after it was discovered that he was making a surprise inspection of some bases.
I love surprises!
I wonder if the bases to be inspected was sad their leader was killed or happy they weren’t getting inspected.
Yamamoto passed away during an attack by P38s
A lot of Australian POWs also passed away during attacks by (split arse) P38s
Operation Vengeance
He was killed after crashing in a hamaki which Americans call Betty bombers after a P38 shot his plane down I think that's what happened
At least the US had the decency of declaring war before attacking the Japanese 😅
As such they should have been ready and their ships armed, unlike the American ships. American ships dump all their stuff off before going into harbor due to an explosion on a ship that was devastating. So the IJN ships were armed and ready to go. There really is no comparison.
they declared way before then.
War isn’t fair and if I was Yamamoto I would of done the same. We knew they were moving on the pacific colonies of France and most likely Britain and the United States were likely. Roosevelt was going to ask for a declaration of war against Japan he just didn’t have to since Pearl Harbor
Japanese intended to declare war one hour before they attacked Pearl Harbor
Unfortunately due to bureaucratic delays( having fired all the secretaries)
They weren't able to get the declaration of war drawn up in time
Sam grey did they extend that courtesy to the Germans? It’s quite something when you get to write history because the Americans and Germans were in open warfare in the Atlantic months before Hitler declared war
I lived in truk, now chuuk, when I was a young child so not much memory from that time. Later I went back in 1973 to see my parents. My mom was running a small hotel. There were some guys there looking for a submarine sunk there but not yet found. They found it. But what was interesting was that they had a huge pile of still photos of this attack. So I could see progressive bombings and hits. There was a big boat that was dodging bombs and got damaged. I could see it head for land. It made it because it was beached in front of the hotel. For many years with my travels through truk or to truk, we could see the masts of the ships sunk. Long ago no longer sen. And yes, cousteau stayed at the motel. Mom showed me some collectables he left there.
Ps, truk is a sunken volcano, not a barrier reef.
Thank you, that was interesting.
Awesome.
Well, yes, it is a sunken volcano, but that still provides substrate for a reef. Reefs can develop on sunken volcanos you know, in fact its quite common. Really anywhere in the tropics within reach of currents and with suitable substrate at a suitable depth will eventually form a reef.
@@alganhar1 well, you are correct to a point. There are islands that were or are from upheavals and then developed reefs or coral growth. These were not from volcanic activity. Saipan, palau, yap as examples. But chuuk was a volcano. It then sunk and through the millennia had coral grow on it. Im sure that ponape is also volcanic due to its rock structures that I now cannot remember the names of. They were used to build nan madol. But yea, they all have coral growing on them forming reef barriers. I'm not that knowledgeable about all this. Just going off of what I was told and saw myself.
My Dad, as a Marine, was in the Marshall & Marianna Islands in WW II in '44. Don't know if he took part in the Truk battle though. He passed away in '95.
Your late Dad was a badass, part of the Greatest Generation. We stand on the shoulders of giants. May God bless you both.
@@dtaylor10chuckufarle yep
I had the great fortune of travelling to Micronesia, and diving on many of the wrecks in Truk Lagoon. Spent two weeks in Chuuk, one of them on the Odyssey liveaboard. Fortunate to see all kinds of equipment: Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, Airplanes, and of course, the ships. Absolutely fascinating. If you're a scuba diver, this HAS to be on your bucket list.
One of those ships in Truk lagoon had almost 7,000 Japanese marines on board. They were supposed to go to Tarawa as re-inforcements. None made it.
Wow. Always sad to hear the insane casualties of this war. :/
I don't know where they were supposed to go, but the Marines took Tarawa in Novembr, 1943. Truk was hammered in Operation Hailstone in February, 1944.
They became little isolated Japanese communities or Ex Patriot Japanese , Rabaul was another one they grew wild pigs and quite a bit of plant food. They sat out the war and got very skinny
Accurate tale. My dad was a bomber pilot in the Pacific. So medaled was he, we had a photo of him receiving the Silver Star from Admiral Halsey in our bathroom. Obviouly, he didn't like any of this at all and that only scratches the surface. My mom just thought that we needed to know about what an incredible life he led before we got to know him. I've been to Truk twice for diving. Best was on the liveaboard Truk Aggressor doing 23 of max 25 dives in 5 days. It's stunning down there in that lagoon.
What did your dad fly? What squadron(s) was he in? Was he a carrier pilot?
I too dove on the Truk Aggressor. Thousands of tons of ordnance, planes, tanks, trucks just as they sank on February 18, 1944, all covered in soft corals in every color of the rainbow. A must for every diver.
@@robertharrison7718 The 106 squadron, aka the Spearhead Squadron.
Amazing dive site now, travelled there a few years ago. Ships with tanks still on the decks and planes in their holds.
Cool! I went diving in Yap but was still just open water certified then. Want to get back to FSM and see what's in Truk (Chuuk) Lagoon.
@@vikingspud Definately worth the trip mate, deepest wreck is around 50m, we only managed 42m though, good vis warm water, shorts n T-shirt is all ya need.
@@dannyb7371 Deepest wreck is far beyond 50M. I hit 62M twice, and a few wrecks are another 30M deeper than that. Narcosis is very real.
@@dannyb7371 Coolness. On my bucket list!
@@prairiepucker9392 Lol yeh mate, I'm not a Tech or suicide diver so was directing my comments at us amateur boys...😉
Yamamoto didn’t pass away, he was “turned off”.
He,s not passed away he just needs rebooting !
I'm really enjoying the dark seas channel!
Excellent work on these videos and watching them has renewed my interest in WW2 Naval history in the Pacific. I also like your narration style. Thank you doing these videos on the history of Navel warfare.
I was on a dive trip to Truk in February 1944. During the week I was there the 50th anniversary of the attack was observed with a formal ceremony. The coolest thing I saw while diving was inside a hold of a ship filled with the 18-inch shells to be used in the biggest guns on the battleship Yamoto.
correct your date maybe you mean1994?
The huge amount of copper needed for the drive bands in the manufacture of those shells was very costly to the IJN. Copper was an extremely precious war material at the time. Along with wire, it was also heavily used in man-portable anti-tank shells. (along with other smaller shells)
Please continue this series id love to hear more about the American advance toward Japan. Island by Island and all the oter smaller unknown battles that took place as the Americans pushed foward i love ww2 content as i get older its like it becomes more interesting
The entire Pacific War is mind boggling from a logistics standpoint, truly.
@@krisfrederick5001 yes, they even used ships and stuff.
@@krisfrederick5001 The entire war is mind boggling. The logistics associated with the Normandy invasion is hard to grasp too.
The Aussies had a big hand in the pacific in the early stages. Never forget that.
@@jonmurraymurray5512 They weren’t involved on the islands where my dad (US Marine) fought, but you’re correct.
Good old Cousteau, what adventures this man had on and under the seas.
Poet,philosopher, inventor, adventurer, discoverer, narrator, producer, loved his TV series on their divings.
As a diver, Jacques Cousteau and Mike Nelson of Sea Hunt shaped my life.
Grew up watching the TV series. Loved that show. So much simpler times.
Still the best channels on UA-cam when it comes to docs.
I've spent several weeks diving in Truk/Chuuk. Lots of wrecks. Most are freighters, but there is a submarine and a destroyer. A few planes as well. Most of the shallower ships have been cleaned up, with any bones being shipped back to Japan. But, when you get down to around 200 feet inside the wrecks, you can still come upon some weird stuff. I saw a foot still inside a sneaker in an engine room.
I saw some thigh-bones at 64m in the engine-room of the Aikoku Maru. I remember it quite well despite being on a CCR, with air-diluent. It was also a quite long horizontal swim in, and some tight restrictions on the way out due to a relatively fresh bulkhead collapse over a walkway, where the first diver kicked up some silt trying to get past, but ultimately swimming beneath the walkway to get out, swimming through the quite narrow supports. I even have it on video somewhere!
Gives me great insight to my grandfathers photos from this time. Thank you. He was a crewmeber on a B-24 named “Patched up peace”.
If I remember correctly Koga was shot down in the Philippines aboard a sea plane and carrying with him plans of how to defeat the Americans during the Battle of Leyte Gulf
A fine video, only real problem is that the surprise attack didn't really come that much as a surprise since the Japanese were able to evacuate all of their heavy ships after the B-24 recon was spotted. A real surprise attack on a fortified Japanese fleet anchorage came with the first Carrier Raid on Rabaul, on November 5th, 1943.
There were significant elements of surprise, based on what I've just now read.
Rod Macdonald:
_Knowing Japanese search patterns from intercepted radio-traffic, Task Groups 58.1, 58.2, and 58.3 successfully approached Truk undetected, and took up a holding position some 90 miles offshore late on 16 February 1944._
This explains how the remaining Japanese were caught with their pants down to their ankles.
The known loss of 250 aircraft, many on the ground, and quite a few barely off the runway, and yet somehow you discount "surprise" as a factor. Then a "real" surprise must be when _all_ of the cheerleaders jump out of the cake.
This content contains valuable information. The level of entertainment is high and applicable to educational purposes.
Oh man. Nice work. Intro, narration, editing, sound mix. Very nice
Very good video. Thank you for bringing out the history of Truk Lagoon.
I would like to hear about the Sea going tugges that saved damaged ships especially in the North Atlantic. My Uncle command several sea going tugges. Three were torpedoed that he commanded.
There is a considerable amount of USN combat camera film taken during the actual raid. It's too bad so little of it was used in this video. The saga of the IJN destroyer Oite, crammed with hundreds of survivors from a sunken IJN cruiser, caught in North Pass and unable to maneuver, under heavy air attack with just one or two operable light machine guns desperately returning fire, evading numerous attacks until finally hit and exploding, taking everyone to a watery grave, is worthy of at least a few minutes of mention. The destruction of the Aikoku Maru, crammed with ammunition and over 2,000 soldiers, attacked by a TBM that conducted a mast-head bombing run, firing every available AAA gun on board that could be brought to bear, hitting the TBM hard, thereby causing the Avenger to fly into the forward hold and detonating a massive explosion that destroyed the ship and killed almost everyone on board and the three-man TBM crew, is another story worthy of mention. The fact that most of the IJN fighter pilots were on "leave" is briefly mentioned, but the reality is that they were on a different island than the one with their airfield that morning and were literally caught with their pants down in a brothel. Anyway, Operation Hailstorm is a worthy subject . It's too bad more of the actual story wasn't told.
Because this is just some dude, not a real outlet
@@weatherchaser1166 What counts as a "real outfit" these days. XD
Much of the old footage unfortunately is still owned by someone, so still comes under copyright rules, which is why you rarely see truly new footage on UA-cam channels such as this. Very few of them have the income to pay to use footage that is not part of the public domain. Usually if the situation is as you have mentioned, it is due to the majority of the available footage being under copyright thus unusable....
@@alganhar1 Makes sense. Thanks for sharing.
Have seen footage of the ammo ship "exploding" though a more accurate description would be "vapourising". Very impressive.
Had the opportunity to dive the Lagoon in 1998. 32 dives on 29 different wreck sites. Absolutely amazing experience, have always wanted to return.
@3:04 Battleship in a fully floating dry dock ..an early example of a fully submersible dry dock complete with heavy cranes and barge/ship docking . Incredible those ideas and supporting technology ...1940's ..
The content is amazing. The computer generated voice is absolutely the pits!
"After Yamamoto 'passed away' in April 1943..."
Really? Come on Dark Seas, you're better than that.
Enjoy your videos, thanks for your hard work.
cause if he said kill youtube would be all "REEEEEEEEE you cant say kill REEEEEE we take your money REEEEE"
Thx Phx.
More like..."after American pilots ambushed his flight one sunny morning and turned Yamamoto into clam chowder..."
Passed away while inspecting the sea floor from the window of his plane.
I also was taken aback hearing Yamamoto “passed away”.
How did this get into the script? And why?
Sure do appreciate your videos and the live/archived footage contained there. Not many people provide such coverage... Thank you!
My Grandpa was a pilot on this OP and growing up I was fascinated in WW2 and all the “spoils of war” he had brought back that he left to me like a Japanese Samurai Sword with jewels in the handle, a bloody rising sun flag taken off dead Japanese soldiers, & a ton of photos. I distinctly remember this story bc as he said “it was like shooting fish in a barrel & when we were done with them that place looked like the craters on the moon”
Thank you for all the painstaking work done for this video.
Spent more than 10 years (from 1997 to 2008) on the island of Weno, Chuuk State (Truk) in the Federated States of Micronesia, and yes those IJN ships are the main dive attraction of the place. My employer Mr. Tosiwo Mori Irons, a local businessman on the island, of Japanese decent and a relative of former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told me stories of the brutality of some IJA soldiers on captured American pilots that he witnessed during WW2 when he was still a boy, that is why he told me it was really surreal to see both Japanese tourist divers and American tourist divers enjoy diving together in those wrecks. As for me I have all nothing but good memories of my stay in Truk and Ponape islands...PACIFIC PARADISE.
Awesome. My father fought on Okinawa...This history is fascinating....Thank you....
You know the old saying..."What Pearl Harbor's around comes around." No, no one says that...
Yeah me and my friends say that all the time
We should!
Thank you.
I now have a fuller understanding of the fortifications and stores on Truck.
Best to you Scott Whitmire
Yamamoto did not "pass away"...lol
He was killed by the US Military.
Operation vengeance, yes that was its name lol
That's exactly right! Was scrolling through to see if anyone made that point. The US got verification that Yamamoto was going to be on a plane and knew the course of the plane, had several fighters waiting and the designer of the Pearl Harbor attack became only a memory.
Yamamoto didnt pass away, he was killed after struk by Lightning 😉
There is a UA-cam video of his plane at the crash site
@@RandomTrinidadian that is tooo funny ( mot people won't get the joke)😁
I love the way The Dark channel presents stories. I'm pretty sure that it's a real guy reading a script (rather than a bot mispronouncing every third word) and the way he does it adds some suspense to the story. Another fine telling of the perils and triumphs of WW2
3:30 ha! Yamamoto didn't "pass away." He was killed in action. Shot down by Ameican P-38s over Bouganville.
Thank you for your work on these video's. Since the 50's. I have only depended on VICTORY AT SEA (26 programs) for WW2 navy images. TRUK was quite a secret from our known history. Well done.
I would like to see a series on the code breaking operations.
That's pretty well spelled out in the movie ; ' Tora ! Tora! Tora! '
" We're translated these intercepts faster than the Japanese embassy right here in Washington "
Howdy Jim Hackney - I lived on Kwajalein from 63 to 65 back and left 66. My parents lived there for 11 years, brother another 5 and our cousin SAR plane for 10. We also were on the rim of a volcano our water was very deep in spots and off shore very deep. Kwajalein atoll was 70+ miles across the ends.
I would like more stories about the Merchant Marines.
Up close and Personal.
My grandfather on one side was a merchant sailor throughout the war while my other grandfather was in the army in the Philippines. One thing their stories shared was their hatred for everything Japanese
"Mr. Roberts" Henry Fonda, James Cagney
I've learned so much from this Channel. Thank you
I just went and watched the
Jaques Cousteau documentary in 1969 exploring these shipwrecks!
I had no idea they were actually going to show the remains of the Japanese sailors🤯 piles of bones😱
The Japanese have recovered many of the remains, but there are so many that you can still see bones scattered inside the hulls of some of the sunk ships. Especially the deeper ones like the San Francisco Maru. Chuuk has no tourism other than diving. Many divers want to see bones so the dive guides, all locals, routinely replenish the supply. Once bones are exposed to the current, they quickly disintegrate. So, it's not unusual for the guides to place a skull on the bridge of a ship and replace it with another recovered from inside the hull when the first one disintegrates. Personally, I wished they left the bones alone. But once again it's all they got to boost tourism. Seen it myself many times diving the wrecks. I no longer visit the engine rooms. Hulls have deteriorated and that's a good way to get trapped and drown if a nearby diver kicks up silt so you can't find your way out. Happens sometimes. I only dive with experienced friends. Too many wannabes with a freshly printed advanced open water certification get into trouble because they think they know it all and push the limits beyond safe.
@@infantryattacks Why would anyone need a piece of paper to dive?
@@cokiea57 no certificates, no dives. That's the law in Chuuk. At a minimum you need advanced open water. Recommend wreck, nitrox, advanced life saving, etc.
@@cokiea57 because no reputable dive shop will take you diving unless you show your certificate. Got mine in Florida from an excellent teacher. Dive masters don't want people who aren't trained killing themselves and maybe the dive master too.
I loved diving but it's a dangerous sport and a person needs to respect that.
This was a good morning treat getting ready for work
What about a full dossier on the USS Texas? Only US Battle ship to serve in all theaters of war in WW2 and also serve in both world wars.
Drachinifel is a great naval history channel that has what you're looking for. The History Guy has also covered USS Texas.
Sadly, Battleship Texas is fighting an enemy far more relentless than either the Germans or Japanese. Rust and corrosion resulting from being moored in brackish water since 1948 are threatening the ship like nothing since the Battle of Okinawa when kamikazes were looking for targets. I fear that if sufficient money isn't obtained soon, it may be too late to save her. She is a national treasure and I sincerely hope the other museum ships don't share her fate.
@@thewaywardwind548 As big a state as it is...Texas can't pay to repair the battleship named after it?
Just wanted to say the presentation, quantity and quality of your videos is absolutely spot on.
It's still a damned shame to me that either the Musashi or the Yamato didn't survive the war to be a museum ship. The pinnacle of battleship design.
Maybe the pinnacle with respect to the size, but mostly sat idle due to fuel shortages and the Japanese fear that they would be sunk by our Naval air arm. The Japanese referred to the Yamato as the ‘Truk Hotel”. This was typical of the Japanese psyche after their defeat at Midway. They were reluctant to expose these huge capital ships thereby making them worthless. The IJN only committed them at the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, which at that time they had become the battleship version of the kamikaze. The fact that the supposed “water tight” hull design was a huge vulnerability was exploited by our Naval air arm, sending her to the bottom.
You'll have to wait until 2199 when they turn it into a space ship...
@@davidoltmans2725, Nazi Germany did the same thong with the Terpitz. They could have really caused some serious problems for the Allies but Hitler was too afraid to allow it out into the open waters. Like the Yamato, it didn't help because both were wasted and wound up being blown to bits by aircraft attacks.
@@richardcline1337 Problem with the Tirpitz is had she been committed as you suggested she would have ended up like her sister the Bismark. The problem was the Allies Navies VASTLY outnumbered the Axis, even before the USA started its ship printing in earnest! At any one time Tirpitz would have faced at least 4 Battleships in British waters, usually around six, and because of where the British Isles lie there are only a few routes into the Atlantic, all well covered by both air and Naval patrols.
Had she been completed earlier, and then combined with her Sister ship the Bismark and the two Gneisenhaus then *maybe* they may have proven a viable threat combined, but it never happened. And please do not point to the inking of the HMS Hood.... That was a fluke shot, a one in a million roll of the dice. You can not base the combat ability of a ship on such a fluke, as can be shown by Bismarks last battle in which she managed to land precisely no hits upon HMS Rodney or HMS Prince of Wales despite the fact the battle closed to essentially a gun to the head range in Battleship terms.
Adam Thrussell@ Thank you for the documentary battles off Truk Island during 1943 to 1945.
Big M Marathon 1981 Frankston to Melbourne Town Hall.
Man I’m glad we got revenge on the imperial Japanese but lemme tell you, Japanese people, especially today, are some of the NICEST, and MOST respectful people ive ever talked to, I come from a city in florida with a large Japanese population, most run small hole in the wall stores (and make a pretty good living I can’t lie) and they are the coolest people. (And their food is the best)
Most people in all countries are great it’s just the politicians that get us into wars
@@dougclark5653 Actually, what most often gets us into war is our assumed role as free societies' protector of Democracies around the world. Also, our strong commitment to stopping atrocities wherever possible is poor nations. America has stood for freedom around the world for over 100 years. That's our credo. Until Trump, our position was never "America first". Americans have died in many foreign lands is the cause of human decency.
I'm not saying that we have never been misled into wars, but that is the exception and not the rule. There is a reason that our country has been admired and respected by far more people over the decades than any other. That is why so many people strive to come here. You might want to look at our history as a whole.
The past few years have damaged this country in many ways, but, at 73 I'm still proud to be an American for our striving to make this a more perfect union and for standing up to the bullies of the world.
@@ronlheureux7623 still started by politicians.
My grandfather fought them in Mindinao and other parts of the Phillipenes and he was nearly obsessed with Japanese culture for the whole rest of his life from 18 - 94 years old. He visited many times, learned the language, watched all the Japanese and American war films that were ever made. He told my father and myself he didn't understand how they lost the war although he absolutely hated them during that time because he respected them and feared their courage.
@@ronlheureux7623 Yet Trump was responsible for quite a few historic peace deals, stood up for the US military and US in the world and supported his allies. Yet with Biden we have lost Afghanistan while abandoning US citizens there, abandoned our allies around the world (The same as Obama did) and has given in to the Chinese and their aggression, we have also watched our own boarder disappear while we American citizens are told to show our vacination paperwork to travel in our own country. The incredible hate that the Democrats have for their own country makes Trump look like a saint in comparison.
I love these dark channels you do... Such good content and well made.
This is one of your best researched videos with an impressive amount of both Japanese and American back info. High Kudos ‼️
Yamamoto didnt "pass away".. he was targeted and the plane he was a passenger in was shot down and crashed in a blazing fireball. The man who planned and carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor was punished for his actions
I'm very glad that you mentioned the remains of the sailors remains so often thier never mentioned on either side .. Ships do not sail alone takes men and women who give their lives for the country of there birth ..
Dove during typhoon, 110 knot+ winds. Only got 16 dives that trip, but being able to dive in a typhoon attests to security as a harbor. Few residents venture out of lagoon, met pro UW photog that went outside lagoon for pix, boat pilot had never been outside, dropped off guide and photog, panicked, left, came back told everyone they were eaten by sharks, the two drifted in open ocean for 36 hours, photog finally reached island somewhere. Guide perished. Chuuk is a bucket list destination for every diver.
I expected to at least see aerial footage of the site. I don’t think any of the footage is of the operation either.
Thank you I really enjoyed this episode.
The us gov . Needs to hire this guy to give all the pre op briefs . Lol
Animated maps would be the next big improvement for your channel when laying out where everything was and comings/going between them. Keep up the good work.
Agreed! The over-reliance on contemporary film animations (grainy, black-and-white, oversimplified - prob. from newsreels entirely lacking in detail) is a minus-point.
Good video. Aside from the Yamamoto “passed away” gaff which has been pointed out numerous times already, the battleship Yamato is pronounced Yah-Mah-Toe, not Yah-Moe-Toe. You’re welcome.
The pronunciation of the other Japanese ships is just as inaccurate.
I swear he gets it right on other videos but pronounces it weird on this one. They talk about good stuff but it's amazing the stuff they get wrong.
I'd almost like to go diving there but get chills just thinking about it - great content as always, thanks
Admiral Yamamoto didn't "pass away." He was targeted and killed in the line of duty by the US Army Air Force!
In February 1977, I spent two weeks on Truk Lagoon wreck diving the sunken Japanese ships and planes and exploring the Japanese tunnels and defenses on the various islands.
Back then, Truk was pretty rural in that it only had a few paved roads and a few stores. It did have a large motel that was built to accommodate Japanese tourists who came there every year either out of historic curiosity or to honor the dead. However, when I was there, there were only three guests at the motel. It had a large dining area that would seat perhaps more than 100 guests, but we were the only three there at the time and we were all wreck diving.
The motel showed movies every night but it was just a 16 mm projector of WW II gun camera and some old Victory at Sea episodes. There was a very small reserve Seabee detachment on one of the other islands, but I don't know what they were doing there.
I had some amazing dives on sunken Japanese ships and aircraft. I was an underwater photographer as a hobby and so I also got some amazing photographs of the wrecks and the cargo inside some of the wrecks. I wanted to dive a sunken submarine, but it was at 300 feet and I wasn't comfortable diving more than 100-120 feet. Besides, even I could reach the submarine I would only have had about 1 minute of air left before I had to begin to surface and decompress.
I'm 76 now and permanently retired. I've had a pretty adventuresome life. I grew up in the Air Force because my dad was a B-17, B47, and B-52 pilot. I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam 1968-69. I was trained to collect intelligence a the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). I spent two years in a Latin American country supporting counter-insurgency and collecting intelligence. It was very dangerous but not as bad as Vietnam. I served a tour at US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) before retiring from the military in 1989. I spent 7 years as a Division Manager with a company supporting force structure analyses for USSOCOM and 3 years as an employee at Booz Allen developing new technologies for Special Operations. During those 10 years I supported Special Operations exercises in the Middle East as technical support for new technologies. I resigned from Booz Allen to become an independent consultant for DOD high technology military programs primarily in support of the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) as well as for clients working with the Navy, Army, and Joint Special Operations Command. I those capacities, the travel requirements were extensive and I was sent to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Hawaii, and countless locations around the US. In the final 25 weeks of 2015, I was on the road 22 weeks, getting home just a few days before Christmas. I decided to retire permanently because I was tired of hotels, restaurants, rental cars, missed airline connections, taking the red eyes to get to my next assignment, and especially the problems in some of the international locations.
For example, I was told to fly to Bangkok, Thailand and when I got to the airport to call a number that I had been given. Whoever that was arranged to pick me up to drive to the southern part of Thailand to support the special operations part of a major US / Thailand exercise for 5 weeks. As the exercise was winding down, I was told to support another special operations exercise by Delta Force and Seal Team 6 in Thailand for another 2 weeks. We were billeted in an abandoned building so accommodations were pretty much non-existent, but I described about half of the exercises I supported.
My poor wife and I did vacation in Germany and Italy several different times, and one year just before Christmas we decided one night to spend Christmas in Bermuda which was a delightful experience.
In my "spare time" I earned my private pilots license with commercial and instrument ratings, I was a glider pilot, I took basic to advanced aerobatics. I was a SCUBA diver and underwater photographer, I put over 60,000 miles in motorcycle touring and I don't know how many more riding my motorcycles to and from work for 3 years. I was a sky diver, white water canoer, rock climber (which I didn't particularly like because there were no safety ropes--just climbing with hands and feet), and while stationed in Hawaii, I sailed around most of the Hawaiian Islands when I'd take annual leave from the Marines (I wasn't married at the time). I could go on with camping, x-country skiing, hiking, etc. but you get the idea; I had a pretty interesting life.
So, what's my point?
Out of all the experiences I had, Vietnam hands down was the most intense. I think then flying, sailing, motorcycle touring, and sky diving all produced "highs". But wreck diving Truk Lagoon was definitely a major highlight of my life. Some of my other exploits have begun to fade, but Truk Lagoon is still crystal clear in my mind.
I heard the tv people based Radar after you!!
The attack on Truk wasn’t a surprise.
Well, if it wasn’t a surprise, the numbers of dead Japanese, burned up planes, and destroyed ships tells a bit of a different story. Don’t know how that happened!
Excellent presentation...thank you and "fair winds and following seas"
Brings a whole new meaning to "Keep on Truking!"
Dove many of the wrecks here in Chuuk. The reef system protects the area from currents or waves so everything is in pristine shape. Unfortunately the lack of current also means that there is a lot of particulate in the water. It is one of the MUST dive locations for all Scuba divers.
Not for me it is not. Why is it many American's seem to think that Truk is a must? Interesting sure, and if I am in the area it may be considered, but I have a list of sites as long as both my arms I am more interested in first.
Wish people would stop saying things like 'a must for all scuba divers'. No site is anything of the sort if you are more interested in something else. Personally I am a marine Biologist, so the history is of less importance to me than the marine life down there, and there are PLENTY of wrecks I can dive to look at how marine life builds up over time far, far closer to home....
The story of fort drum would make a good video. It was literally a static concrete fort with multiple navel guns. It was kind of like cat and mouse because both the US and the IJN kept capturing and losing the fort. In the end the US decided to get rid of the fort once and for all. The US ended up pouring a LOT of fuel into the top of the fort and burned the whole inside. The thing is that most of the occupants in there were in the mess room which was on the very bottom meaning that with the laws of gravity a lot of the gas poured went to the bottom where most the the Japanese men were. It’s crazy that whoever set off that fuel was able to kill hundreds of troops with one item. It would again make a great video.
Crispy Critters
Well, the Marines and Army infantry were forced to burn thousands of Japanese soldiers alive during the Battle of Saipan, bc their General ordered them to fight to the death. Eventually, flamethrowers were used to “clear out” caves and foxholes. On an island about 12 miles long by 5.5 miles wide, around 29,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, bc they refused to surrender. I dk how many died via flamethrower, but can you imagine the smell?? My father was there, a 19 year old Marine, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Ever.
@@voraciousreader3341 like pork ribs😋
The inital reason the US defenders had to give it up wasn't because of a shortage of supplies or ammo, it was because the water distillers broke down and they didn't have any way to get drinking water. Had that not happened the Japanese would have had a much tougher time capturing the area.
There’s a recent video about Fort Drum floating around here somewhere. Watched it a few months ago.
Anyone who is not subscribed to ALL The DARK channels is REALLY Missing out!!! They are all wonderfully done!!!
3:34 Yamamoto didn't just "pass away." He was skillfully located and shot down over Bougainville Is. by pilots of the USAAF, executing "Operation Vengeance" 10 months earlier.
"At Dawn We Slept". Best book ever written about 7 Dec 1941 ever written. I'm sure it would give you some amazing material for your channel. Highly recommended.
I had my playback speed set at .25x from a previous video, it enhanced the experience of this video 444x.
Drunk5
I’ve dived Truk Lagoon and many of the Maru shipwrecks. Amazing place full of history
Yamamoto passed a way. More complicated than that. Do the story on Dark Skies.
He was effectively assassinated by P38s on a special mission to do just that. Risked compromising 'magic' . . .
They did a video about it on the Dark Docs channel
@@Sloppyclock Damn, I missed it. My bad. Thanks!
Here's the story you are looking for. His death was called "Operation Vengeance"
ua-cam.com/video/1793hRBRKRY/v-deo.html
This was really interesting, thx for making this video.
The ship referenced is the "ya-MAAT-oh", not Yamoto.
Yamato
Yamat-oh-no
♫♪ You say ya-MAAT-oh, I say yamoto.... ♪♫
"Passed away" That's one way to describe it I guess ...
Reminds of the preacher joke where a little boy could be seen riding his tricycle back and forth on the patio, stopping every now and then with sounds of a hammer on concrete, from the living room.
He ran in to see his Mom, completely missing the presence of the visiting church pastor, and said -- "Mom! Mom! I chased a mouse with my trike all over the patio. I ran him over on his back and just rode and rode over his head. I got off and beat his head and back with my hammer, and" (Now seeing the preacher) said with a bowed head "and the Lord called him home".
A man was ice fishing one afternoon, when he heard a voice from above call to him, "there's no fish down there!" The man looked around, didn't see anyone and went back to fishing. The voice from above called to him again, "there's no fish down there!" The man looked up and said, "is that you, God?"
The voice from above said,
"no, I'm the ice rink manager, there's no fish down there!"
Should do a video on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (wwII) and how it basically had 9 lives and couldn’t be sunk no matter how badly it was damaged and it participated in almost every major battle
Sadly the most decorated and revered carrier of the war was treated like so much watste material after it was over. It should be the USS Enterprise, CV-6, sitting in Pearl Harbor now and not that wannabe Missouri. The Missouri does NOT belong there. Some have said it would have cost too much to repair or restore her but they knew then that her sister ship, the Saratoga, was going to be used as a target ship so they could have removed enough to restore the Enterprise but the naval brass at the time was just too short sighted to even think of it. This country owes it's life to the Enterprise because at one point in the way she was the ONLY operational carrier standing between us and the Japanese.
Great content, Dark Seas! Sounds like the narration was recorded then played back at higher speed, but easily solved with a custom playback speed @ around 0.85.
I always wanted to dive there but couldn't afford the trip , so I went muff diving instead .
No chance of getting the bends.
So you went south of the border where the tuna fish play?
Well, it rhymes with "Truk".
Always interesting and informative content. Thank you.
He didnt pass away. The USAAF smoked him with P38 lightnings
you have to ask why, in the spirit of historic accuracy, this would be so deliberately and glaringly "misrepresented" . . .? . tell the story the way it was
@@williamtomkiel8215 Dark usually is very respectful of historical accuracy. i think it was just a honest mistake not purposeful.
@@williamtomkiel8215 I think it's quite obvious that it's a small mistake. Use your brains bruh what else would it be
@@variable7833 The story is so well known that if DS doesn't know it, what else doesn't it know . . . ?
You beat me to it lol.
You have to love the irony of war.
Reminds me of what my grandfather(he was part of the ground force that landed on the Guadal Canal invasion) taught my 3 brothers and me while growing up. "Be careful you don't come across trying to be the playground bully because sooner or later the real brute force will rain down upon the perceived threat to prove once again who is really in control of the playground ".