THE
ROUNDTABLE FORUM
Official newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable
6 FEBRUARY
2009
Issue
Number: 2009-06
Our 12th Year
~
AROUND THE TABLE ~
MEMBERS’
TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Midway Vets: a Small World
2. Rochefort and Nimitz
3. Wildcats vs. Zeros
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1. MIDWAY VETS: A SMALL
WORLD
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30 January 2009
From: George Bernstein
BOM vet, flight deck seaman,
VT-8, USS Hornet (CV-8)
Southern California
I was having lunch with a grandson of mine and was wearing my hat
designating me as a BOM vet. A
gentleman asked me who I was attached to and when I told him Torpedo 8, he said
he was stationed with a VP squadron on Midway during the battle. His squadron
picked up Ensign Gay. Small world. His name was Jim Stengal.
As for anti-Semitism in VT8 as I read previously, I did encounter it—but never
with the enlisted men.
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Ed note: George’s second comment above relates to the
revelations concerning LT “Swede” Larsen (VT-8 CO during the Solomons campaign)
in A Dawn Like Thunder, which was reviewed in issue #01. For more on that, see “Forum Notes” below.
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2. ROCHEFORT AND NIMITZ
(see issues #04, 05)
Ed. note: in the last issue, Charles DeGruy asked if
the nefarious Redman brothers ever received some measure of justice for the
wrongs they perpetrated against HYPO’s Joseph Rochefort.
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30 January 2009
From: Barrett Tillman
(Author, Clash of the
Carriers, et al)
Arizona
Re what happened to the Redmans, I don't have details but both did well
for themselves. Joseph (USNA 1914,
ranked 25/154) died a RADM, retired in 1968.
John (USNA 1919, ranked 182/199) died a VADM, retired in 1970.
"No bad deed goes unrewarded?"
Google turned up that John was CO of Naval Station Treasure Island [in San
Francisco Bay].
Joseph had his own twist on discipline, ref. this description of his “Official
Doghouse”: click here.
Here's a long chat about the brothers and ONI generally: click
here.
Wikipedia entry on Rochefort: click here.
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3. WILDCATS vs. ZEROS (see
issues #02, 03, 04)
Ed. note: in issue #04, the discussion centered on
whether the better-trained Zero pilots who were mostly lost by the end of 1942
would have fared better against the USN’s superior aircraft late in the war.
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23
January 2009
From: Ted Kraver
Arizona
Ten
years ago I was working with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
on their Training Superiority Training Surprise program. They had done a statistical analysis on
fighter pilots. Those that had survived
and won five combat engagements were classified as experienced. Novices were those with little combat
action. The odds of a novice besting an
expert were less than one out of ten.
So yes, if the expert pilots of the Japanese were sent to fight our
novice pilots who were flooding the skies in 1944, I would conjecture that
pilot skill in a Zero or Japan’s next generation fighters would trump Hellcats
with higher performance.
DARPA
studies also support Clay Fisher’s argument on the lack of dive bomber training
prior to the BOM due to the Doolittle raid and command decisions. I saw statistical data on the dive bombing
accuracy as a function of the currency of training. With continuous training the novice dive bomber pilot could reach
the expert level in about a month. But
within two months of inactivity the skill of hitting targets plunges back
toward the novice level. I guess that
is why Tiger Woods hits thousands of balls each week in practice. In my area of model airplanes the top
competitors in Precision Aerobatics put in a thousand-plus flights a year.
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23
January 2009
From: John Mattson
Southern
California
It is interesting
that various estimates I have seen on the Roundtable of Wildcat kill ratio
against Zeros ranged from about 1.1 to 3 to 1.
That’s a clear indication of the fog of war, of record keeping problems
early in the war, and of various other considerations. I think that we can generalize that the
bottom line on the Wildcat is that there are few, if any, who suggest that the
Zero had the better kill ratio, and that is "the bottom line."
No weapon may really be considered in total isolation from
the people who use, maintain, and service it.
Clearly the Japanese had years more combat experience and even carrier
experience. The Japanese had no concept
of rotation back home. My father
graduated in June 1939, served a year on USS Phoenix (CL-46), and went to
Pensacola in the summer of 1940. He had
recently reported to the Yorktown when the war broke out, and there were
plenty of other very junior officers who flew into the Coral Sea and
Midway. As I understand it, this was
Navy policy at the time to have your most junior flyers at sea. Good for getting them trained up, but it
seems that the "First Team" as Lundstrom put it, was in effect the
"Junior Varsity." NOT to
disparage them in any way; the "coach" decided to use them, and they
did an amazing job.
This throws another light on the kill ratio. As James Sontag said, the Japanese pilots
were much more experienced, and the fact that the young and less experienced
U.S. pilots out shot them argues the value of the Wildcat as a fighting system,
i.e. with training, tactics, maintenance, etc.
And finally, there is the fact that they kept making Wildcats and using
them throughout the war.
I may
just be sentimental about it, but I think this stubby little ugly duckling
deserves some more respect.
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~ NOW
HEAR THIS! ~
NEWS
& INFO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Photo of the Week
- Forum Notes
- Anniversary and Reunion Announcements
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PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Last week’s Photo of
the Week was an artist’s rendering of the opening moments of the BOM, with
Howard Ady’s PBY high above the Japanese carrier force. This week we skip to the battle’s climax,
the sinking of the Yorktown. The
image that you’ll see by clicking the following link is from Return to
Midway by Robert Ballard, which is both a history of the battle and a
chronicle of the 1998 Ballard expedition that found and photographed Yorktown
on the sea floor. The painting, by
Ken Marschall, is much more than an artist’s imagination, though, as it is
based on actual photos of the wreck taken by Ballard’s robot submarine (which
can be seen hovering just aft of the flight deck in the picture). If you have Return to Midway, this
image appears on pages 172-173. There
are two other equally dramatic paintings by Marschall in the book, one showing
a full view of the ship from its port side and another from the bow (pages
158-159 and 162-163).
Click here for the
Photo of the Week.
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FORUM NOTES
~ Bill Price sent
me a link to another review of A Dawn Like Thunder that appeared in the
Washington Post last Tuesday. It’s well
done except that at the end of the article, the writer wrongly blames (in my
opinion) author Bob Mrazek for a misstatement of fact that arose during one of
his veteran interviews and which found its way into the book. True, the responsibility for a book’s
content belongs to the author, but I wouldn’t label this particular glitch a
“Mrazek gaff” as this writer has done.
To read the review, click
here.
~ Firefox browser
users, be sure that you have the latest update (version 3.0.6 as of today). “PC
World” magazine (Feb., p. 48) warns of a serious security hole that is fixed by
versions 3.0.4 and later. To check your
version, click Help, then About.
If you’re still using Firefox 2 instead of 3, you’ll want version
2.00.18 or later. If you need an
update, click Help, then Check for updates.
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BOM ANNIVERSARY AND UNIT REUNION ANNOUNCEMENTS
All dates shown here
are in 2009 unless otherwise stated.
The organizers for the three BOM symposiums listed below
are seeking BOM veterans, historians, authors, etc. who might be willing to
serve as panelists or otherwise as participants. Contact
the editor for info.
The following web sites
have information on upcoming BOM commemoration events or BOM ship or unit
reunions.
1. BOM symposium, Pearl Harbor,
plus Midway tour, 31 May – 5 June
2. BOM symposium sponsored by
the IMMF, Washington, D.C., 4 June
3. Coral Sea & BOM symposium and air show,
Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, Calif., 6 June
The following additional BOM anniversary or reunion events
are scheduled but we’re not aware of a web site. Information will be provided as it is received.
4. 3 June,
Arlington, VA: formal banquet, Army-Navy
Country Club
5. 4-7 June, New
Orleans, LA: USS Yorktown (CV-5)
reunion
6. 4 June,
Washington D.C.: USN commemoration at
the Navy Memorial
7. 6 June, San
Francisco, CA: formal banquet, Marines
Memorial Club
8. September (date
TBA), Branson, MO: VF-42 reunion
If you have any information on these or similar events,
please pass the word.
[Break for NRTW graphic]
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