Tales of the Ginga Pt. 1

I’m reading a book about the “Super Bomber” Ginga, a Japanese bomber that was built very late in the war.  For such a technical, minor subject, it’s very engrossing.

The Ginga’s first engagement was to be in an operation planned by Michida, the guy who was the lead bomber at Pearl Harbor. After the defeat at Midway he moved from being a pilot to being a strategist, and came up with a lot of the Japanese military plans later in the war.

His plan was to use the Ginga as part of a massive (800+ planes, most of Japan’s remaining carrier power, and a submarine group) to strike a secret allied base in the Pacific.  He took it to the commander on board the then-flagship Musashi, who said he’d “Consider it later.”

Later never came.  The Americans launched a strike on the port where the Musashi was berthed, and the commander was forced to flee.  He died when his plane crashed in a squall during the retreat.  The new commander was too busy, and the operation was shelved.

A recurring theme in Japanese books is the sheer incompetence of the JP officer corps. This may simply be the Japanese being down on the guys who lost them a war that was probably very winnable.  (Possibly. Maybe. Opinions differ.)  But there’s too much stupidity, and too many lost opportunities, for me to really think that’s the case.

These people were dumb. Very dumb.  And they had a tendency to be timid and cowardly as well.  However brave the individual Japanese soldier may have been, his boss was likely a fool.

If I remember, I may write about operation Imphal sometime here.  One of the saddest, stupidest battles of the war.

 

A friend of mine who’s been non-political for years just linked me something from ZeroHedge about Trump. This election is so very strange.

Why did Trump go after Rubio so hard tonight, as opposed to Cruz?
Cruz has done very well so far, (if you can call three out of 16 or so states “very well”), but looking forward he’s not doing so good. He’s doing very poorly in Florida, and very poorly in Ohio. Even in Louisiana, which you’d think would be a Cruz friendly state, he’s behind by almost 20 points.

Trump wins for sure if either Cruz or Rubio goes down. Between the two, Rubio is the easier target. It makes sense to knock him out now and lock up the win.

I was on a three hour internet radio…

I was on a three hour internet radio show with TheBechtloff, Matt Forney, and some other very nice people, to discuss the Super Tuesday results.
Radio of any kind is a very difficult thing, and I enjoyed the challenge of finding something to keep the conversation going. The first hour was very interesting, but after that it just kind of dwindled off.

If you want to listen, it’s here:
http://mattforney.com/matt-forney-show-episode-126/

I’ve decided to make a micro blog, along the lines of a similar one I’ve seen recently. I have a lot of thoughts that aren’t worth working up into full posts, particularly given the stringent standards of the forum.

This will be a place where I can write them down, so that I won’t forget them later. Hopefully I’ll even get a few readers too.