Papa9571 wrote on Jan 25^th, 2007 at 4:04am:


What is sometimes referred to as Halsey's Typhoon is correct!   

Regarding the other blunder.  Look at the text at the bottom of every one of my posts, it's a HUGE hint!   

H wrote on Jan 27^th, 2007 at 2:12am:


Whoa, my bad!  I didn't see that!  

Quote:


That's true.  Halsey's primary responsibility was to protect the Leyte landings, and secondary, destroy the Japanese fleet where it is found.  Halsey proposed Task Forse 34, but for whatever reason, didn't impliment it when he went charging north after Ozawa's carriers.  Kincaid expected that Task Force 34 existsed, at least that's what he was told would happen.  So when the Japanese fleet came ranging down on the Taffy task groops,  Kincaid expect help, and when none was forthcoming, he became increasingly desperate.  Even to the point of transmitting in the clear.  And regarding Nimitz's message aking the whereabouts of Task Force 34, it was an especially stinging rebuke of Halsey because Nimitz's style was always to be hands off regarding his commanders.  Nimitz chose competent commanders, gave them his directive, then let them operate.  He never intervened.  So when Halsey received Nimit's message, it is said he went into a rage.


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Read The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.  It is an absolutely amazing read!  You had 2 American DD's and on DE going against Kurita's fleet comprising multiple BB's, CA's and DD's.  Such a scenario was the essence of sacrifice and heroism.  Those words are definately not used lightly in this case.  Even the Japanese were impressed.  After one of the American destroyers was sunk, Japanese sailors threw food to the American sailors in the water as their ship passed by.

And to be fair to Kurita, he knew Halsey's carriers were somewhere in the area, he just didn't know where.  And recall, Kurita already got mauled by carrier planes at the Sibuyan Sea the day before where he lost Musashi.  So he was already nervous about American carrier planes.  And the Taffy planes were swarming all over Kurita's fleet, so you can put those elements together and understand that Kurita was under tremendous pressure and probably thought he was seeing Halsey's planes, especially considering Kincaid was transmitting in the clear, very easy for Kurita's radiomen to pick up and translate.

And the truth about the Taffy planes?  Those pilots were not trained to go against moving ships.  They were trained to support landing operations.  Also, many of them had already expended their ordinace and after getting the message to engage the Japanese fleet, many of them didn't even have ordinace anymore, but made dry runs on the Japanese to try to spook the helms.  And it did have some degree of success.  Also, when planes did have ordinance, they had HE (high explosive) bombs not AP (armor piercing), so it was the wrong type of bombs for ships.  I suppose if it were Halsey's planes going against Kurita's fleet, the outcome would have been worse for the Japanese.  Unlike the Sibuyan Sea, Kurita was off Samar, which was more confined manuvering space, so his prospects would definately had been worse.

Hey, Heretic-

No disrespect, but I hope you are not referring to not liking CVNs!  Thery are fanastic - lots of hot water for showers, and acceleration like a Porshe!

R/Mike

Mike63 wrote on Feb 2^nd, 2007 at 1:50pm:

I got the impression he was refering to his interest in a series of carrier's that predated the the nuclear carrier's not that he didn't like them.  For example, I really like the B-17 much more than those big ugly jet bombers of today.  Thats not to say I don't like the jets...I just am much more interested in the B-17.