Posted on 07/13/2020 2:26:03 PM PDT by NRx
I like that one...sigh. It is too bad he produced the like of Jane and Peter Fonda.
I saw another navy related one with him about a month ago called “Yours, Mine, and Ours” which was a family favorite for my family!
The old one with Lucille Ball...:)
Well, lots of people are idiots about that sort of thing. I’m not Navy; I’ve never served a day in anyone’s military, but I’ve seen the phenomenon in action in civilian life.
A ‘good’ civilian example of how that works (to try to explain it to people that don’t get it) is a car having a catalytic converter fire. The catalytic converter is of course in a metal shell, and it is separated from the interior by the metal body of the fire. At the same time, though, the cat can get hot enough to ignite the carpet and other interior components of the car on the other side of the metal floorboard, despite the air gap and the fact that the fire is still contained in the converter itself.
If your car suddenly smells like burning interior materials and you pull over and the catalytic converter is glowing bright yellow to white under your car? Yeah, your car interior is about to go up. Cat-con fires burn at 2000-2400F.
Er, “the metal body of the fire” should be “the metal body of the car”.
I think we can all be grateful that West Point declined Nimitz's application; it's hard to imagine he could have accomplished so much had he been an Army officer.
I had read PT-105, by Dick Keresey. He described how terrified he and the other PT skippers were about running aground, both because of the danger from the enemy as well as from the court-martial when they returned.
The saddest story of a court-martial, of course, would probably be that of Captain McVay (USS Indianapolis); he took his own life in 1968 after what was nothing more than a Navy search for a scapegoat for an enormous loss of life in the closing days of the war.
The Royal Navy certainly had it figured out early on in the Falklands War. (Read One Hundred Days by Admiral Sandy Woodward). Sailors were sleeping up on the deck at night because they were terrified of being caught inside the ship in the event of an Argentinian air attack.
I believe Senator Murray pushed the Coast Guard to buy a bunch of patrol boats made of aluminum, all of which cracked the first year.
Capt. Charles McVay (USS Indianapolis) was the only US Navy captain in WW II to be courtmartialed for the loss of his ship.
I agree 100%. It was a terrible shame about Capt. McVay. Terrible. He did not deserve that treatment. My father would occasionally make a reference to having to fall on your sword for the good of the service, and my mother’s Italian-Armenian eyes would flash with real anger. She hated that concept, “for the good of the service”. I suspect it was what she had seen happen to men like Capt. McVay, and it really ate at her.
I admit, that when I heard that he had been officially exonerated, I shed tears. Even now, writing this, I feel emotion about that. Such an injustice to a man, who by all accounts, was a sterling officer. IIRC, even the Japanese sub skipper they brought in to testify said that zig-zagging wouldn’t have made any difference...shame. What a shame.
In my line of work, I have had the opportunity to spend a good deal of time with veterans (having grown up in the military and served, you ask two questions all the time: where are you from, and did you serve? My wife laughs at these questions...)
Anyway, I would often get to spend several hours speaking with them, and I spent just such a time interval with the man who was the ship’s doctor aboard the USS Indianapolis when she was sunk.
It left a deep impression on me, that after 50 years, his face turned red and he was unable to speak about certain aspects...one being that, even until the day we met, he was unable to recite or even listen to The Lord’s Prayer.
Astonishing. But, not surprising, given what he went through. My heart went out to him right there. To have that to carry around his entire life, as so many of our vets do, really got me right to the core.
They approached the commander of the Japanese sub that sank the ship (the war was over by then) and informed him of the court-martial. Due to his limited English, he misunderstood the Navy officers at his front door and began to explain that he was not supposed to be tried for his conduct during the war.
"We're sorry for the confusion," they explained. "It's not you who is on trial; it's our guy."
He later testified in court that the Indianapolis's course or speed meant nothing that night; because of the angle at which he had intercepted the warship, its fate was sealed the moment it was spotted. (The case against McVay was predicated on the charge that he hadn't navigated his ship properly; it came down to the amount of cloud cover versus his speed. There was absolutely no evidence of neglect or incompetence on his part and the weather was such that there was no obvious "correct" answer; he was well within his rights to exercise his judgement in choosing his course.)
The point about the zig-zagging is correct. Apparently the Navy thought McVay should have been zig-zagging when he was cruising straight ahead but the Japanese commander explained that whether the ship zigged, zagged, or went straight ahead, it didn't matter; he was going to put a torpedo or two into her no matter what.
They already knew about it prior to the Falklands due to HMS Amazon’s peacetime fire a few years previous.
Yes. My memory fails me, but I honestly can’t remember if McVay’s defense brought him in, or if the Board brought him in to explain what he saw that night.
What a horrible affair. There are always some who denigrate the navy for being safe on their ships while the Marines were slugging it out on the land, and I get that.
When you were in a fox hole, you didn’t often have the possibility of being eaten alive by many creatures.
But out there, those sailors did have that possibility and it happened more than the public knew.
Apparently, nobody talked about it.
It was considered bad form. All it was going to do was lower morale, there was no upside to it, and nearly everyone understood it completely and engaged in the silence on the subject.
If someone did bring it up, someone else would tell him to talk about something else.
I think I understand that mindset completely. I think that is one subject my mind probably wishes to avoid.
I am a prolific dreamer, I dream every night, always have. When I was aboard ship, I had a dream one night.
I dreamed I was treading water, in black water, people around me doing the same. The sky above was a black vault, and there were stars, but it was so dark the stars didn’t even seem to light anything.
As I tread water, I saw a dark shape rise out of the ocean and get bigger. It was too dark to see anything but its size, and that size was only seen indirectly by the blotting out of the oddly bright yet faint stars behind it. It got bigger and bigger until I could see the black outline of the deck of an aircraft carrier.
That was it. I was in the water, and the JFK was going down by the stern.
As I gaped and treaded, the entire ship seemed to be out of the water, vertical, massive, and black.
Imperceptibly, it began to move, and I realized with a visceral terror that the whole carrier was going to come right down on me, a white wave parting in the ocean as the upraised bow and flat deck rushed towards me. I turned and swam frantically, flailing at the water to escape, I knew, in vain.
Then I woke up.
That was, oddly enough, the only ship dream I ever had.
Good post. You are correct.
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I deployed with the 13th MEU on the BHR, know the ship well.
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Much of the time it was pretty rough duty, between missions and a typhoon.
Here is an excellent photo of the Well Deck where the fire started.
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https://the-drive-2.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fthe-drive-cms-content-staging%2Fmessage-editor%252F1594800890938-1280px-uss_bonhomme_richard_in_san_diego_dvids338353.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&ixlib=js-1.4.1&s=656ad425b7ee43e9d58d4f14ea3c0e71
The ramp on the right goes up to the Hangar Deck, the large opening in the background is where the LCACs berth and load Marines.
So the Mafia set fire to the Bon Homme Richard to get Luciano out of jail? I’d think he was dead by now.
WOW! What a wonderful success story for someone who seemed to have no future. I’d buy you a pitcher anytime, Shipmate.
Thanks, and back at you...you never know!
That is why I am so hopping mad at the people who want to bring this all down. I owe my country a debt.
Your post and the one about a young Nimitz reminds me of the submarine that hit an uncharted undersea mount a few years ago and sustaining extensive damage—and they blamed the sub captain for the accident. The Navy high command seem to be a bunch of cannibals that gobble up good officers and men which is a disservice to our country and the navy.
The higher leadership has a lot of power, and as Lord Acton said, Power Corrupts. And watching the asses of high officers being enthusiastically kissed I see where absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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