USS Johnston: Sub dives to deepest-known shipwreck
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
I tear up to think of this, as a retired sailor. "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors"[1] is really about standing and delivering. Historians may not agree, but the Battle Off Samar[3] was a modern analog of Thermopylae[3].
One especially poignant moment was when the 5"/38 (of one of the ships, I don't remember if it was precisely this one) gun crew had lost ship's power and continued to train, elevate and fire manually. Until the breech was so hot that the next round cooked off and relieved them all of duty. It isn't often that the foe renders honors while they steam through your wreckage.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Tin-Sailors-Extraordinary/...
Massive respect from this AD CPO. I only hope our current Navy could fight as hard and effectively.
It's always amazing how difficult identification was in WWII.
A lot of work seems to have gone into jiving action reports from Japanese and American records and the contrasts are pretty wild. Destroyer's reported as battle ships, detailed info on sinking another ship that the other side had no record of... sometimes ships with every advantage over their opponent in position to score some serious victory... simply losing sight of the targets and being taken out of action when go searching for their targets by going the wrong direction.
Nothing seemed certain.
In WWII, Italy's naval force was really ineffective at doing anything against the British navy. Besides other obvious reasons, the biggest under appreciated factor was that the Brits had radars, Italians didn't.
[1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/us-naval-accid...
It’s not disrespect, it’s the Navy doing the wrong thing. Sacrificing proper Navy training for who knows what.
Destroyer saved by being transported to alternate Earth, evolved evil dinosaur people and evolved good lemur people.
Good fun if you don’t take it to seriously.
WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR THE WORLD WONDERS
Gunner's Mate Paul H. Carr was in charge of the aft 5 in (127 mm) gun mount, which had fired nearly all of its 325 stored rounds in 35 minutes before a breech explosion caused by the gun's barrel overheating. Carr was found dying at his station, begging for help loading the last round he was holding into the breech.[34] He was awarded a Silver Star, and a guided missile frigate was later named for him. The guided missile frigates Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) and Copeland (FFG-25) were named for the ship and its captain.
Drachinifel covered it in his usual dry-witted way.
The ocean is deep but also wide. I have a chart of the Atlantic which is about 1m square. Although the Atlantic is several miles deep and the chart is only paper, the thickness of the paper is not far off scale..
Even the Mariana Trench is imagined by most people looking like a canyon (almost vertical walls), when it actually looks more like sloped plains.
> The financial sponsor behind the Limiting Factor’s design and construction, Victor Vescovo, is a great admirer of the science fiction genre and in particular of the “Culture” series by Scottish author Ian M. Banks. In the books, the space-faring vessels are self-aware, highly symbiotic with their human counterparts, and grant themselves distinctive names. “Limiting Factor,” as well as “Pressure Drop” are two of the ship names in the series that seemed to fit their character. Thus, the names are an homage to the author, who passed away in 2013.