The Solomons Campaign: The Battle of Santa Cruz (III)

Staggered, Bloodied but Unbowed After the morning’s attacks Enterprise had suffered significant damage, but still able to put up a fight defensively and conduct air ops.  The number two elevator, aft most on the flightdeck, was temporarily stuck in the down position, leaving a large, square hole just forward of the arresting gear.  Forward, just aft…

|

The Solomons Campaign: Battle of Santa Cruz (II)

Overnight: 25-26 October During the night, crews on the Hornet positioned aircraft on the flightdeck if the prospects of a night strike by moonlight made themselves present.  In the meantime, PBY Catalina’s, using the first crude airborne radar sets, continued to try to locate the Japanese fleet in the darkness.  Shortly after midnight, one PBY…

The Bougainville Invasion (Part 4): March 1944 – May 1944

With this submission, CINCLAX’s in-depth review of this part of the Solomons campaign is complete. I think you will agree with me that considerable thought and work went into these articles and join me as a hearty “BZ” is passed his way.  On the horizon – inthe next few weeks we will wrap up the…

| |

The Solomons Campaign: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 24-25 August 1942

Today Steve Ambrose joins the project with the battle of the Eastern Solomons.   A former S-3 NFO, Steve has a wonderful blog that runs the gamut from hand-crafted wooden canoes to an on-line novel about life at sea (‘On The Line‘). Coral Sea was the scene of the first carrier vs carrier battle where…

|

The Solomons Campaign: Unleashing the Assassin’s Mace

Assassin’s mace (English adaptation of the Chinese phrase ‘shashou jiang’) — one periodically hears of the term used, usually in combination with advocacy for avoiding the same through transformational (forces)(TTP)(platforms)(weapons)(networks) – pick any, none, or all.  Most recently, the ASBM the Chinese are purported to be developing has served as the poster child for Assassin’s…

| |

The Solomons Campaign: Guadalcanal 7-9 August, 1942 — Assault and Lodgment

This week we get down to brass tacks – the kickoff of what would become the Solomons Campaign. UltimaRatioRegis once again provides this week’s post with the opening stages of the invasion and occupation of Guadalcanal, on this, the 67th anniversary of this signatory battle. And while we’re about remembering, if you haven’t signed the…

|

Coming This Fall: The Solomon Islands Campaign

Shifting from defense to offense. Joint and combined operations – and all the hard lessons learned. Finding out that training, tactics and procedures can trump an opponent’s better technology – and more hard lessons learned. Surviving on the razor’s edge and prevailing. Innovate, adapt – overcome. All of this and more are gathered together in…