ASW Aircraft Apr-May43

[Dread Knot]

The reason Slapton Sands got buried in obscurity was probably due to security and because D-Day came not long after and captured all the attention of the media at the time. Much as the ugly meatgrinder that the US Army went through at Hurtgen Forest tends to get lost because of the much large Battle of the Bulge that followed. In the afterglow of victory, setbacks on the way there tend to be forgotten.

I've often thought that the negligent loss of the US heavy cruiser Indianapolis in the dying days of the war would have been largely forgotten had it not been a major plot point in the 1975 movie Jaws.

[gi_dan2987]

Isn't that sad though? People only notice things when it comes to them in the form of entertainment. I once heard a kid say "Wow! Fallout New Vegas has got AWESOME music!!" Little did he know that the music he was hearing debuted in the 1950's, but he thought the video game developers made it. I blame our education system honestly. What a joke, and what an ignorant, apathetic, aloof, and self-centered society we've become

Ok so I correct myself, Schnellboots launched the attack, I remember reading that now. Stephen Ambrose briefly covered Slapton Sands in his book D-Day the Normandy Invasion.

The Indianapolis was a tragic affair. I often wonder if their fate really was just happenstance. One major thing I've learned in my short life, nothing is as it seems. There are so many layers to this deception onion that I'm afraid it cannot all be peeled back. Layer upon layer of lies, deceit, misinformation, and disinformation have perverted history into some sick pseudo-version of the real thing. It almost seems like we only know the official story of history, and believing the taboo or unofficial story brings about accusations of being paranoid or crazy from the wholly brainwashed masses.

How free are we really? Think about it. Are we truly sure why WW2 went down and how?

"History is the lies that the victors agree upon." -Napoleon Bonaparte

History can be changed with the stroke of a pen. In one swipe of ink, the reputations of men can be either made or broken in an instant. Stories can be hidden or fabricated at will to exact some form of controlled response from the general public. So ask yourself, do we really have freedom of thought? Or are we merely lemmings marching to the tune of our masters music thinking we do?

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by gi_dan2987

One major thing I've learned in my short life, nothing is as it seems.

One major thing I've learned in a long life is never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Or a better (and more laconic) British English variation, coined by Bernard Ingham. "Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory."

After all, the attempt to cover-up common human traits like ineptitude, complacency , arrogance or stupidity is usually indistinguishable from covering up a conspiracy.

[gi_dan2987]

I wonder if it is just simply stupidity though. To say a man who commits suicide by stabbing himself 10 times in the back and throwing himself over a bridge was just lacking human intelligence causes a raised eyebrow for me.

I know an older gentleman who served 37 years in law enforcement, and the final 17 of those years as a detective investigating mysterious deaths. He told me once of a story where a local PD called upon him to investigate a severed head that was found by the banks of a river. To his astonishment, the local PD did not want to investigate it as a murder, but rather as a "terrible accident." Does Hot Fuzz come to mind?

It makes you wonder, is it really just stupidity, or simply the act of playing stupid?

I don't know about you, but heads don't just randomly fall off by accident and not get found until a week after the fact.

I suppose he was out hunting, got excited when he saw his deer, then "lost his head" so to speak...... Terrible accident, I must say.

The local cops took the head for evidence, marked it as an accident, and closed the case. Nothing about that seems in the least bit suspicious to you?

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by gi_dan2987

The Indianapolis was a tragic affair. I often wonder if their fate really was just happenstance.

Do you know that the Japanese U-boat captain that sank the Indianapolis wrote a book where he also describes that incident?

Many years after the war this captain, on his own suggestion, witnessed in US court to exonerate the captain of Indianapolis - he had been court-martialled, and condemned, for not zig-zagging - and therefore loosing his ship and more than 300 men. The U-boat captain testified that it would have made no difference to the end result. He also had Kaitens onboard which he saw no need to use. Conventional torpedoes did the job.

Fred

[gi_dan2987]

Originally Posted by Leandros

he had been court-martialled, and condemned, for not zig-zagging

Yeah, something really seems fishy to me with the Indianapolis story.

[HW3]

Would the 4gb patch or the GWX 16km atmosphere have anything to do with the lack of ASW aircraft ?

No.

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

I've often thought that the negligent loss of the US heavy cruiser Indianapolis

It wasn't a negligent loss.
An enemy sub just happened to be in the area and sunk it.
What was regretable was not searching sooner.
But War, and all that means, has a way of causeing such things.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by privateer

It wasn't a negligent loss.
An enemy sub just happened to be in the area and sunk it.
What was regretable was not searching sooner.
But War, and all that means, has a way of causeing such things.

When I use the term negligent I'm referring to a capital ship with no ASW capabilities of it's own, (other than zig-zagging and luck) sailing alone in the Western Pacific with no escort of any kind. Even a lowly minesweeper tagging along could have radioed in the sinking, pulled some survivors aboard and provided more life rafts and provisions for the rest. Ultimately, that's on the higher authorities that denied the escort than the captain.

[gi_dan2987]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

that's on the higher authorities that denied the escort than the captain.

Now you understand my suspicions. Do you know what the Indianapolis's cargo was? The atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima! You don't think those guys might have known too much? Have you ever heard of the "Let it happen on purpose" theory? Know it's going to happen, let it, then play dumb and point the finger at the other guy? The Captain took the fall, and surprisingly offed himself with a pistol. How convenient. All loose ends tied up.....

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by gi_dan2987

Now you understand my suspicions. Do you know what the Indianapolis's cargo was? The atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima! You don't think those guys might have known too much? Have you ever heard of the "Let it happen on purpose" theory? Know it's going to happen, let it, then play dumb and point the finger at the other guy? The Captain took the fall, and surprisingly offed himself with a pistol. How convenient. All loose ends tied up.....

Oh, well - I think you are over-reacting a little on this one. The captain was eventually (many years later) exonerated for negligence of duty as, according to intelligence received by him, no enemy U-boat activity was expected in the area he was passing through. The point of the Japanese U-boat captain, in his testimony, was that it would not have mattered much if he had zig-zagged because he had sunk him anyway.

If it was a cover-up it was probably more because Indianapolis received an inaccurate intelligence evaluation and the time it took to discover its loss and come to the assistance of its crew. This incidence, to my knowledge, was the only one where the USN captain was court-martialled for losing his ship in the Pacific. Some brass may not have liked this incidence to happen when things were going so "well" - the nuke and everything. That said, nobody would have blamed him for zig-zagging. Captain's decision.

Incidentally, less emotional later investigations have shown that only a few of the crew members were actually killed by sharks. Nothing like what was pictured by Robert Shaw in "Jaws".

Fred

[gi_dan2987]

It's pretty hard to tell if somebody is over-reacting through an email. I was just making an observation.

[Aktungbby]

One of the issues of Slapton Sands was that several killed officers were 'bigoted' individuals with actual knowledge of the D-day operations-day and date. It was not known if they had been captured by the German Schnellboots or not. All of the bodies of the bigoted officers were recovered and no alterations to D-day planning were necessary. Additionally, when a crossword puzzle with "overlord, sword, bigot and Omaha innocently later appeared in a London newspaper, allied SHAEF headquarters and British intelligence had heart attacks.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by gi_dan2987

Now you understand my suspicions. Do you know what the Indianapolis's cargo was? The atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima! You don't think those guys might have known too much? Have you ever heard of the "Let it happen on purpose" theory? Know it's going to happen, let it, then play dumb and point the finger at the other guy?

I'm quite aware that the Indianapolis carried the bomb. No one aboard knew what the cargo was, but if the brass was worried that they would blab a secret, the crew and officers easily could have been sequestered in a R&R area in the Marianas and a valuable ship saved. There was only a week between the Indianapolis' sailing and the dropping of the bomb. Trusting that a Japanese submarine would stumble on it and that it would sink it before a signal could get off is kind of a lousy way to ensure security. Especially when you consider that the ship was also unescorted during the long voyage to Tinian from San Francisco carrying it's unique cargo as well. Apparently, they weren't worried about a submarine sinking the atomic bomb during that longer voyage although in retrospect, they probably should have.

What you have is complacency perhaps mixed with contempt for a beaten navy, from the brass being covered up. Not a conspiracy to silence a crew.

[Marcello]

It is worth noting that the big troops carrying liners routinely sailed unescorted. At the end of 1942 Queen Mary made an Atlantic crossing with 16.000 troops onboard, had an u-boat got lucky...