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During the South Pacific campaigns of World War II, the United States Navy faced a formidable challenge in waging nighttime surface battles against the Japanese Navy. In a war that emphasized the carrier and battleship, the little destroyer became a key player in these actions. By studying this campaign from the perspective of the destroyers, three key factors emerge that allowed the Americans to achieve victory: innovation in tactics, adaption of technology, and efficient use of resources. The research for the thesis was based upon action reports, oral histories, and other documents obtained from the National Archives, Naval War College, Naval History and Heritage Command Center, and East Carolina University. The Japanese perspective was attained from numerous secondary sources. Innovation in tactics, technology, and resources allowed the Americans to persevere through severe defeats to achieve success against a very skilled Japanese Navy in the seas of the South Pacific.
Today only a select few know firsthand what it is like to feel their ship shudder from the blast of their own guns, watch enemy guns flash back, and see friendly ships erupt in flames. Russell Crenshaw is one of those few. His riveting account of the savage night battle for the Solomon Islands in early 1943 offers readers a unique insider’s perspective from the decks of one of the destroyers that bore the brunt of the struggle. Russell Crenshaw was a gunnery officer on the USS Maury. His vivid, balanced, and detailed narrative includes the Battle of Tassafarounga in November 1942 and Vella Gulf in August 1943, actions that earned his warship a Presidential Unit Citation and sixteen battle stars. Crenshaw also discusses the impact of radar and voice radio, the shortcomings of U.S. torpedoes and gunfire, and the devastating effectiveness of Japan’s super torpedo.
A riveting inside look at the experiences of a gunnery officer in the Solomon Islands on the highly decorated USS "Maury" during World War II.
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Includes the Second World War In The Pacific Illustration Pack – 152 maps, plans and photos. Commander Frederick Bell recounts his wartime experiences on the USS G (Grayson) during the Pacific War. “CONDITION RED” was an expression that we used to indicate the imminence of any type of engagement. Aboard the G it was a colloquialism that served to express the conviction that the next few hours or days or weeks were going to be packed with action. We first heard it soon after we arrived in the Solomons, where the term was used on Guadalcanal and Tulagi to indicate the approach of the enemy, and when our voice radio blared out the words we went to General Quarters and prepared to greet the Tokyo Express or the Zeros and Mitsubishis when they came within view. Little has been written of the part that our destroyers are playing in the Pacific War, where they are called upon to fulfil such a variety of missions that they have become multipurpose ships, engaging in any form of combat. Because we lacked suitable escort ships we used destroyers to protect convoys as well as to guard our combatant Task Forces. We used them to bombard enemy shore positions and to carry bombs and aviation gasoline and stores to Guadalcanal during the lean weeks early in our campaign in those far-distant seas. By nature as well as by name, the purpose of the destroyer is wholly offensive. Bantamweights in comparison with the great battlewagons, they pack a punch out of all proportion to their size. They are triple-threat weapons, built to strike at any enemy on or over or under the sea. In the words of Rear Admiral Tisdale, “They are the fightingest thing afloat.”
As we passed Hutchinson Reef the loud-speaker in the pilot house blared forth with "Condition Red over Guadalcanal. Condition Red. Many planes." What was it like to be trapped upon a ship and constantly under threat of attack from Japanese forces? Frederick J. Bell, commander of the USS Grayson during World War Two, dramatically exposes the mental and physical strain that his crew and ship underwent through the course of the first few years of conflict. No stone is left unturned in Bell's account, as he explains how he and his crew survived strafing by Japanese planes, navigated the treacherous waters of the South Pacific, assisted fellow ships in peril and overcame the tedious moments of boredom. Admiral Bell takes the reader to the heart of the action which he witnessed first-hand and explains the vital role that destroyers played in the Pacific War. They fulfilled a variety of roles, from escorting convoys and guarding Task Forces, to bombing enemy shorelines and providing much needed supplies to the army and marines fighting on the islands. There are few accounts that better document naval warfare during the Second World War. "Tales of himself and the men, of the function of destroyers, alone and in group action, of early difficulties of poor charting, of successive South Pacific engagements, of periods without sleep, of shore landings, of 'coconut shoots' and many a ding dong with the enemy." Kirkus Reviews The valor that Bell demonstrated during the battle of Ontong Java in August 1942 earned him the Medal of Honor, and later during USS Grayson's operations at Guadalcanal in February 1943 he received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. His citation reads: "When his ship was subjected to repeated bombing and strafing attacks by enemy dive bombers at very close range, Commander Bell ... directed the fire of his battery with outstanding efficiency, destroying at least two Japanese dive bombers and damaging others. Immediately following the engagement and during the night, he conducted a search for lost planes, taking his ship into enemy waters and away from the protection of friendly forces. ... He established the identity of lost aircraft and, by flashing messages, directed our planes safely to the carriers." After the war Bell became a business executive and later at the age of 68 he became an Episcopal priest. His books Room to Swing a Cat, a history of the early American navy, and Condition Red were published in 1938 and 1943 respectively. He died at the age of 91 in Miami in 1994.
This book covers the fierce night naval battles fought between the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during late 1943 as the Allies advanced slowly up the Solomons Islands toward the major Japanese naval base at Rabaul. During this period, several vicious actions were fought featuring the most modern destroyers of both navies. Throughout most of 1942, the Imperial Navy had held a marked edge and a key ingredient of these successes was their destroyer force, which combined superior training and tactics with the most capable torpedo in the world. Even into 1943 mixed Allied light cruiser/destroyer forces were roughly handled by Japanese destroyers. After these battles, the Americans decided to stop chasing Japanese destroyers with cruisers so the remainder of the battles in 1943 (with one exception) were classic destroyer duels. The Americans still enjoyed the technical edge provided to them by radar, and now added new, more aggressive tactics. The final result was the defeat of the Imperial Navy's finely trained destroyer force and the demonstration that the Japanese were unable to stop the Allies' advance.
On the night of August 8-9, 1942, American naval forces supporting the amphibious landings at Guadalcanal and Tulagi Islands suffered a humiliating defeat in a nighttime clash against the Imperial Japanese Navy. ... unlike America's ground and air forces, which began inflicting disproportionate losses against their Japanese counterparts at the outset of the Solomon Islands campaign in August 1942, the navy was slow to achieve similar success. The reason the U.S. Navy took so long to achieve proficiency in ship-to-ship combat was due to the fact that it had not adequately prepared itself to fight at night. Fortunately for the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed two highly competent officers to lead the navy during the war -- Admiral Ernest J. King (Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet) and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet). With amazing insight these two men and their staffs consistently diagnosed many of the navy's problems and circulated their findings throughout the fleet. Unfortunately, the time needed to adequately assess past operations often led to the distribution of these combat analyses months after subsequent encounters had already taken place. Moreover, the naval tradition of endowing task force commanders with freedom of action prompted King and Nimitz to refrain from issuing specific instructions to task force commanders, often leading to the repetition of past errors and continued tactical defeats. Of course, the U.S. Navy did eventually transform itself into an effective night-fighting force. Much of the credit for this evolution was due to the emergence of new commanders who heeded the lessons of the past and devised new tactics. When combined with better training and improvements in weaponry, the operational effectiveness of the U.S. Navy increased dramatically. By the end of 1943, the U.S. Navy dominated the nighttime seas of the South Pacific.