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oldcrowcv63
Tech Sergeant
From your post #33 on this thread:
"You don't look for footnotes in men like those."
to:
seems like progress to me.
Now to elaborate the "charges" Seems like you are accusing me of repeating unfounded allegation of Lord's use of flawed sources whether they be first person witness (Fuchida Okumiya) or secondary academic (such as Morison).
It appears you are also accusing me of claiming that Lord "embellishes" the history or "missed the boat" in some way. I can only think of two instances where you might be able to suggest that: In post #32 where I said he used a well turned phrase to emphasize a point at the expense of oversimplification. I don't consider use of a stylistic device to be an "embellishment" so I don't consider that something to which I need to respond.
With regard to Lord's "missing the boat," in Post #55 58 I asked for Lord's tally of the Hiryu's air group after the two strikes on Yorktown and in preparation for the third.
If my memory serves, Lord, like virtually every other historian covering the battle did miss the boat by relying on an inaccurate primary (or less likely, a secondary) source. That source inaccuracy should have been obvious to anyone critically examining the battle but it wasn't corrected until the appearance of Lundstrom's First Team. I may be mistaken and Lord makes no final accounting of the Hiryu Air Group. In that case, I have no current proof beyond what I've already provided that he used any flawed sources, whether primary or secondary. So I'll have to await your report on what he wrote or see for myself when the book arrives. In this case, I don't need a cited reference to know if he got it as wrong as everyone else. It was glaringly apparent from my first reading (circa 1967-70) that all contemporary histories were flawed in this one respect. I vividly recall holding First Team in my hand and perusing the book to the pages where I might discover a correct account. And there it was, after more than three decades of quite evident historical inaccuracy: Lundstrom had finally gotten it right. In other words, the proof that he (Lord) used Fuchida and Okumiya is explicit in the text.
I also think it likely that the critique of Lord, however light, at the Midway Roundtable (or for that matter, although with perhaps a bit less authority the Naval Aviation News) website is less likely to be hearsay than Wikipedia.
reproduced here:
"Its faults are few and minor, and can generally be attributed to the limits of known and unclassified information in 1967."
This strikes me as generally accurate and indicates (to my own satisfaction) his use of at least some of the flawed sources available at the time and most likely they are as others have claimed, Fuchida and Okumiya.
late edit: added "(Lord)" to text for clarification.
"You don't look for footnotes in men like those."
to:
seems like progress to me.
Now to elaborate the "charges" Seems like you are accusing me of repeating unfounded allegation of Lord's use of flawed sources whether they be first person witness (Fuchida Okumiya) or secondary academic (such as Morison).
It appears you are also accusing me of claiming that Lord "embellishes" the history or "missed the boat" in some way. I can only think of two instances where you might be able to suggest that: In post #32 where I said he used a well turned phrase to emphasize a point at the expense of oversimplification. I don't consider use of a stylistic device to be an "embellishment" so I don't consider that something to which I need to respond.
With regard to Lord's "missing the boat," in Post #55 58 I asked for Lord's tally of the Hiryu's air group after the two strikes on Yorktown and in preparation for the third.
If my memory serves, Lord, like virtually every other historian covering the battle did miss the boat by relying on an inaccurate primary (or less likely, a secondary) source. That source inaccuracy should have been obvious to anyone critically examining the battle but it wasn't corrected until the appearance of Lundstrom's First Team. I may be mistaken and Lord makes no final accounting of the Hiryu Air Group. In that case, I have no current proof beyond what I've already provided that he used any flawed sources, whether primary or secondary. So I'll have to await your report on what he wrote or see for myself when the book arrives. In this case, I don't need a cited reference to know if he got it as wrong as everyone else. It was glaringly apparent from my first reading (circa 1967-70) that all contemporary histories were flawed in this one respect. I vividly recall holding First Team in my hand and perusing the book to the pages where I might discover a correct account. And there it was, after more than three decades of quite evident historical inaccuracy: Lundstrom had finally gotten it right. In other words, the proof that he (Lord) used Fuchida and Okumiya is explicit in the text.
I also think it likely that the critique of Lord, however light, at the Midway Roundtable (or for that matter, although with perhaps a bit less authority the Naval Aviation News) website is less likely to be hearsay than Wikipedia.
reproduced here:
"Its faults are few and minor, and can generally be attributed to the limits of known and unclassified information in 1967."
This strikes me as generally accurate and indicates (to my own satisfaction) his use of at least some of the flawed sources available at the time and most likely they are as others have claimed, Fuchida and Okumiya.
late edit: added "(Lord)" to text for clarification.
Last edited: