“Luck” (I)

You’re with Halsey. Stand up in the line of battle and do battle. From the Mary Rose of Henry VIII to America’s Iowa Class, the Ship of the Line was the rightful queen of the seas. Just the way it ought to be. Sure, screen them with cruisers, frigates, and eventually destroyers; use tactics and surprise, wind and smoke… but be a Knight on the waves and stand tall.

Different countries had to have different approaches though. Brits rules the waves and they had cause for dozens of floating castles bristling with death. Germans and Americans began to catch up as they begin to industrialize.

Then, innovation. Didn’t start out too bad. As with so many things in life there are three options and you can choose two… and ships had to be a mixture of, speed, armor, and guns. Battleships had guns and armor, but commerce raiders were lighter cruisers, and innovation led to the Battle Cruiser – armor of a cruiser with the guns of a battleship, and as fast as the sea is vast.

Always loved the battle cruisers. As with the dreadnoughts of old, designed to be able to outrun anything it can’t outfight, but its purpose was to hunt down commerce raiders – something a battleship never could. Per Brit Jacky Fisher, “speed would be their armor”, against a battleship, but regardless their armor was stout enough to deal with a commerce raiding cruiser’s guns.

But then innovation then became… eh. You can’t condemn the submarine. It was literally invented in Charleston Harbor by desperate men  trying to break a siege of the holy city, and you cannot call a submariner a coward without being a liar. The Hunley sailed three times, sunk three times, and killed three crews, but on the third sortie the third crew did sink one blockading ship. Damn subs anyway.

Then between the wars came the aviation cruisers. To this day, their US designation is CV due to those roots. Lexington and Saratoga were Battle cruisers under construction when a treaty canceled battleship and battle cruiser construction, but they could he finished as aircraft carriers. They were armed with smaller heavy cruiser guns Envied by planes would he used to spot ships for them to engage. Soon as aircraft became more capable, that concept was abandoned and now you had flat tops able to hit targets hundreds of miles away. 

In Nelson’s day you could see the opposing captain. 100 years later in Jellicoe’s day, battleships could hit targets 15 miles away, but they still had to at least see them. No more “stand up and fighting.”, though the world wouldn’t know that for another two decades.…

1942. America’s grand Pacific Fleet battleships lay sunk in harbor while miraculously its three carriers were at sea, spared from Japan’s six carriers and 300 planes. Yamamoto didn’t hit the fuel depots with a third wave, having feared his force could be hit, not knowing where the American carriers were. 

Massive fleets were under construction, but Enterprise, Yorktown and Lexington but only get the reinforcements of Hornet, Wasp, and Saratoga within two years… to hold 1/4 of the planet.

April of that year led to two simultaneous operations: Enterprise and Hornet launching the Doolittle raid, and Lexington and Yorktown at the Battle of the Coral Sea, protecting Port Moresby and ending the Japanese threat to Australia. Tactical loss but strategic victory… Lexington sunk and Yorktown heavily damaged and barely able to make port; even believed sunk by the Japanese.

But that’s when the miracles started in again.

American Navy code breakers broke Japan’s latest code, but no one could prove it until tested. Radio traffic let them know something was up… Yamamoto’s main fleet wasn’t at Coral Sea, but they were out there somewhere. And chatter had it that they were going to hit target “AF”.

Rolling the dice, They put out a message for Midway Island to report they were running out of fresh water, and the Japanese code soon reported that AF was running out of water. 

The brass didn’t believe it, but Admiral Nimitz did. Gathered what he had of a fleet and sent out the word that Yorktown had to somehow be ready to sale in three days, when it needed weeks.

Turns out the Japanese know an awful lot about the Americans too. Yamamoto was preparing to face America’s best – Adm Bull Halsey, still pissed off that he couldn’t fly his flag from a battleship. Japan’s admirals knew about Halsey. Nearly reckless, like a bull in a china shop, or a Patton at sea. Halsey would bite when Midway was hit… and their real goal of lowering out the American fleet and destroying it would be nearly certain.

But it’s not just that the Americans knew about the trap and could lie in wait to spring their own, but their Bull was sidelined by sickness at the last minute; replaced at his request by a cruiser skipper named Spruance who knew cattier tactics - something the Americans were having to learn by doing.

All while Japan would be down the legendary air commander Fuchida, who was responsible for so much of the success at Pearl Harbor – the future devout Christian unable to fly due to appendicitis.

The Japanese sailed on… their element of surprise reversed, them not knowing the more shrewd enemy they’d face, facing three carriers instead of two, and without their greatest bird.

But that’s just where the miracles began at Midway.….

Well if you can’t fight with your beloved battleships, fight with whatever you’ve got.

If it is Just, hold true to your cause – and allow for intervention behind the scenes. Forces under the guidance of Above working for our benefit. One can’t study Midway without seeing them. Coincidence just doesn’t cover it. That so many brilliant Japanese admirals were wrong at the same time while American ships and planes were exactly where they needed to be even though there were so many sacrifices… 

Innovate. Listen to the whispers on the wind telling you to prepare. Even if you don’t want to. Especially if you don’t want to. You might not always have your favorite cards to play.

And if the cause is Just…  fight down to the last man on the last cannon and Something. Good. Is. Going. To. Happen.………….