Visits to Naval Bases (pictures from those visits)

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Re: My trip to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk & Newport News Shipbuilding

I think majority of American carriers in WWII had wooden decks? and British carriers did not, so UK suffered less to Kamakazi attacks? something alone those lines

I think Kamakazi attacks were sporadic, single and staggered, had they synchronized the attacks, came in multiples, and focused in on just one target Kamakazi attacks could have pulled off more damage, they would not do simultanous attacks meaning the escorts could concentrate their fire on the fighters coming in, i guess no Kamikazi ever lived to bring back the advice or report this finding which was observed by the USN

but i bet it must have been a terrifying weapon when it was first used, i mean never seen anything like it, and at the time many didnt even know anything about Japanese culture and its people etc etc
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Re: My trip to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk & Newport News Shipbuilding

I think majority of American carriers in WWII had wooden decks? and British carriers did not, so UK suffered less to Kamakazi attacks? something alone those lines

True. The USN CVs did not have armored flight decks. The hangar deck was armored on the Essex class. Not sure about Kamakazi attacks on the RN.

The wood was laid over a steel deck but that steel was not armored. Buy the way the wood was Teak.
 
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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: My trip to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk & Newport News Shipbuilding

I think majority of American carriers in WWII had wooden decks? and British carriers did not, so UK suffered less to Kamakazi attacks? something alone those lines

I think Kamakazi attacks were sporadic, single and staggered, had they synchronized the attacks, came in multiples, and focused in on just one target Kamakazi attacks could have pulled off more damage, they would not do simultanous attacks meaning the escorts could concentrate their fire on the fighters coming in, i guess no Kamikazi ever lived to bring back the advice or report this finding which was observed by the USN

but i bet it must have been a terrifying weapon when it was first used, i mean never seen anything like it, and at the time many didnt even know anything about Japanese culture and its people etc etc
Well, it wasn't really until Okinawa that the Japanese were able to launch massive Kamikazi attacks...at other place they were just too far away from the home islands, although they still had less intensive attacks which still caused a lot of damage throughout the war.

At Okinawa the US fleet, which had 300 warships and 1600 other vessels (transports, tankers, ammo ships, etc) were hard pressed. A totaL of 36 US ships were sunk off of Okinawa, 21 of them warships. Almost 400 other ships were damaged, some of them heavily. The US suffered its greatest naval losses off of Okinawa of the entire war. Over 5,000 sailors were killed and almost 5,000 more wounded. The attack came in waves, some single, but most were well coordinated with many planes. But the US had already developed tactics to protect the larger ships and keep the attackers from getting through.

These involved picket lines of anti-aircraft destroyers, and some cruisers set many miles from the larger capitol ships. Also, the US carriers had combat air patrols in the air specifically to ward off and shoot down such attacks. The picket line destroyers suffered heavily because many of the attacks would focus on them...they thereby served their purpose of protecting the larger shiops. But some waves still pressed on and got through.

USS_Bunker_Hill_hit_by_two_Kamikazes.jpg

USS Bunker Hill seconds after the second Kamiakazi explosion which came less than one minute apart.

The USS Bunker Hill, CV-17 was one of those that they did get through to. On May 11, 1945 two Kamikazis hit her and she was almost sunk. She lost over 340 killed and another 260+ woundsed with over 40 lost and presumed dead (but never found). She was known as the most heavily damaged carrier of the war that survived (although some argue that the USS Franklin, CV-13, should get that dubious distinction when in March of that same year she manuevered in just a few miles off the Japanese coast and conducted attacks when she was hit by two 550 lb bombs on her loaded and armed flight deck and hangar deck. She was ultimately towed from the scene and repaired, but she lost over 800 killed and 400 wounded). The USS Enterprise, which on several occassions during the war was severely damaged and the Japanese thought sunk, was also damaged off of Okinawa (though not as seriously as the Bunker Hill) by Kamikazi attacks.

There were over 190 seperate Kamiakazi attacks at Okinawa in six weeks (that's over 30 ber week, or over 4 per day), and just short of 2000 aircraft identified and destroyed as Kamikaze attackers during that battle.

Here's a link to a good article on PBS about the attacks, and in particularly about one of the destroyers involved taking the brunt of the damage.

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It talks about the attack and the USS Newcomb, on April 6, 1945 when the fleet was attacked at one time by over 300 suicide attackers. Harrowing stuff.

BTW, the Bunker Hill was fully repaired and served with the US Navy until the early 70s. Although she lay in the reserve fleet for many years under differing designations after the late 1940s, it wasn't until the mid 1960s when she actually was put into service again, serving as a stationary test vessel from the mid 1960s until she was ultimatly sold for scrap in 1973.
 
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asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Re: My trip to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk & Newport News Shipbuilding

The Kamikaze was indeed a terrifying weapon, but its hard to gauge its success, it was designed to knock out the big USN carriers in the Pacific, the Japanese were intent on getting carriers after they lost 4 at Midway, almost obsessed, they tried and tried to knock Americas carriers out but never really managed to do it until Okinawa

did you know the super-submarines of I-400 class were designed to take 3- 4 planes, they had 3 x I-400 subs, so that’s around 9-12 planes, they were to sail to the replenishment point of the USN carriers and the launch their aircraft, they even pained their aircraft in USN colours which was in breach of international law and hit the carriers while at dock in Pearl Harbour, as the submarines got within range the call came from Tokyo for all Imperial Japanese forces to surrender and so the attack was called off, I-400 then fell into Americans hands and after much study it turned out I-400 was 2 submarines basically welded together!!

if Okinawa was the hard battle for USN then imagine how the mainland would be, it is estimated that Japan had 10,000+ aircraft readied for Kamikaze attacks, if Okinawa is anything to go by the at 15% hit rate would mean that 1,500 Allied ships would be hit by a Kamikaze, out of that 1,500 between 150-200 would be sunk which would mean carriers would face a hell hole, and the estimated casualty figure would be in excess of 50,000, this is just result from Kamikaze! That’s a 5:1 ratio in favour of Japan good odds for them by any standard

But it also shows how determined the Americans were, they knew all this and even didn’t know about the atomic bomb, and still they had planned Operation Olympic for October 1945 and Operation Coronet for March of 1946, which was mainland invasion of Japan, they were going to Tokyo bomb or no bomb, and they were going to stomach the loss and sacrifice everything to get Japan to a unconditional surrender, I mean they even refused a negotiation from Japan mediated by Soviets, everyone talks about the will of the Japanese to fight, but the Americans also had a unbreakable will power, they knew the price they had to pay and they were ready to pay it to secure nothing less than a unconditional surrender, which came on USS Missouri

In this very rare occasion I have to say nuclear weapon is justified as it saved not only American lives but even more Japanese lives
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: My trip to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk & Newport News Shipbuilding

The Kamikaze was indeed a terrifying weapon, but its hard to gauge its success, it was designed to knock out the big USN carriers in the Pacific, the Japanese were intent on getting carriers after they lost 4 at Midway, almost obsessed, they tried and tried to knock Americas carriers out but never really managed to do it until Okinawa

Did you know the super-submarines of I-400 class were designed to take 3- 4 planes, they had 3 x I-400 subs, so that’s around 9-12 planes, they were to sail to the replenishment point of the USN carriers and the launch their aircraft, they even pained their aircraft in USN colours which was in breach of international law and hit the carriers while at dock in Pearl Harbour, as the submarines got within range the call came from Tokyo for all Imperial Japanese forces to surrender and so the attack was called off, I-400 then fell into Americans hands and after much study it turned out I-400 was 2 submarines basically welded together!!

if Okinawa was the hard battle for USN then imagine how the mainland would be, it is estimated that Japan had 10,000+ aircraft readied for Kamikaze attacks, if Okinawa is anything to go by the at 15% hit rate would mean that 1,500 Allied ships would be hit by a Kamikaze, out of that 1,500 between 150-200 would be sunk which would mean carriers would face a hell hole, and the estimated casualty figure would be in excess of 50,000, this is just result from Kamikaze! That’s a 5:1 ratio in favour of Japan good odds for them by any standard

But it also shows how determined the Americans were, they knew all this and even didn’t know about the atomic bomb, and still they had planned Operation Olympic for October 1945 and Operation Coronet for March of 1946, which was mainland invasion of Japan, they were going to Tokyo bomb or no bomb, and they were going to stomach the loss and sacrifice everything to get Japan to a unconditional surrender, I mean they even refused a negotiation from Japan mediated by Soviets, everyone talks about the will of the Japanese to fight, but the Americans also had a unbreakable will power, they knew the price they had to pay and they were ready to pay it to secure nothing less than a unconditional surrender, which came on USS Missouri

In this very rare occasion I have to say nuclear weapon is justified as it saved not only American lives but even more Japanese lives
My father was the commander (full Lt.) of an LCI that was going to be going in to the invasion of China while one of my uncles was going to be part of the invasion of Japan.

They figured 200,000 Americans would die and a total of 1 million casualties to take the islands. They figured the Japanese would lose 3-5 million soldiers and twice to three times that civilians, with many more injured.

That was the calculus that went into the use of the A-Bombs.

After the surrender as my Dad and his flotilla sailed up the Yellow River, at a point many miles past where the battleships and cruisers could go at the time, where they would only have been supported by air bombardment and 5" guns from destroyers, they came upon fortification protecting the beachhead consisting of 12-14" guns in concrete implacements that would have withstood the aricraft. In other words, it would have been a slaughter.

The use of those bombs saved my Dad's life...and a lot more lives. Hundreds of thousands of US service personnel and litterally millions of Japanese. Though I would not ever want to be the one to make that decision, in that light, the decision was straight forward if it could produce the surrender. And it did, and all of those lives were saved.

Anyhow, there is no doubt that the Kamaikaze would have been a very effective weapon in that final chapter...but at that point the production capabilities and the numbers of US forces were so great, that it would not have made a difference at all in the outcome. Not only was the US Military completely committed, but the entire US population (at least a huge super-majpority) was also committed to ending the totalitarian regimes (Nazis and Iperial Japanese) against which they fought.

Though the numbers today are not anything like the overall numbers at the close of World War II...nonetheless, a visit to Naval Station Norfolk to see the largest single concentration of modern warships in any one place on earth is very, very impressive. And then when you consider that at San Diego, Bremerton/Bangor, Hawaii and in Japan the US has other very large fleets (though not as big as what you see at Norfolk) it is even more so...not to mention the smaller numbers (but nonetheless powerful forces) at places like Pasgagula, MS, the UAE, Diego Garcia, Guam, Italy, etc. (soon to include once again Subic Bay in the Philippines).

As to the aircraft carrying Japanese submarines...they actually did make a couple of attacks on the northwest coast of the UNited States. No real damage..but they did do it anyway. Also, the blimp/pilotless aircraft that the Japanese released to ultimately release bombs over the US did also start a couple of small fires here and there...but never did any real harm.
 
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asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Re: My trip to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk & Newport News Shipbuilding

yes the Kamikaze did not and would not change the outcome of the war, but that wasnt its intention either, i dont think even the Japanese believed it would change the outcome, but what it was designed to do was to make the price as high as possible for Americans for every inch of land they take

btw isnt USN shifting something like 60% of its naval fleet to the West Coast? is Norfolk going to downsize, because when the new Panama canal is open it will take supercarriers
 

ManilaBoy45

Junior Member
Re: My visit to US Naval Base Coronado (NBC), Cornado Is. near San Diego (many pics)

Very Nice Photos of Naval Base San Diego (Coronado) ...
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: My visit to US Naval Base Coronado (NBC), Cornado Is. near San Diego (many pics)

Very Nice Photos of Naval Base San Diego (Coronado) ...
Thanks. It was a great trip. We were down there for my daughter's wedding, but tooks some time to see the ships.

We plan to get back down there probably next year to see the carriers and visit the USS Midway naval museum site.

We had an even longer, more detailed visit to the docksides at Norfolk this summer. I posted that one on here at SD too. Lots and lots of ships. Carriers, CGs, DGGs, SSNs, LPDs, LHDs, etc.
 
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