IJN attacks vs defended islands: Ceylon compared to Midway

[FLYBOYJ]

With all due respect to the men who served, most only know what they were told at the time.

The fact that they flew plane XXX in combat does NOT mean that they knew how or why it was designed the way it was. The men who knew that were in the design offices of the aircraft factory and in the purchasing agencies or air ministries.

The men who served are telling their stories to the best of their knowledge, trouble is if some rear area 'bozo' gave them bad information and it was never corrected the fact that the Veteran repeates that information in his story does not make it true. Many P-38 pilots were taught to cruise at high rpm and low boost by the USAAF in direct contradiction of the recommendations of both Lockheed and Allison for example.

Now who knows better what the cruise procedure should have been? The engine maker? the Airplane maker? 20 year old pilot who got bad information but flew in combat until he rotated home/to another unit before the corrections reached him?

Same with a lot of other "facts". Ask any cop about how accurate "eye witnesses" are. Or how well they agree.

The stories of the men who were 'there' are interesting and can shed light on many things but please remember that each man's view point is also shaped by his experiences, training, and exact location in a given action. Very few pilots were in a position to 'see' and entire action and many had trouble keeping track of more than a few planes at a time. Range estimations should also be taken with a very large dose of salt. The ranges given in combat reports are what the pilots "believed" them to be. I don't know about other air forces but when the RAF tested pilots in training (and used ground observers and analyzed gun camera footage they found the average pilot was opening fire about 2-3 times further away than he though he was. Instead of opening fire at 300yds they were shooting at the target sleeves at 500-800 yds. This is without the adrenaline of actual combat and with a gun sight that could be set for range (adjust range scale for expected wingspan of target.)

The men are not intentionally lying. They are telling the story as accurately as they can. Unfortunately it may not be 100% accurate.

You're impeaching the credibility of dead men, not on their sincerity, as you say, but on their perception. These are fact-witnesses who are unavailable to respond. Let's appreciate that. Let's let the totality of the facts, their testimony included, tell us the story.

How many years did some members of the AVG say they fought aganst the Zero when in fact it was known Zeros weren't anywhere near the area of China where the AVG operated??? No disrespect to their stories, but facts are facts.

 

[gjs238]

In many books, even from the US authors, we can read that V-1710 lacked supercharger.

How many years did some members of the AVG say they fought aganst the Zero when in fact it was known Zeros weren't anywhere near the area of China where the AVG operated??? No disrespect to their stories, but facts are facts.

Some of this, but of course not all, is from terminology/jargon in use at the time.
Today every kid has heard of a turbocharger, so we sometimes get confused because back in the day turbosuperchargers were often referred to simply as a supercharger.

I suspect the same was happening with the term "Zero."
Today we use the term precisely, but back in the day a Zero could me most any Japanese fighter.

I'm pretty sure we've discussed this on other threads.

 

[Shortround6]

How many years did some members of the AVG say they fought aganst the Zero when in fact it was known Zeros weren't anywhere near the area of China where the AVG operated??? No disrespect to their stories, but facts are facts.

You can also go through British pilot combat reports of 1940 and find they shot down more He 113s (He 100) than the Germans ever built, and since none of them were used by a combat unit in France or the low countries?????

 

[Shortround6]

I find it interesting how/why the M1911 pistol was adopted - then "retired" - and now being used again:

For a real confusion of "stories" vs facts look at the adoption of the sub-sonic 9mm load by a number of police departments.
They got rid of .38 specials firing .357in dia 158 grain bullets at around 800-850fps from revolvers and after several gyrations of guns/cartridges and bullets somehow decided that a 9mm (.355in dia) 147 grain bullet with a MV of 950fps was gods gift to police departments. After all it was the choice of a number of special forces units, it must be good???.

The special forces were using it in silenced submachine guns/carbines to get rid of the 'crack' of the bullet upon firing. Not because it was all that great a "man stopper". They used it their pistols so as to have one type of 9mm ammo in the unit. Some of the pistols may have had suppressors too. A need the police did NOT have.
It took a while but the sub-sonic 147 grain 9mm load has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo for police use.

A case where a little bit of knowledge was a dangerous thing. Looking for a 'better' cartridge for your police department? Don't bother to do any of your own testing or even read a bunch of technical reports, just use what "Delta Force" (or clone/s) are using.

 

[gjs238]

Yes, and what of the Nazi UFO sightings?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

You can also go through British pilot combat reports of 1940 and find they shot down more He 113s (He 100) than the Germans ever built, and since none of them were used by a combat unit in France or the low countries?????

Or the Me 209s that Bob Johnson shot down...

Fold3 Viewer

 

[VBF-13]

Today we use the term precisely, but back in the day a Zero could me most any Japanese fighter.

"Meatballs." Ever hear that one? Guaranteed political correctness keeps that one out of Wikipedia.

 

[gjs238]

"Meatballs." Ever hear that one? Guaranteed political correctness keeps that one out of Wikipedia.

Yes, growing up watching the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep (later syndicated as Black Sheep Squadron).

PS: OK, you can stop laughing now

 

[Timppa]

From Wiki:

The poor performance of the Buffalo at Midway later prompted Finnish Air Force ace Hans Wind to develop new combat tactics for the FAF Brewster, which were later used with remarkable success in 1942 and 1943 against the Soviet Air Force during the Continuation War

This is total baloney, of course.

 

[VBF-13]

Yes, growing up watching the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep (later syndicated as Black Sheep Squadron).

PS: OK, you can stop laughing now

I'm not laughing, I heard it in a Robert Mitchum movie.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Crow, the Americans didn't have a monopoly on ignorance. The Japanese had ignorant ideas, too, of the Americans. Both were as erroneous.

No doubt true, but we were discussing the specific Lord text regarding the response of the USMC pilots, not whether there was mutual cultural ignorance.

I sat for many hours with pilots in my Dad's club. How can I verify what they said? Does that mean it didn't happen? Hardly.

First person accounts are certainly a good starting source of information on any event historic or otherwise but must be processed and integrated with other eye- witness accounts or contemporary records to create a coherent whole picture of what most probably happened; certainty being ever elusive. Human perceptions are notoriously flawed and the magnitude of the flaws are, at least in part, a complex function of the experience and reliability of the witness weighted by the stress or task-load the witness may be under during the event.

Lord got a lot of his stuff that way, through interviews of survivors. He also did first-hand, extensive research, in both countries. He didn't lean on "academics," like some schmuck. This was a Princeton history scholar, a Yale Law grad, and lawyer. This was a man of high intellectual accomplishment who knew how to fact-check and who wasn't going to say anything he wasn't sure of. Don't hold his style of writing against him. Better still, look him up. This was a David McCullough. You don't look for footnotes in men like those.

Words have specific meaning: Scholar, Avocational are two we have each used here:

Definition of 'scholar': Two most relevant definitions according to:
Scholar - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1. a person who attends a school or studies under a teacher
2. a person who has done advanced study in a special field
3. a learned person

According to the Oxford Dictionary:
scholar: definition of scholar in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

1. A specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities; a distinguished academic:

archaic usage listed in both dictionaries are more general in scope, probably because in times past, higher education was more rare in the population and the few that could read or attended any level of schooling were probably considered 'scholars'.

However vague the meaning in common usage, a scholar in this sense, is either an academic (i.e. possessing an earned Ph.D.-holding Professor or Museum curator or acknowledged expert based upon a collected body of work validating the person as a specialist in a particular field of study.

Avocation: according to:

Avocation - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1. A subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one's vocation especially for enjoyment.

avocation: definition of avocation in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

A hobby or minor occupation.

Lord graduated from Princeton and then as you have pointed out, he attended Law School at Yale and apparently became for an unknown period, a lawyer. He also worked for a period as a copywriter for an ad agency. His vocation was the law and apparently some period in advertising, his avocation was history. That doesn't diminish the quality of his writing or his research.

Lord graduated with a Bachelor's degree in history in 1939. That, in and of itself, does not make one a 'history scholar' except in the archaic sense of being studious or more generally a serious student. Making it a phrase "history scholar" changes the word's meaning to the former specific definition. "a person who has done advanced study in a special field" Like some other notable authors, Lord may have done a senior project creating an edited commentary of Arthur Fremantle's diary, which formed the basis for his first published work in 1954. Whatever was the source he was working in an ad agency when it was published.

What he did with his avocational interests after he graduated from Princeton earned him the well deserved accolade of scholar but he earned it as avocational historian. He may have learned the obvious rigor of his research from some excellent teachers. I don't know. But the quality of his research and the writing speak for itself. Day of Infamy is a masterpiece, like Incredible Victory and Night to Remember.

Lord like McCullugh (an English literature major as an undergraduate), successfully turned an avocational interest into a vocation.

This is not uncommon in many fields of inquiry, particularly the humanities. Avocational interests blossom and the so-called amateur often makes significant contributions to disciplines outside of their vocational pursuits. This occurs frequently in the arts and also the sciences, particularly astronomy and archaeology to name just two fields that have greatly benefited by the work of dedicated amateurs. I was not maligning Lord when I referred to him as "avocational" merely describing the fact that he came to his life's work through a different door. Lundstrom is a museum curator, Bill Bartsch is a professor of history. Harold L. Buell, an SBD and SB2C pilot in WW2, was a Ph.D. and Professor of History at Florida State. Thadeus Tuleja was apparently a professor of history.

I believe the first priority of both Lord and McCullough is the story they are telling which is not to say they didn't do rigorous research. I expect Lord was happy to incorporate the versions of certain "academics" with whom he interacted: most of all, the widely accepted version of Midway history provided by Samuel E. Morison. Unfortunately, as has been related here on numerous occasions, that source is very flawed and Lord's story reflects those flaws. I always check the sources of any historical treatise especially when one raises obvious but unanswered questions about events being addressed as did Lord's book. In my recollection, Tuleja, an academic historian's version of Midway is one of the most flawed of all, but he at least recognized and identified the historical inaccuracies or inconsistencies in prior accounts and attempted to address them.

 

[gjs238]

From Wiki:

The poor performance of the Buffalo at Midway later prompted Finnish Air Force ace Hans Wind to develop new combat tactics for the FAF Brewster, which were later used with remarkable success in 1942 and 1943 against the Soviet Air Force during the Continuation War.[47] Wind's combat tactics, which emphasized diving speed and zoom climbs, were much the same as Claire Chennault's advice for employing the Curtiss P-40B against the A6M Zero in Burma and China.[47] Chennault's report on the Zero and air combat reached Washington in 1941, where it was disseminated to aviation forces of the U.S. Army and Navy.[48] This information, along with the development of two-plane mutual defensive formations and tactics, were incorporated into U.S. and Marine Corps air combat training doctrine by some prescient U.S. commanders, including Lieutenant Commander "Jimmy" Thach. The Thach Weave was developed for use by Wildcat pilots against the Zero, and was later adopted by other Wildcat squadrons in the Pacific.[48]

I don't think the performance of the Buffalo at Midway had any impact on Finnish tactics. The cited link makes no such claim, merely observing that Soviet pilots used poor tactics and that the Finns used three-dimensional tactics that successfully countered the flat circles adopted by their adversary. How would the Finns get any knowledge of the tactics employed by the USMC pilots at Midway? The combat reports would be classified and I just don't see that data being shared. Even if it was, the Finns were flying the lighter, more manoeuverable F2A-1 which offered more tactical options than the sluggish -3 used by the USMC. 'Fraid this is a case of Wiki barking up completely the wrong tree.

Good find.
I just removed that bit from the Wikipedia article.

 

[Juha]

Oh no gjs
that article of Wiki seems to be complete BS, LLv 24 used boom and zoom from the beginning of the Continuation War (25 June 41 - 4 Sept 44) against I-153s but tried to lure MiG-3s to low-level turning combats, it was simply to use the advantages of one's own plane against the weaknesses of the enemy's plane. The tactics were developed in LLv 24 before Wind arrived there as a green junior officer in Aug 41. What Wind did later was that he wrote a short "training manual" for a fighter pilot course after consulting with other experienced pilots in his unit.

Juha

 

[VBF-13]

No doubt true, but we were discussing the specific Lord text regarding the response of the USMC pilots, not whether there was mutual cultural ignorance.

First person accounts are certainly a good starting source of information on any event historic or otherwise but must be processed and integrated with other eye- witness accounts or contemporary records to create a coherent whole picture of what most probably happened; certainty being ever elusive. Human perceptions are notoriously flawed and the magnitude of the flaws are, at least in part, a complex function of the experience and reliability of the witness weighted by the stress or task-load the witness may be under during the event.

Words have specific meaning: Scholar, Avocational are two we have each used here:

Definition of 'scholar': Two most relevant definitions according to:
Scholar - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1. a person who attends a school or studies under a teacher
2. a person who has done advanced study in a special field
3. a learned person

According to the Oxford Dictionary:
scholar: definition of scholar in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

1. A specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities; a distinguished academic:

archaic usage listed in both dictionaries are more general in scope, probably because in times past, higher education was more rare in the population and the few that could read or attended any level of schooling were probably considered 'scholars'.

However vague the meaning in common usage, a scholar in this sense, is either an academic (i.e. possessing an earned Ph.D.-holding Professor or Museum curator or acknowledged expert based upon a collected body of work validating the person as a specialist in a particular field of study.

Avocation: according to:

Avocation - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1. A subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one's vocation especially for enjoyment.

avocation: definition of avocation in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

A hobby or minor occupation.

Lord graduated from Princeton and then as you have pointed out, he attended Law School at Yale and apparently became for an unknown period, a lawyer. He also worked for a period as a copywriter for an ad agency. His vocation was the law and apparently some period in advertising, his avocation was history. That doesn't diminish the quality of his writing or his research.

Lord graduated with a Bachelor's degree in history in 1939. That, in and of itself, does not make one a 'history scholar' except in the archaic sense of being studious or more generally a serious student. Making it a phrase "history scholar" changes the word's meaning to the former specific definition. "a person who has done advanced study in a special field" Like some other notable authors, Lord may have done a senior project creating an edited commentary of Arthur Fremantle's diary, which formed the basis for his first published work in 1954. Whatever was the source he was working in an ad agency when it was published.

What he did with his avocational interests after he graduated from Princeton earned him the well deserved accolade of scholar but he earned it as avocational historian. He may have learned the obvious rigor of his research from some excellent teachers. I don't know. But the quality of his research and the writing speak for itself. Day of Infamy is a masterpiece, like Incredible Victory and Night to Remember.

Lord like McCullugh (an English literature major as an undergraduate), successfully turned an avocational interest into a vocation.

This is not uncommon in many fields of inquiry, particularly the humanities. Avocational interests blossom and the so-called amateur often makes significant contributions to disciplines outside of their vocational pursuits. This occurs frequently in the arts and also the sciences, particularly astronomy and archaeology to name just two fields that have greatly benefited by the work of dedicated amateurs. I was not maligning Lord when I referred to him as "avocational" merely describing the fact that he came to his life's work through a different door. Lundstrom is a museum curator, Bill Bartsch is a professor of history. Harold L. Buell, an SBD and SB2C pilot in WW2, was a Ph.D. and Professor of History at Florida State. Thadeus Tuleja was apparently a professor of history.

I believe the first priority of both Lord and McCullough is the story they are telling which is not to say they didn't do rigorous research. I expect Lord was happy to incorporate the versions of certain "academics" with whom he interacted: most of all, the widely accepted version of Midway history provided by Samuel E. Morison. Unfortunately, as has been related here on numerous occasions, that source is very flawed and Lord's story reflects those flaws. I always check the sources of any historical treatise especially when one raises obvious but unanswered questions about events being addressed as did Lord's book. In my recollection, Tuleja, an academic historian's version of Midway is one of the most flawed of all, but he at least recognized and identified the historical inaccuracies or inconsistencies in prior accounts and attempted to address them.

Crow, I can't address all the issues in this, now get serious. This is easy. It doesn't turn on sweeping condemnations. Show us your evidence. That's all you have to do. Simply pick out a statement of this author and show us your evidence he's off-base. This is typically where a "helper" comes in. Come on in, I don't care who I hear it from. Just one statement, that's all. Pick it out, and come forward with your countervailing evidence. Let's see it. If you think you can.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Crow, I can't address all the issues in this, now get serious. This is easy. It doesn't turn on sweeping condemnations. Show us your evidence. That's all you have to do. Simply pick out a statement of this author and show us your evidence he's off-base. This is typically where a "helper" comes in. Come on in, I don't care who I hear it from. Just one statement, that's all. Pick it out, and come forward with your countervailing evidence. Let's see it. If you think you can.

What made you think I wasn't being serious? What sweeping condemnations? If I had made sweeping unfounded condemnations, I expect others besides you would have brought me up short. Evidence of what? Lord's use of flawed accounts?

Let's see? One error would be his parroting of Fuchida and Okiyama's (and Morrison's I believe) numbers of aircraft remaining on Hiryu after launching two strikes on Yorktown. How many does Lord cite? I believe the number is exactly the same as cited in Morrison and Fuchida, all of whom should have known better.

Here are two sources that report pretty much what I have said before: that Lord used flawed sources that he should have questioned. He didn't question them or the motivations of his sources.

example 1:

Divebombers, Mr. Rico! Zillions of ?em! | Wargame_[space]

"Both Walter Lord and Gordon Prange conducted a number of interviews with Japanese survivors of the battle (often using intermediaries) and incorporated their views in their excellent histories. But among the sources in translation, the most influential was a memoir by [eyewitness] Mitsuo Fuchida (with Masatake Okumiya) published in America as Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story…

Alas, as Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully demonstrate in their book Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005) Fuchida had an agenda of his own, which was to suggest just how close the Japanese had come to delivering a coup de grâce against the Americans, and as a result, not everything in his book can be taken at face value. Parshall has charged that "it is doubtful that any one person has had a more deleterious long-term impact on the study of the Pacific War than Mitsuo Fuchida." (Parshall, "Reflecting on Fuchida, or 'A Tale of Three Whoppers,'" Naval War College Review 63, no. 2 (Spring 2010) 127-38."

2. from: Explaining the ?Miracle? at Midway

"Lord's narrative description of the battle incorporated Fuchida and Okumiya's view of the imminent launch of the Japanese strike against the American carrier force and the attack of American dive-bombers happening within minutes of each other.9 Lord's conclusions would also mirror those of The Battle that Doomed Japan.

If I had a copy of the book and could spend the time, I'd doubtless find plenty of errors in scholarship based, upon sources that come to light in the last half century. Lord himself may not have been a mean spirited person but he listened either first or second hand, to people who were not so generous, yet styled by the navy's establishment as "Great American Naval leaders" who clearly had their own agendas.

Lord's is a great and well written book for its time, but even a great and well written book that stirs the soul can be historically inaccurate.

 

[VBF-13]

"Both Walter Lord and Gordon Prange conducted a number of interviews with Japanese survivors of the battle (often using intermediaries) and incorporated their views in their excellent histories. But among the sources in translation, the most influential was a memoir by [eyewitness] Mitsuo Fuchida (with Masatake Okumiya) published in America as Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story.

OK, you're continuing to pile allegations on top of allegations, none of which are supported by facts. You're continuing to be long on allegations and short on facts. Let me illustrate that with just this second sentence. Where did this second sentence, that allegation, come from? I inquire as it's imminently plain it didn't come from Lord. To wit, neither of these gentlemen are even in Lord's list of contributors. Take a look at that list. Verify that fact for yourself. It's not an allegation. You'll find it in the back of the book.

This is vicarious character assassination, isn't it? Sure it is. It's lumping Lord together with others whose characters are being called into question. Again, show us the evidence, show us the facts, we have good eyesight. You want to discredit someone, that's how I suggest you do it. You don't do it on mere allegations piled on top of mere allegations.

I'm wanting to be persuaded, Crow, if you can to it. Don't hold it against me I'm not giving you bacon. You got enough bacon.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

To be fair to VBF, I have to include the analysis found at the Battle of Midway Roundtable. This is a forum consisting of a collection of scholars discussing the battle in some detail. They list Lord's book as ranked number 4 among the source material in their collective Library:

Battle of Midway RoundTable

The following descriptive comment is made there:

"Its faults are few and minor, and can generally be attributed to the limits of known and unclassified information in 1967."

It is worth noting that Shattered Sword is ranked no. 2. Cressman's Glorious Page is number 3. While Layton's And I was there is number 6. Prange is number 8. Lundstrom's First Team is number 7 with the following caveat:

"The book is essentially devoid of the common errors found in other works. The only reason it is not higher on the list is because the Battle of Midway only comprises the last chapter of the book, about 140 pages. Nevertheless, its Midway chapter is widely regarded as one of the most accurate accounts of the battle."

Perhaps not surprising, I tend to disagree with the ranking because I judge the errors in Lord to be of somewhat greater consequence than they allow. Not a lot greater but enough to drop it by perhaps a few rungs. My guess is that the status it enjoys is at least in part the result of a particularly american bias based upon the quality of Lord's writing and the implicit patriotism it may invoke.

As an example see: the WSJ review of the roundtable's number 1 ranked Symond's BOM book by Hornfischer.

Book Review: The Battle of Midway - WSJ

Lord's concluding narrative is quite literally "set in stone" in the minds of US citizens regarding the battle and it's outcome.

Apparently the roundtable ranking is at least in part due to reader feedback, so popularity may well play a significant role.

Post script: This exchange has convinced me to procure a copy of Lord's Morison's books (among some others) to reread it in the light of recent revelations (Shattered Sword and Lundstrom in particular)

 

[oldcrowcv63]

OK, you're continuing to pile allegations on top of allegations, none of which are supported by facts. You're continuing to be long on allegations and short on facts. Let me illustrate that with just this second sentence. Where did this second sentence, that allegation, come from? I inquire as it's imminently plain it didn't come from Lord. To wit, neither of these gentlemen are even in Lord's list of contributors. Take a look at that list. Verify that fact for yourself. It's not an allegation. You'll find it in the back of the book.

This is vicarious character assassination, isn't it? Sure it is. It's lumping Lord together with others whose characters are being called into question. Again, show us the evidence, show us the facts, we have good eyesight. You want to discredit someone, that's how I suggest you do it. You don't do it on mere allegations piled on top of mere allegations.

I'm wanting to be persuaded, Crow, if you can to it. Don't hold it against me I'm not giving you bacon. You got enough bacon.

I'll let you know when I receive my copy of the book and have a chance to check his sources as well as his tally of remaining Hiryu a/c just before she is bombed by the USN.

 

[tomo pauk]

Well, many thanks to the OldCrow for providing us with a link to the Japanese document that covers the battle, translated that is: link.

 

[VBF-13]

To be fair to VBF, I have to include the analysis found at the Battle of Midway Roundtable. This is a forum consisting of a collection of scholars discussing the battle in some detail. They list Lord's book as ranked number 4 among the source material in their collective Library:

Battle of Midway RoundTable

The following descriptive comment is made there:

"Its faults are few and minor, and can generally be attributed to the limits of known and unclassified information in 1967."

It is worth noting that Shattered Sword is ranked no. 2. Cressman's Glorious Page is number 3. While Layton's And I was there is number 6. Prange is number 8. Lundstrom's First Team is number 7 with the following caveat:

"The book is essentially devoid of the common errors found in other works. The only reason it is not higher on the list is because the Battle of Midway only comprises the last chapter of the book, about 140 pages. Nevertheless, its Midway chapter is widely regarded as one of the most accurate accounts of the battle."

Perhaps not surprising, I tend to disagree with the ranking because I judge the errors in Lord to be of somewhat greater consequence than they allow. Not a lot greater but enough to drop it by perhaps a few rungs. My guess is that the status it enjoys is at least in part the result of a particularly american bias based upon the quality of Lord's writing and the implicit patriotism it may invoke.

As an example see: the WSJ review of the roundtable's number 1 ranked Symond's BOM book by Hornfischer.

Book Review: The Battle of Midway - WSJ

Lord's concluding narrative is quite literally "set in stone" in the minds of US citizens regarding the battle and it's outcome.

Apparently the roundtable ranking is at least in part due to reader feedback, so popularity may well play a significant role.

Post script: This exchange has convinced me to procure a copy of Lord's Morison's books (among some others) to reread it in the light of recent revelations (Shattered Sword and Lundstrom in particular)

I'll let you know when I receive my copy of the book and have a chance to check his sources as well as his tally of remaining Hiryu a/c just before she is bombed by the USN.

Fair enough. Give the accused some due process.

FWIW, I see where the critics are coming from. Again, I have pretty good eyesight, lol. But I've seen one, I've seen maybe a dozen Wikipedia articles heavily footnoted, too. In certain cases, where possible, I looked up the sources purporting to support the propositions. Would you believe it if I told you they were more hearsay than were the propositions, themselves?

Lord's work, in short, is based on first-person testimony, which is subject to cross-examination on all kinds of levels, not just sincerity. Witnesses testify falsely, for any number of reasons. By all means, when there are inconsistent statements, when there are discrediting facts, whatever, let's lay them out, let's see them. Nobody's version is sacrosanct. That goes for the critics', too. Separate the allegations from the facts. Discredit on facts. Now we're going places.

Let me know where you see Lord is embellishing, missing the boat. Let me see your basis for concluding that. If you must bring in his critics, by all means, that's fine, but bring them in on facts. I'm not interested in their allegations unsupported by facts.

Finally, there's another bacon in this for you if you can do that, lol. Seriously, as far as I can discern, you're as highly scholastic as are these critics you're relying on, Crow, let's face it. Make the call, yourself. Let's see what issues, if any, you have with Lord. I know you'll give him a fair shake. Just support it by facts.

Then I'll get off your back. Lol.