Post by miletus12 on Feb 17, 2023 17:09:36 GMT
New topic because it goes to "ship's cultures", the "myths" about the Japanese and Australian navies and the underbelly of what plagued the allies in 1942 in the Pacific.
I think you are right, that amount of work could only be done by people who had the money to bribe government officials.
Technically; she was launched as HMS Amphion in 1936. She actually served as a British ship during the start of WWII in Europe and was assigned to the Africa station. She participated in the Battle of the Atlantic until late 1939 before she went to Australia. For political reasons she was transferred (sold) to Dominion of Australia service in June 1939, as HM(A)S Perth..
Functionally, when she was in "Australian" service, this mattered not a jot as far as the Royal Navy was concerned. She was diverted from her planned assigned service to Australia to the British Mediterranean fleet specifically based in Alexandria. There her notable activities were to escort convoys from British dominated Egypt to Malta, a valuabe service, a "presence" at the Battle of Cape Matapna, and as a bombed ship target in the badly bungled Greece and Crete campaigns. This last event put her into the repair yard until June 1941. Her next activity was naval gunfire support for troops ashore during the Lebanon / Syria campaign against the Vichy French. After that Free French / Australian victory, the HM(A)S Perth finally went homw to Australia. There she assumed convoy and sea patrol roles much as her sister ship, HM(A)S Sydney. This was primarily in the Australian western approaches and in the Indian Ocean.
Then came ABDA, with the subsets of ABDAAIR, and ABDAARM and ABDAFLOAT. A worse mishandled abortion of a shackled up, misrigged Elmer Fudded command in WWII, there never was and that includes such debacles like the French 2nd Army, the OKH / OKW schizophrenia, the entire British Far East Command (Under Wavell) and MacArthur's Alamo Force. From the specific combined efforts of Wavell and Helfrich and the politics they played with each other; we got the disaster of the Battle of the Java Sea. Karel Doorman, who was conveniently blamed for that disaster at the time, was denied the air reconnaissance that he was promised, was misinformed about lack of air support, was not told about minefields, and was abandoned by British West Force, when the showdown off Java came.
That was how the thoroughly incompetent and incredibly stupid Takagi Takeo and his fellow ninnies, were able to stumble and bumble their way into a victory. with 140+ torpedo launches and only 6 hits on Doorman's ships, and 4 of those hits happened entirely by dumb luck. The Japanese were as confused as the Allied fleet was in that fight. Did you know that what set up that Japanese victory was that Doorman's fleet blundered into a "friendly" mine dumped by a Dutch minelayer into a safe channel and that dump was never reported; which threw Doorman's fleet into confusion as they tried to crawl through what they thought was a submarine ambush: that the British and American heavy cruisers got lost (HMS Exeter led astray and USS Houston followed her, and Doorman had to chase them to reform his line.), putting the entire line on the WRONG track and then the bad luck of a cloud moving at the wrong time, so that moonlight suddenly silhouetted Doorman's ships at the worst possible moment as he was finally closing on the transports after boxing Takagi; so that HIJMS Haguro had a beautiful setup and fired the one truly successful torpedo spread that got HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java? The Japanese missed HM(A)S Perth in that last one.
HM(A)S Perth meets her end:
The short version of the subsequent Battle of Sunda Strait was that the allies delayed too long, thought falsely that the channel was clear, *(No air searches, just assumptions, M.), subsequent air reconnaissance and support promised, again failed to materialize, Hector Waller RAN, as senior and lead, expletive deleted up the escape maneuver and USS Houston (PUC) (Albert Rooks, USN MOH.) went down fighting. If Takeo, Takagi was an imbecile who lucked into a victory, then Hara, Kenzaburo was another one who wasted 35 Type 93s for nothing. It was left to HIJMS Harukaze, alone, with a half spread of 4 fish to damage the mostly undamaged and now running HM(A)S Perth with 2 hits. Then after a stern chase, HIJMS Shirakumo and HIJMS Mirakum added their half spreads (8 fish) and scored 2 hits.12 fish expended for 4 hits at murderously close range to sink HM(A)S Perth.
USS Houston was scuttled later after a gun and torpedo duel that lasted a full half hour. A final torpedo attack probably by other Japanese destroyers, opened her up with three or four hits at the end, after her seavalves were opened, for she was out of ammunition and ordered scuttled.
It was not a complete criminal waste of two ships. When firing torpedoes at the USS Houston, the HIJMS Mogami missed her and those fish swam merrily on their way to blow up and sink or force the beaching of / and loss of four Japanese transports and a minesweeper in an invasion convoy that Hara was supposed to be protecting from the likes of the USS Houston and the HM(A)S Perth.
In that entire action, some 65 Japanese torpedoes were fired for 12 / 13 hits (Better than Takagi's ships did. M.), which sank 2 (?) allied and wrecked 5 Japanese ships and killed 1,000 allied personnel (This 1,000 KIA allied tally includes a Dutch destroyer, HNLMS Evertsen's crew, in a separate action. M.), and drowned about 2,000 Japanese soldiers. This of course improved relations between the Japanese army and navy immeasurably after LTGEN Imamura, Hitoshi IJA, the commander of 16th Route March Army, had to swim for it when Ryujo Maru ate one of HIJMS Mogami's fish and sank under him. (In case you missed it; that is INTENSE SARCASM.)
So much for the Japanese...
======================================================
Two postscripts... one about ABDA and politics; and one about ship's cultures.
a. Doorman should have listened to Admiral Thomas Hart, who told him to "get out of there", to go south and save his fleet and live to fight another day. Instead, Doorman followed Conrad Helfrich's orders to stay and fight. Hart was an admiral. Helfrich was a "politician admiral". There is a difference.
b. In August of 1939, the HM(A)S Perth made a layover to represent Australia at the World's Fair. That was in New York City. The NYPD sent its riot squad out to back up Harold Farncomb, its captain, who apparently had ticked off the crew with some nutty orders about uniforms and shore leave. Whatever the cause, the "mutiny" was locally negotiated down (By the NYPD.), and the incident was closed. This should have been an ALARM BELL, as was also the case of the later incompetent CAPT Bode of the USS Chicago for the USN and for the same exact institutional reason. Lack of Character MATTERS.
Now I do not have many British sourced particulars on Farncomb, but he appears to have made a very bad impression on most of the United States naval officers who met him in the Solomons, who considered him a bit of a prig, when he commanded HM(A)S Australia under Crutchley. The USN saying; "The captain sets the ship's culture." is a proven truism. Happy ships can have strict martinets in command, but those officers and their chiefs also know how to FAIRLY run ships and thus keep happy and willing crews. This Farncomb would be technically the "culture setter" of HM(A)S Perth as her first "Australian" captain.
Following further up on Farncomb, whatever rotteness he befouled HM(A)S Perth with, he carried forward into HM(A)S Australia. Under his foolish command, that ship suffered a murder in the engine division around March 1942 that led to a MESSY court martial of the two stokers who stabbed the third one to death. This court martial happened at Noumea of all places and that was just before the Battle of Coral Sea. There was some extortion and sexual blackmail involved in the murder. Whatever, Farncomb had not only cluelessly missed the troubles he had below decks, but he completely bungled the court martial that followed as a result, and it was left up to the Canberra government ashore to straighten out that fool's mess.
If you wanted to know why the American and British navies had intense friction to the point of dislike in the Pacific, then you should dig deep into the gutless cowardice and drunkeness of CAPT Bode USN which caused the USS Chicago needless political grief after when she layed over in Sydney harbor; especially when she shot the place up in properly foiling a Japanese midget submarine attack, while her idiotic captain was asleep drunk, and later when that same Bode ran away during the Battle of Savo Island. The RAN were not happy about that one, either.
Going the other way, the Americans were fully aware of what happened in New York with Farncomb and were not surprised when Farncomb expletive deleted up before and during Coral Sea and later was "absent" during Savo Island; even though the last incident was mostly Crutchley's and Turner's faults. Still Farncomb took the whole ship away when he had the independent means that could have ferried Crutchley to the officer's call (seaplane); so expletive delete him for being the same kind of captain as CAPT Franklin Chadwick USN was of the USS New York when he allowed the imbecile, RADM Sampson, to carry him out of the line during the Battle of Santiago Bay in 1898. At least Chadwick, despite Sampson, turned around and got back into the fight when the shooting started. Late is better than never. What did Farncomb do after Crutchley urged the same action? Nothing.
CYNICAL Miletus
Fully agree. Unfortunately its been a problem around the world, especially in the less democratic areas for some time.
One small quibble with the 1st post. It would be HMAS Perth. 
Functionally, when she was in "Australian" service, this mattered not a jot as far as the Royal Navy was concerned. She was diverted from her planned assigned service to Australia to the British Mediterranean fleet specifically based in Alexandria. There her notable activities were to escort convoys from British dominated Egypt to Malta, a valuabe service, a "presence" at the Battle of Cape Matapna, and as a bombed ship target in the badly bungled Greece and Crete campaigns. This last event put her into the repair yard until June 1941. Her next activity was naval gunfire support for troops ashore during the Lebanon / Syria campaign against the Vichy French. After that Free French / Australian victory, the HM(A)S Perth finally went homw to Australia. There she assumed convoy and sea patrol roles much as her sister ship, HM(A)S Sydney. This was primarily in the Australian western approaches and in the Indian Ocean.
Then came ABDA, with the subsets of ABDAAIR, and ABDAARM and ABDAFLOAT. A worse mishandled abortion of a shackled up, misrigged Elmer Fudded command in WWII, there never was and that includes such debacles like the French 2nd Army, the OKH / OKW schizophrenia, the entire British Far East Command (Under Wavell) and MacArthur's Alamo Force. From the specific combined efforts of Wavell and Helfrich and the politics they played with each other; we got the disaster of the Battle of the Java Sea. Karel Doorman, who was conveniently blamed for that disaster at the time, was denied the air reconnaissance that he was promised, was misinformed about lack of air support, was not told about minefields, and was abandoned by British West Force, when the showdown off Java came.
That was how the thoroughly incompetent and incredibly stupid Takagi Takeo and his fellow ninnies, were able to stumble and bumble their way into a victory. with 140+ torpedo launches and only 6 hits on Doorman's ships, and 4 of those hits happened entirely by dumb luck. The Japanese were as confused as the Allied fleet was in that fight. Did you know that what set up that Japanese victory was that Doorman's fleet blundered into a "friendly" mine dumped by a Dutch minelayer into a safe channel and that dump was never reported; which threw Doorman's fleet into confusion as they tried to crawl through what they thought was a submarine ambush: that the British and American heavy cruisers got lost (HMS Exeter led astray and USS Houston followed her, and Doorman had to chase them to reform his line.), putting the entire line on the WRONG track and then the bad luck of a cloud moving at the wrong time, so that moonlight suddenly silhouetted Doorman's ships at the worst possible moment as he was finally closing on the transports after boxing Takagi; so that HIJMS Haguro had a beautiful setup and fired the one truly successful torpedo spread that got HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java? The Japanese missed HM(A)S Perth in that last one.
HM(A)S Perth meets her end:
The short version of the subsequent Battle of Sunda Strait was that the allies delayed too long, thought falsely that the channel was clear, *(No air searches, just assumptions, M.), subsequent air reconnaissance and support promised, again failed to materialize, Hector Waller RAN, as senior and lead, expletive deleted up the escape maneuver and USS Houston (PUC) (Albert Rooks, USN MOH.) went down fighting. If Takeo, Takagi was an imbecile who lucked into a victory, then Hara, Kenzaburo was another one who wasted 35 Type 93s for nothing. It was left to HIJMS Harukaze, alone, with a half spread of 4 fish to damage the mostly undamaged and now running HM(A)S Perth with 2 hits. Then after a stern chase, HIJMS Shirakumo and HIJMS Mirakum added their half spreads (8 fish) and scored 2 hits.12 fish expended for 4 hits at murderously close range to sink HM(A)S Perth.
USS Houston was scuttled later after a gun and torpedo duel that lasted a full half hour. A final torpedo attack probably by other Japanese destroyers, opened her up with three or four hits at the end, after her seavalves were opened, for she was out of ammunition and ordered scuttled.
It was not a complete criminal waste of two ships. When firing torpedoes at the USS Houston, the HIJMS Mogami missed her and those fish swam merrily on their way to blow up and sink or force the beaching of / and loss of four Japanese transports and a minesweeper in an invasion convoy that Hara was supposed to be protecting from the likes of the USS Houston and the HM(A)S Perth.
In that entire action, some 65 Japanese torpedoes were fired for 12 / 13 hits (Better than Takagi's ships did. M.), which sank 2 (?) allied and wrecked 5 Japanese ships and killed 1,000 allied personnel (This 1,000 KIA allied tally includes a Dutch destroyer, HNLMS Evertsen's crew, in a separate action. M.), and drowned about 2,000 Japanese soldiers. This of course improved relations between the Japanese army and navy immeasurably after LTGEN Imamura, Hitoshi IJA, the commander of 16th Route March Army, had to swim for it when Ryujo Maru ate one of HIJMS Mogami's fish and sank under him. (In case you missed it; that is INTENSE SARCASM.)
So much for the Japanese...
======================================================
Two postscripts... one about ABDA and politics; and one about ship's cultures.
a. Doorman should have listened to Admiral Thomas Hart, who told him to "get out of there", to go south and save his fleet and live to fight another day. Instead, Doorman followed Conrad Helfrich's orders to stay and fight. Hart was an admiral. Helfrich was a "politician admiral". There is a difference.
b. In August of 1939, the HM(A)S Perth made a layover to represent Australia at the World's Fair. That was in New York City. The NYPD sent its riot squad out to back up Harold Farncomb, its captain, who apparently had ticked off the crew with some nutty orders about uniforms and shore leave. Whatever the cause, the "mutiny" was locally negotiated down (By the NYPD.), and the incident was closed. This should have been an ALARM BELL, as was also the case of the later incompetent CAPT Bode of the USS Chicago for the USN and for the same exact institutional reason. Lack of Character MATTERS.
Now I do not have many British sourced particulars on Farncomb, but he appears to have made a very bad impression on most of the United States naval officers who met him in the Solomons, who considered him a bit of a prig, when he commanded HM(A)S Australia under Crutchley. The USN saying; "The captain sets the ship's culture." is a proven truism. Happy ships can have strict martinets in command, but those officers and their chiefs also know how to FAIRLY run ships and thus keep happy and willing crews. This Farncomb would be technically the "culture setter" of HM(A)S Perth as her first "Australian" captain.
Following further up on Farncomb, whatever rotteness he befouled HM(A)S Perth with, he carried forward into HM(A)S Australia. Under his foolish command, that ship suffered a murder in the engine division around March 1942 that led to a MESSY court martial of the two stokers who stabbed the third one to death. This court martial happened at Noumea of all places and that was just before the Battle of Coral Sea. There was some extortion and sexual blackmail involved in the murder. Whatever, Farncomb had not only cluelessly missed the troubles he had below decks, but he completely bungled the court martial that followed as a result, and it was left up to the Canberra government ashore to straighten out that fool's mess.
If you wanted to know why the American and British navies had intense friction to the point of dislike in the Pacific, then you should dig deep into the gutless cowardice and drunkeness of CAPT Bode USN which caused the USS Chicago needless political grief after when she layed over in Sydney harbor; especially when she shot the place up in properly foiling a Japanese midget submarine attack, while her idiotic captain was asleep drunk, and later when that same Bode ran away during the Battle of Savo Island. The RAN were not happy about that one, either.
Going the other way, the Americans were fully aware of what happened in New York with Farncomb and were not surprised when Farncomb expletive deleted up before and during Coral Sea and later was "absent" during Savo Island; even though the last incident was mostly Crutchley's and Turner's faults. Still Farncomb took the whole ship away when he had the independent means that could have ferried Crutchley to the officer's call (seaplane); so expletive delete him for being the same kind of captain as CAPT Franklin Chadwick USN was of the USS New York when he allowed the imbecile, RADM Sampson, to carry him out of the line during the Battle of Santiago Bay in 1898. At least Chadwick, despite Sampson, turned around and got back into the fight when the shooting started. Late is better than never. What did Farncomb do after Crutchley urged the same action? Nothing.
CYNICAL Miletus