The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[JohnDillworth]

not disposed of as far as I know. She is in St Raymond's cemetery right next to the Throgs Neck bridge in the Bronx I used to pass every day on the way to work. It's on the list. I'll be up that way Next Wednesday I can swing by and get a photo.

Thanks for recalling my strange hobby! St Raymonds is not a picturesque cemetery so I have not yet visited. But since you like history and like to walk I can offer a little assignment. Sign up at Find A Grave. You put your address in and if someone wants a photo of a grave in your neck of the woods you may get an email asking you to find it if you can. I've helped out a bunch of amateur genealogists and I've found a couple of veterans graves for fellow soldiers they once served with. Those were pretty rewarding

BTW, if you are a podcast guy or want to listen on a computer there is a good oral history of Typhoid Mary here. Good story tellers http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2015/09/the-curious-case-of-typhoid-mary.html

[Canoerebel]

2/20/45

Funnel Cakes: With the airfield now at level 7, engineers at Gunzan are also working on forts. Temporarily, Gunazan will be responsible for it's own security, anchored by three combat TFs. Death Star is going to move southwest, to the China Coast, to monitor things there more carefully. Death Star strike aircraft sortied vs. shipping at Fusan to bad effect, costing the Allies roughly 50 naval aircraft. I've done a decent job of avoiding these situations but failed in this instance.

Fancy Pants: Deliberate attack at Tsinan comes off at 2:1 and drops forts to 0. This base will fall tomorrow. I definitely think the Allied army will divide, half holding this position and half moving to the coast to take Tsingtao and Chefoo (preparatory to later boarding ships to augment the Korea campaign, where supply will be more readily available).

John deployed a stout combat TF flagged by Kongo to raid shipping lanes near Ningpo. He forgot to switch off "Remain on Station," so it hung up there. But none of my strike aircraft were set to naval strike, the threat of something coming being low and the likelihood of a CAP trap (KB) if it did being high. John's email message: "You know how we have dozens of clicks every turn?  Don’t you hate it when you miss a BIG ONE??!!  You got an offering this round buddy!  A total of ¼ of the remaining Surface strength of the Kaigun did not get its stay in hex button unpushed."

[Canoerebel]

2/21/45

Fancy Pants & Funnel Cakes: Shift in Allied strategy. Death Star moving to the China Coast in response to perceived threat. I think John's plan is/was to strike hard against China/Formosa while DS has been stationed in the Yellow Sea. And even as the move was implemented, an enemy carrier force showed up at Formosa and a separate naval battle took place near Ningpo. Overall it was a productive day for the Allies.

[Canoerebel]

2/22/45

Fancy Pants & Funnel Cakes: Heavy skirmishing near Formosa, but nobody's landed a telling blow yet.

[Canoerebel]

2/23/45

Fancy Pants & Funnel Cakes: Lots of combat ships and carriers moving around from the Sea of Japan to the South China Sea. John is dancing and darting, trying to sting here and there. I'm maintaining station to protect the vital bases while looking toward the next big supply run that will allow Korea to turn into an offensive base of operations.

[jwolf]

You've been extremely disciplined about keeping your main carrier force on its primary mission at all times. Do you think it might be worth a roll of the dice on a high speed run to try to catch the Japanese CV force?

[Canoerebel]

2/23/45

JWolf, I'd send Death Star after KB under the right circumstances.

The primary mission remains to protect Gunzan, Korea, and the big ports/airfields at Shanghai, Ningpo and Taichu. But under the right circumstances, Death Star would be used offensively.

The limiting factor right now is fuel (see graphic, for an example). Staying power is far more important than whether I get a few enemy carriers or more. Fuel is at a critical state. Most of the carrier TFs had the capital ships topped off a few days ago, but escorts are getting low. And the accompanying combat TFs are really getting low.

I have a big AO TF at Taichu waiting to refuel all combat TFs (and to top off the carriers). That will take place in about two days.

[Canoerebel]

My fleet carriers have essentially been at sea since September 1943 without meaningful time in port (a couple of days at Townsville for some, a few days now and then at Manila for others). None of them have upgraded since leaving Pearl Harbor, so some are still due for 10/43 upgrades. Yet SYS damage is minimal for every carrier. Mainly, that's because I haven't used Full Speed during the ensuing 1.5 years (1.5 years at sea in combat conditions!). In fact, I'm not sure I ever used Full Speed for Death Star (but I did recently use it for the Little Death Star in SoPac on successive days in that effort to ambush KB South).

[GetAssista]

John mistimed a shock attack aiming for a solo tank batallion..

This happened so many times before, it looks like deliberate strategy now Wonder why John keeps biting the hook here

[Canoerebel]

He succeeds every now and then, destroying a small and isolated unit. But it has bit him repeatedly, as you note. Overall, he's blunted a great deal of fighting power in failed shock attacks with a series of important failures, especially in China.

[IJV]

I have to say it's painful to see a 22kt battleship hamstringing a fleet that's otherwise all 30kt+. I hope you don't do that on the regular!

[Canoerebel]

Oops. I always pair Iowa and New Jersey, so that's simply an artifact of not paying close enough attention when I reformed this TF a few days ago (I separated out the BBs to refuel and then reinserted them into their original TFs....except in this case!).

[Lokasenna]

Well-read individuals in their 20s and 30s will have heard of Typhoid Mary. Shameful!

[Canoerebel]

You'd think that would be the case, but I don't think it is. Or, perhaps I should say, what the younger generation and their teachers think is important doesn't include things we'd consider important.

I've noted in here before that we had a certain prodigy graduate from our local semi-rural high school. The guy is brilliant. He got a master's degree in marine law from a Taiwan University - of all things! - and then a master's degree in Chinese from Indiana University. He speaks Spanish and French fluently and is decent with German, Polish, Korean, and a number of other languages. He loves reading and learning.

....and he's never heard of Pickett's Charge or the German ship Bismarck. I would be shocked if he had heard of Typhoid Mary.

He should be the exception to the rule - the 1% that knows nearly everything. But the gaps in his historical knowledge are beyond immense.

[palioboy2]

Always keep in mind there are people interested in space and physics that are probably horrified about your lack of knowledge of black holes or basic quantum mechanics.

[AcePylut]

I had a colleague in college, sophomore year of an Aerospace Engineering degree - that couldn't point to a pulley in a picture of a gear mechanism... but he knew the math on how they worked.

Also, side bar - but something like 6 kids scored a perfect score on the ACT in 1990. One went to my high school (small rural school) - he would calculate the geometric sin, cos, and tangent in his head instead of using a calculator during tests in high school. He joined the Army after high school, haven't heard from him since.

The other kid that scored perfect - one of my good college friends - very very intelligent, graduated with 2 degrees with high honors (one was Genetics, I forgot the other), but hasn't had a decent job in over 20 years. He couldn't "stand" to be a "lab assistant" and do the "grunt work" as a "wet behind the ears college grad" working for someone with "half his intelligence". He expected to walk in and be boss of a university dep't "as a 22 year old college grad". He'd insult all his bosses intellect, call them stupid with stupid ideas, and alas - he sits at home, plays video games all day, lives off his mom's SS, and sells pot to a few select people for 'spending money' on top of the odd manual labor "rake the leaves / clean the gutters" kind of job.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

You'd think that would be the case, but I don't think it is. Or, perhaps I should say, what the younger generation and their teachers think is important doesn't include things we'd consider important.

I've noted in here before that we had a certain prodigy graduate from our local semi-rural high school. The guy is brilliant. He got a master's degree in marine law from a Taiwan University - of all things! - and then a master's degree in Chinese from Indiana University. He speaks Spanish and French fluently and is decent with German, Polish, Korean, and a number of other languages. He loves reading and learning.

....and he's never heard of Pickett's Charge or the German ship Bismarck. I would be shocked if he had heard of Typhoid Mary.

He should be the exception to the rule - the 1% that knows nearly everything. But the gaps in his historical knowledge are beyond immense.

I've always thought that a broad knowledge of history, geography. basic economics and political science is necessary to understand how the world works. With that understanding you can assess those who seek to serve the nation or represent your country and make your informed choice at the ballot box. If I sought greater knowledge in the pure sciences I have very little chance of influencing what they are doing. Thus I follow current affairs much more so than science and technology news, but I find some recent science discoveries fascinating (thank you, Neil deGrasse Tyson!).

[JeffroK]

The difference between being smart and being wise.

[CaptBeefheart]

I met a young Spanish gal who was tending bar part-time on a student visa a couple of weeks ago who hadn't heard of the U.S. Civil War (I forgot how that topic came up in a small craft beer bar in Korea, but it did). Fair enough on that. Then I brought up that our two countries had fought a war in 1898. Crickets chirped. But, I'm sure she knows a heck of a lot more about K-Pop than I do.

EDIT: My high school counselor related a cautionary tale about the youngest janitor at the school. Apparently he was a straight-A student at the school, went to the University of Iowa, and received his first B in the first semester. He couldn't take that B, dropped out and became a janitor at his old high school.

Cheers,
CC

[Canoerebel]

2/24/45

KB West: Enemy carrier force raiding in the South China Sea, where the only potential victims (LSTs and APDs) are trying to take evasive action. Also of note in this theater of operations: the invasion of Hainan Island is getting underway and the Allied advance in Malaya is progressing methodically but, given the awful terrain and road system, slowly.