THE ROUNDTABLE FORUM
Official newsletter of the
Battle of Midway Roundtable
"To preserve an awareness and
understanding of the great battle and to honor the men who fought and won
it."
16 January
2005....................Issue No. 2005-03....................Our 8th Year
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AROUND THE TABLE ...............................................
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MEMBERS' TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE
1. Jim Forbes, Final Sortie
2. TBD Propellers
3. Aircraft that Won the War
4. The Military Channel
5. Ed Fox, Essay Winner
6. Archive Disk, Second
Edition
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15 January 2005
From: The Family of Jim
Forbes
James M.
Forbes, CAPT, USN (Ret), took his final flight on 10 Jan 2005 following a
stroke two days earlier. A celebration of life memorial service is
scheduled for 10:00 AM Wednesday 19 January at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, at 11100 East Alameda in Aurora, CO. Tel: (303)
690-6187. Following the service there will be a brief social
hour at the church before proceeding to Ft Logan for interment with
military honors at 1:00 PM.
Per Jim's
wishes, the service will not be long, only about 45 minutes. The
family would be pleased to have his friends share a memory or anecdote to
help celebrate his life in an upbeat way.
Jim served
as Flight Captain of Mile High Flight 18 in 1985, the first representative of
the Navy to do so. He was also a Daedalian Life Member. In WWII,
he was an SBD Dauntless pilot aboard USS Hornet when that ship
transported the Doolittle Raiders to their launch point on 18 April 1942.
Subsequently, he took part in the Battle of Midway and in the Guadalcanal
Campaign, during which the Hornet was sunk. Last August, Jim and his
wife Claire traveled to Chicago to participate in the dedication of an
SBD at Midway Airport in honor of the veterans of the Battle of Midway.
Jim's obituary
will appear in the Denver Post on Sunday 16 January.
We know
some of you have heard the news, but the simplest way for us was to do a mass
e-mailing. Thanks for your support. In lieu of flowers, we are
asking that donations be made in the name of Jim Forbes to the Daedalion Mile
High Flight 18 Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 47014 Aurora, CO
80047.
Sincerely,
Jim's Family
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For a
recent photo of Jim with the other BOM vets at the Chicago Midway Airport
dedication in September, click the following URL or go to our web site, select
"The Image Board," and click Link 10.
http://www.midway42.org/temp/MidwayAirport-Sep04.jpg
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"TBD Propellers"
(see Chris Bucholtz, issue 5-02)
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9 January 2005
From: Robert Holzer
holzerrobert@web.de
(Germany)
Russ
& Chris: I checked my copy of "Duels in the Sky" by
Captain Eric M. Brown (a RN test pilot who flew a large number of WW2 aircraft)
and he mentions a "full-feathering Hamilton Standard airscrew"
for both; a SBD-3 Dauntless and a TBD-1 Devastator. He flew
both. I hope that helps.
Best,
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"Aircraft that Won the
War" (see Patricia Sanchez,
issue 5-02)
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9 January 2004
From: Mac Showers
macrain@att.net (BOM vet,
CIU/Station HYPO, Pearl Harbor)
Regarding the
query by Patricia Sanchez on Japanese intentions for the capture of Midway, I
think the following is pertinent in addition to the Japanese quest for a
"decisive battle."
Much as I
dislike engaging in "what if" speculation, there is no question that
the Japanese came fully prepared to invade and capture Midway Island had there
been no interference in their operations. Admiral Nimitz commented after
the battle that, "had it not been for the good intelligence we had, we
would have read about the capture of Midway in the morning newspaper."
Thus, given that the Japanese
MIGHT have captured the island, there can be no question that they would have
used it as a base to interdict U.S. activities and operations from
Hawaii. Their intent was to force the U.S. Pacific Fleet to abandon
Hawaii as its forward base and force it back to the west coast of the
U.S. The war would have been drastically different had this
happened.
But, it DIDN'T
happen. End of "WHAT IF."
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9 January 2005
From: Barrett Tillman
btillman3@cox.net
In my Naval
Institute Hellcat book (1979), I opined that three aircraft contributed most to
victory in the Pacific. Chronologically they were the SBD, F6F, and
B-29. I get A LOT of grief from P-38 drivers, but hey, it's my list!
The SBD is obvious: no discussion needed.
The F6F was largely responsible for destroying Japanese
airpower. Hellcats were credited with very nearly as many shootdowns as
the AAF in the Pacific and CBI combined. Nothing else came close.
Additionally, F6s won the battle that gave the Superforts their Marianas bases.
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10 January 2005
From: Ron Nunez CV5RON@aol.com
Two
items: First, for Patricia Sanchez, regarding her question about aircraft
development: I believe the most important development was not with
American aircraft technology per se, but a little-known event that occurred
in the Aleutians during the Battle of Midway. During the battle,
an A6M2 Zero crash-landed in Akutan island. This aircraft was
recovered by the Americans, repaired and evaluated against current and upcoming
fighter models. This helped immensely in the development of future
fighters and tactics. Also, although not pertaining to aircraft
development, pilot skill in the subsequent years had much to do with
our gaining complete control of the air and aiding in the defeat
of Japan. The Japanese were not able to replace the skilled pilots
lost in combat, and the skill level of her replacements decreased as the
war continued. Americans, on the other hand, rotated many veterans
to their training bases, who imparted their invaluable combat knowledge to scores
of new pilots.
Second, for the
roundtable in general: Is Marston steel matting (the kind used for
airfield construction in WWII) at all common here in the states? The
reason I ask is that during my last visit to the Philippines, I saw that many
homes use Marston steel mats as fences in the yards. Obviously, I
subsequently found out that these are plentiful over there, and all date back
to WWII. I want to ship some of these mats over to California as sort of
"souvenirs", but wonder if it's worth it, because each mat is heavy.
Thanks!
Ron N.
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If you have
an answer for Ron's Marston mating question, please respond to him directly via
his e-mail address above. --RR
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10 January 2005
From: Paul Turner
turnerpd@optusnet.com.au
(Australia)
You mentioned
the B-29. I would like to add two: the F4U Corsair and the
proximity fuse.
Regards,
--Paul
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10 January 2005
From: Jon Parshall
jparshall@mn.rr.com
In
answer to Patricia’s question regarding advances in aviation technology over
the next few years that proved crucial, Russ hints towards the range and
payload of the B-29. I would suggest that the performance of that
particular plane was really an outgrowth of a more primary cause—American
advances in large radial aircraft engine technology, as well as
superchargers. The reason that Zero was superior to our aircraft at
the beginning of the war was that Japanese designers took great pains to design
a plane that would maximize its maneuverability and climb rate while being
powered by a relatively small (940 horsepower) engine. They did this by
cutting down the weight of the airplane by every possible means. So the
Zero was very lightly built—no armor, no self-sealing fuel tanks, and very
light structural members. The Zero was fabulously maneuverable, but if it
took a hit, it had a tendency to burn quite easily and/or simply fold up as its
structural members failed. It could dish it out, but it couldn’t take it.
Early
war American fighters didn’t have the same performance as the Zero, because
they were built more heavily, had better armor, carried more guns, and had
self-sealing fuel tanks. A self-sealing fuel tank has a layer of rubber
sandwiched in between the inner and outer walls of the fuel tank. When it gets
pierced by a bullet, the interaction of the gasoline with the rubber makes the
rubber spongy and expandable, and it then covers the hole. As you can
imagine, pilots are rather fond of this design feature because it keeps their
plane from catching on fire. But that sort of a tank design means
extra weight, and requires larger tanks to carry the same amount of fuel.
So, with a plane like a Wildcat that also had a smaller engine, you
had a very rugged aircraft that could get its pilot home in one piece a higher
percentage of the time, but it just didn’t have the performance needed to be
able to put that pilot in a position to attack a Zero, in many
cases.
However,
what changed in the equation in late 1942-mid 1943 was that the Americans were
able to develop very large, powerful aircraft engines that put out 2,000 h.p.
or more. Not only that, but since our manufacturing and metallurgical
sciences were quite advanced, we could build better superchargers as
well. A supercharger is nothing more than a high speed fan that blows
more oxygen into the engine. The higher the altitude, the thinner the
air, and if you don’t have enough oxygen in the engine cylinders, your engine
doesn’t do so well in terms of performance. So having a good supercharger
was crucial to keeping the plane nice and zippy above, say, 20,000 feet.
The net result of this was that we could produce big, beefy fighters like
the F6F Hellcat, P-38 Lightning, and F4U Corsair that retained all the benefits
of heavy armor, weapons, and protection and still have
high horsepower so that the thing would perform well, too. Our
big late-war fighters could still never outmaneuver a Zero in a dogfight, but
they were much faster, climbed better, dove better, and had superior
firepower. Used correctly, they were very, very difficult for a Zero to
beat.
Meanwhile,
the Japanese had very little luck in producing a follow-on aircraft to the Zero.
They never did build very good superchargers, partly because their
metallurgical sciences weren’t up to it, and partly because some of the alloys
they needed for the superchargers weren’t available. Likewise, their
attempts to build larger radial engines in the 2,000 h.p. range resulted in
some big engines, but they turned out to be very unreliable. Not only
that, but they weren’t able to produce them in large numbers. So, while
Japan was able to build some pretty good fighters later the war, they were
always in the shop, and they never had enough of them. The result was
that the Zero remained the mainstay of Japan’s fighter force throughout the
war. The Zero was a world-class fighter in 1941, but it was already
showing its age by 1943, and by 1944 it was really second-rate.
Against the newer U.S. aircraft, unless you were a very, very good pilot,
it was pretty darned tough to stay alive. Combine that with the poor
quality of Japanese pilots late in the war (most of the good ones had been
killed, and they weren’t doing a good job of training replacements), and you
can see why their aviator fatalities were very heavy indeed.
This
same U.S. superiority in aircraft engine design allowed us to create a plane
like the B-29, which had the speed, payload, and range to bring an
unprecedented weight of ordnance to bear against the Japanese Home
Islands. It flew high enough (over 30,000 feet) that many Japanese
fighters (the Zero included) couldn’t even touch it. Put a thousand of
them on Saipan and Guam, load ‘em up with incendiary weapons, use them
against Japanese cities which had lots of wood and paper houses,
and you can imagine what happened. Whether "The Bomb" had
been dropped or not, by mid-1945 B-29s (in combination with submarines) had
ruined the Japanese economy. B-29 attacks killed hundreds of thousands of
their civilians, and made millions more homeless. Without access to
Korean and Chinese produce, the agricultural output of the home islands was
insufficient, and the population was becoming severely malnourished. They
were going to have to surrender at some point in any case, although it would
have taken a ground invasion to probably make their military leadership see
that.
Cheers,
-Jon Parshall-
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"The Military Channel"
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14 January 2005
From: Barrett
Tillman btillman3@cox.net
I notice that
"Discovery Wings" [on cable TV] has become "The Military
Channel," with some half-hour "battle reports" including the
BOM. The segment I saw is fairly old but features Bob Elder and Hiryu's
Maruyama, a VT guy of considerable experience. The script is
"B-" since (among others things) it places Midway 625 miles from
Japan!
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"Ed Fox, Essay Winner"
(see Ed Fox, issue 5-02)
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9 January 2004
From: Mac Showers
macrain@att.net (BOM vet,
CIU/Station HYPO, Pearl Harbor)
My
congratulations to Ed Fox. As a full-time volunteer myself, I deeply
appreciate what he's doing and he really deserves the reward he has received
for his school. Bravo Zulu.
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"Archive Disk, Second
Edition" (see Now Hear This, issue 5-02)
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8 January 2005
From: Don McDonald
(via U.S. mail)
Thanks for the
new 2nd edition of your excellent CD. It's beautifully organized.
Well done!
--Don
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44 copies
have been requested so far, and 15 have been shipped. The archive CD is
available to all current members at no cost--see last week's issue of The
Roundtable Forum for details. Resends upon request.
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HEAR THIS! ..................................................
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NEWS & INFO IN THIS ISSUE
-- Book Review: Love and
Glory
-- Computer Ups & Downs
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BOOK REVIEW: LOVE AND
GLORY
Roundtable
member Alvin Kernan was an aviation ordnanceman (AOM3/c) aboard the Enterprise
during the BOM. After the war he commenced a long career as a
college professor at both Yale and Princeton, and thus is uniquely qualified to
write about the battle. Love and Glory is his latest work.
It tells the whole story of the first day of the BOM, 4 June 1942, focusing
mainly on the Hornet air group and the saga of Torpedo Squadron 8.
Love and
Glory, as you might deduce from the title, is not another history book
about the Battle of Midway. Instead, it's a novel with the
battle as its setting. It's a work of fiction, but it's authentic
historical fiction. The protagonist is one Ensign Clay Hunt,
a brand new naval aviator assigned to VT-8 aboard the Hornet.
We follow the experiences of ENS Hunt as he qualifies in the TBD and
assimilates into the squadron, under the leadership of its colorful
commander. We then ride with him as the air group launches on its
errant course on the morning of 4 June. We hear the argument over the
radio between VT-8's skipper and the CHAG, then continue with Hunt as
the squadron veers away on its own course toward a bitter destiny.
Kernan pulls no
punches in his dialogue--he is unmerciful toward the Hornet's air
group commander before, during, and especially after the battle. He also
gives no slack to the ship's captain, having him deliberately conspire to
falsify Hornet's after-action report in order to save his own hide as
well as that of his buddy, the CHAG. This is the sort of thing we've all
been talking about for years, and it's highly interesting to see it played out
rather accurately in a novel.
The book is not
without flaws, but they're not too significant. Professor Kernan didn't
use an independent editor in preparing his manuscript, so you'll find a few
glitches that should have been fixed before publication. There's a couple
instances where proper naval terminology is not used, although it won't stand
out if you've never been summoned to chow by a bos'n's whistle. And
I think many readers will be taken aback by Alvin's choices for the names
of some of his characters. I thought "Lancing Colt" for the
TF-16 chief of staff (Miles Browning) was a little clever, but some of the
other fictitious names struck me as odd. If I were writing this same
novel, I'd have used the actual historical names, as was done in the 1976
"Midway" movie (which had a lot more fiction in it than this book).
But don't get
lost in such minor quibbles--the value of this book is its realistic dialogue,
written by one who was there at the time and is therefore intimately
familiar with such dialogue. It's a very entertaining read despite the
flaws.
Love and
Glory is currently listed on Amazon for $14.99. Also, Alvin has
generously contributed a signed copy to our Roundtable library, and I'll be
happy to loan that copy to anyone who asks. --RR
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COMPUTER UPS & DOWNS
As announced in
a special e-mail to all hands last Tuesday, my aged Windows 98 PC finally
decided to go into cardiac arrest after five years of grueling service.
To make a long story short, the only viable fix was to format the hard drive
(wipe it clean) and reload all programs, drivers, and files. That's a
daunting task if you don't have Windows XP. XP does most of that stuff
automatically, but Win 98 is more of a one-at-a-time manual operation.
Anyway, after
four full days of effort, I've got it back in service with almost everything
working okay. I hope to be 100% within a couple days.
And as soon as
that happens, another big change will occur: I've committed to converting
to broadband internet and will be hooking up to the local TV cable after
this PC is fully healed. Since that's another opportunity to crash an old
system like Win 98, there could be another delay in getting the Forum out
to you while I work through that process. If I seem to be mysteriously
absent for a while, that's what's happening--rest assured I'm working on it and
will be back on line as soon as feasible.
For you
computer experts who are thinking I should just upgrade to XP and be done with
it, you have a point--I'm trying to accomplish all of this for free,
but if all else fails I'll invest in the upgrade disk. I
noticed it for sale at about $99 at our local base exchange--anyone know
of a cheaper (and reliable) source? --RR
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For a glossary
of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The Roundtable Forum, click the
following URL or go to our home page and click "The Roundtable
Glossary" link.
http://www.midway42.org/glossary.htm
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