Learn about ww2 naval warfare with these old magazine article. Find information concerning WW II at sea
The attached article pertains to the amazing speed at which the U.S. Navy was able to add new fighting ships to the fleet between December, 1941 and December, 1942.
“During the final days of the war, the Navy’s carrier aircraft concentrated on northern Honshu, inflicting heavy damage on industrial targets of Hamaishi on the ninth of August. One of the last blows struck, however, was directed at Wake Island, where the Japs had scored one of their earliest victories of this war.”
“From the start the naval Construction Battalions were unusual outfits, mostly because of the men in them and because theirs was a new kind of warfare… Every Seabee found himself doubling in various trades. It was thus the construction men developed their most important tools – improvisation, ingenuity and guts. Often parts, materials and equipment had to be manufactured on the spot in shops hastily thrown together from salvaged enemy materials and tools… But as the Seabee organization grew (from an original force of 3,300 to a peak of 247,155, of which 83 percent were overseas) and its activities increased, the battalions picked up plenty of know-how, enabling them to smooth out and speed up operations.”
In another article on this site, these words were quoted from the captured dispatches of a Japanese general writing to his superiors:
“[The Yank] is a wizard at handling machinery and he can build airfields, roads and advance bases with uncanny speed.”
– he was, of course, referring to the famous Construction Battalions (Seabees) of the U.S. Navy. This article will tell you all about them.
Looking back from a point four months after VJ-Day, this anonymous journalist recalled the first six months of the Second World War, and how ill-prepared the U.S. Navy was to take on the two-ocean war.
Assorted well-campaigned swab-jockeys lounge-about and discuss their various experiences on both oceans.
Click here to read the observations of a general who fought both the Germans and Japanese.
Throughout the course of World War II, there were three admirals who commanded to U.S. Atlantic Fleet: King, Ingersoll and Ingram. It was Admiral Jonas Ingram (1887 – 1952) who wrote the attached article about battle for the Atlantic:
“The Atlantic Fleet’s record speaks for itself. Since the declaration of war we have escorted 16,760 ships across the Atlantic. Of these, less than a score were sunk in convoy…We know definitely that we sunk 126 U-boats…”
Click here to read a related article.
After the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the U.S. Navy believed that the Japanese had lost over half their original strength:
“Naval observers in Washington are exhilarated by the evident extent of the Japanese defeat but, in true Navy tradition, they are being canny about it. It isn’t what we have sunk or disabled [that matters], it’s what is left that can still fight.”
Here is the first half of the thrilling account of the Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 23 – 26, 1944) as it appeared in two installments in Collier’s Magazine in January, 1945.
Here is a Collier’s profile of U.S. Admiral Raymond Spruance (1886 – 1969):
“Outside Navy circles, very few know much about the man who bosses our task forces in the Pacific and has never lost an engagement. But Admiral Nagano knows of Spruance; so does Tojo – because, if it weren’t for Spruance at Midway, Japanese carriers might now be based at Pearl Harbor.”
In the seven months since Pearl Harbor the aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship as the true capital ship of modern naval warfare. The carrier’s rise to power reached a crushing climax in the battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway – the two most decisive naval engagements of the war thus far. Opposing fleets only struck at each other with bomber and torpedo planes and never fired a shot except in self-defense against aircraft.
Admiral Pete Mitscher was one of the primary architects of American naval aviation during the 20th Century.In this column, one of the officers who served under him during the admiral’s command of carrier Task Force 58 recalls why he came to admire the man as deeply as he did.
One of Admiral Pete Mitscher’s officers recalls the man with tremendous admiration:
They used to think a carrier was a hit-and-run fighter, but Pete changed that. He said, ‘Hit’em and stay. Hit’em again tomorrow. And he did.’
The War Shipping Administration is never at a loss for an answer when asked what’s been authorized, what’s in the works, what’s been shipped and where everything is at the moment? Nevertheless, the Transportation Inventory Department is a tidy place, with no visible signs of agitation. The TID has never lost so much as a bolt. Once it took twenty-two weeks to find a couple of airplane engines which had got themselves lost.
Not only did Germany limit the size of her fleet, but she failed to push technical developments. For example, she was behind the Allies in developing radar, and her torpedoes were mechanically deficient. She was ahead of the Allies in perfecting magnetic mines, but these proved to be a short-lived advantage… The priority for naval construction was so low that when the war began in September, 1939, the naval strength allowed in the treaty of 1935 had not been reached.
Thus, in the opinion of Admiral Doenitz, Germany, for the second time within 25 years, lost her bid for world supremacy because of her weakness at sea.
Click here to read about an American destroyer on D-Day.
The baby flat-top Liscome Bay was sunk by a torpedo from an enemy submarine on the day before Thanksgiving of 1943. The Liscome Bay was on her first battle assignment, covering the occupation of Makin in the Gilbert [islands]…The torpedo struck a half an hour before dawn and it was still dark when Liscome Bay sank.
The ship went under in less than twenty-four minutes; up to that time it was the U.S. Navy’s second largest loss since the sinking of the Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Only 260 men survived.
Attached is a 1947 report by the U.S. Navy summing up the remarkable roll that naval aviation played during the last half of the war with Imperial Japan:
In the advance across the Central Pacific the carrier task force with it’s extreme flexibility and mobility had been the dominant factor. It established the conditions under which long-range amphibious advances were possible. It never failed to gain command of the air at the required time and place, successively overwhelming the air garrisons not only of the Japanese perimeter but of the major fortresses of Formosa and the Philippines, and maintained command of the air until shore-based air forces could be established.
To read articles about W.W. II submarines, Click here.
The following is an essay from the office of the Chief of Naval Operations concerning what the U.S. Navy learned about carrier warfare during the four year war against Japan.
