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Flightdeck Friday: The Accidental (Circum)Navigator

BySteeljawscribe

GPS, LORAN, radar, SATCOM and detailed, up-to-date  charts.   Today we take so many things for granted when it comes to navigating the far-flung corners of this sphere.   ”Twasn’t always this way though and this week’s Flightdeck Friday is a remarkable story of a crew caught up in the opening days of a world…

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Guest Post: THE U.S. NAVY’S FLEET PROBLEMS OF THE THIRTIES — A Dive Bomber Pilot’s Perspective

BySteeljawscribe

From 1923 to 1940, the US Navy conducted 21 “Fleet Problems” as it sought to understand, exploit and incorporate new technologies and capabilities while developing the tactics, training and procedures to employ the same should war present itself – which by the 1930s was beginning to look more and more likely to the discerning observer….

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The Rule of Unintended Consequences and Covert Operations – Bay of Pigs Edition

BySteeljawscribe

What happens when you get so clever in planning a covert invasion that you paint your aircraft like that of the country you are invading and then fly them over “friendly” forces conducting the invasion?  You get shot: As for the aircraft overhead, Lynch had problems not only with Castro’s aircraft, but the Brigade B-26’s…

3 Comments

  1. That bombing saved millions of lives. Had Truman not given the orders to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a million American men and ten million Japanese civilians would have died in the invasion. Sometimes the most merciful option is the one which seems the most brutal.

  2. Agreed and on two fronts. On the one hand, the research I have conducted on just the naval side of the planned invasion of the Japanese homeland affirms this with the lives saved on both sides from not having to deal with a kamikaze counterassualt that would have made the acion at Okinawa pale in comparison.

    A second, and more subtle point, is that in the post-war years, whenever one wanted to highlight the potential cost of nuclear war, the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were always at the ready. The destruction of manequins and occupant-less buildings in a remote desert location, or even the vaporization of part of an island in the Pacific fail to convey the potential human toll as exemplified by those two cities. And that, perhaps, is their enduring legacy.

    -SJS

  3. I feel sorta sheepish posting this after two serious comments, but…What The Hell, eh?

    The last company I worked at was a small IT start-up in SFO, staffed primarily by stereotypical flaming, politically-correct SFO liberals, and I do NOT jest. By my count there were three conservatives in the whole company, which, at its high-water mark, had a total of 300+ folks. Anyway… We got the usual complement of Federal and State holidays, five sick days, and one “Diversity Day,” which one could use to celebrate an occasion of personal importance. But you had to designate the day in advance. I informed my superiors that I intended to take August 6th as my “DD.” When asked what the occasion was… I replied “Hiroshima Day. It’s a celebration of American Power.” And I did take it, too, to the delight of the company’s other two conservatives and the shock of the PC Brigade.

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