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Subject: Halsey Acted Stupidly
jastayme3    10/30/2007 2:43:41 AM
"Your conclusions were all wrong, Ryan. Halsey acted stupidly."-Hunt for Red October Well Ramius was not quite correct. Halsey was quite adept at the sort of "naval blitzkriegs" that marked the last stage of the Pacific War. But on the most famous occasion he did act stupidly. At Leyte Gulf. This is not just 20/20 hindsight. Arleigh Burke guessed at the time that Ozawa was bait. However Halsey's mistake was not in attacking Ozawa. Even knowing that Ozawa was bait he should have done so. However the battleships should have been left behind to cover the invasion force. Halsey had more then enough to handle both goals but failed to practice proper economy of force. The reason Halsey was right to attack Ozawa was that even if the Japanese succeeded, if the carriers were gone they had only gained a respite. But if the carriers remained the Japanese might have time to recover their air power enough to hold their own. If the Philipines fell to the Americans then the IJN effectively did not exist. Therefore it was at least equally important to guard the invasion force. Something like this: If invasion checked but carriers gone, Japan obtains useless lull If carriers available but invasion successful IJN is finished. A navy is just as dead from lack of fuel and with more loss of face. If carriers survive and invasion checked then comes lull, with small possibility of Japan temporarily regaining initiative. And if carriers destroyed and invasion successful, then the rest of the war is large-scale "mopping up"(an odd phrase for Okinawa but in the staffie sense it is pretty much true-albeit it is one big "mop-up". This is indeed pretty close to what happend. But the frightful "near-run thing" could have been made assured with proper force budgeting. And finally when the infamous, "the world wonders" message arrived Halsey turned back, out of pique apparently. It was to late to effect the battle. So he would be better off getting a good pursuit in. And indeed if he had, history might have been less resentful.
 
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Godofgamblers       6/29/2009 10:37:58 PM





Kimmel was court martialed for far less than Halsey ever did. I would have Bynged Halsey.

 




Kimmel was court martialed instead of his superiors, who just left Pearl Harbour open to Japanese so that they can enter the war and help Brits. US Intelligence knew that Japanese are planning to attack Pearl Harbor and they sent aircraft carriers out of the base so main force of the fleet (carriers, not 8 aging battleshits as majority thought back then) would not be caught in base.
 



Very few within academic circles would agree with you, Leech. The conspiracy theory that Roosevelt knew Pearl would be hit but did nothing has been debunked very systematically by hard-working US historians over the years. The last nail in the coffin for the conspiracy theory was the book AT DAWN WE SLEPT
At Dawn
 
Here's a partial review i found on Amazon:
 
"While there have been many books and theories proposed about why and how the debacle at Pearl Harbor took place, Prange's approach is well documented, and includes details of the pre-attack politics of the USA and of Japan. His book also includes detailed information about the attack itself, gleaned from interviews with those on both sides who actually participated in the event. But, even with that level of detail, I must admit that the most compelling part of the book for me is the section that follows the actual attack -- when the US government and the military were trying to figure out what actually happened, and who was to blame.

The final series of chapters of the book provide insight into the thoughts and tactics of Adm. Kimmell (CincPAC) and Gen Short (Commanding General of army at Hawaii), the two primary "interested parties" in the event.

Before reading the book, I had a tendency to believe that there may have been something of a conspiracy by the Roosevelt administration to get us into WWII, but after reading this account of Pearl Harbor, I am more likely to believe that the great success, including complete surprise by Japanese naval aviation was the result of a series of ill-advised decisions by the commanders at Hawaii rather than by any entity in Wash DC."
If you are interested in Pearl I recommend you read it. It is exhaustive in detail.
 
The ultimate comeback to the conspiracy theory is the obvious truth that to get the US into the war, a decisive Jap victory was not needed: a failed attack would have served just as well. There was no need to sacrifice the Pacific fleet.
 

 
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Leech       6/30/2009 3:37:28 AM




I suspect that you're about to get a belting from Herald about this....  http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/images/emsmilep.gif" alt="" />




8-12305.aspx?

That" target="_blank">link covers some of the son of a bitch's early blunders and saves me some time.

Do you want to read about the idiot's mishandling of the fleet during the typhoons, or how he tried to coverup his gross incompetence after the "Batttle of Bull's Run"; or the ongoing jealousy he developed in a one sided imaginary rivalry he had with the finest American Admiral to ever stand on a warship deck?  

Question you posed, Jessayme; 

Why did Halsey want Ozawa's empty carriers?

Answer. He wanted a victory to rival Midway. Spruance got four; he wanted four. Motive? Jealousy.    

Why do you think that Nimitz later sent in his best Admiral for the really tough fights at Iwo Jima and Okinawa? After Leyte Gulf you'll notice that the USN didn't send its carriers against the Japanese under Halsey again. The days of alternating commands were OVER. Nimitz had had enough. It was Spruance, thenceforward, all the way. 

Where is Taskforce 34? That message Nimitz sent we get the historical propaganda line that it was just a gentle reminder from Nimitz to Halsey to keep San Bernadino Strait covered. Horsefeathers and cowflop. By the time Nimitz sent the message, his staff had shown him a very good plotted sitrep of what was probably happening to the Taffys off of Samar. Kincaid's cries for help were heard in Pearl, and people forget who was staffing all of this for Nimitz at Pearl at the time. It was SPRUANCE.

So when Nimitz sent that message to Halsey, he was furious. The poor encoder who overpadded the message knew exactly what kind of Admiral's venom was going out over the radio. It was USN politese for "Get your junior ensign dumbass back down to Samar and cover San Bernardino, like we staffed it in the pre battle planning originally, you stupid son of a bitch."

The newspapers and the public had turned Halsey into a Hollywood hero much like they did MacArthur. He was a paper mache' hero that the US command could not disown. Otherwise I believe Nimitz would have relieved Halsey, then and there. It was hard fighting and a lot of luck as well as Clifton Sprague who saved us at Samar; after Halsey opened the door to a possible great Japanese victory.

One more thing. it wasn't just Arleigh Burke who saw the outlines of Sho 1. It was Nimitz, Spruance, Lee, both Shermans, Kincaid, Bogan, Oldendorf, Mitscher, McCain, the ancestor of the Arizona Senator, Walter Krueger, Kenney, MacArthur and practically every USN and US Army staff officer who attended the pre-battle planning conferences in the 6th Army, 5th Air Force, and 3rd and 7th fleets INCLUDING HALSEY; who was so briefed and advised to watch for it, by guess who? SPRUANCE.    

After all that; DOWNFALL would have been Spruance at sea, Eichelberger on land, and Kenney in the air. Our BEST we would send. Halsey? That PoS after the Leyte fiasco had just lost four destroyers, 300 aircraft, damaged almost a dozen major warships and drowned almost 1200 sailors in a !@#$%^&*() typhoon. That was the last straw. Halsey would continue to bob around as window dressing. The fighting would be left to the professionals.

 

Kimmel was court martialed for far less than Halsey ever did. I would have Bynged Halsey.

 

Herald


Halsey simply wasn't for guard missions-he was good in hit-and-run attacks, but Spruance was more responsible-Spruance commanded attack on Truk base (in Caroline islands) and Mariane Islands, and when Spruance had enough, Halsey replaced him-while Spruance was commanding fleet, Halsey was preparing plans for his campaign, and vice versa. During attac
 
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Leech       6/30/2009 3:45:15 AM

Let me first say I totally agree with Herald.  One the warships1 board this one is often brought up and the consensus there is that Halsey was right.  Supposedly Nimitz was angry with Spruance for not finishing the Japanese at the Philippine Sea and Halsey's orders specifically said to destroy the Japanese fleet if the opportunity arose.  I like Spruance's tactics much better, he had probably the finest naval mind ever, I would put him above Nelson although you really can't compare the two eras.  Spruance knew he had an invincible shield and he let the Japanese break themselves on it.  Halsey could have waited for Ozawa to launch and show he was committed.  If no launch ever came, what would that say?  It seems to me a lot of amateur fanboys like Halsey for his aggressiveness but if you have a deeper understanding of naval tactics you know Spruance was the genius.  For what it's worth my great uncle was killed on the Indianapolis and my grandmother would always talk about how proud he was to serve on Spruance's flagship and how it was considered an honor to have such a great admiral on board.



Well, Halsey was not such a genius, and his decisions were influence by expirience he get until that point of war-that carriers represent much bigger danger than battleships. Also, he was wrongly informed about enemy losses-US airmen reported much greater Japanese losses than it was really case. (Japanese were constantly doing that kind of mistake, but intentionally.)
 
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Leech       6/30/2009 3:52:29 AM











Kimmel was court martialed for far less than Halsey ever did. I would have Bynged Halsey.



 










Kimmel was court martialed instead of his superiors, who just left Pearl Harbour open to Japanese so that they can enter the war and help Brits. US Intelligence knew that Japanese are planning to attack Pearl Harbor and they sent aircraft carriers out of the base so main force of the fleet (carriers, not 8 aging battleshits as majority thought back then) would not be caught in base.

 









Very few within academic circles would agree with you, Leech. The conspiracy theory that Roosevelt knew Pearl would be hit but did nothing has been debunked very systematically by hard-working US historians over the years. The last nail in the coffin for the conspiracy theory was the book AT DAWN WE SLEPT

At Dawn

 

Here's a partial review i found on Amazon:

 

"While there have been many books and theories proposed about why and how the debacle at Pearl Harbor took place, Prange's approach is well documented, and includes details of the pre-attack politics of the USA and of Japan. His book also includes detailed information about the attack itself, gleaned from interviews with those on both sides who actually participated in the event. But, even with that level of detail, I must admit that the most compelling part of the book for me is the section that follows the actual attack -- when the US government and the military were trying to figure out what actually happened, and who was to blame.

The final series of chapters of the book provide insight into the thoughts and tactics of Adm. Kimmell (CincPAC) and Gen Short (Commanding General of army at Hawaii), the two primary "interested parties" in the event.

Before reading the book, I had a tendency to believe that there may have been something of a conspiracy by the Roosevelt administration to get us into WWII, but after reading this account of Pearl Harbor, I am more likely to believe that the great success, including complete surprise by Japanese naval aviation was the result of a series of ill-advised decisions by the commanders at Hawaii rather than by any entity in Wash DC."


If you are interested in Pearl I recommend you read it. It is exhaustive in detail.

 

The ultimate comeback to the conspiracy theory is the obvious truth that to get the US into the war, a decisive Jap victory was not needed: a failed attack would have served just as well. There was no need to sacrifice the Pacific fleet.

 





Carriers were not in base at the time, so possibility of successfull defence was minimal. If Pearl Harbour was warned, lossess would be much higher on both sides-especially US. US Intelligence knew that there will be attack, but they did not knew when.
Anyway, I do not think dat Rosevell or Kimball knew anything.
 
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WarNerd       6/30/2009 5:39:28 AM

Carriers were not in base at the time, so possibility of successfull defence was minimal. If Pearl Harbour was warned, lossess would be much higher on both sides-especially US. US Intelligence knew that there will be attack, but they did not knew when.
 
The carrier design at that time only used center line elevators and lacked catapults, which severely limits the rate at which aircraft can be brought from the hanger to the deck while simultaneously launching aircraft from a stationary carrier (i.e. without a 30+ knot head wind).
 
The carriers represented only a minor portion of the total fighter power on the island.  If a decent raid warning had been provided the land based fighters alone would have easily outnumbered the escort fighters and probably mauled the attack aircraft as a result.  The fighter aircraft would also not have been available to attack the airbases or put them out of action (All the aircraft were parked in rows in the open so they could be guarded better from saboteurs, but this set them up so a couple of strafing runs could disable the entire lot.), which would have remained in action and been able to launch reconnaissance flights to follow the attack force back to the carriers, followed by several squadrons of heavy bombers. 
 
I do not know what the Japanese plan was if they found that they lacked surprise and the forces in Hawaii were ready and waiting for them, but it would not surprise me if they included abandoning their fighters in an attempt to deceive the American forces and save the fleet.  Sort of like starting the war with the equivalent of the defeat at Midway.
 
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Godofgamblers    Leech   6/30/2009 6:25:21 AM
   If memory serves, the Americans did have indications of WHEN but not WHERE. They knew that the attack was not to precede the rendering of a very important document (declaration of war) to the US. They knew the time but not the place. Although maps of Pearl had been transmitted, there was so much information being sent back and forth and so few translators that the full picture was not clear. Those analyzing the data believed the attack would happen in the Philippines, i believe.
 
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Parmenion    Leech   6/30/2009 8:53:25 AM
 
When Herald reads your posts he's going to do the debate equivalent of making you his prison b*tch, Leech.
 
Should be fun to watch. http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emwink.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
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Herald12345    Reply to various   6/30/2009 12:44:19 PM

Halsey simply wasn't for guard missions-he was good in hit-and-run attacks, but Spruance was more responsible-Spruance commanded attack on Truk base (in Caroline islands) and Mariane Islands, and when Spruance had enough, Halsey replaced him-while Spruance was commanding fleet, Halsey was preparing plans for his campaign, and vice versa. During attacks on Caroline islands Halsey left 5 old battleships, 8 cruisers and 14 destroyers for support of the invasion fleet, while he took his main naval forces, which were designated for protection of invasion fleet (16 carriers, 7 fast battleships, 14 cruisers and 60 destroyers) on attacks on airports etc., including those Iwo Jima and Bonini islands. During that he also attacked and sunk every encountered Japanese ship-like convoy of 32 small transport ships which was transporting supplies for Philippine Islands, and destroyed 300 Japanese planes and 30 transport ships in middle Philippines.  

I am going to correct errors (For the benefit of Parmenion, since Leech is just regurgitating what he read from incompetent popular histories. He, Leech, just doesn't know......)

Thank goodness that Halsey was not there at Midway, Spruance as ATTACKER:

  • a. Halsey wasn't doing his own staff work or planning during the 1941 February and March raids. That target work was done by a little know screen commander for his task force who used to run war games at the Naval War College. That unknown was an admiral named RAYMOND AMES SPRUANCE, This is a fact that popular historians never tell you.

  • b. The air planning for these raids was initially done by a fool by the name of Miles Browning Halsey didn't have enough brains to figure out a fuel plan much less routes and loads for an air strike. Neither did Miles Browning which is principally the reason that US air strikes with accurate position reports from PBY reconnaissance had so much trouble finding Nagumo much less sinking him at Midway.

  • c. THAT is where we first see Spruance come into his own at MIDWAY, as he kicked Browning aside, and took over his own staff plotting and planning of air strikes for that air battle. Mitscher aboard Hornet had a staff that screwed up their own planning worse than Enterprise's staff, so he was no prize either. Fletcher (and Buckmaster) aboard Yorktown had a staff that knew what it was doing, but he, Fletcher, was too cautious at a time, when daring was all the chance that the Americans had. He, Fletcher, held back the planes that could have gotten Hiryu. That cost us Yorktown and a destroyer and almost 160 aircraft and more than 350 aircrew, and another several hundred sailors: EXPENSIVE mistakes. Spruance was the one who was not cautious, here. He just was SURE when he attacked.

  • d. The reason that Halsey and Spruance changed off was not because that Spruance had enough. The reason was that Spruance was Ninitz's BATTLE planner. When he was at Pearl, Spruance planned the amphibious attacks for the Central Pacific campaign. Halsey never took the fleet into the TOUGH fights more than once after he botched up Guadalcanal. The biggest fights, where we really expected the Japanese, Tarawa, Marshalls, Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa we gave to Spruance. Halsey was given exactly one chance to command in what was supposed to be a LOW RISK operation because frankly the USN expected the Japanese to wait for our attack on Luzon and then hit us there. Halsey acted in accordance with that expectation which is why I doubly damn him. Its the only explanation for why he sent McCain back to Ulithi on the middle of a major amphibious operation.

  • e. Add that to Halsey mistakes when he forced Fletcher and Kincaid to offer battle too far north outside the Henderson Field and Noumea airpower and recon radius circles, then sent the experienced Scott into battle under the inexperienced Callaghan and then overruled Scott, when Scott suggested that Callaghan offer battle in radar clear water to the WEST of Savo Island instead the radar cluttered geography of the waters east of Savo Island for First Guadalcanal where the US fleet was radar blinded and gunfire hobbled and DAMN Halsey to hell!

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WarNerd    Herald12345   7/1/2009 4:57:21 AM
Thanks for your reply.
 
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Parmenion    Ditto what WarNerd said.   7/1/2009 2:02:49 PM

Thanks for your reply.

Ditto. Factual and fascinating as always. http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emsmiled.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
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