Seventy Years Ago: Thirty-One Knot Burke

Thanksgiving eve, 1943, Admiral Halsey ordered Captain Arleigh Burke, Commander Destroyer Squadron 23, with five Fletcher class destroyers, to intercept a Japanese squadron of five destroyers near the island of Buka in the Northern Solomons. One of Burke's destroyers had a minor engineering problem, previously reported, which limited speed to 30 knots instead of the normal top speed of 38 knots. Captain Burke reported to Halsey that he was proceeding at 31 knots. Halsey directed him to proceed to point Uncle: “THIRTY-ONE KNOT BURKE GET ATHWART THE BUKA-RABUL EVACUATION LINE ABOUT 35 MILES WEST OF BUKA….”

Thus was Burke's "Little Beaver" squadron dispatched to the Battle of Cape St. George and into US Naval history.

A little more than a year earlier, near Guadalcanal, the night of August 8-9, 1942, Japanese Admiral Mikawa hastily assembled a force of seven cruisers and a destroyer near Buka to counter the US/Australian invasion force of eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers at Guadalcanal. Mikawa's force lacked radar, while the allied cruisers and several of the destroyers had radar. But the Japanese had trained for night combat and they were equipped with the world's best torpedoes. US torpedoes had not been adequately tested and proved unreliable and ineffective.

When the clash began, it took about a half hour for the Japanese to sink four allied heavy cruisers, damage two destroyers and kill over a thousand allied sailors. Japan escaped with minimal damage and a loss of 58 sailors.

It was the US Navy's worst defeat ever in a sea battle.

Captain Burke's destroyers were all equipped with radar and knew how to use it at night. The problems with American torpedoes had been fixed. By late 1943, the crews were battle-experienced and, more important, the officers knew how to effectively use the new equipment.

Burke's squadron found the Japanese, sank three destroyers and damaged another, pursuing them in a long stern chase. Burke withdrew before daylight, as the squadron was well inside range of Japanese land based aircraft.

When Arleigh Burke later became Chief of Naval Operations, he wrote a personal, characteristically modest, account of the Battle of Cape St. George for Parade magazine here.

John Warner Cox: August 13, 1941 - November 26, 2013

My brother John fought pancreatic cancer for nearly three years. He taught us how to live through such a time. How to seize the day for whatever the day offers. An inspiration to us all. He lived his life from beginning to end with great good humor. When he learned there were no further treatment options, he began planning for the end, including writing his obituary. When I visited him last month in Utah, he was still refining it. Now it is finished and is on line here: http://jandjutah.wordpress.com/

Affordable Care Act - Medicaid

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, columnist Timothy Egan describes the refusal to expand Medicaid as the South's new "lost cause." He makes it plain that this is irrational, but he rather dances around the reason motivating southern states to reject an obviously good deal.

Ed Kilgore, writing in the Washington Monthly, is more direct. Calling the decision to reject Medicaid expansion the "pure meanness litmus test," Kilgore explains what this is about: "...states refusing the Medicaid expansion are doing so on grounds that they don’t want their own citizens to benefit from it. And since opposition has centered in the South, there’s not any real doubt a big motive has been a continuation of that region’s longstanding effort to—choose your verb—(a) reduce dependence on government among, or (b) keep down—those people."

In the 1930's, it was the same region, then in thrall to racist democrats (who have since become republicans),  that made sure the new social security program would exclude "agricultural workers."

There will be serious collateral damage inflicted on an already strapped health care system in the South. The health care industry understands this.

Seventy Years Ago: At Sea Off Tarawa - USS Liscome Bay

From initial action until the end of the battle, it took America's forces 76 hours to conquer the tiny but well-fortified island of Betio at Tarawa. Over 4,500 Japanese perished in the assault. 1,696 Americans lost their lives. Forty percent of Americans killed died the morning of November 23, when a Japanese submarine launched a torpedo, striking Liscome Bay near its store of aircraft ordinance. She sank in 20 minutes, carrying 687 officers and men with her.

The war in the Pacific was still very much a naval war.

Seventy Years Ago: 20-22 November 1943 - Marines On Tarawa

The assault on the island of Betio, Tarawa Atoll, began November 20. Betio, in the Gilberts, was to be a stepping stone to the Marianas, from which new B-29 heavy bombers could attack Japan.

Rear Admiral Tomaniri Sichero, an experienced engineer, had nine months to build elaborate defensive works. He was replaced in command by an experienced combat officer, RADM Keiji Shibazaki. The Japanese had over 4,500 troops in carefully prepared positions.

Attacking forces were the largest invasion force yet assembled in the Pacific: 17 aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 8 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, 66 destroyers and 36 transport ships with 35,000 troops.

After a heavy bombardment of the island by aircraft and guns, things began to fall apart when the Higgins boats approached the landing beaches. Tidal predictions were inaccurate and the boats grounded well offshore. Withering Japanese fire killed many marines as they struggled in to the beaches.

It took three days to win the battle for Betio.

Here is an account of the struggle.

Mark Thoma Reminds Us Of The State Of The Labor Market

We have a lot of headline activity every time the "unemployment rate" goes up or down. But what matters much more is the overall percentage of working age population that is employed. Here is that picture, and the ratio is going down.

Then there is the issue of wages and salaries. As Jim Hightower observes, "It isn't about jobs. Slaves had jobs!"

The Difficult Is Done At Once; The Impossible Takes A Bit Longer

Some say it was the US Army Corps of Engineers during World War II who adopted the slogan, "the difficult is done at once - the impossible takes a bit longer."

I can't vouch for that, but I can testify that the slogan accurately expresses the attitude of those who went off to that war.

No task is truly impossible.

My father's outfit, the 27th Air Depot Group, was set down in the jungle outside of Port Moresby, New Guinea, with a few bulldozers and a dismantled sawmill. That was in December, 1942. They built their own hangers, barracks, roads, runways, washing machines, and anything else they needed. At the end of the supply line, they dismantled damaged aircraft for spare parts and rebuilt, redesigned and improved the aircraft in their custody.

In October and November of 1943, they mounted sustained air attacks on the main Japanese base at Rabaul. Operation Cartwheel, it was called.

The original goal was to capture the base at Rabaul. By August, the concept changed into a plan to neutralize and bypass Rabaul. By the end of November, General Kenney's 5th Air Force operating from New Guinea and Admiral Halsey's aircraft carriers had neutralized Japanese air forces out of Rabaul.

Life Is Short But Art Is Long

Thomas Jefferson Scott, artist, architect and designer, was fond of quoting Hippocrates' observation that life is short but art is long. Our lives are richer because Tom Scott shared both his life and his art with us.

Tom's friends and family gathered last Sunday at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, to celebrate that life and share reminiscences of a life well lived.

It was a joyful time.

Here is a link to his obituary, printed earlier this year in the Baltimore Sun.

Liz and I were honored to be his friends.