Name This...(414)

[Brady]

???

[Tankerace]

Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher.

Yup[:D]

[ilovestrategy]

Man that guy earned his right to a good retirement and more!

[Alikchi2]

I've always wanted to find a biography of that guy; or at least, a list of his mistakes. [:D]

[Ian R]

Did he end his carreer as a Vice Admiral or did he get another ring?

[DuckofTindalos]

Come on, Brady... Can't be that easy... Must be Fletcher's evil twin brother, Bubba Fletcher, dressing up in his uniform.

[m10bob]

Hey guys!!!! I think we are supposed to identify the fact the radio behind him is the one on the option "start-up" screen??[:D]

[MkXIV]

The Man who never went to sea in a carrier he couldn't get sunk. Not that it was alwasy his doing, but his carriers did have a tendenacy to become reefs.

[marky]

ORIGINAL: MkXIV

The Man who never when to sea in a carrier he couldn't get sunk. Not that it was alwasy his doing, but his carriers did have a tendenacy to become reefs.

lol


quite true

he did have the medal of honor or the navy cross for sumthing in the caribbean, i cant remember which

abd he withdrew his carriers from Guadalcanal too early

i never withdraw my carriers from CAS til theyre either out of supply, fuel, or theyre coral reefs

lol

[Capt Cliff]

Brady want to know when! After or before Coral Sea, or after or before Midway. I think he ended up commanding the Alaska Frontier or something like that. I think his performance off Guadalcanal gave him a bad rap.

[Brady]

Fletcher, it is[:)]


...............

Bubba........LOL[:)]

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

Did he end his carreer as a Vice Admiral or did he get another ring?

He retired in 1947 as a full Admiral.

[invernomuto]

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

I've always wanted to find a biography of that guy; or at least, a list of his mistakes. [:D]

HERE there is an apology of the vice admiral:

"In mid Sept Fletcher returned to the States for leave and the fleet organization was shuffled from defensive to offense. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, he had saved Australia and damaged two of the six enemy carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor so that they could not join in at the Battle of Midway, where he destroyed the other four. He stopped the major enemy thrust to retake Guadalcanal in the Eastern Solomons before returning home. He was assigned as Commander Northwestern Sea Frontier, Nov 1942, to lend his prestige to defense of the U.S. from a northern attack.

Fletcher's great battles took place in the early years of World War II, during a period when great victories were not yet possible, where success was measured in stopping the enemy, rather than pushing him back. The popular naval heroes came later in the war: Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, Mitscher, Kinkaid - are remembered more clearly for their victories than are the early heroes. They had a hundred carriers available for the invasion of Japan, Fletcher never had more than three..."

[Nikademus]

Too easy. Brady is way more sly than that. You were SUPPOSED to guess what he was thinking:

[MkXIV]

ORIGINAL: invernomuto

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

I've always wanted to find a biography of that guy; or at least, a list of his mistakes. [:D]

HERE there is an apology of the vice admiral:

"In mid Sept Fletcher returned to the States for leave and the fleet organization was shuffled from defensive to offense. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, he had saved Australia and damaged two of the six enemy carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor so that they could not join in at the Battle of Midway, where he destroyed the other four. He stopped the major enemy thrust to retake Guadalcanal in the Eastern Solomons before returning home. He was assigned as Commander Northwestern Sea Frontier, Nov 1942, to lend his prestige to defense of the U.S. from a northern attack.

Fletcher's great battles took place in the early years of World War II, during a period when great victories were not yet possible, where success was measured in stopping the enemy, rather than pushing him back. The popular naval heroes came later in the war: Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, Mitscher, Kinkaid - are remembered more clearly for their victories than are the early heroes. They had a hundred carriers available for the invasion of Japan, Fletcher never had more than three..."

Midway lends more to Spurance and Nimitz (not to mention luck) then to Fletcher. I agree though that Fletcher was always short of assets (and even more so FUEL!) but Halsey did not exactly have alot either when he took over SOPAC.

Fletcher did win at Coral Sea though, which I alwasy thought was a underappreicated victory in history, mostly thought of as "that battle right before Midway"

[Ian R]

It seems to me that in the US armed forces, they're pretty unforgiving of relieved comanders. A malodour attaches to them, and for them its "game over".

In the Commonwealth armed forces they were more pragmatic. The "Peter principle" was sometimes deferred to. For example, General Ritchie, after he lost the battle of Gazala, was reduced back to Major General (which may still have been higher than his peactime rank) and assigned to command a division training in Scotland.

Later, he was selected as one of the 4 UK corps commanders for the NW European campaign. Along with him, and perhaps more interestingly, was General O'Conner who had been released from POW status in Italy.

I suppose the above could mean they realised the other alternatives were complete crap, but still...

Fletcher served through the tough times, and maybe he was just worn/stressed out and assigned something with less pressure as a favour. Then again, maybe he had an unrecorded exchange with Nimitz which got him offside. Analogously, I've noticed in the game that Admiral Towers is the computers second or third pick for US air combat TF command. Despite his refusal to clear the F4U for carrier ops (and there were good reasons behind that, and it probably wasn't his job to think of the oblique/curved landing approach idea) his relationships with the powers that be kept him on land until 1945. IIRC he stepped into McCain's slot for Olympic and made it to sea shortly before surrender.

You can make a case that Fletcher would have been just as good a carrier TG commander as the younger guys who came through the CV captain, CVE TG command, fast carrier TG command ladder that effectively operated later on. But he had dropped out of sight, and maybe he had that bad smell referred to. The computer certainly keeps picking him on auto select. The fact that he got promoted to full Admiral before he retired indicates to me that perceived past sins were eventually forgiven, in the same way that Halsey was eventually forgiven for the Leyte Gulf near miss/sailing into a typhoon and promoted to Fleet Admiral.

[MkXIV]

ORIGINAL: Ian R


Then again, maybe he had an unrecorded exchange with Nimitz which got him offside.

Nimitz & Flecther: The Lost Tapes

Flecther: Good Lord! Who in the world painted the ComPac HQ this awful color while I was out refueling...

Nimitz: I had it repainted I like this color...

Flecther: Looks like a circus clown puked on the walls!

Nimitz: That's it! Get your butt Dutch Harbor!!

[Smiffus64]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Come on, Brady... Can't be that easy... Must be Fletcher's evil twin brother, Bubba Fletcher, dressing up in his uniform.

It's the Essex in disguise

[witpqs]

B-29 turret gunner...