Indifference — Another Incredible Thing in War

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

I am happy to announce that I have completed the “Pacific War Trilogy”. I initially planned to complete by H1 this year. So that is two months ahead of schedule.

There are still many observations/thoughts from reading this book I would like to share with you. And that is what I am going to write for the next few entries.

In this blog, I would like to share with you how indifferent people can be towards things that other people’s lives depend on.

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During Pacific War, US submarines carried out various missions to contribute to the winning of the war, including recon, tracking enemy fleet, transporting personnel and supplies, searching and rescuing downed pilots etc etc. 

Among them all, the mission that contributed the most to the war was attacking the transport fleet of the Japanese, cutting the supply lines of Japanese: shipping crude oil from South pacific to Japan and then troops and weapons and ammunition and refined fuel from Japan to various battle fields.

The consequence was that the economy of Japan collapsed due to lack of fuel and raw material and the navy was pretty much trapped inside the harbor due to lack of fuel. 

Needless to say, this contributed greatly to the victory.

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However, this was not easy. 

US submarines had to sneak into dangerous waters, deal with threat from enemy cruisers, and, last but not least, ineffective and dangerous torpedo fired by their very sub.

During the initial part of the war, US torpedo had three problems:

1. They move at 10 inch lower than their design depth
2. They do not detonate or detonate randomly. Many times, crew of the sub had to watch their target move away unharmed in total disappointment, after they had risked their lives to get into position and launch the attack.
3. Their moving path is unpredictable, and worse, they could move in a circle and come right at the sub that fired it. There were two confirmed cases where the sub was destroyed by the torpedo they fired, including a “star” performer who scored record number of hits. “Confirmed” means crew of the destroyed subs survived to tell the story. We can only imagine how many more did not have any survivors.

It was estimated that the effectiveness of US subs were reduced by 50% due to torpedo problem.

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However, despite the numerous report of problems, the people who designed the torpedo refused to acknowledge it. They refused to do any tests to either prove or disprove the reports. Instead, they blamed the crews for not using the weapon properly and failing to take good care of it. 

Navy had to conduct their own tests and escalate through their ranks, just to make the problems acknowledged.

And when the new generation of torpedo, which is more reliable, faster, quieter and harder to be observed by target, was being tested, the same group of people refused to give any support.

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It amazes me how indifferent these people were during the war.

First of all, the torpedo should have been tested properly before being shipped to battlefield. As a result, sailors had to risk their lives to launch those ineffective torpedo towards enemy target. 

Secondly, after numerous reports, they could have conducted some tests to confirm the existence or non-existence of the problems. Instead, they just denied.

Lastly, when the new generation of torpedo was to replace their inferior products, they refused to give any support.

This could have played out very differently.

If the problems were corrected earlier, fewer sailors would need to die. Maybe the war can be won a bit earlier and many lives would have been saved.

But, those people who created the torpedo, they did not care about the lives of the seaman who were fighting the war. They did not care whether the war was won or not…

This is so incredible, especially when the whole country was making sacrifices to support the war.

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If that could happen during the war, it could only be more common in peace. Maybe we are suffering from some indifferent people. Maybe some people are suffering because we are indifferent.

But what goes around comes around. Do our job and be responsible, no matter what others do.

 

Till next time!

Rethink about Logistics - In the war context

 

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

 

Army logistics engineer is not a totally new term to me.

They are featured in some war games.

And one of my former colleagues in consulting is a retired Army logistics engineer. She is a mother of two and had done 3 tours in Iraq before retirement.

But what they do and how valuable they are always seems blurry to me.

In games, I almost always prioritize combat troops and weapons production over infrastructure, fortress etc

When my former colleague tried to describe to me what they did in Iraq and why that mattered, I left with the impression (I probably refused to take in the full story like I used to do in my younger days) that they built houses for the soldiers to stay and improved roads for arm trucks. And they were never close to front-line. Apparently, those “dangerous” jobs were outsourced to contractors.

From Internet

But reading is as powerful in making arrogant fuckers like me realize their stupidity, as in making a country great.

In the third book of the “Pacific War Trilogy”, I was really impressed by what logistics did to advance the front-line and save lives in taking the island of Peleliu.

It was one of the bloodiest battle in Pacific War, with 11k Jap troops eliminated and ~10k casualties of Americans. 

The casualties of Americans came, with the strong support from a gigantic and battle-tested fleet and total air dominance. They could pretty much hit anyplace in the island with large-caliber ship canons and the lethal “Hell Cat” fighters piloted by experienced veterans. 

But Japs, for the first time, decided to hide in their caves connected by a broad network of underground tunnels and wait for the Americans to come to their killing ground which they had prepared for years.

The Marines, being the attacking force leading the way, suffered heavy losses (~40%). They did not have time for “big construction projects” and the ground was simply too hard to dig trenches.

When the Marines had to pull out, a small area of the island was still occupied by Japs.

The Army took over and this time, they had enough time to take it slow.

And they showed the true power of logistics.

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They built a road to move the tanks, trucks, brodozer and heavy artillery.

They built countless sandbags walls to provide cover for the soldiers since the rocks were too hard to dig. These sandbags were filled with sand on the beach and then transported to front line.

They even built a “cable car” track to transport the sandbags to the hills.

They installed lights across the front-line to prevent Jap counter attacks during the night.

They built a pipeline to flow the fuel directly from the beach to front-line, so that soldiers could fill Jap caves with fuel and then lit it up.

…

With all these heavy investment of manpower, resources, Americans were able to clear the resistance.

I can only imagine if not for these, how many more Americans would need to die and how much longer the battle would take…

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Sometimes, slow is fast.

There is a reason for everything. The fact that logistics is getting more attention is no difference.

 

Till next time!

Leaders continue on, knowing that they will be wronged

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

My journey to finishing “The Pacific War Trilogy” continues. I am at 10% of the third book, on track to completing it in H1 this year.

Today I would like to share with you another take-away.

Let’s begin.

Douglas MacArthur gained favor of almost all American people due to his strategy towards the media during the war.

He had been leveraging his popularity to request for more power and more support to his strategy.

He requested to command all forces, air, land and sea, in the Pacific War Theater.

He requested to recover Philippines before attacking Japan in its inner defense circle, even though this might delay the war by up to 6 months.

Some top generals believed that he valued his own commitment to “Return to Philippines” more than winning the war, which was the end goal.

Of course, he was not getting what he wanted, because luckily people with higher ranks were rationale and had the right attitude.

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Then, people believed he would participate in the presidential election against Roosevelt.

Even though he would have had no chance anyway, this incident gave his supporters an opportunity to accuse Roosevelt and other people at the top for letting political opinions interfere with the War strategy.

Putting it bluntly, MacArthur’s requests were not granted because he was a potential opponent in the election. 

And just then, big strategic decisions needed to be made.

With a series of victories in the Pacific against the Japanese, Allies needed to fix their strategy to keep the momentum.

And it was clear that they needed to attack the Japs in its inner circle of defense, and not Philippines, Japs’ well-fortified outer defense.

And the decision was not to be delayed.

But the shadow of accuse would not disappear. The only way to avoid it would be to give MacArthur what he wanted and risk tens of thousands more of American lives.

The fact was that the US leadership made the right decision, knowing that they would be wronged by some people.

That is real courage and sacrifice! That is real leadership!

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Also, people will eventually learn the truth.

MacArthur was so favored during the war and even after the war by the public.

Then Korea war happened. MacArthur finally tasted the bitterness of his arrogance.

And present day, people increasingly learned his mistakes during the war, especially his inability to avoid “Another Pearl Harbor”, where majority of US air forces in Philippines were also destroyed on the ground by Japanese air raid, after “Pearl Harbor” with ample time for him to react. It was reported that his air-force generals requested repeatedly for his orders and he just ignored all of them.

Also the fact that he accepted 500K USD from the Philippines president, which is equivalent to 8 Million USD today, was compared to Eisenhower who rejected the offer from the same president.

It is almost impossible to hide the truth forever, especially so in the current age.

People will get their “justice”.

 

Till next time!