The Fat Electrician: 450 Marines vs The Imperial Japanese Navy - Wake Island Reaction

Original Video - • 450 Marines Vs The Imp...
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[@dulmater]

Probably the craziest history for such a tiny basically uninhabited island!

[@johngillespie3409]

you left before the credits finished 30 secs, he usually has historical video playing, and this time the marine was talking about the movie and lack of dog irl. definately a favorite of his. sorry ocd actin up , love the bloopers in the credits😜

[@dulmater]

Had a couple of comments like this. I'll make sure to watch through in the future!

[@johngillespie3409]

@@dulmater I saw you mention it in another video yesterday🤣

[@BigGator5]

"Today, you people are no longer maggots. Today, you are Marines. You're part of a brotherhood. From now on until the day you die, wherever you are, every Marine is your brother. Most of you will go to Vietnam. Some of you will not come back. But always remember this: Marines die. That's what we're here for. But the Marine Corps lives forever. And that means YOU live forever."

[@johngillespie3409]

The default aggressive is from a another video on US officers. started by Washington zapping british officers, who thought for their soldiers, they would stop fighting when the officer was killed. US infantry operate at squad level with a fire team of 2-3 soldiers, an army of one.The platoon leader, LT is in charge of about 30 soldiers. with nobody to say cease fire, we will fuck shit up. I like how they repurposed the guns from the USS Texas and had kills before the actual ship in the Atlantic.

[@saintcynicism2654]

Loved this video from him, but was always a little puzzled about why he chose to frame the decision not to send reinforcements the way he did. Wake was closer to Japan than the US, Japan still had virtually their entire navy to call on including numerous carriers (more than triple what than the Americans had at their disposal in the Pacific) and a lot of battleships to call on if they wanted a fight. Especially if they wanted, say, a big, decisive battle type fight like the kind their entire naval doctrine was built around. America, meanwhile, had three carriers, a decent number of cruisers, a destroyer swarm we were still in the process of getting ready for war, and very, very few trained ground forces *in general* that they could send to the island and precious few battleships to send in to act as heavily armed shell sponges (since, y'know, Pearl Harbor had JUST happened). Not only was it likely any direct engagement with the Japanese Navy would end badly at that point, but it would carry a very real risk of jeopardizing the Navy's ability to do ANYTHING in the Pacific after the smoke cleared. It was basically the chain of command working as intended. The people tasked with looking at the bigger picture realized "hey, if we do this, we're gambling our entire ability to fight the Japanese on a fight they can *already* commit far more ships and personnel to, and when things inevitably get bad they're the only ones who can call on more reinforcements...which will also show up well before any of our own could, even if we had them." And to make matters worse, the US Navy wasn't exactly a hardened fighting force at the time, and the Japanese had already been at war for about four and a half years at that point, and had never lost a ship until Wake. Meaning not only did they have a lot more to throw at the fight, but anyone they DID commit would invariably have much more combat experience--RECENT combat experience, at that--than most of the US Navy. The US had also caught wind of the carrier group on its way to fight Wake Island: Part Two and mistakenly identified the two heavy cruisers as two fast battleships, making any relief mission seem like a much more daunting prospect. It was cold calculus based on America's poor war footing at that point, and as horrible as the decision was, had they actually sent anyone it would be inviting an obscene number of American losses and jeopardize the entire outcome of the war in the Pacific. Sure our industrial capacity was MUCH higher than Japan's, and we could absolutely outproduce them at literally anything (and it's kind of hilarious just how badly we would end up outdoing them in naval production, in particular), but replacing the losses such a mission would undoubtedly incur would still take more time than it would take Japan to realize "oh, hey, they have nothing left" and capitalize on it.

[@brigidtheirish]

Probably because he's military and "no man left behind."

[@TylerPal271]

One thing that has to be ubderstood about Japanese military doctrine at this point in time is that the IJA and IJN tried to go for the instant knockout blow every chance they could. Their entire way of waging war centered on either rendering the enemy completely incapable of retaliation or little meaningful retaliation. Pearl Harbir was meant to be Japan's knockout punch to US naval operations in the Pacific, and it honestly might've worked if Japan had waited another half a day or so because then ships like Enterprise woukd have just come back from maneuvers to resupply and let their crews go ashore and rest. Yes, the US had better wartime production than Japan once it got going, but if Pearl Harbor had been delayed twelve hours and been as bad as i have suggested then it is likely that it could've been at least three to six MONTHS before we could've performed any meaningful naval ops in the Pacific while Pearl Harbor and its shops are repaired and/or replaced. The only other option woukd've been to split forces on convoy protection duty in the Atlantic which could've given the US a means to bluff the Japaneses within a month or two, but the forces taken off protecting ships from German U-boats means there would've been greater losses on that front which would've dominoed into the war lasting at least another two or three years just because the Japanese would've had more time to dig in, consolidate the territory they'd gained in the Pacific, and ready their defenses for the inevitable US counterattacks.

[@timesthree5757]

It wouldn’t have mattered.

[@brigidtheirish]

Yeah, the Japanese in WWII *sucked* at crippling the enemy.

[@theamericanadventure]

You need to start watching the credits. He includes a lot of stuff during or mid credits.

[@dramspringfeald]

"why would they not bring planes?" They.... Um... Had already used them in Pearl harbor

[@tyguenot1394]

The reason the Japanese had no air support on the first attack is because they attacked 28 targets on the opening day of their surprise operations. The Japanese naval units were spread from Singapore to Hawaii, where 6 of their 12 functioning aircraft carriers had struck. As for the decision to write off Wake, the USS Saratoga was enroute with a small screen to protect her to drop off air groups and supplies, troops. She was ordered to turn around because there was only 3 carriers in the Pacific at this time and that's all that stood in the way of the Japanese and the west coast. It was the right decision strategically. Ultimately, California's industrial corridors were priority 1, along with the west coast naval bases from Brementon WA. to San Diego along with the Panama Canal. Many tough decisions had to be made, and they were. Hind-sight is biased because we know the true strength and condition of the enemy forces. How stretched they were and so on, a luxury that didn't exist as these decisions were being made.

[@KaoretheHalfDemon]

From my understanding it wasn’t just the first ship the americans had sunk but the first ship the Japanese had lost during ww2.

[@Cody38Super]

"When one man dies, it's a shame. When one million men die, it's a statistic." - Joseph Stalin

[@benjamies4136]

The way you said officers treat war and men like numbers and then saying it was one of the best KD ratios is exactly why its truly hard to accurately judge the actions of wartime. We are all guilty of it, but the crazy statement of "of death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" is sadly something that must be followed when you are someone like churchill or FDR. I always like to think of the stress obama had taking out osama bin laden. Obviously america #1 target pretty much the second the first plane hit, and how his hair changed in 8 years. And then compare that to someone like FDR who knew he needed to stay and was amazing enough to leave office after being the only president and last president to hold office for 3 terms. He was making decisions that were costing lives of millions at times, it sucks that these marines were left but pearl harbor just happened, we had no pacific command(is the specific term) that could help. I dont think its quite fair to say they were simply abandoned. That criticism is partly why america said "fuck this, we'll never be accused of that again" mentality..

[@phantom4205]

They could have used a bat bomb

[@jimamos7984]

USS Texas: When your battleship has racing flames on it.

[@maarek71]

I went to Wake Island on a TDY a little over 30 years ago. It is a very desolate place, almost like a desert in the middle of the ocean Just small scrub like plants and bushes here and there. It's actually three small islands connected by bridges, the middle one being Wake. On the southern most island is a memorial with the names of all the Americans that suffered and died there when the Japanese were holding them prisoner and basically doing everything to make them as miserable as possible. I remember standing in front of that memorial in eerie silence, the only sound was the wind from the ocean. A feeling of great sadness came over me that I have not felt before in my life as I thought about the absolute hell these men went through. The feeling got even worse when I realized they knew they would probably die there. I'm normally don't show emotion outwardly but I will admit, at that moment....tears started running down my face. They came decades before me but all fellow US military were my brothers and that hit me hard that day. They literally were abandoned because of bureaucrats. It's gut wrenching even now when I think about it.

[@warbacca1017]

You can blame the bureaucrats all you want, but they ultimately made the right call; and of course, fat electrician leaves out some crucial details. There was an attempt at sending relief, but was aborted after the task forces received information indicating that Japan had 2 carriers and two battleships (turned out to be heavy crusiers) in the area, which was more than the Commander in chief of the Pacific Navy believed could be handled. Also, don't forget that this was occurring approximately at the same time as Pearl Harbor, so the US wasn't exactly in the best position or frame of mind to send a much larger force (that might end of being crippled or worse, destroyed, in the potential battle). I'm sure there were people high up who wanted to help (the aforementioned relief force proves that), but it's one of those "needs of the many..." situations.

[@legionx4046]

6:1 k/d ratio” uhhhh i think you mean 12:1