Just a thought, do you think those "dumb" enlisted sailors arbitrarily opened up on the "flying fish?" Perhaps, they were ordered to do so? To your point on the "flying fish:
Night of August 4: "The Maddox and Turner Joy moved out to sea, but both reported that they were tracking multiple unidentified vessels approaching their positi…
Just a thought, do you think those "dumb" enlisted sailors arbitrarily opened up on the "flying fish?" Perhaps, they were ordered to do so? To your point on the "flying fish:
Night of August 4: "The Maddox and Turner Joy moved out to sea, but both reported that they were tracking multiple unidentified vessels approaching their positions. The vessels appeared to be coming from several different directions, and they were impossible to lock onto. Both ships began firing at what they thought were torpedo boats, and again they sought air support. A plane piloted by Commander James Stockdale joined the action, flying at low altitude to see the enemy ships. Stockdale reported seeing no torpedo boats."
I always liked working with officers as a Marine Sergeant as we could have some pretty good conversations as long as I respected the boundaries. I wasn't a sea-going bellhop.
Things are not always as they seem and change after the actuals are no longer around to dispute the facts. Nice story.
I was one of those "dumb enlisted men" (enlisted staff on the command in charge of things). No, they didn't. A month later, I ran across my best friend from boot camp in an Olongapo bar, where he told me the truth: he was the fire control technician in charge of the main battery on Maddox; he refused the order "open fire" three times on grounds the only thing out there was the Turner Joy, and got a General Court-martial and reduction in rank for that. I later met the Asst Gunnery Officer on Turner Joy at Cal where he was a grad student - he was able to convince his captain to hold fire for the same reason.
Several of the naval aviators I interviewed for this book, when told the real story, commented on seeing what they were later told was this school of fish in later years of the war.
I am so enjoying your commentaries. So, well informed. Can you share a couple of the titles of your non-academic historical non-fiction? I am bunkering down in such material perhaps too much as I found myself wanting to suggest one character in one book should connect with another character in a previous novel I read who was doing war crimes investigations and would be a good source for solving the problem in the second book. Thanks for your postings.
There are a few guys whose stories travel through the books. Most particularly the story of my favorite WW2 "hero", John Bridgers, who goes over three of the books from a guy who becomes a NavCad in 1941 for the money ("As a son of the depression, these seemed princely sums") to go to school afterwards and the fact it pays better than being a teacher in North Carolina there, to the guy who graduates from Pensacola as a dive-bomber pilot the week before Pearl Harbor, who is present at the Doolittle Raid, survives the sinking of the USS Yorktown at Midway, survives the "worst" six weeks on Guadalcanal, comes back to the US and is assigned to what becomes the top-scoring Navy air group of the war, and in the end helps sink the battleship Musashi and as a 24-year old Lt. Commander leads the air strike that sinks the last of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. And thinks to himself on the way back to the carrier afterwards, "I decided that the Navy's investment in me had been repaid."
After the war, he went to medical school on that NavCad money and the GI Bill, and became a hospital administrator who was well-known for creating health care in "under-served communities" for 50 years.
I really love having been able to know so many of that generation.
About 15 years ago my brother and I visited the Turner Joy, now a floating museum in Bremerton WA. The entire presentation was an uncritical celebration of the Tonkin Gulf fraud that led to America's Vietnam War, along with the war itself. Unless it's been substantially revised since then, Not Recommended.
TCin:
Just a thought, do you think those "dumb" enlisted sailors arbitrarily opened up on the "flying fish?" Perhaps, they were ordered to do so? To your point on the "flying fish:
Night of August 4: "The Maddox and Turner Joy moved out to sea, but both reported that they were tracking multiple unidentified vessels approaching their positions. The vessels appeared to be coming from several different directions, and they were impossible to lock onto. Both ships began firing at what they thought were torpedo boats, and again they sought air support. A plane piloted by Commander James Stockdale joined the action, flying at low altitude to see the enemy ships. Stockdale reported seeing no torpedo boats."
I always liked working with officers as a Marine Sergeant as we could have some pretty good conversations as long as I respected the boundaries. I wasn't a sea-going bellhop.
Things are not always as they seem and change after the actuals are no longer around to dispute the facts. Nice story.
I was one of those "dumb enlisted men" (enlisted staff on the command in charge of things). No, they didn't. A month later, I ran across my best friend from boot camp in an Olongapo bar, where he told me the truth: he was the fire control technician in charge of the main battery on Maddox; he refused the order "open fire" three times on grounds the only thing out there was the Turner Joy, and got a General Court-martial and reduction in rank for that. I later met the Asst Gunnery Officer on Turner Joy at Cal where he was a grad student - he was able to convince his captain to hold fire for the same reason.
Several of the naval aviators I interviewed for this book, when told the real story, commented on seeing what they were later told was this school of fish in later years of the war.
I am so enjoying your commentaries. So, well informed. Can you share a couple of the titles of your non-academic historical non-fiction? I am bunkering down in such material perhaps too much as I found myself wanting to suggest one character in one book should connect with another character in a previous novel I read who was doing war crimes investigations and would be a good source for solving the problem in the second book. Thanks for your postings.
This "outs" who TC is, but since writers are always ready to flog sales, here. :-)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Thomas+McKelvey+Cleaver&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
There are a few guys whose stories travel through the books. Most particularly the story of my favorite WW2 "hero", John Bridgers, who goes over three of the books from a guy who becomes a NavCad in 1941 for the money ("As a son of the depression, these seemed princely sums") to go to school afterwards and the fact it pays better than being a teacher in North Carolina there, to the guy who graduates from Pensacola as a dive-bomber pilot the week before Pearl Harbor, who is present at the Doolittle Raid, survives the sinking of the USS Yorktown at Midway, survives the "worst" six weeks on Guadalcanal, comes back to the US and is assigned to what becomes the top-scoring Navy air group of the war, and in the end helps sink the battleship Musashi and as a 24-year old Lt. Commander leads the air strike that sinks the last of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. And thinks to himself on the way back to the carrier afterwards, "I decided that the Navy's investment in me had been repaid."
After the war, he went to medical school on that NavCad money and the GI Bill, and became a hospital administrator who was well-known for creating health care in "under-served communities" for 50 years.
I really love having been able to know so many of that generation.
I'll try to keep your secret. The books I referred to were by different authors who did not know each other as far as I know. SMILE.
About 15 years ago my brother and I visited the Turner Joy, now a floating museum in Bremerton WA. The entire presentation was an uncritical celebration of the Tonkin Gulf fraud that led to America's Vietnam War, along with the war itself. Unless it's been substantially revised since then, Not Recommended.