Nicely done little five part documentary on youtube, each part is only a few minutes long. Not an overwhelming technical achievement but as one comment notes "When a literal nobody on the internet is able to go an make a 20 min documentary that is more useful than a whole 1-hour documentary does on TV..."
If you have a few minutes it's worth a watch.
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery. Hit the target, all else is twaddle!
The Yamato had a crude radar set. None of the other Japanes ships had radar. To mark their shots, dye packs in the shells marked their impact. Yamato had white packs, other ships shot red, pink, yellow, and other colors.
Thinking they were fighting a much larger ships, the Japanese continued to fire armor piecing shells, which passed through the DDs without exploding. Only during the last minutes did they change to high explosive rounds.
A pretty well done video. Some of the aircraft scenes showed planes that were not used at Samar, such as SBD's and SB2C;s. Taffy 2 and Taffy 3 had only Wildcats and Avengers, while Taffy 1 had some Hellcats and Avengers. Some SBD;s were shown with red and white rudder stripes which were long gone by 1944.
I also noted a few flaws in the depictions of planes that weren't there and it looks like the guy got most of the CGI battle scenes from World of Warships or similar, but overall he did a pretty good job for an amateur video maker putting something like this together.
Those little ships, while maybe not altering a foregone conclusion of the war in general, threw themselves against a hugely more powerful foe since they knew the cost of their failure could, would have been massive destruction and death on the relatively unprotected beaches. And while they paid a dear price they inflicted damage all out of proportion to the relative strengths of the two forces. In a war with uncounted deeds of heroism and sacrifice this battle always stands out to me as one of the greatest examples of what bravery and sheer guts can accomplish.
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery. Hit the target, all else is twaddle!
I’ve read about that battle and have seen some documentaries that gave a cursory overview of it. This was a well done and excellent short documentary that highlights the courage of our sailors. Their courage was on display for the Japanese to stand in awe of, courage that the Japanese had surely underestimated at the beginning of the war. The contempt that the Japanese held for our sailors, airmen and warriors was their Achilles heel. The Japanese underestimated us, the world underestimated us, hell...even our British allies underestimated us, but the heroic bravery of those fighting and the quick learning curve with which we were able to adapt was no match for even the most capable armies and navies of the time.
Thanks for posting this. 👍
�Politicians are the lowest form of life on earth. Liberal Democrats are the lowest form of politician.� �General George S. Patton, Jr.
Ditto above post about "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James Hornfischer. Those guys (mainly the ones on the Johnston and Roberts) had balls of steel - especially the captain of the Johnston. Hornfischer told a story of an F4F pilot that emptied his revolver out his canopy at a cruiser after he ran out of 50 cal ammo. One of the CVE's actually scored hits on a cruiser with their 5 inch AA gun!
That is a wonderful little series, thank you for posting it!
The story of the Johnston is one for the ages. Courage cannot run much deeper than that shown by the captain and crew of that little ship.
“My horn is full and my pouch is stocked with ball and patch. There is a new, sharp flint in my lock and my rifle and I are ready. It is sighted true and my eyes can still aim.” Kaywoodie
