We Should Do This

[Digit]

The USN fought that battle with trained officers and men.
By the time the bomber offensive got into its stride the W/O were also navigators. They were faced with a battery of electronic aids that they had to master, they had to be able read and transmit Morse at a minumum of 12 WPM, under stress. The also had to use the radio and transmitter, Gee or GH, H2S, Gimlet, and Fishpond.
Thus their training averaged 18 mths.
The US 8th AAF used similar equipment and took about the same period to train them. Though they may have been able to train larger numbers it would still take 18 mths to get them into combat. It matters not a damn if you can turn out pilots at one every 5 minutes, they weren't going anywhere without the rest of the crew!

You once accused me of beng 'Little Britain,' I think the time has come to dispel that view and explain why I and so many others are not keen on Brussels.
1, Brussels intends spending 800 Million euros on a new set of offices, their existing place is all of 20 yrs old. Would you care to justify that expense?
2, last year the Brit government installed into Brit law over 4000 EU directives, how the hell do they think them all up?
3, due to Brussel's interference many of our historic aircraft can longer fly in our skies. An example, a Douglas DC3 has now to be insured as though it were a modern passenger aircraft of the same capacity. At the same time Brussels will not award it an airworthyness certificate to carry passengers, so the owner can't cover the cost of the insurance. Is this intransigence really necessary?
4, we have been required to change to metric standards in our building industry. The majority of housing stock was constructed to imperial dimensions. Thus copper pipe will not now integrate into existing services without adapters. The same for underground services, gutters and down pipes.
5, wall board and other sheet materials are now metric, if you need to repair a wall or ceiling you have either have to add sleeper beams or throw 25% of the sheet material away.
6, we now have to use metric bricks, as they are a different size to the imperial ones they cannot be bonded into the existing structure. As they are smaller more bricks, mortar and time is now necessary to build any structure. Windows are now metric, so if you need an imperial sized one you will have to have it made!
All these problems add to cost.
Can you give me one valid reason why Brussels should concern itself with what size bricks we use to build our homes?
7, our food packaging is now metric, along with cement, animal feeds, fertiliser etc, thus all the machines have had to modified or replaced to comply. Would you care to explain why?
8, fuel is now sold in litres, this meant that all pump dispensers had to be replaced, it cost millions! Why?
What is even more infuriating is that we still manufacture much of this to imperial sizes for export to non European states, but we are not allowed to use it because of diktats from Brussels! Why?
9, the European arrest warrent. Seemed like a good idea at the time, so how does it work?
Poland issues so many to the UK that our authorities run a weekly flight to Warsaw. Their courts can't handle them so people can spend months in a Polish jail before facing a court, when not infrequently the case is settled by a fine or the case dropped.
Meantime the prisoner has been denied a chance to plead his case here before a deportation tribunal. When he returns he could be minus a job and a house.
Is this Brussels's idea of justice?
Now you tell me RS, if all these weights and measure changes were forced onto you to change to imperial sizes, how would you feel?
And I ask you again, to what purpose?
Soon we will all have to fuel our cars with a percentage of Bio fuels. To achieve that quantity an area of farm land equivalent to Ireland will have to be taken out of food production. Bio fuel production uses 167% more energy to produce than it saves. Another own goal I think?
It also corrodes metal tanks!
Most of these changes have not affected your country of course and many of them seem totally unnecessary, thus by what measure are they justified?
Any comments?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Within 5 months the US fought a major sea battle in the Pacific (the Battle of Coral Sea; which they lost BTW), and a whole series of great sea battles and land campaigns in the second half of 1942.

Um...mainly Guadalcanal which the marines refer to as Operation Shoestring.

The Japanese were able to attain local superiority in a number of ship classes because we were not ready. Fortunately, the Japanese had made a number of serious errors themselves.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Within 5 months the US fought a major sea battle in the Pacific (the Battle of Coral Sea; which they lost BTW), and a whole series of great sea battles and land campaigns in the second half of 1942.

Um...mainly Guadalcanal which the marines refer to as Operation Shoestring.

The Japanese were able to attain local superiority in a number of ship classes because we were not ready. Fortunately, the Japanese had made a number of serious errors themselves.

I think you forget the Battle of Midway, the New Guinea campaign, the Solomons Islands campaign, and the Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo, a.o.

[Minimalist]

Hence the name "Operation Shoestring." We finished the Battle of Guadalcanal with one damaged aircraft carrier and one undamaged battleship. A single marine division, riddled by battle casualties and malaria hung on by their fingernails.

If the Japanese had not had their head up their asses they would have emerged from 1942 in control of Guadalcanal, Midway, and New Guinea.

And in the long term it would have made no difference at all.


Japan lost the war in 1938 when Congress passed the Naval Expansion Act. In addition to building the Hornet, it also provided the R & D for the Essex which was the lead ship of the next generation of air craft carriers.

In 1940, shortly after France collapsed, Congress passed the Two Ocean Navy Act which simply added another 18 ships to the Essex class but the development was already done. We also got a head start on the Iowa class BBs, Baltimore class heavy cruisers and Cleveland class light cruisers. Author John Toland ( The Rising Sun) noted that the IJN could have sunk every US ship that was in the Pacific on 12-7-41 ( which they came close to doing) and still, by the summer of 1943 the US navy would have outweighed them in every category with superior designs, usable radar and superior aircraft.

Midway and Coral Sea were defensive campaigns; we had no choice. Coral Sea was particularly ill-advised by the Japanese. ( Yes, the battle was a tactical victory for Japan but a strategic disaster.) Aside from losing a light carrier, the air groups of Carrier Division 5 ( Shokaku and Zuikaku) were savaged and both ships were out of the Midway campaign where they may well have provided the margin of victory. Guadalcanal alone was the offensive action ( and Tulagi was part of it) and Guadalcanal WAS the Solomons campaign in 1942.