The Drydock - Episode 293

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:52 - Between the Matsushimas, Kitakami, Shimakaze, the Tones, the refit Fusos and the refit Ises, which was the worst of the IJN’s “what the hell” designs?
00:05:53 - Why didn't the Germans press any Soviet ships into service with the Kriegsmarine?
00:09:52 - Would 2 Shokaku's instead of the Yamato's extend the Pacific War and if so by how much?
00:19:57 - When HMS Dreadnought was launched, she famously made the pre-Dreadnoughts of the time obsolete basically overnight. But seeing as there was only one of her and it would take a while to to replace a whole fleet, were there any plans to modernise some of the pre-Dreadnoughts? And if yes, what did this pre-Dreadnought modernisation look like and how much could you squeeze out of one to make it as useful as possible in a dreadnought world?
00:25:24 - Pronunciation of names?
00:36:09 - Submarine in ANZAC convoy?
00:36:49 - Hypothetically, regardless of any casualties to the Eastern Fleet. How does the IJN go forward with the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway having only CarDivs 1 and 5 making up the Kido Butai?
00:41:35 - How deep into each of the major types of aircraft carrier would an inert 16" shell penetrate (assuming it doesn't hit anything too solid on the way down)?
00:46:28 - Do you think there are any riverine warships from which could be found away from the current path of the river they sank in?
00:49:35 - Was there any way to prevent the reset of gun size from the 413mm main battery of the Victoria class to the common pre-dreadnought and early dreadnought 305mm main batteries?
00:53:54 - An American officer wanted to be Beatty?
00:57:38 - Were any torpedoes in the interwar period designed or modified to specifically defeat any of the torpedo protection schemes being developed?
01:02:41 - Which ship or naval operation in the period covered by the channel. Looks like it was thought up, designed and built/implemented by Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond?

[@Drachinifel]

Pinned post for Q&A :)

[@themightynanto3158]

Most Kriegsmarine warships (aside from those compliant with treaty restrictions such as the Konigsberg class) are accused to have an inefficient design compared to other ships of the period but can the german designers really be faulted when they basically hadn't developed battleships, cruisers and destroyers for 20 years? Or is the lack of those years of experience not a good justification for having developed such flawed designs?

[@FireFox_60]

In reading the book Flagship (HMAS Australia 2 and the RAN in general) during the battle of coral sea it is mentioned that when Japanese aircraft attacked Australia,Canberra and Chicago they claim to have sunk a QE and a California class. It is clear this was because of turret arrangement. Did similar mistakes occur in other navy’s or engagements?

[@raxsavvage]

given our personal hate towards the lack of a proper battleship museum ship for the UK, could centurion have / could be raised and restored, if i understand it right she was intensionally scutted and abandoned by the crew and not a wargrave, but honestly tryna find info is not our skillset. also think centurion is a great name

[@Cbabilon675]

I got no problem with the way you speak partner. And on top of that, I get a good chuckle. When you get some of it wrong, so thank you😊😊

[@keithplymale2374]

In your first answer where you talked about two extra Shokaku's I suspect the IJN would have taken Midway if 3 CV's had been lost on each side. In that case would the entire Solomon's champagne have even happened? The Russians used 4 pre-dreads to fight Goebin/Yavez in the Black Sea. Did anybody else try this like they did or at least talk about the possibility?

[@bernadmanny]

That was a scarily accurate impression of the Top Gear team.

[@marcosalmendras4998]

My wife is looking at me like I've lost my mind.

[@josefchmelar9070]

Was laughing as well :D

[@Drak976]

26:10 Drach does robot voice >We want your live voice Drach does live voice >Waaaahhhh

[@robfromgpw5243]

Drach, I live in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan just outside of Detroit. You may mispronounce my town any time you want. I am strong enough to not be offended and am grateful that you provide continually educational and entertaining information on an almost daily basis. You are to be celebrated and not admonished for attempting to provide meaningful information continually. Thank you for being Drach!

[@tonedeaftachankagaming457]

I wonder what the commenter would think of Buena Vista, Georgia. Should everyone know its "Boo-na" Vista? Would he expect a Brit, a Spaniard, or even a New Englander to know that? And godforbid a Georgian attempt to pronounce Scituate or Gloucester, Mass. No patience for people who take offense at pronunciations

[@ThePrader]

I moved from "Yankee" states like New York, and PA to GA when I was in the 8th grade. I swear to gawd those hicks in Columbus, GA, spoke some other language than "English". I could not understand them. Obviously they must have been stupid. Three years later I sounded just like them. So we then move to AK and nobody can understand me because I was clearly "stupid". Funny how that works. My advice is to get a girlfriend who speaks the local version of "stupid" and all will become clear very fast.

[@troy242]

MICHIGAN! Bay City here. Great vid Drach!

[@gwtpictgwtpict4214]

On pronunciations, at university I knew a lass whose Dad was Polish, escaped to Britain during WWII and continued the fight. She just got on with the fact that her surname, Zowada, was generally in Britain pronounced phonetically, Zo-wa-da. She explained how it should be pronounced, my best attempt at writing that down would be Zzva-da. So, once informed by her that's how we, her friends, pronounced her surname. Pretty much the rest of Britain stuck with Zo-wa-da. Props to those Eastern European immigrants to Britain who generally got a lot closer.

[@88porpoise]

My general position is I will give my best guess based on spelling and if told I am wrong I will apologize and try to use the correct pronunciation. Occasionally it is just a sound combination that I cannot make and people have always accepted that I make an attempt. And as someone who regularly is having to guess how to pronounce international names due to my work it has been a thing for me to learn. The only people I would criticize are people that can't be bothered to make an attempt. The place I have gotten the most negative reactions is actually from determining the correct surname for people of Iberian descent. Most understand, but I have had a few that got right pissed.

[@fzyturtle]

When trying to pronounce a name from a foreign language, dialect or regional accent, as long as the speaker is making an effort to pronounce the word with respect, it's fine. As you pointed out, simply within any given english speaking nation there is an array of pronunciations in different geographical regions, much less over time. Getting bent out of shape over how to pronounce Albany, Olbany, Ahl-bany, or whatever goes beyond pedantic and into the realm of ignorant anal-retentive drunk posting. The historical channels I watch; Drach, Rex, Greg's Airplanes, Military History Visualized, The Chieftain, etc., will almost always lead with our follow up with "apologies for pronunciation," and that's all that needs to be said. If someone is deliberately mispronouncing your last name or nationality as a way of insulting you, fine, go throw your shoe at them, but that's not what's going on here.

[@pminoregon9072]

I had a college professor from Poland who was endlessly fascinated by the American pronunciation of English. Sometimes we'd spend more time talking about language than we did Hydrology, the course subject. He was a great guy and those classes were very educational, but perhaps I'd need to brush up on the subject if I needed to actually know Hydrology.

[@heirofaniu]

My high-school shop teacher was a pole, his last name was spelt Pokrzywa, but was pronounced poke-shah-vah. We all just called him Poke.

[@toveychurchill6468]

Drach improving as the Top gear trio is something I didn't know I needed this week. Wish could see that more often

[@buonafortuna8928]

Drach don't listen to the knockers - I'm just grateful for the content. BTW great interview the other day.

[@chillybinbob]

I was raised in Oklahoma. While I served on American Submarines I was quite entertaining for the majority of the crew, especially when I stood chief of the watch and would announce "Daaahv Daahv!" on the 1MC for the entire crew to enjoy my accent. More often it was only to the maneuvering room when I would give them permission to "Pump waste ahl, pump no ahl"

[@frankbodenschatz173]

Don't worry about your pronunciations as the two or three viewers you MAY lose won't matter in the big scheme of things. Karen's come in all forms......

[@CB-vt3mx]

don't worry about internet tough guys complaining about pronunciations. Even in Japan, place and ship names vary.

[@tokinsloff312]

Just tell them to fock aff and see how important pronunciation is then!

[@OtakuLoki]

Same here. There have been a few names or words that have caused me to stumble, but I recognize that regional variations are a thing and it's often very hard to recognize them from the written word, even with people who are native English speakers. Ask me how to refer to Chili, NY why don't you? Or Nunda. Even people relatively geographically close to those places often get surprised by the proper pronunciations. When you start dealing with unfamiliar languages and phonemes it goes sideways even more quickly.

[@billbrockman779]

Perhaps the rude pronunciation questioner can speak most languages on Earth perfectly such as to make a native marvel. What a talent!

[@Trek001]

As punishment for being rude, we should make them take a cruise with the 2nd Pacific Squadron

[@mastathrash5609]

Indeed! they must a truly cunning linguist! 😄The kind of Talented creature who needs something to complain about....Imagine getting so bent outta shape over pronunciation that you have to be needlessly rude about it. Smh, they Should take a ride on the Kamchatka.

[@Trek001]

@@mastathrash5609 Has Drach got their first "Karen"?

[@paulthewall4764]

@@mastathrash5609 I always thought, at least when I was younger, that I was a truly cunning linguist.

[@hughgordon6435]

if that's the only sarky complaint Drach gets doing everything else OK? and chances are he couldn't pronounce Achiltibuie? or Milngavie?

[@AnimeSunglasses]

At the mental image of Richard Hammond riding a shell-delivery-train, I automatically sang the theme to Thomas and Friends...

[@Trek001]

A'la HMS _By Jove_ perhaps?

[@johnbuchman4854]

As long as it wasn't an electrically powered shell delivery train...

[@btyrreddagger2065]

With Jeremy on the wheel saying more power.

[@AnimeSunglasses]

@@johnbuchman4854 I dunno, I can easily imagine one of the others pointing that out and Hammond saying "oh, why'd you have to ruin it?"

[@samarvora7185]

HAMMOND!

[@marcinkoacz4580]

As a Polishman when I hear your butchering of our names and words I feel deep compassion and great respect for brave standing up to the face of the enemy and trying. For the linguistic expert I wouldn't be so elaborate and gentle. Spierdalaj would be quite appropriate in my opinion. Pronounced as one like.

[@seanquigley3605]

I'm seeing the Top Gear build being about close to shore fire support......Hammond storms up in a British MTB at full speed or American PT gun boat conversion and is immediately perturbed by an undersea disturbance as Clarkson surfaces M-1 before popping the hatch to mock Hammond for picking something matching his stature and saying he considered Scurcrof "but well its French!!" Hammond responds insulting Clarkson for only having one gun....Clarkson then points out that one gun is much longer then anything Hammond fields. They both then look seaward in amazement to see May trundling up in an Rocket Firing LCM. And both of them shake their heads making comments about were it possible for him to find anything slower. When May is finally even with them they give him guff for being slowest thing in the competition as per usual where then May points out he can put down heavier fire then Hammond almost as fast and can salvo fire much faster then Clarkson. They then proceed to get a bit lost and "Accidentally" fire up a popular bathing beach or conversely find themselves off a Nude Beach in Spain or the South of France and no firing is completed because they need to do alot more "Recon of this beach before engaging."

[@ph89787]

James May: As you can see, I have done this properly.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

I think that if they were going to accidentally-on-purpose turn up anywhere, if would be off Porto Belgrano. 😂 Just sayin'.

[@natthaphonhongcharoen]

50:50 Specifically, the newly invented smokeless powders had more gradual burn compared to the spontaneous explosion of black powder. For black powder, because everything was burned immediately the initial pressure would be really high (less chamber volume since the shell hasn't move yet). So in order to increase the power the best solution was to increase the bore diameter and projectile weight while maintaining the same velocity. With smokeless powder the pressure can starts fairly low and remains that way since as the shell travel through the barrel there's more volume to fill and the burn rate that gradually increase keep the pressure at healthy level. This is why not only naval guns but small arms also transitioned to high velocity small bore guns. You can keep the same amount of energy with significantly smaller and lighter guns and bullets. Also the increased velocity means the bullet reaches the target faster with less drop. This make it more accurate since you need to lead the target a lot less and each yards of incorrect range causes less elevation change.

[@stevevalley7835]

It was the slow burn rate that USN BuOrd did not fully appreciate when they switched to smokeless. The USN switched from a 13"/35 to a 12"/40 to take advantage of the slower burn rate, but the new 12"/40s, and the 8"/40s started blowing their muzzles and chases off. BuOrd found chamber pressures were as predicted, but pressure in the chase was far higher than expected. A rebuild program was instituted where the guns were given a strong liner and hooped to the muzzle to reinforce them.

[@Lamprolign]

When my dad was in the USN in the 1950's he was assigned to brief operation of a radar set to sailors from the Royal Navy and the Bundesmarine. As it turned out, between my dad's deep Appalachian accent and a cornucopia of regional accents amongst the Royal Navy sailors, the folk from the Bundesmarine had to act as interpreters. As I recall from his telling of the story, none took offense and apparently there was a night at the pubs afterwards of which the story was "vague" at best.

[@rackstraw]

"If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?"

[@ryklatortuga4146]

Some say she used a dab of opposite lock to powerslide through the Straights of Messina because sideways looks better - others say she did two high speed doughnoughts infront of the entire German High Seas Fleet just to make things interesting - All we know is... it's HMS Warstig

[@WelshInRussia]

HMS Warstig, my new favourite shipname! Would have to be a battlecruiser to get the speed. Or maybe a destroyer...

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Some people say that her rangefinnders are made out of actual human eyeballs. And that none of her crew can taste the flavour peppermint. All we know is she's callef HMS Warstig.

[@duncanbuchanan3269]

The Hammond, May & Clarkson segment was brilliant! I laughed my head off! Well done Drach. By the way, I am sure you will have seen Jeremy Clarkson's two videos on Convoy PQ17 and the raid on St Nazaire. I think you and he would get on quite well.

[@colinwilliams877]

With the quality and entertainment these videos provide us all, the only thing some folks can do is complain? Keep it up Drach, you are doing great!

[@billbutler335]

These are some riverine warships I know about off the top of my head. 1. USS Cario, a City class ironclad Gunboat, sunk in the Yazoo River during the U.S. civil war. discovered in 1956, salvaged in the mid 1960's and currently on display in Vicksburg Mississippi. 2. CSS Neuse, a steam powered iron clad ram, built on the Neuse River in North Carolina then scuttled to prevent capture. lower hull was recovered in the mid 1960's and is currently on display at the CSS Muesum in Kinston North Carolina. 3. CSS Arkansas, a Confederate casemate iron clad, scuttled by her crew after the engines broke down. Remains are currently under a levee on the Mississippi river near Baton Rouge Louisiana.

[@Isolder74]

I'm sure there are lots of lost riverboats on or around the Mississippi River area. All the way even up most of the tributaries.

[@nvelsen1975]

The Chinese gunboat Zhongshan was recovered too.

[@rashkavar]

Regarding Japanese names being romanized: what you are typically looking at is something called "Romanji" which is a very specific ruleset for how Japanese kana (the syllabic characters that describe how a thing is pronounced, as opposed to Kanji which are less...directly related to what one must do to *say* the word represented and more related to the concepts being expressed by that term) are to be rendered in the Latin alphabet. Most of the time, having the Romanji ruleset is helpful and avoids confusion. It allows Westerners trying to interpret Japanese text to work with a consistent interpretation of letters, and for English speakers (who were a particularly high priority given the post-war occupation) it comes pretty close to providing characters that are phonetically quite similar to what they would expect. I know of 3 areas where Romanji falls somewhat flat: the -suke suffix, Tsu, and the R/L problem. The former is that it's quite common for Japanese names (and possibly words in general, I'm still learning fundamentals as yet) end in the kana representing "su" and "ke" and thus are romanized to "-suke"; but this gets compressed down to something that would be closer to "skay" in English. It's kinda just something you have to learn to recognize. Tsu and the R/L problem both stem from the fact that they're sounds that don't quite exist in English, but are close to. R and L are quite similar consonants - make an rrrr and a llll sound back to back, you'll notice the only change you need to make is the position of your tongue. The sound in Japanese is similar to both, but with the tongue at some point in between where it is for R and L. Tsu, similarly, is pretty close to what you do to say the sound in proper Japanese, but it's, again, slightly off. Overall, though, it's a pretty effective and intuitive system. It won't get you exact pronunciation for pretty much anything, there's a lot of very slight differences...but aside from a handful of pitfalls, it'll get an ordinary English speaker sounding close enough to Japanese to be intelligible. Which is more than can be said for some systems: Chinese in particular is notoriously difficult to interpret due to the fact that Chinese in particular contains a lot of sounds that are quite distant from sounds we're used to making. This leads to Pinyin, a system developed in the 1950s that features such oddities as the letter g representing an unaspirated k (as in "skill") and the letters j, q and x all representing sounds that just don't exist in English. This, too, is quite a good system for what it is, but it's significantly less intuitive to your average anglophone because you have to learn to interpret the familiar letters in entirely different ways. (And if you're doing history, then you have further complications in that Pinyin is two of *ten* distinct romanization schemes that have been devised over the years. (And yes, two - I've been talking about Hanyu Pinyin, which is used in relation to Standard Chinese and thus Mainland China. Tongyong Pinyin is a variant developed in Taiwan to romanize Mandarin there.) This is why we have cities like Beijing also being labelled Peking - the name didn't change, we just changed what Latin alphabet letters are used to represent its Chinese name) But yeah, romanization of languages that don't natively use the Latin alphabet is extremely difficult. And even when you're talking about a country that uses the Latin alphabet, you've got no guarantee that your pronunciation will be remotely accurate. Consider Polish, where you have Andrzej as a fairly common name - which seems to be pronounced closer to "Andrei" with just a hint of a z after the r....which is probably not what first came to mind to most anglophones when first encountering this name.

[@nvelsen1975]

And then some Americans rock up, still using Wade-Giles which is based off of Cantonese and suddenly the complication level goes to 'yes'.

[@greenseaships]

1:02:41- I was going to nominate HMS Marshal Ney for this but that's good enough! :D

[@greenseaships]

The "Drachinifel Board Game" is kinda like Operation; every time you pronounce a ship's name, you get a shock and buzzing sound! No matter HOW you pronounce it!

[@user-tr2li3vu6u]

I don't know why, but these videos make me sleep better than any rain sounds or ASMR. I know very little about warships, but there's just something about the calming voice.

[@lorimalchione5638]

Use this to go to sleep too!

[@hughgordon6435]

instead of Mrs. Drach typing away in the background, we now get the pupper dreaming ? dont know which is better?

[@bearshrimp]

Really wonderful analysis of pronunciation. I am a native Swedish speaker ("from Göteborg )who has lived in the US since 1976 and am a native American speaker as well (West Coast LA American) who studied Spanish in school and Mandarin Chinese at University and post graduate. With Chinese I stated with Wade-Giles ("Peking") transliteration and then we changed to Pinyin ("Being") Chinese transliteration. When someone legitimately mispronounces something all that shows me is they learned that word by reading! I NEVER make fun of someone's pronunciation but I will empathetically assist with the pronunciation if I know the correct pronunciation because learning something new is always wonderful 😉

[@nvelsen1975]

Merely how people speak in China. You go through half a province and the dialects sometimes get so thick, native speakers themselves are like "He may have meant this word, but who knows". How many people do you think were still around from 1880s who know their way around fire-tube boilers?

[@caseyprice5061]

Screw the guy giving you grief about pronunciation, but i respect you for answering it, much bigger man than me drach 🤣

[@thomasbernecky2078]

Our Dear Friend Drach, well done, but you cannot please everyone in the interweb. We do appreciate your ongoing well-mannered attempts to educate the Ignorant though. There was a Classic Time Team episode where they helped unearth a Roman Trading ship on the Rhine.

[@ericdueck9405]

I can see the Abdiel class minesweepers being the result of Clarkson screaming POWERR! COME OOOOOON!

[@BronZeage]

Re: Riverine ships lost in the River. The USS Cairo was sunk in the Yazoo River. It may have been the first ship sunk by an electrically detonated mine, December 12, 1862. Sometime around 1960, it was located and a salvage operation began. I was 4 years old at the time and visited the site. The salvage didn't go well. The first attempt to raise it in one piece with cable slings, cut it into three pieces. In the end, most of it was recovered and it sits at the Military Museum at Vicksburg MS. The CSS Arkansas, or what's left of it is somewhere south of Baton Rouge. It had engine problems which made it pretty much ineffective. It ran aground and the crew set it on fire. The Arkansas floated free an drifted down river. It is said the cannons fired as it passed Baton Rouge, just before the magazine exploded. It's present location, if there is one, is unknown. On December 7, 1968, the Coast Guard buoy tender White Alder was struck by a freighter and sank at Bayou Goula Bend. Only three men survived. Eighteen died and fifteen are still aboard. The river currents made immediate recovery too dangerous and by the time more resources were brought in, the current had scoured a hole in the river bottom. The White Alder slid into the hole and most of the hull was buried under the silt. It remains in place, today. The White Alder was built in 1943 and was launched as the tender YF-417

[@Khymerion]

I just want to see the three discussing the wonders of various power plants and the inevitable showing up of one of them with some nightmare german steam plant to the ridicule of the others. Liberty ships also sound like one of their build projects... especially with their habit of breaking apart due to shoddy construction.

[@davidrenton]

rememember Top Gear did build a rocket , that kinda landed like a V2, and the Germans did'nt put a Robin Reliant payload on theirs :)

[@ph89787]

Thanks for answering my questions Drach.

[@82726jsjsufhejsjshshdjso]

Love you drach, thank you for the videos you make for us ❤

[@stnylan]

That question - you continually acknowledge you know you are not always managing pronunciations. You often ask for guidance in the comments. And over the 250+ Drydocks I've been listening you have demonstrably striven to improve. You do an excellent job.

[@zotfotpiq]

man, drach... you're the best. "don't worry, childhood zot. one day there will be this thing called the internet and there will be this guy who will tell you EVERYTHING about battleships. all you have to do is stay alive long enough. got it buddy? let's gooooo!" ❤

[@GWflife]

Riverine warship excavated from being buried in mud: USS Cairo (pronounced KAY-ro, after Cairo, IL). It was an armored central paddlewheel ship built for U.S. Grant's Vicksburg campaign. It currently is on display at the museum in the Vicksburg Battlefield National Park.

[@Trek001]

Yokosuka...? Oh, I bet that made the animated warship questioner perk up

[@mbryson2899]

IM(NS)HO, don't _ever_ sweat the pronunciaion of named things and places. No matter how "correct" you are some people will still be dissatisfied, and a few of them will whinge about it. FREX, I've never left the US, but I have traveled it extensively. We have a plethora of places that are spelled one way (often in tribute to another, older place) but are pronounced wildly differently. Cairo, Illinois and Mantua, Utah immediately spring to mind. Most locals ignore the mispronunciations, some will correct you, but few actually take it to heart. And if they do, one knows exactly what kind of person they are. In any case, I am sincerely grateful for everything you share with us, Uncle Drach, and I appreciate the hard work you put into your channel.

[@indplt1595]

If a what-if scenario would involve an alternate Battle of Midway, better check if John Parshall's research in Shattered Sword would preclude it. In this case, he identified a serious deficiency in IJNAS air groups that plagued the Japanese Navy's air service throughout 1942: "A much more clear-cut problem was the number of planes in Nagumo’s air groups. The truth was that when it came to aircraft complements throughout the fleet, things weren’t just fraying around the edges, they were downright awful.37 The Pearl Harbor operation had resulted in aircraft being stripped from other units to beef up Kidō Butai. After the operation had concluded, some of those units had been returned, but many of the smaller carriers were still little better than paper tigers. These flattops were flying fewer aircraft than they could carry and in several cases were being forced to use planes that weren’t fit for frontline service. Japan had not started the war at a running start in terms of aircraft production, either. Of the major manufacturers devoted to carrier aircraft production-Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi-only Mitsubishi’s fighter line was running well. Rumor in the fleet had it that there were production problems back at the other two, because carrier attack aircraft in particular were in short supply.38 In fact, Nakajima had stopped production of the Type 97 altogether in anticipation of fielding the new Tenzan torpedo bomber and had to be asked to restart production to meet war needs. Aichi, the builder of the D3A Type 99 dive bomber, was in the same position. It was focusing all of its efforts on ironing out the production issues associated with the new D4Y and was neglecting production of the older platform. Consequently, by the middle of 1942, production of carrier bombers and attack aircraft had temporarily ground to a near halt and was completely insufficient to replace ongoing combat and operational losses. Japan would produce just fifty-six carrier attack aircraft during all of 1942-a pathetically low figure." From Shattered Sword, pg. 89. If Parhsall's figures from his 2005 publication are still accurate, there weren't enough 'Kates' and 'Vals' to form full attack groups aboard eight full fleet carriers. Not that they would have been useless, but with only 56 carrier attack aircraft built throughout 1942 a hypothetical third and fourth Shokaku-class carrier would probably have been fighter-only carriers until sufficient B5Ns, B6Ns, D3As and/or D4Ys could be produced (likely in 1943 onwards). However a hypothetical where two additional Shokakus were constructed would almost certainly necessitate prioritizing the IJNAS, so Aichi's and Nakajima's problems might have been avoided in this scenario...but far more problematic would be the American response in 1938 and 1940. In reality the Second Vinson Act of 1938 authorized 40,000 tons of carrier tonnage and 105,000 tons of battleship tonnage (likely envisioned as a third and fourth Yorktown-class carrier screened by the fifth through seventh South Dakota-class battleships), almost certainly because of the Shokaku and Yamato keel layings. Only Hornet, Iowa and New Jersey were ordered as a result of this law due to the tonnage limits, with the first 11 Essex-class carriers escorted by six Alaska-class cruisers, the rest of the Iowas and the Montana-class battleships authorized two years later by the Naval Expansion Acts, 14 June and 19 July 1940. With four Shokakus laid down, Carl Vinson's bill at minimum would have authorized four fleet carriers and rapidly sped up U.S. carrier production as a bottleneck would have been avoided. The four U.S. shipyards with previous carrier construction experience--Fore River (FRSY) with Lexington CV-2 and Wasp CV-7, New York Shipbuilding Corporation (NYSB) with Saratoga, Newport News (NNSD) with Ranger and the entire Yorktown-class run and Norfolk Naval Yard (NNY) with Langley--became bogged down in 1939-40 when each began building a South Dakota-class battleship. With multiple fleet carriers in the queue, it would be almost certain the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Philadelphia Naval Shipyard would have built these battleships instead so FRSY and NNSD could begin racing to build an Essex-class carrier from keel laying to launch in under a year and less than three additional months to commissioning--the standard FRSY and NNSD set starting with USS Franklin and USS Hancock while also starting an arms race prewar. In such a hypothetical the Essex swarm might have begun building much earlier, or even supplanted with a swarm of Midways. But if we hand wave away these realities that sealed the IJN's fate, one factor above all would keep the impact of an expanded Shokaku-class limited--the 20 months the IJN carriers refused to engage in combat between the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Outnumbering the USN two to one and suffering no ships sunk compared to the loss of USS Hornet, the IJN established carrier dominance in October 1942 and then the Japanese carriers elected to do...nothing for almost two years. That dominance grew to a three-to-one advantage once Hiyo returned to service and Ryuho was commissioned in November 1942 and remained that way until Essex, Yorktown and Independence raided Marcus Island on 31 August 1943...but still the Japanese carriers acted like they were scared of their own shadows.

[@caseyprice5061]

“The dock gates are too small to hit from the air” well i found this old destroyer and a couple thousand pounds of high explosives, we simply the gates with the destroyer then get on MTB’s and leave before it blows up

[@ianhodgson221]

People should be thankful, especially those across the pond, be thankful that the Royal Navy never had(AFAIK) an HMS Cholmondeley!

[@Quoththeravenminiatures]

the top gear spoof had me in stitches!

[@USAACbrat]

thanks for the 2 great shirts, 1 hoody and 1 tee shirt they are great. great sleep wear in early spring.

[@AugmentedGravity]

That top gear part was litearly spot on. icould even visualize it in my heaad hahah

[@telescoper]

People complaining about pronunciation!! Who cares?! Regarding Yokosuka's pronunciation, in Japanese hiragana it is spelled exactly as it is transliterated, Yo-ku-su-ka (よこすか). The alternate pronunciation, I'm pretty sure, is like the way Gloucester is pronounced in English - not exactly the same as the spelling. I've heard similar changes in the names of Japanese-Americans I know. Hang in there, we know you're doing your best (almost all of us, anyway).

[@jeffbybee5207]

Re the river ships under land from the sea hunters by Clive cussler, the css Arkansas is under a parking lot on the west side of the Mississippi river above batton rouge. Also the css Manassas in under a levey and the corp of engineers dumped a load of pipe to hide it. Finally I believe I read the James river in Virgina may have shifted enough to have the capital fleet sunk in 1865 be now partly under the river bank

[@alganhar1]

Marine Biologist here Drach, I have always used a long A in gato. Always. Not the short A. My students and colleagues generally do not care. And not US either, Brit, specifically Welsh....

[@boden8138]

Now I’m imagining a battleship decorated like an Indian bus with Jeremy Clarkson at the helm. Thank you 🙏 😊

[@HMSFord]

There was a City class ironclad, the Baron de Kalb, that was mined and sunk in the Yazoo River in 1863; her sister ship the Cairo was sunk in 1862 in the same river but (badly) recovered early 1960s. I have no idea if the de Kalb is still present in the river or if the river has shifted so it's now embedding on land.

[@josefchmelar9070]

I LOVE the Top gear / Grand tour insert :D

[@Claymore5]

Drach - I am right behind you when it comes to pronunciation of place names or vessels. You can both right and wrong at the same time depending on where you are from. My favourite here in the UK is in the grand old county of Norfolk. There is a small town on the coast called Happisburgh and it is famous for it's lighthouse. Do you think it is pronounced that way - oh no it is pronounced Haisborough which is what you will see on a nautical chart when referring to the light. Then, if you travel towards Norwich in the same lovely county you will come upon Postwick - which of course is pronounced Pozzick. If you travel up to Yorkshire you can visit Slaithwaite which seems reasonable enough until you realise it's Sloughit (Slough as in the town with an added it). Don't get me started on Penistone which of course is Penniston!

[@jetdriver]

Re the IJN building two extra Shokakus. One consideration is that the USN knew the IJN was building the Yamatos and they would certainly have known that they were building those ships and it’s quite likely that knowing this they might have chose to build 3 more Yorktowns vice one or accelerated the Essex class. I doubt that they would just continue without any changes. Also re Midway remember Jon Parshall’s presentation on Point Luck as a risk control measure. I very much doubt he is going to just throw 2 or three carriers against 6 or 8 Japanese ones. In that scenario I suspect that Nimitz lets the Japanese have Midway and then turns the Island into an attritional sump. The shape of the war can’t help but be different but the final result is unarguably the same.

[@johnshepherd9676]

If ADM King heard that Clark wanted to be the American Beatty he probably would have relieved him. In Illinois we pronounce the capital of Egypt as "Kayro" and the French Mediterranean seaport of Marseilles as "Marsails."

[@toveychurchill6468]

I was expecting the warships that were designed by Clarkson, Hammond and May, Clarkson: Absurd Speed and Power, but somewhat impractical Hammond: Starts off with a good idea, but fails due to flaws in hindsight and turns out isn't a good idea May: Very sensible design, coloured brown , but failed due to bad luck or sabotaging

[@VintageCarHistory]

The Top Gear comparison is now classic Drach.

[@dougjb7848]

53:50 Do I hear a doggy in the room?

[@tylerrose7583]

lol I was thinking that! At first I was like “what’s this weird creaky noise?” And then I realized my dog sounded like that when he slept

[@hmsbelfast2019]

You are both wrong :)

[@Dafmeister1978]

I'm suddenly having visions of the design committee for the CAM-ship as the dreaded words "How hard can it be?" drift across the table.

[@Pusserdoc]

Don't ever sweat any mispronunciations Drach (least of all the Australian ones): the people who matter know it isn't for lack of trying... and I for one think it adds to your channel's overall charm ('which foreign word will Drach butcher this week'?). Very best wishes, Pusserdoc 😊

[@Halinspark]

In regards to pronunciations, the American battle rifle of WW2 is usually said as "guh-rand", but the person it's named after is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "errand". Sometimes somebody just has to work out a word they've only read and everybody just runs with that. 🤷‍♂️

[@leftcoaster67]

Drach does his best. And he has a fantastic channel. Geez.

[@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344]

I appreciate your answer about speaking. Just some things I have run into in the past few years (these are mostly place names) on YT and live. I live in Northern California and there is the town of San Rafael. Locally it is called San Rahfell. It is easy to spot new people to the area by this pronunciation. I grew up in Upstate New York. North of Albany. Went to school in Western New York. In Western NY, Rochester is said Rah - chis - ter. Chili is said Chai - lye. In Eastern NY (and I got this from a review of one of the recent Battles of Saratoga videos), Greenwich is said Green - witch. Schuyler is said Sky - ler Bemis Heights is said Bee - miss Schaghticoke is said Scat - ee - coke

[@johnstrachan69]

You have pre asked for forgiveness about how to pronounce a name many times. I appreciate how you admit that you are not an expert on how to pronounce a name. Many names that you have given I wouldn't have a clue how to pronounce. I am grateful for what you share. with us

[@roberthughes1786]

Hey Drach, I am surprised that you even took the name pronunciation question. Not even worth your time, but I must also say that your answer was handled with the your typical depth and professionalism. Well done!

[@pminoregon9072]

Regarding pronunciations, I grew up in California just as Americans began wondering if respecting other cultures might be worth their time, and the fights that used to occur over the way to pronounce all the Spanish language place names were epic!

[@cliffcliffdafif9426]

For riverine warships: USS Cairo! Union ironclad gunboat sunk in the Civil War by mine and raised in the 1980s I believe. Currently on display at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi!

[@GrahamWKidd]

Seven to 300. 9,000 to 500K!

[@zstewart]

Regarding pronunciation: New Jersey and Delaware both have cities named Newark, but one is New-erk and the other is new-Ark.

[@ContinentalFan]

I just hope the Passaic class monitors get pronounced like how I'm used to. But I will be happy to hear about their history anyway! 😄

[@FortuneZer0]

28:00 I have the same problem with the english and all that letter salad for placenames like Wuster.

[@Gregolec]

I very much planned to visit Glasgow. It seems first I have to seriously train my pronounciation. Seriously you do quite good even with the most challengng names (Błyskawica sends regards). The basic is to get the thing recognizable by its name - and you never fail here. (also Yokosuka thing suprised me high from the sky; I read it my whole life like you did)

[@camenbert5837]

There's a preserved-in-place (ie buried but known) Roman boat within one of the London hospitals. Saw it as part of a tender.

[@Thirdbase9]

The state I live in has two cities Marseilles and Versailles, pronounced Mar and Ver sails. Vienna is Vye enna, Cairo is Care-o. One city Bourbonnais has three pronunciations, by the citizens of the city. Your pronunciations occasionally make me giggle, but I am not complaining. As for Slavic names, I don't even know the correct pronunciation of my own last name.

[@jameshain1248]

Drach, as an Australian speaking english, mispronunciations of multiple languages noting the various countries and names of individuals you cover is normal. As you say Albany and Albany are spelt the same and many Australians get it wrong. Please ignore those who obviously have nothing better to do.

[@mastathrash5609]

Now if I could turn the soviet river boat @6:30 into a livable space..and find a space to park it.... I always thought those things are cool even if they weren't particularly good and I wish there would be spoken about more.

[@patricknix5975]

Ignore the pronunciation. We appreciate the product you produce, and as a westerner (Montana, USA), I can laugh at myself and others. BUT I still have a tough time with those historians who call cavalry: calvary!!!

[@ssgtmole8610]

Why I'd be skeptical of riverine Civil War vessels surviving: Some of our photographs from the era come from the glass plates being reused in someone's hothouse in their garden. Suggesting that people might not be observant of preserving history - especially during one of the bloodiest and violent periods. Many of the timbers of the ships would have been sought out for reconstructing buildings that had been destroyed during the war. There is the habit of using ships that have lost their utility being used as fill for building sights of all sorts. When I was floating down my local river in Oregon during the 1970s, used cars were repurposed as riprap in an attempt to stabilize the riverbank. The same river has a superfund cleanup site in Portland where many 20th century ships went to the breakers - I think the USS Oregon may have ended its days there. I've seen a picture of it, towards the end of its days, anchored near that part of the river.

[@ivoryjohnson4662]

The Mississippi River in the USA has land that at one time was at one time part of the river but now the river has changed course . There have been a few ships discovered in farms along the river

[@bluelemming5296]

In New York City it used to be possible to often tell where people came from (which part of the city) based on their accent. I find that is no longer true for most people. It's interesting how Britain has kept these accent differences over such short distances. The BBC has a nice web site that lets people play speech from different parts of Britain (and around the world), it's fun to try to figure out what is being said. Drach, I suggest if you are doing a video that focuses on a particular ship or person you make a moderate effort to understand the different pronunciations and spend a moment in each video discussing the issue - then use your preferred version and explain that you'll be doing that because it's how you are comfortable speaking. If you are looking at things on a broader scale there is no reason or need to do this, but doing it in the more focused videos shows consideration of the issue and thus respect for others, it's a nice thing to do that will ultimately enhance your prestige and reputation over others who can't be bothered to do the same thing. Some stage/movie actors actually study how to generate accents in their own language or other languages, but it takes a lot of time and usually is done in a professional context where somebody can provide feedback, and that person is usually being paid a lot of money to provide that feedback. It's not an easy skill to learn. Even after they have mastered one version of a language, they may find themselves getting harshly criticized by folks that are expecting a different regional version of the accent, and don't understand the two are different - and both are legitimate! In some cases it will be impractical for a non-native speaker to pronounce things 'correctly' as the required sounds aren't in the phoneme set - linguistic for 'sound atoms' - of their language and it's really hard to learn how to make these fundamental sounds if one didn't grow up with them, at least with current technology. Maybe some sort of biofeedback/computer assistance technique could be developed someday to help folks learn how to make such sounds, but I doubt it will ever be easy. Generally speaking, linguists in my experience view language as something that evolves over time and space, so the idea that something is 'correct' often isn't consistent with that idea. As with the 'Gato' class submarine, the pronunciation and even the spelling may evolve in different ways in different places, all of which are considered 'legitimate' (and certainly not 'wrong') by linguists so long as there is a sufficiently large group that follows a given set of rules or does things a certain way. For example, Friday in English is different from Freitag in German - but they were probably once the same word, the languages diverged centuries ago. Neither language is 'wrong'. Things that have t's in German today often have d's in English, and things that have g's often have y's. Another example is Monday vs Montag. Similarly, English has a lot of w's in places where Germans would pronounce a 'v' (and pronouncing 'w' in English words can be hard for native German speakers to learn, though wery possible vith some effort). For what it's worth, one of the ways linguists know that pronunciation has changed over time is looking at poetry - if words in a poem that should rhyme no longer rhyme, and the poet was competent, that means the pronunciation has changed! The well beloved author JRR Tolkien was a philologist in his day job - a linguist who specialized in the study of these things. Note that the American pronunciation of Gato as in the submarine (with the first 'a' getting the accent so it becomes 'ay') is consistent with the American pronunciation of many other words, such as Gabriel (the angel), Gay (whether the new, or even the old meaning), Gable, Gain, Gainsay, and so on. As an English speaker learning Spanish for the first time I had to learn that Spanish is a lot more consistent in applying the 'ah' sound to the letter 'a', as opposed to the 'ay' sound in all the previously listed words in English (which ALSO uses the 'ah' sound - in other words with 'a' - so English can be quite confusing). Here, by 'American' I'm referring to those Americans who didn't grow up learning Spanish and English together and who are thus pronouncing things according to their familiar rules which are not necessarily derived from Spanish. Incidentally, the dual language thing is where I think the country should be going long term, already some parts of the education system are doing this and it's working well, it should be standard. The folks with a strong Spanish background will naturally pronounce Gato differently, and neither version is wrong. It's worth remembering that English is a mix of a number of different languages and it has lot of complex and not-always-consistent rules - and that's even before you take regional or cultural accents into account. I can certainly understand that somebody growing up with Spanish as one of their primary languages would have trouble with 'switching rule sets' - I've had just as much trouble (if not more) learning other languages! Native French speakers have been known to say things like "English is just French, mispronounced and spelled wrong!". I didn't really understand what they meant until I started studying French. But, again, it's not wrong, neither language is 'wrong', it's just normal linguistic divergence. For those interesting in learning a bit more about language, the Teaching Company aka Great Courses has several fantastic courses on linguistics and on the history of the English language.

[@darrenharvey6084]

Near Brisbane Queensland we have the suburb of Albany creek we pronounce it as Allbany creek .

[@philiphumphrey1548]

My father served on HMS Indefatigable briefly during the war. He always pronounced it "In-dee-fatigue-able"

[@GrahamWKidd]

The majority of Australia pronounces Albany as Allbany, so that rude person was wrong anyway ..

[@duncanbuchanan3269]

Having been to Albany, I agree.

[@BB63Veteran]

USS Missour"e" or USS Missour"uh". Depends where you're at.

[@edwardloomis887]

And not "Missour"i"... the way it's spelled.

[@edwardloomis887]

Knew some guys who did basic or advanced individual training (or both) at Fort Leonard Wood who pronounced it Misery.

[@devobronc]

The Best is Nevada, MO. Not Nev-AH-Dah, nor Nev-a-Duh (short A), but in Mizzou, it is "Nev-AE-Duh, Mizz-OOH-Ruh".😂 Drach does his best, and that's good enough for 95% of it.

[@devobronc]

​@@edwardloomis887"Misery"? 😊

[@kidmohair8151]

I concur with all the others who have said not to worry about pronunciation of names. I'm willing to bet whoever asked that question would struggle with the pronunciation of any name not in their native tongue too. that said, my favourite Drachinifel having a hard time getting his tongue around a name was the French pre-dreadnought Jauréguiberry. but that was pretty early on.

[@bewawolf19]

I think on pronunciations people also forget that it is extremely common in general for names of the same thing to change quite dramatically when exchanging languages. No one is going to say using "Germany" instead of "Deutschland" in English is incorrect obviously. Likewise you will also find cognates that share spelling and meaning yet are pronounced differently in between languages. Translations and pronunciations changing as it is transcribed across languages is a common and natural process that occurs over time, and being upset at it is just pointlessly getting angry and a natural human phenomenon. It has occurred to historical figures, places, names (Just look at all the variations of John there are across the European languages), and it will continue to occur in the modern day.

[@Niftynorm1]

Drachinifel meets Top Gear in a reasonably priced war ship vs the STIG!

[@dougjb7848]

1:04:25 You could dub-in for Jezza!

[@johnculver2519]

i like the new background soundtrack.

[@urishima]

absolutely adorable

[@johnculver2519]

@@urishima yes, she is :)

[@randyneal3208]

Unfortunately Drach, there will be trolls...well done on eloquently smacking back with some logic.

[@lunatickoala]

In the case of Japanese, the reason that things are transliterated a certain way is because the Japanese writing system uses a syllabary. Think of a grid where you have a column for each of the five vowels and a row for each of the consonants (plus a row for a vowel without a consonant and an extra 'n' without vowel at the bottom of the first column). There's a bit more complexity but that's the basic gist. There are multiple transliteration systems. Some strictly keep with the structure of the syllabary so つ is transliterated as 'tu' but others transliterate it as 'tsu' to better approximate what it actually sounds like using English spelling. Of course, there are some words where a particular transliteration has become convention even though it doesn't really fit any of the common systems. Tokyo (kanji: 東京, kana: とうきょう) would more properly be transliterated as Toukyou or Tōkyō because the long vowels are important. Kyoto isn't just Tokyo with the two characters flipped, but 京都 / きょうと / Kyōto. The Kyō is the same (meaning capital) and the two names mean "eastern capital" and "capital city" (more or less) respectively. Incidentally, 京/kyō is the Chinese character for capital, with Beijing (北京) meaning "northern capital". Regarding Yokosuka specifically, that's because of a quirk in how things are pronounced in practice. When written in hiragana/katakana instead of kanji, Yokosuka is written with the characters representing 'yo', 'ko', 'su', and 'ka' or よ こ す か. The issue is that the character 'su'/す typically has a devoiced vowel when spoken. It's still technically there and sometimes pronounced more explicitly, for example if someone is spelling something out explicitly and reading out the characters one by one the 'su' will be 'su' rather than just 's'. There's a similar phenomenon in English. For example, when saying something like "from one to five", the vowel in "to" is generally devoiced. Once you learn the rules, Japanese pronunciation doesn't really deviate from the rules that much. However, there are a couple of challenges that English speakers face when trying to really get it right. English is stress-accented and stress-timed while Japanese is pitch-accented and syllable-timed (mora-timed technically). A lot of English speakers stress the 'ku' in sakura (it's that time of year) which also means reducing the 'a' in 'sa' to a schwa but there's no stressing of syllables in Japanese.

[@tomarmadiyer2698]

Crack in my screen occasionally triggers 2x playback speed. That intro SLAPS at doubletime

[@jamesschultz5865]

Drach, as someone who has literally been across the U.S. from Florida to So. Cal, from Kentucky to Louisiana and up to Alaska, and having heard a dozen different ways to say the same thing, to hell with the language police. As long as you can clearly relay the information, it's all good! The vast majority of these people are actually looking for a reason to gripe and complain.

[@ottovonbismarck2443]

There's an old episode of "Time Team" on a large Roman barge in the Rhine delta area. Available on YT. Father Rhine moved quite a bit. There's a chance of finding Roman wrecks along the "Rhine frontier" at every major Roman garrison, i.e Nijmegen, Xanten, Neuss, Cologne, Bonn, Mainz, Worms and Strassbourg.

[@OtakuLoki]

Regarding the USN's officer corps view of Beatty - while we can point to Admiral King's VERY negative view of him, my literal first exposure to the name Beatty was reading Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery's autobiographical works. I remember him mentioning a hypothetical version of Jutland about how it would have been a much bigger victory had Beatty & Jellicoe had had their roles reversed - which implies a lot about his opinion about the relative aggression and competence of the two officers. It's only one data point, but it does add to the impression that there were likely a number of WWII era USN command and flag officers with to modern understanding inflated opinions of Beatty's competence.

[@Dafmeister1978]

Well, if Jellicoe had been commanding the battlecruisers, you can be sure he'd have been sending constant reports detailing Hipper's position, course and speed, and his signalling would have been solid so 5th Battle Squadron wouldn't have spent so long under fire from the High Seas Fleet. On the other hand, the thought of what the combination of Beatty's "follow me!" style and Seymour's signalling would have done during the fleet's turn into line is to horrific to contemplate.

[@johnlansing2902]

About the person trying to score points on language …. This might help . “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt Hope it helps .

[@jayg1438]

@25:30 when you have haters you have made it Drach. Congrats on your reply. In the USA most of us learned to read and pronounce things through 'phonics'. Similar to how you were taught, breaking words down to phonetic blocks. I thought you handled it well. As an American I am baffled at how many clear accents the UK has for such a small geographic region.

[@MarcusAgrippa390]

Some people just have to be offended by trivial things because they're not happy unless they're miserable. Drach is a better person than I because I wouldn't even have bothered to answer the question of an obviously rude and miserable person.

[@graulus8986]

Flushing! Leghorn! Harbour-Grace! One (or rather : you) could do a full episode on foreign place names as pronounced by sailors (not only English, but others as well). In Peter Simple, some older seaman is having boy Peter on, explaining the Too-long fleet got its name because it always took too long to get places (Had to figure out this pun reading my German translation way back before I spoke really any English; fun fact: 'Peter Simpel' appeared in the GDR - Der Kinderbuchverlag, Berlin, no year [probably 1969] - apparently because Karl Marx read it to his daughter Eleanor Marx-Aveling for bedtime (as is reported in the afterword, vol. II, p. 265).

[@SCjunk]

1:02:00 re the Hammond clarkson thing - didn't the Town class have a "railway" for moving the the A/A shells around.

[@paulkluegel317]

A good one is the cruiser named for the capital of Vermont...you pronounced it very well in French...Americans pronounce it mount peeler...in my native Missouri we have a town named after Louis XIV capital...pronounced Ver-sails

[@robwellman8163]

There evidence that Nimitz would have proceeded with Midway in a 5-2 situation, though he probably would have maintained a more conservative deployment point for them. I suspect 6-3 would have elicited the same response. Also, all scouting at Midway was done by the cruiser launched float planes. This was Japanese doctrine at the time so the scouting might not have been better. I do agree the Nagumo might have kept a Car Div of planes for antiship had he come with 6 or 7 carriers (Zuikaku was not badly damaged at Coral Sea but her air group had been mauled-that might not happen if the Japanese send 4 carriers down there)

[@amitnachman3840]

Thanks! Your pronunciation is fine and that guy can come try pronounce words in my language.

[@gerardlabelle9626]

Which end is the stern, and which end is the bow, of the ship in the photo during the Matsushima question/answer? I am genuinely uncertain. Visual cues conflict.