World War II with Tom Hanks

[CyValley2]

Last night they talked about the Battle of Guadalcanal, and its importance, the first time Japan had been defeated on land, forcing them back and as they pointed out, from that point going forward. . . .

An opening for me to mention my all-time favorite Admiral, Willis Lee, WWII's top naval gunslinger. His story, imho, is startling and amazing. I understand Lee, and a young naval officer under him, James Van Allen (yep, that JVA) developed the anti-aircraft proximity fuse, a key war development.

Lee was a maverick; he did it his way and the institutional roadblocks be damned. Oh, and he was critical in the Guadalcanal campaign.

(The Fat Electrician is an Iowan, btw.)

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[BWRhasnoAC]

An opening for me to mention my all-time favorite Admiral, Willis Lee, WWII's top naval gunslinger. His story, imho, is startling and amazing. I understand Lee, and a young naval officer under him, James Van Allen (yep, that JVA) developed the anti-aircraft proximity fuse, a key war development.

Lee was a maverick; he did it his way and the institutional roadblocks be damned.

(The Fat Electrician is an Iowan, btw.)

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Hilarious that the Fat Electrician is such a respected historical mind. He is really entertaining and generally informed I'll admit.

 

[Gonzo]

He was also involved with Band of Brothers. Seems like WW2 history is one of his passions

And History Channel is thrilled to attach him and his name to their production to draw more viewers.

 

[FLYINGCYCLONE]

I have not started Tom’s series. There is a lot of WW2 stuff on Hulu. The ones I like has ugly actual video and they interview guys who lived through WW2. So those deals are 20 plus years old. The one segment on one of these series talks ago about the Turkey Shoot. I forget the first part of the Title. We shot down 250-300 Jap planes and we lost like 30 planes.

 

[AppleCornCy]

Not Tom Hanks, but I found this the other night.

 

[Bipolarcy]

He is a famous actor and has lots of money, so if he is passionate about something he can do a lot of projects on that subject. Sorry if the obviousness of that answer bothers you, but it's not an unsolvable mystery like you seem to think it is.

You've completely misread what I was saying, so your sleuthing skills aren't the greatest. I guess sarcasm doesn't work well on message boards.

 

[CascadeClone]

I think it's been good so far. Wouldn't call it great, but good. Agree somewhat with the above post about much of it covering well-known ground, though I did learn a bit more about Russia's involvement than I previously knew.

I get that the Nazis and Japan were very formidable foes. But it seems like this is building them up into these mythical, unbeatable forces that the U.S. has no business messing with.

WHW has a really good 3 pod series on Japan declaring war - they knew from day 1 they could not win in any kind of protracted war with the US. Their leaders, generals, and admirals all knew it. The US had 20x the industrial capacity of Japan, or more. But they did it anyway.
WHW Japan Ep1

They thought if they sank the US fleet it would buy enough time to get a peace deal with the US to give them a free hand on China and the south pacific. And with prewar anti-war sentiment, the prospect of fighting the Nazis too... it was their best hope. That was the only way they could really "win".

So Yamamoto took 2 big risks to knock out the US Navy, at Pearl and at Midway. The first almost worked, and the 2nd was a disaster. But they never really had a chance, as long as the US didn't give up.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

WHW has a really good 3 pod series on Japan declaring war - they knew from day 1 they could not win in any kind of protracted war with the US. Their leaders, generals, and admirals all knew it. The US had 20x the industrial capacity of Japan, or more. But they did it anyway.
WHW Japan Ep1

They thought if they sank the US fleet it would buy enough time to get a peace deal with the US to give them a free hand on China and the south pacific. And with prewar anti-war sentiment, the prospect of fighting the Nazis too... it was their best hope. That was the only way they could really "win".

So Yamamoto took 2 big risks to knock out the US Navy, at Pearl and at Midway. The first almost worked, and the 2nd was a disaster. But they never really had a chance, as long as the US didn't give up.

Just a total misreading of the character and spirit of the United States, the idea that once attacked, we would even think about suing for peace to avoid fighting was an insane idea. Even if the US carriers would have been sunk at the Battle of Midway, it would have just extended the war, not enabled Japan to win. Japan would produce 7 large carriers in the war, the US doubled that production with 17 produced. All told, Japan produced 24 aircraft carriers, while the US produced 150 from 1941 to 1945.