The carrier was spotted by Japanese ships and the aircraft were forced to launch further away from Japan than what the plan called for. The aircraft themselves were stripped of all guns to save weight, therefore they could not defend themselves if attacked from the air. Launching further out than what the plan called for, caused many of the aircraft to runout of gas before they could reach friendly forces in China.
I expanded my reading to many other wars and eras just due to the fact that I ran out of new things to learn (at least when not reading narrower writings) and I definitely agree.
I saw an interview with Sledges son, and he stated his father was determined not to go insane while fighting. His grandfather a doctor had seen the effects of war from the soldiers that fought in WW!, and Sledge was determined that it was not going to happen to him, but he did come very close to losing it over what he saw and lived through. His son said he was haunted by what he saw, and had trouble sleeping the rest of his life.
My Grandfather was in the Navy during WWII. He was on a ship that was attacked by the Japanese and went down. I assumed, because of his age that he was in the war, but didn't find out any specifics until I was in High School. He never talked about it and my mom never told me as she didn't want me to accidentally bring it up around him when I was younger. Even after I found out, he never once talked about it to me.
Its hard for many of use to process what these soldiers went through. You read stories of their thought process, and it goes, "I can live through this", to "maybe I will just get injured or lose a limb", to "I am going to die" to finally, accepting that they are going to not live through it and do everything they can to go out fighting or just they lose it. When you read stories of them being so happy that they lost an arm or a hand, because they understood, that means they get to now go home and they survived. Many of them that survived went home and locked what they had done or seen in the back of the head and refused to talk about it, which led many to alcoholism and many other problems down the road.
The only way to really learn about WW2 is to take a class fully devoted to the topic. over 18 weeks, half on the European war and the other half on the Pacific war. The topic otherwise is too large to get through the material and understand it.
