Battle of the hochwald gap!

Today or yesterday (depending on where you live) was the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Phillipine Sea.

When the US landed in Saipan, the Japanese responded with a massive carrier attack (supported by aircraft from land bases), the first major Japanese carrier operation in a year and a half. Numerically, at least, this was the largest Japanese carrier force ever committed to battle and was faced by the largest and most powerful fleet ever put together in the history of warfare up to that point, America’s Fast Carrier Task Force.

Due to the sharp decline of Japanese pilot quality and a massive technological and numerical advantage from the American side, the Japanese 1st Mobile Fleet was dealt a giant defeat, losing 3 carriers and irreverisble numbers of aircraft for essentially no results.

The battle saw the combat debut of Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, arguablly one of the best Japanese carrier commanders, in command of a major Japanese carrier force. Previously Ozawa commanded various fleets and formations containing carriers, but never the Kido Butai (or its successor, the 1st Mobile Fleet) in combat.

That’s a very good point Garg. That’s exactly what is. Wasn’t quite what I was expecting

@ABWorsham:

……would Hitler reframed from invading the USSR in 1941?

No, I am pretty sure Adolf would have attacked Russia at some point no matter what. Living space in the East was the main objective of Hitlers master plan. He wrote about it in his book Mein Kampf as far back as the 1920 ies.  There are no way Hitler would have reframed from attacking USSR as soon as possible, and the reason he had to wait until 1941 was because France and UK messed up his plans.

Thank you for looking into that, Worsham.
I am aware Rommel was often short of good German tanks, that is why I made my comment.

@Gargantua:

Whats a plan orange battle?

Plan Orange was a U.S plan to defeat the Japanese in a large Jutland type battle in between the war years.

Thanks Clyde. Really was a big event and the town getting involved too, is great.  Working WW2 vehicles and the noise makes for a realistic experience.
Suppose you could visit Gettysburg afterwards!

CWOMarc,

I grew up watching war movies with my Dad and now have a decent colection on DVD, maybe 250+.

Although he(my Dad) is a BIG “Patton” fan, and that’s his all-time favorite war movie, he always said “Battleground” was the best for showing how it really was.

He still phones me whenever either Patton, or Battleground come on TV. I’ve made sure he has those and several others to watch whenever he wants to.

Thanks for your suggestions.

“Tall Paul”

I know you didn’t ask me but, If I could have set up a rondezvous with a supply ship, with food, fuel and ammo (although I am pretty sure the GS had plenty even after the fight) and had enough food and fuel to make that rondevous then I might have risked making a run for it, at night, trying to avoid a general fight. Get past the cruisers, try to out run them and lose them if possible. But it would have been difficult and all the cruisers had to do was shadow. German (or even Spanish)  ports were awfully far away. And eventually something bigger would show up if I couldn’t lose them.

If I could not arrange the resupply then no, it would have been a waste to even try
and ship’s captains rarely make suicide charges…some do but not most. A ship would have to have a decent shot at making some friendly port.

And the River Plate while wide at its mouth and looks very big in maps/photos (Montivedio is on the big entrence) is not a very manueverable body of water, (we were in port at Buenos Aires once) you would be forced to stay in the channel for quite some distance and given how the Brits fight they probably would have violated the soverignty and fired on the ship in the channel. Who knows?

I spent 6 years at sea and any sailor with an ounce of salt learns to respect the power and danger of the seas. Sailors have two enemies, the other guy on the other ship and the ocean. Get beaten by one and you might not (if they don’t pick you up) survive the other.

German ships did elude the British Radar many times during the war, not sure if any of these ships had it.

You know the more I think about it making a run was probably, given the cirumstances, not a good idea.