so quick question, Are you planning on doing videos like this for all the combatants of the war? i think that would be very interesting viewing

After talking about aircraft carriers, there is still no Timeghost Navy!

Drachinifel did a great breakdown of this for his Battle of Samar video. Worth 40min of your time.

that CVE abbreviation is synonym for every military troop or personel :) regardless of rank or money thrown at it :)

Thanks for sharing and thanks for watching!

It's not entirely wrong?

CVE were used to lure Kamikaze away from Fleet carriers

I wonder if he has a Tommy Gun, not that I plan on misbehaving in the comments,

Who is tommy and why do he have a gun​@@charliedontsurf334

@@charliedontsurf334 Ten small holes from a Thompson or one big hole from a bazooka. Same outcome. 😀

So. Much. Airpower. -Steve

As a *non* American former infantryman, I find it terrifying that any country would allow an individual to own any of the weapons listed.

And you don't really get how staggering until you look up the photographs of the Mothballed Fleet.

US Navy fleet in 1941 ~450; US navy fleet size in Fall 1945, 4,500+ ships/subs

@@BV-fr8bfdoubt we will ever see anything like that again

Lesson is: Don't poke the Giant.

And at the Kaiser shipyards the working mums needed childcare for their kids. Kaiser had on site child care facilities 24/7. And each care centre had a registered nurse on duty. Kaiser had doctors on staff during each shift and some shipyards had on site health care centres where employees could be seen for ailments and illnesses. After the war Kaiser expanded his healthcare and it is now the Kaiser HMO.

They learned, but often the hard way. Most of all the naval leadership at the beginning of WW2 was firmly entrenched in tactics and thinking of the past, resisting any changes to that. And most Navies are still like that to some degree.

I daresay that while the British invented every technical innovation of the aircraft carrier, including the carrier itself, it was the USN that wrote the doctrine book on how to handle them. To the point that the largest British carrier force ever assembled, the British Pacific Fleet, operated as close as it could to USN doctrine. And I think it started with the Lexingtons, which allowed the USN to operate a massive air group and gain experience with them, at a time when the RN only had a handful of aircraft per carrier. That pretty much set the trend.

@@ChaptermasterPedroKantor-kv5yw I would say the Japanese did the carrier strike group - see the Kido Butai. However, the Royal Navy did Taranto before the Japanese did Pearl Harbor.

also, damage control was an area where USN had a massive lead over IJN.

The single carrier per task force structure at the start of the war was more about the number of carriers and air groups than doctrine. There just weren't enough carriers to support multi-carrier task forces. The USN had practiced multi-carrier operations in the pre-war Fleet Problems and the concept was not foreign to them.

And I believe they were coal fired. Probably the only two in the fleet using coal.

​@@Blipvertus yup, that's correct, coal-fired too.

Also the name of a yet to announced X-men movie

Yup, quite an interesting video. he also had one on Sable and Wolverine.

The Fleet Problems series is a must watch

Don't forget about Dr. Alexander Clarke! They should get him as special guest on this channel

The navaal historiographer

And two blokes named John Parshall and Anthony Tully wrote an outstanding book on Japanese carrier doctrine, possibly THE #1 best book on the Pacific War. Its name... Shattered Sword.

"built during the war."

yes, but they did not do a good job of representing the difference in combat power between the 122 escort carriers, the 9 Independence class light carriers, and the 17 Essex class fleet carriers (24 in total built but "only" 17 finished during the war, the rest after it ended). You can count those 17 Essex class ships (up to 24 depending on your definition regarding construction and service) and the 9 Independences as THE carriers. Plus the 5 pre war fleet carriers that were actually worth something (the USN didn't think highly of Wasp and Ranger). Count those as the main carrier fleet. Exclude the escort carriers, they were shitboxes. Its like comparing the combat power of an M1 Abrams tank with that of a Humvee and saying they are on the same level. The early escort carriers were literally only cargo ships (of which the US built hundreds during the war) with a flight deck strapped on top. The earliest versions didn't even have a hangar. And their aircraft numbers on board were VERY small. We are talking about 10-20 aircraft for the first half of them and up to 25 at most for the later ones. I have no idea why Indy said in the video they would carry half the number of the fleet carriers, that is factually completely false, that would be around 35-40 aircraft, no escort carrier even came close to that. The only exception to that being when they were used to ferry aircraft from the US to the UK, but in that case they could not launch or recover any aircraft at all since their flight decks were completely filled front to back. Another thing that made them not great was their very slow speed (18 knots max), which means they often had trouble launching aircraft if they couldn't get enough wind over the bow; that slow speed also made them unable to participate in any proper naval fleet operations. There were more limitations that I wont go into detail with. The escort carriers almost never participated in actual naval combat. Their job was convoy escort and the support of marine landing forces during the Island hopping campaigns in 1944 and 1945 as mentioned in the video, as well as to act as aircraft ferries (how do thousands of lend lease aircraft get from the US to the UK and USSR when ranges are short and aerial refuel doesn't exist yet? By ship). They also neglected to mention that almost half of these ships were transferred to the British under the lend lease program to supplement their own construction, which could not keep up with demand. Those ships saw almost exclusive service in the Atlantic and European theater, where they almost always operated against german submarines only. Again, the escort carriers weren't even close in combat power to the light carriers, or god forbid a fleet carrier. If you are talking about actual naval engagments, meaning naval battles between the US fleets and the Japanese fleets, escort carriers were never a factor (except once when they got ambushed by a japanese surface fleet). Those naval battles were exclusively fought with the 5 pre war carriers and the Essexes and Independences. If the question arises how many carriers the US fielded against the japanese navy, the answer would be 5 + 9 + 24 = 38. Not over 150.

Billy Mitchell also said that aircraft carriers were obsolete due to the long range of land based bombers which was ABSOLUTELY WRONG!

@@randywarren7101 Mitchell maybe off on carriers (shouldn't be a surprise given his beef with the Navy) but he was right about air power effects on battleships.

Modern battleships were surprisingly hard to sink by aircraft (especially bombing). And even in 1941 aircraft were far less effective than they would become by the end of the war. Prince of Wales & Repulse were supposed to have an aircraft carrier (HMS Indomitable) sent to the Far East with them as part of Force Z. (Although some sources dispute this.) But HMS Indomitable ran aground in the Carribbean and needed repairs. Billy Mitchell's inter-war tests on sinking ships with bombs had many, many flaws - not least the use of obsolete pre-Dreadnaughts as targets and the fact they were stationary, not moving. Even by 1941 hitting a moving ship with level bombing was a matter of luck and had been widely abandoned. Even by the middle of the war, it was still difficult to sink ships under way by aerial bombing. (The Royal Navy had been intensively studying how to use aircraft to sink enemy ships since during WW1. And throughout WW2 they still concentrated on aerial torpedoes as the most effective method.) Although the RAF was critically short of planes in Malaya & Singapore, there were fighters available to give Force Z air cover during their voyage to attack the Japanese landings. But due to communication errors they didn't know what Force Z's intentions were. It wouldn't have taken much to protect Force Z. The Japanese bombers had only just been moved to French Indo China, but were still operating at the very limit of their range. A few fighters disrupting the Japanese bomber formations (as was RN doctrine for their carrier fighters), making them easier targets for the ship's AA guns & causing some to run low on fuel might have been enough to save Force Z. Even without any air cover, they were not quite the sitting ducks they are portrayed to be in popular histories. What doomed them was an extremely lucky torpedo hit on Prince of Wales, which hit outside her torpedo defenses just where one of the propeller shafts exited the hull. Until then both ships had managed to evade numerous torpedoes. The few bomb hits did no significant damage and the bombers alone almost certainly couldn't have sunk either ship. But any hits could damage/disrupt the ships AA defenses and command & control. As well as drawing fire from the torpedo bombers. To show how hard it is to sink a battleship by aerial bombing, in late 1943 it took a direct hit from a 1500Kg Fritz X guided bomb to sink the Italian battleship Roma (ex-Littorio), a very modern (& large - treaty breaking) battleship. But the smaller & much older WW1 vintage HMS Warspite survived a direct hit from a Fritz X. And numerous British attempts to destroy the German battleship Tirpitz (as a stationary target in a Norwegian fijord) failed. Until late in the war they eventually managed to score hits & a near miss with 5 tonne supersonic Tallboy bombs.

That first sentence has really good meter; very easy to sing it. Doug needs to rework his second line though. Maybe replace 'without air support' to 'un-attended'. Or, 'un-airtended' ? lol. The implied comma in the second sentence is after "sent", to fit the meter. :)

I mean, Billy Mitchell also lied about being the greatest video gamer of the century, so, who are you going to believe?

Thanks for watching!

If I remember correctly the Yankee Air museum at the Willow Run airport has a display featuring a navy plane at the bottom of Lake Michigan. It also features a brief history of the two fresh water carriers. Very nice air museum. Check it out if you are ever in Michigan.

It also had a massive impact on pop culture. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was fascinated by the history of the USS Enterprise and used it as the namesake of the starship in his TV series. As an aside, Roddenberry was also a WW2 veteran, serving with the USAAF and piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress in the Pacific Theater, as part of the 394th Bomb Squadron.

It's a shame it was preserved as a museum ship, CV-6 is pretty much legend status.

@@themiddlecase At some point in 1943 she was alone (and still damaged) for the entire Pacific. Before the essex were out, this was pretty tense with Lexington, Yorktown, wasp and Hornet gone. Lady Sara is the only one that survived with big E... waiting for the essex class, 25 of them in 1943-45.

They tried twice but failed. Cause the Navy said they would have to pay for everything to get her a pier or dock to stay in. All the maintenance ​@@themiddlecase

True, the name 'USS Enterprise' has been on 2 previous carriers before and another one will take a new carrier in the future so that's 3 overall. Interestingly, previous parts and metals of the predecessors are passed down generation to generation. As for the other carriers like the Essex class, I kind of wish the other ships were preserved as well. I mean come on, they fought other battles/wars too as well as enduring tragedies and enjoying victories. Only 4 are museums and 1 is a wreck diving site and the rest are all scrapped with bells, anchors and ship plaques of just names and photographs that remain. Then again, where would those ships be preserved in USA?

Well Taranto after all gave the Japanese the idea for Pearl Harbour, and that was done by a handful of Biplanes

@@devvy_01 the japanese already had plans for Pearl Harbour before Taranto happened, but that was the proof it would work and they studied the attack closely to refine their own attack plans.

​@@devvy_01 The IJN's plan to attack Pearl Harbor with carriers predates Taranto, although the Japanese did take great interest.

The Royal Navy opting for armoured flight deacks was indeed about survivability. They knew that war with Japan was likely to happen sometime and if it did they would be operating carriers on the other side of the world. In the North Sea, Atlantic & Mediterranean they would never be far from major repair facilities at home or in Alexandria. But neither Singapore, Australia or India had facilities for major repairs. (Churchill blocked the funding the RN requested to upgrade the facilities in Singapore & Australia when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1930s.) So minimising damage sustained so it could be repaired locally was vital. It's widely believed that Ark Royal (built as an 'unarmoured' carrier, with a larger air group) was built for the Pacific. But this is incorrect. She was built as the RN's 'strike carrier', to launch a large attack in one go (like the US designed their carriers for). But RN carrier doctrine from the very beginning (going back to WW1) was for multi-carrier operations. The plan was that Ark Royal would be held back, screened from the enemy by the armoured carriers (designed aroung continuous operations, not one big strike) ready to launch a large strike. But losing Courageous & Glorious so early in the war, and Churchill needlessly pausing work on the new carriers already under construction, limited their ability to operate carriers together. The numbers given for aircraft carried by different carriers is a bit misleading. The US & Japan carried extra aircraft parked on deck. The Royal Navy didn't do this, after losing so many deck parked aircraft in the 1920s; the rough seas of the North Atlantic & North Sea kept washing them overboard. Also the numbers given also include a significant number of non-operational spare aircraft. (The US used to suspend spare aircraft from the hangar ceiling and these often get included in the totals. The RN generally carried their spare aircraft crated.) So while the US carriers generally could operate a larger air group than RN carriers, the difference is not as great as the numbers suggest. Britain could have done what the US (& Japan) did with Lexington & Saratoga and convert two of the incomplete Admiral class battlecruisers (Hood's sisters) to carriers, they were allowed to under the Washington Naval Treaty. But whereas the US navy could concentrate their forces in the Pacific, the Royal Navy needed to cover almost the entire globe. The Royal Navy had to get as many aircraft carriers out of their treaty cumulative tonnage limit as they could, so they had to build smaller & more efficiently. So for their hull conversion carriers they chose Admiral Fisher's infamous WW1 'large light cruisers' - Courageous, Glorious & Furious and get 3 carriers for about the same displacement tonnage as the two US battlecruiser conversions.

@@ibex485 frankly I have to laugh at the claim that the number of aircraft in the British carriers were not that much less Looking at the record the average fleet carrier of the USN through the war operated a carrier air group of around 80 RN less than 50.

@@gruntforever7437 Again, you don't seem to have actually bothered to read what I wrote before responding. No such claim was made.

ROFL

I disappointed with the ending.

@@riff2072 I know, you wanted the big splash down too. But as far as time travel movies go that movie was a perfect time travel movie. Setting into motion events that had to happen for the present to be.

"Splash the Zeroes, I say again, splash the Zeroes..."

Aaaand just like that I hear the song. Thanks

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors tells that story well - for anyone that hasn't read it, strongly suggest doing so (Also Drach has a video on it, no surprise).

I had no idea Indy was going to go there and I spit coffee when I saw it. -Steve

Steve did a great job!

@@WorldWarTwo He sure did.

That is why having a massive industrial base is a plus, and why outsourcing that industry to China has proven to be a colossal mistake.

A lot of them were escort carriers though, which were a lot more easier to build.

​@@cpj93070correct. Of those 151 carriers, only about 33 were Essex class fleet carriers or Independence-class light fleet carriers.

@@kemarisite 33 Fleet Carriers is still an impressive number

​​@@cpj93070still 20 light Air craft carriers are more than the stipulate nowadays. Is a moustrosus quantity of material, also 130 escort still are an issue because you need crew supplies, navy construction material and factories and shipyards for production, maintenance and repair.

Need to keep all the old names alive. We don't need another carrier named after Kennedy. We need one names Saratoga or Constellation or Ranger, not named after politicians. Yes, I know Kennedy served in the Navy. I want to remake the movie PT-109, only this with Predator. Unfortunately, any vision I have of Kennedy and his crew escaping that island results in the Predator watching them escape, vowing to not stop until he gets that man and the movie's final scene going: Dallas, Twenty Years Later. Not quite sure how I got derailed to the point of claiming Predator did it. Makes about as much sense as any other conspiracy theory only it looks cooler on the big screen.

Yamamoto tried to warm his superiors that the American economy would be insurmountable if mobilized.

they 100% did, Yamamoto stressed if they went to war with the US they'd have to sweep them off the board immediately as the longer the war went on, the stronger the US would get

the japanese were well aware of this fact, its postwar myths that persist which lead to people thinking the japanese were incompetent and ignorant it wasnt even just yamamoto who was aware of this, practically all of the japanese navy general staff acknowledged this fact which is why they werent optimistic against a full victory against the US their goal was to capture as much territory as possible using surprise and local naval superiority, dig in and pray that they can inflict enough casualties against US landings to cause enough attrition to retain their empires possessions after a negotiated peace this was assuming that they could retain an extremely high kill to loss ratio across all their branches (which ended up being the opposite) and the US population would eventually grow tired of war, but the delay in declaring war to the US before the attack on pearl harbour had significant repercussions for this doctrine for what its worth, japan punched WELL ABOVE its weight in ww2 but nothing would eventually change the swarm of essex class carriers and thousands of pilots aboard them obliterating the IJN in the latter years of the pacific

Japanese military leaders were aware of US production capabilities but the more hawkish among them hand-waved it, believing Japan could score a decisive victory over the United States before American industry could be fully utilized. The Japanese made a similar mistake as the Germans while planning Operation Barbarossa. Similar to Hitler's belief that they "merely needed to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come down, " they believed their enemy lacked resolve and if a truly decisive blow was stuck, the US would seek peace on terms favorable to Japan.

All comments are 11 likes it’s 11 11 11 is that a coincidence I think not 😅

Thanks! -TimeGhost Ambassador

@@WorldWarTwo that reply was ridiculously quick. Your activity in the comments is a big part of what makes the TG Army feel like a family. And I’m not just talking about the on air talent. It’s all of you in the background who have helped to make the most detailed account of WW2 in history. Time Ghost is becoming the definitive source, especially with your standard of not injecting any personal politics into your videos. Thanks so much, to EVERYONE behind the scenes, for making something so important.

Hard to separate out the impact of carriers from the impact of 10-cm radar, which was a massive force-multiplier for Allied aircraft. Spotting a periscope visually was exceedingly difficult even for a well-trained pilot; with radar, it was a snap.

(Enterprise upon spotting the enemy) Enterprise: Go my children.

Thank you for sharing.

Drachinifel also has a great video on the subject.

@@fguocokgyloeu4817 Was going to post the same comment :-)

Well just tell us the basic gist of what was wrote?

@@cpj93070 quicker to repair flight deck damage. Larger plane capacity, less threat of dive/level bomb attack. (The British was operating in the Med and North Atlantic where the theat of land based aircraft was significantly higher and thus opted for armored flight decks)

As soon as they were free from the treaty tonnage limits and could build the carriers they really wanted all along, the US Navy adopted armoured flight decks too. The Essex class were always designed to be their mass produced quickly carrier, as they knew war with Japan was almost certain (and the war in Europe was already underway). Reducing the armour allowed them to be built much quicker and without competing as much with other warships for limited production of steel armour. The classes of carrier which came before the Essexes were all constrained in size by the Washington & London Naval Treaties. It wasn't until the Midway class that the US Navy was free of these restrictions. They were the kind of carrier they had wanted all along. They also benefitted from the wartime experience of the British carriers - the USN was able to examine battle damaged RN carriers in detail when they were sent to the US for major repairs. And experience of operating a British carrier (HMS Victorious) when it was loaned to the USN in December 1942 when the US were reduced to a single operational carrier in the Pacific. But it's highly likely they would have gone for armoured flight decks anyway. The Royal Navy went through a similar generational process with their carriers. The never completed Malta class were their equivalent generation to the Midways, and the Audacious class (only completed after the end of the war) equivelent to the Essexes.

Really like this channel, but when the conversation started at Pearl Harbour I had to switch straight off. Taranto was the beginning of the change and the Japanese learnt from that.

I guess we should thank the Brits for teaching the Japanese how to attack Pearl?

Yes but that's Iike comparing Waterloo to the Somme. Taranto was a masterstroke for sure but this video is about Carrier fleet tactics not just the use aircraft carriers. As inspired as Taranto was it was done as one option among many and frankly probably shouldn't have succeeded with how much went wrong. But the air arm had its day and if the Japanese could do anything it was learn and plan. What followed was the movement of the world's largest carrier fleet across thousands of miles of open ocean past several early warning and patrol sites and the flawless deployment of hundreds of aircraft using specialized weapons to render a fleet twice the size of the one at Taranto completely inept with minimal losses. Taranto was a proof of concept to Pearl Harbors practical application at scale.

Exactly especially since we invented the thing, why would you start from Pearl Harbour and not give any background on the start of what actually was the reason to build carriers in the first place?

​@@r3d5ive87 it is not just Taranto, IJN learned from Brits

But probably mostly attributed to Stalin.

*laughs in T-34*

Thanks for watching!

Escort carriers were essentially cargo ships with a flight deck on top. Never compare them to actual real aircraft carriers. They are worlds apart in capabilities. Its like saying a Humvee has the same combat power as an M1 Abrams tank. The number of actual fleet carriers that were completed during WW2 was 17 Essex class ships. Still very impressive of course, no other nation came close to that.

Wrong. That was NOT the value of escort carriers at all. That was the only time during the entire war any of the escort carriers saw action against surface ships. Out of over 120 ships, a handful of them saw enemy warships ONCE. Their value lied mostly in convoy escort (thus protecting merchant ships against submarines) and ferrying aircraft from A to B, mostly from the US to the UK, as well as supporting amphibious landings. Their strength was their ease of construction (which also made them rather bad at doing carrier things) because that meant you could have aircrafts in locations you otherwise couldnt.

And thanks to Steve for working on this one!

The 120+ escort carriers were essentially cargo ships with a flight deck on top. The US built hundreds of cargo ships during the war. The escort carriers construction style had basically nothing to do with the proper fleet carriers. Of those, the US finished 17 during the war and 7 after its end. Plus 9 light carriers during the war, which were based on cruiser hulls, and thus were actually built to good military standards and could operate together with a battlefleet (which the escort carriers could not). The number of carriers that could actually realistically be brought to combat against the japanese navy, was 31. 5 of the 7 pre war carriers (Lexington and Yorktown classes), plus 17 Essex class, plus 9 Independence class (which were much, much smaller than the others). Comparing the different carrier types is like comparing an M1 Abrams tank and a Humvee. They dont even have close to the smae combat power, and are used for very different things. And both are needed.

Well, there weren't any carrier-to-carrier battles at all from Santa Cruz until the Philippine Sea in June 1944. The air aspect of the Solomons campaign was basically done by the USAAF with a few Marine squadrons thrown in for variety. Essentially, each side's prewar carrier fleet destroyed the other (Harry Turtledove, in one of his alternate history novels, has a character describe those early war battles as the equivalent of "a duel with submachine guns at three paces" because of how mutually destructive they were), but the US was able to rebuild theirs (ours, for me, being an American) far more effectively.

That's pretty cool to know

Given the enormous casualty rates among Japanese Navy personnel of all stripes, it's somewhat astonishing that both Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida survived the war basically unscathed. Fuchida even somehow managed to survive being sent to Hiroshima shortly after the bombing. The man had a charmed life.

@@DarklordZagarna Fuchida became a Farmer and a Christian missionary and met his war hero in the 1950's admiral Nimitz! Genda retired to a quiet life and was technical consultant on the original movie of Midway! And he met the hero of the famous battle while filming the movie!

Thanks for watching! -TimeGhost Ambassador

Thanks! Indy really turned it up to 11, along with James, our main writer. Looking at my notes, sources and what I wrote and then the episode shows how much work everyone else put into this. -Steve

It was effective, and it had the advantage which many others lacked of being able to replace anything lost in battle fairly quickly. That's what ended up stopping the Axis navies who could not replace battle losses at all.

Steve here- I was going for a broad overview of the matter, and trusting that the finer points would come up in the comments ;) -TimeGhost Ambassador

Two future Presidents served aboard Independence-class carriers: Gerald Ford and George HW Bush. No other class of carriers can make that claim.

It was the last part you mentioned that totally sealed the fate of Battleships as a useful Naval warfare tool, A similar scenario is being seen as the future today with massed drones replacing piloted planes.

Steve here. I got involved in this episode because I'd found and purchased Admiral Whitehead's sword, his uniform is on display at the naval museum in Chicago. The whole story of the Great Lakes station is fascinating. -TimeGhost Ambassador

I've seen those, such an amazing legacy and important regional history. -TimeGhost Ambassador

Thanks! -Steve

The role played by 5,000 Lend Lease carrier aircraft and 38 escort carriers is often overlooked.

Didn't stop with WW2 either. Routine steam catapult launches (means far less deck space taken up for takeoffs), the angled deck and the optical landing system were all late war innovations pioneered by the RN and adopted postwar by the USN.

@@kenoliver89135,000 carrier aircraft Lend Leased to Britain in addition to Wildcats "transferred" and purchased prior to LL. RN carriers used cats because the decks were too short and ships too slow to launch when there was no wind. Angle deck was post war. Deck edge elevator which allowed larger aircraft and uninterrupted deck operations were fitted to RN carriers under Lend Lease. Battleships or Carriers ? CONDUCT OF THE WAR. HL Deb 01 July 1942 vol 123 cc551-613 "In this connexion I could not help being struck by a telegram in the Daily Telegraph to-day in which Admiral Cunningham was asked his opinion on the future of the battleship which has been a subject of controversy in the United States since a decision was made to concentrate on producing aircraft carriers. Admiral Cunningham said it was too early yet to say that the battleship was obsolete, though at present the type might be considered to be obsolescent. The future, he said, might lie with some hybrid type of carrier-combat vessel. That is a great advance. I hope the Government will look into that question and see whether the right proportion between the types of ships is being properly preserved. I noticed in that connexion that the noble Lord, Lord Winster, recently writing in another paper, said he wanted to do away with the battleship. Generally he does not agree with me, but in this case I hope to-day he will go further and agree with much of what I have said. I am well aware of the criticism I shall bring down on my head for even asking such a question as this from 604 the naval authorities who sit in this House, but they have not hesitated in the past to make suggestions about the air, and so I now make these suggestions about naval communications."

@@kenoliver8913 FLEET AIR ARM. HL Deb 27 January 1943 vol 125 cc794-829 There is a controversy between those who say that the Admiralty did not get what it wanted for the Fleet Air Arm and those who say that the Admiralty was not very clever at explaining what exactly it 796 was that it wanted. I noticed quite recently that Air Marshal Dowding has gone on record as saying that the Admiralty got precisely the types which it specified and demanded. Then there is the Martlet (Wildcat). As to the output of these firms, they were persuaded to give up some aircraft which were going in other directions in order that we might be supplied 808 with essential aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm.

"The Royal Navy was using carriers in the war well before the Americans" Take any two contemporary RN carriers with British aircraft and put them at Coral Sea or three for Midway, how does that play out ?

"In this connexion I could not help being struck by a telegram in the Daily Telegraph to-day in which Admiral Cunningham was asked his opinion on the future of the battleship which has been a subject of controversy in the United States since a decision was made to concentrate on producing aircraft carriers. Admiral Cunningham said it was too early yet to say that the battleship was obsolete, though at present the type might be considered to be obsolescent. The future, he said, might lie with some hybrid type of carrier-combat vessel. That is a great advance. I hope the Government will look into that question and see whether the right proportion between the types of ships is being properly preserved. I noticed in that connexion that the noble Lord, Lord Winster, recently writing in another paper, said he wanted to do away with the battleship. Generally he does not agree with me, but in this case I hope to-day he will go further and agree with much of what I have said. I am well aware of the criticism I shall bring down on my head for even asking such a question as this from 604 the naval authorities who sit in this House, but they have not hesitated in the past to make suggestions about the air, and so I now make these suggestions about naval communications." CONDUCT OF THE WAR. HL Deb 01 July 1942 vol 123 cc551-613

Thanks lol. Indy smites, Spartacus brings the hurt to fools, and I quietly delete the worst stuff. -Steve

@@WorldWarTwo a man who owns an anti-tank weapon doesn't strike me as the sort to "quietly" do things 🤣

Speak softly and carry a big stick. -TimeGhost Ambassador

I'm an American with a recreational anti tank rocket launcher in my office. What leash? And thanks for joining! -Steve