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Midway—77 Years Ago, Today.


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Sometimes the only way to win some of these arguments is to go back in time, make Japan a pussy, colonized by the Europeans for good measure, and let the Soviets have the rest. They still have outer Manchuria.

 

The only way to win such discussions is to have sound arguments. When yours fall apart, you always start throwing tantrums, divert to other nations' actions then and now, claim everybody is just "anti-Japanese", and stomp off to insert passive-aggressive "mandatory Japan bad" posts in every remotely related thread. That's not a particulary mature impression, either, and fits with the appearance of Japanese inability to take responsibility.

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Sometimes the only way to win some of these arguments is to go back in time, make Japan a pussy, colonized by the Europeans for good measure, and let the Soviets have the rest. They still have outer Manchuria.

 

The only way to win such discussions is to have sound arguments. When yours fall apart, you always start throwing tantrums, divert to other nations' actions then and now, claim everybody is just "anti-Japanese", and stomp off to insert passive-aggressive "mandatory Japan bad" posts in every remotely related thread. That's not a particulary mature impression, either, and fits with the appearance of Japanese inability to take responsibility.

 

 

You're already declaring "falls-apart".

 

lol

 

You didn't read, just scanned.

 

And apparently have a grudge from some thing totally unrelated to this thread.

 

All for the sake of placating 70 year old American propaganda.

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I was a Midshipman in my last year at the Naval Academy when Gen Genda Minoru, former Capt IJN, gave his speech there as an invited guest of a faculty member of the History Dept. Generally consisting of his remarks and experiences in WWII, he concluded his presentation with a comment that, however grievous was the damage inflicted by the US atomic bombs on Japan, he entoned that if Japan had possessed them, she would have used them against the US.

 

Out of curiosity, I went into Washington DC the next day, a Saturday, to hear Genda's presentation at the Smithsonian, wanting to hear anything else he had to say. He repeated almost everything as I had first heard it, including the part about how Japan would have used an A bomb. Of course, in Washington DC, there was press coverage and his statement was reported on all the normal press services. The Academy faculty member, who was personally hosting Genda, received a telephone call very early that Sunday morning, and a heavily accented voice growled "Where is Genda!!!" He was recalled immediately to Japan and subsequently lost his seat in the Japanese Diet.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/17/obituaries/general-minoru-genda-84-dies-planned-attack-on-pearl-harbor.html

 

I was at the time writing a senior paper on Japanese destroyer doctrine in WWII, and I prevailed upon my seminar professor to get me an interview with Genda while he visited the Academy. He scoffed that he would have little time for the likes of me, and was thus surprised when he agreed. I had about an hour session with him listening to his description of the IJN Diminution Theory that guided their strategic thinking vs the US fleet from the 1930s onward. That made for a Hell of a footnote!

Edited by Ken Estes
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I don't disagree. Japan would have used them for sure. After all, they were trying to start mass forest fires with those air balloons. Any of the major powers would have used them if they had it.

 

I have said the following before in a big post else where on these boards in one of the other times there was such a japan history squabble, so I'm not just making things up as I'm going along here, but the quest for power in the world is an unspeakable tragedy that all powers are stuck with. In the long race for that top power position, the US winning the race is not a bad result. And even though I say things like I did in the earlier posts, the US is still easily the preferred super power in the world as opposed to some alternative powers from Japan's perspective. Everything from culture to economics, America is just plain better and liked more by Japanese than the other alternatives. So life goes on.

 

I'm sure you have many other interesting insights Ken. Just to be fair in pointing out that also in your article, it also says that Genda supported US nuclear weapons being stationed in Japan. That surely would cause lashback from the general population and would give the LDP a hard time, if the phone call was about him being removed for public statements, as indicated in the article about the party rebuke about saying that Japan should allow the US to deploy nuclear weapons in Japan, it was likely that statement.

 

On the other side, I recall one JASDF general that lost his job in 2008 for a right wing leaning essay regarding WW2 history that he wrote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshio_Tamogami

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On the matter of WMD. Japan used biological and chemical ones. They didn't do that much damage because they weren't all that good. But the intent to do massive harm was there, they just lacked the means.

 

OMG the probing for jabs, ugh. This simpleton kneejerk reaction stuff.

 

Yes, they used chemical weapons against the Chinese. That is a strike against Japan. AFAIK, they first used them in the Battle of Wuhan in mid 1938 as a means of trying to break the back of the nationalists Chinese. Japan won that battle but could not advance any more. When the war finished, loads of chemical weapon storage were around China and up to recent times, despite the tense security environment, China and Japan cooperated in cleaning those out.

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Future Marine officers are Midshipmen?

 

All things are possible when one considers Soldiers of the Sea.

 

FM Montgomery once dismissed them as 'sailors who swear a lot'

 

In the French Navy, officers of the Fusiliers Marins can and have commanded ships of their navy.

 

Marines are essential everywhere, not the least in the traditional roles of protecting naval officers from their own men.....

 

Although President Theodore Roosevelt was only trying to organize professional landing and base defense forces by taking the Marine Detachments off USN major combatants [ExOrder 968], it was Navy officers that provided the greatest opposition, with some professing that they'd rather give up their secondary batteries than their shipboard Marines. Congress subsequently overturned that order, prescribing 6% of crews consist of Marines.

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The short version...midshipmen can opt for a commission in the Marine Corps.

@Ken E.: Haven't there been cross-service commissions from all the Service academies?

Edited by shep854
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All things are possible when one considers Soldiers of the Sea

 

From your lips to the ears of the marines of the Imperial Japanese Navy tasked with taking Midway by storm. To a lesser extent regarding the IJA 28th Regiment, 7th Infantry. I don't like the landing's prospects, but I also am uncertain of a precedent to go by at this stage in World War 2 of US troops choosing to fight to the last man rather than surrender if circumstances were dire enough for contemplation of both.

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The short version...midshipmen can opt for a commission in the Marine Corps.

@Ken E.: Havent there been cross-service commissions from all the Service academies?

Through 1967 it was a commonplace, but later years varied from total ban to family service connections, to permissiveness as long as swaps left equal accessions among the services. For instance, Army BGen Frank Akers who was G-3 of XVIII ABN Corps in the Gulf War 90-91 was a Naval Academy grad Class of '66.

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Nobu, the JA was in charge of amphibious operations far more than the IJN, which usually provided escorts and shore bombardment [very primitive at that]. IJN naval infantry or Special Naval Landing Force units varied greatly in training and quality, also included Special Base Force or base builders and defenders, and many units had overaged reservists predominant in their ranks.

 

The JA were more advanced in amphibious ops than the USMC in 1940, having landed brigades at Shanghai and an entire corps on the Canton Coast by then.

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All things are possible when one considers Soldiers of the Sea

 

From your lips to the ears of the marines of the Imperial Japanese Navy tasked with taking Midway by storm. To a lesser extent regarding the IJA 28th Regiment, 7th Infantry. I don't like the landing's prospects, but I also am uncertain of a precedent to go by at this stage in World War 2 of US troops choosing to fight to the last man rather than surrender if circumstances were dire enough for contemplation of both.

Did you read Shattered Sword? The chapter on the invasion of Midway makes me wonder if a landing force could even make it over the reef and to the beach, much less through and off it. Anyway, Midway had the reserves for a counterattack, supported by tanks.

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I don't like the landing's prospects. The intelligence advantage that gave Nimitz enough forewarning to reinforce Yamamoto's invasion target accordingly was a heavy one.

 

There do not appear to be many factors in the attacker's favor. The possibility, however large or small, of US troops reacting unpredictably and negatively to the chaos of their first combat is one of them.

 

The JA were more advanced in amphibious ops than the USMC in 1940, having landed brigades at Shanghai and an entire corps on the Canton Coast by then.

 

The sharpening of the sword, as it were.

Edited by Nobu
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Yes, you probably have a point.

 

It would just be great if they could make GOOD war films again. Hopefully this will be one, I guess we shall see.

That trailer does look interesting.

Edited by shep854
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Could somebody sum up the major ways in which "Shattered Sword" supposedly shed new light on the course of the battle? I could never really figure it out, although maybe it was because I only started reading seriously about Midway after the book came out?

 

They used the previously ignored records of air activities to sculpt a picture of the battle based on the principles set out in the article, "Doctrine Matters". Nobody had really focused on these as a central feature before. They attempted to reconstruct the battle at the squadron, ship and even plane level to an extent no previous author had attempted. They also paid far more attention to then current Japanese scholarship on the battle, which was pushing back on the older traditional eyewitness Japanese accounts. All of this arrives at the argument to the effect that the IJN's carrier force was like a Samurai Sword forged with a hidden defect that could only be exposed upon contact with stronger steel - that steel being the USN's excellent carrier forces. Hence, the slightly jingoistic vibe also evident to the book - essentially a long piece on why Nimitz's gamble was a masterpiece of Pacific War strategy, when to the layperson it might have looked more like a straight up coin toss.

 

One other thing they did and succeeded at magnificently - they wrote a book where you feel like you are right in the battle, part of the moment. Obviously a conscious effort to put the reader in the saddle, as things such as battle results are reported when Nagumo would have heard of them, not in chronological order. (For example, the Midway Strike).

Edited by glenn239
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Yes, you probably have a point.

 

It would just be great if they could make GOOD war films again. Hopefully this will be one, I guess we shall see.

That trailer does look interesting.

 

 

I thought so, I guess we shall have to see how it turns out. I get nervous with all CGI films because when directors get behind it, the ambition is to ramp all the speeds up to II, and it looks fake. Hopefully they have restrained themselves from going full Pearl Harbour.

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I am cautiously optimistic about Dauntless based on the trailer.

 

I initially thought the focus would be on Swede Veijtasa supposedly shooting down 2 of Zuikaku's Zeros and slicing a wing off of a third by ramming it with his Dauntless at Coral Sea, as this would seem to be an ideal subject for rendition by CGI.

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I think Dauntless looks like it is going to be horrifyingly bad but maybe thats just me. :)

 

My Big Idea for a TV miniseries was about the first USS Enterprise, until people kept pointing out that it would basically be Battlestar Galactica in WW2.

Edited by Brian Kennedy
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Re Ken, I met Saburo Sakai when I was a kid. A total gentleman and I wish we had him on our side.

Your a lucky man! I am always somewhat amazed on how the U.S. are now allies with former enemies within, historically imo, a short period of time.

Edited by Rick
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