The Kamikaze Hunters: Fighting for the Pacific, 1945

The Kamikaze Hunters: Fighting for the Pacific, 1945
With Will Iredale and Phil Weir
Part of Aviation and Naval Battles in the Pacific Week
Battles at Sea and Naval History on WW2TV
• Battles at Sea and Nav...
In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or Kamikaze.
Phil Weir and Will Iredale summarise the Royal Navy's role in the Pacific and Indian Oceans from the outbreak of war right up to the late war duel with the Kamikazes.
Phil Weir is a historian specializing in the Royal Navy in the first half of the twentieth century. In his Ph. D. from the University of Exeter in 2007, he examined the development of British naval aviation between the wars, and has written for the Navy Records Society, History Today and Time.
/ navalhistorian
Will Iredale is a bestselling author, journalist and media consultant. After a decade working at the Sunday Times, first on the foreign news desk and subsequently the home news desk specialising in domestic news and investigations, he wrote the bestselling book The Kamikaze Hunters.
/ wiredale
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[@tonyvart7068]

After nearly 600 shows along comes another superb episode...a great narrative accompanied by a set of outstanding photos. Congrats to all for explaining a relatively unknown segment of WW2 history in such an engaging manner.

[@KevinJones-yh2jb]

Catching up on last nights show, a brilliant show by Phil, Will and Paul. WW2TV at its best yet again! An area of the Royal Navy’s operation I knew nothing about, thank you all.

[@user-ev2uw7tu9q]

Great show guys. One ship the USS Enterprise sank 71 ships damaged and destroyed another 120 more, and destroyed 911 planes which is more than the entire British fleet

[@petestorz172]

Geesh! USS Enterprise fought awesomely, but the RN was kind of occupied with goings on in the Atlantic, the Med, and the Indian Ocean. And before someone goes there, I am a lifelong citizen of the US.

[@user-ev2uw7tu9q]

@@petestorz172 Agreed sir the Brits and all the Allies fought bravely throughout the war . Yanks were kind of busy fighting both fronts June of 1944 Normandy was a massive campaign at the exact same time 4000 miles away the US invaded Saipan and sister Islands which includes the largest aircraft carrier battle in history that turned into the largest aircraft battle in history. The US circled the world in WW2 , conquered it, rebuilds Asia and Europe and we're still paying for it. US is to this day providing protection to all free people around the globe. Yes the world is heavy and expensive.

[@v.mwilliams1101]

Excellent. Thank you for sharing.

[@morganhale3434]

Wonderful subject that amazes me as an American that most Brits don't know about the British Pacific Fleet. The Okinawa campaign, especially the Kamikaze element, and the 6 British Fleet Carriers and escorts (including state of the art Battleships and double digits in CVE's) are well known in America. It was the most brutal and expensive campaign (repairing and replacing ships is hella costly and the replacing of trained crewmen is as well) both in terms of loss of life and dollars that the US has ever fought. Excellent episode and the slide show of combat pics is amazing.

[@morganhale3434]

Considering the course of the air war over Okinawa and the losses the USN took in both destroyers and carriers, I believe that the British Pacific Fleet saved thousands if not even much more American casualties. Combat operations on Okinawa were never curtailed by the distress the Allied fleet suffered to the hands of the Kamikazes.

[@patm8622]

Brilliant presentation on an all too often forgotten part of the war.

[@markrunnalls7215]

To you Paul and to both your guests Will and Phil that was extremely interesting, another ace discussion thank you very much 👍

[@parrot849]

Wonderful presentation. It’s beyond me why there isn’t more literature or documentaries on the British naval effort in the Pacific War. The first I learned of the British Navy fighting in the Pacific War was when I was a child watching the American television comedy program McHale’s Navy (1962-1966). The main characters of the show were regularly interacting with Royal Navy personnel in numerous episodes. The well known classical actor Ben Wright was a reoccurring guest star on the show. Usually playing a British Captain or Admiral.

[@thegreatdominion949]

They were using a British MTB boat too (a 72" Vosper to be exact)--one made in the U.S. though.

[@jimwatts914]

Howdy folks. Great presentation of the Royal Navy’s contribution to the Pacific war in the Okinawa campaign. Great work that should be better known in the US. Thanks Woody Phill and Will

[@petestorz172]

Concur about the RN's participation not being well known in the US.

[@TheVigilant109]

Brilliant presentation by Will and Phil. Fantastic detail and research. One of the best WW2TV episodes. Look forward to more from Will and Phil. Thank you]

[@matthewgreenfield360]

It's nice to see a presentation after reading the featured book for a change. Fantastic show on a topic that deserves to be more widely known, thank you!

[@WW2TV]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@barrylea1773]

Great show

[@MegaBloggs1]

The us marine wings used the corsair from 1942 on. The radius of the propeller was the reason for cranked wing-for clearance

[@marks_sparks1]

Great show. Really expanded my knowledge of the British Pacific Fleet thanks to Phil & Weir who made a great double act. The new knowledge from this was MacArthurs double dealing to make the BPF his own private armada. Mind blowing. I would pay great money to be in King's office when he heard that. He would've stripped the paint clean off the walls swearing at the thought of the American Caesar getting one over him, even if it meant having to accept the BPF with gritted teeth. It's a scenario straight out of Heller's Catch-22 where Generals Peckham & Dreedle are trying to take over each others airfields. Fair play to Halsey on showing a compromise to getting around King's restrictions. He brought forward US Navy-Royal Navy inter-cooperation decades by that gesture.

[@petestorz172]

The refueling difference had 2 interconnected roots: the Pacific is much larger than the Atlantic or the Med, with fewer islands that could be used as refueling stations; the British Empire had numerous ports all over the world. Thus the RN could have shorter-ranged ships and was not forced to develop at-sea refueling techniques that were more difficult as well as more efficient. In short, different operating environments made for different processes.

[@scottgrimwood8868]

This was a very informative & detailed presentation. It was great to learn about the British contribution in the Pacific in 1944-1945.

[@philbosworth3789]

Good to see the Fleet Air Arm getting some airtime for what it did. Great presentation by Will & Phil.

[@Thumpalumpacus]

RN armoured carriers proved their mettle in Pedestal. Our American carriers were heavy-hitters with glass-jaws, RN carriers shrugged off hits that nearly killed the Franklin or Intrepid. Together!

[@sparkey6746]

Great presentation. Sorry I missed it live, but we're remodeling our kitchen. 😁

[@bruceday6799]

Lots of knowledge conveyed. The Seafire's role was more along the lines of what I thought was to be the topic. Their conversation ended up being more RN role in the Pacific than dealing with countering the Kamikaze. Even so, its worth a second look and listen.

[@dennishughes4089]

Saw Will's book in a thrift store the other day. Kicking myself for not buying it after watching this truly masterclass presentation. Kudo's again, Woody. Great show!

[@MegaBloggs1]

one of the main differences between the martlet and the hellcat-the positioning of the undercarriage-critically important!

[@stevej8005]

Brilliant show about the RN / Fleet Air Arm involvement in the Pacific. I do find the subject of carrier warfare in WW2 really interesting due to the rapid development of carriers and aircraft in this period. In 20 years the carrier went from a 'nice to have' add-on to fleet operations, to being the capital ship that every navy needed to provide strike operations and relegating battleships to a secondary role.

[@johnspurrell1200]

Don't recall which US Carrier Admiral working on carrier resupply said "We are all pilots, know how to fly in formation. Have the Tankers hold course and speed and the CVs will sail in close formation. We can do that rather than asking the Tankers to match the CVs and maintain the Carrier's speed and course.

[@davidlavigne207]

I read a comment in an article some years ago that went something like this: "An American Carrier gets hit by a Kamikaze and is so damaged that it must be withdrawn for months if it isn't sunk. When a Kamikaze hits a British Carrier the crew puts out the fire, mans the brooms, sweeps up the debris and carries on with flight operations in a few hours." The presentation showed one of the strengths of British Carrier design. This presentation was a brilliant history lesson to us all. Thank you to Phil Weir and Will Iredale for the great work, and our host Woody for facilitating this lecture. Good show Chaps, as I would say if I were British.

[@nightstalkersnightstalkes2558]

It's the classic Carrier design arguement. The British CV's were tough deck wise. The American's were not. However the American CV could operate more planes/strike packages than the British CV. Drachinifel has vids on this. The British CV was meant to battle in Europe against land base planes which required more armor and less planes. The US CV was meant to control larger areas of oceans. The Japanese CV was built more like the US CV due to the bases being farther apart in the Pacific. The early war US CV losses Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp, and Hornet were all to torps hits being the most damaging. (Wasp was only hit by the Subs torps) Not sure the British CV would have survived any more than the US ones did. During the late war the Kamikaze showed the strengths of the Armored British CV. In a sense the late war nearer Japan kind of went to way the British were intending in Europe as land base air made up the kamikaze ranks.

[@robertbush6652]

My friends father was an Avenger pilot, but back in the late 60's as young teenagers didn't really register with us!! Pity now bet he had some tales to tell.

[@petestorz172]

The RR Merlin was a liquid-cooled V12, while the Hellcat and Corsair had air-cooled radial engines. Radials were much larger in diameter, but the USN avoided liquid-cooled engines.

[@petestorz172]

I can't comment on the history of RN fighter direction, but a major aspect of the June 1944 slaughter of the attack waves of IJN planes at the Battle of the Philippine Sea was due to the attackers being detected and USN fighter groups being vectored to meet them when they were 60 or more miles away from the carrier groups. This was due to the Combat Information Center, which collected and evaluated information from radars and radio reports, giving captains or fighter director a coherent, near-real-time, picture of the situation. The CIC came from the several 1942 naval battles around Guadalcanal, in which ship captains and task force commanders were overwhelmed by the flood of information and could not act in a timely manner. Trent Hone speaks of this in the latter part of "Learning War".

[@steel5791]

Once again, I was reminded to pay attention not only to the 'easily interesting' hardware of the Pacific, but also what was contemporaneous in the other theaters and allied battles (or even other areas of the Pacific), the personalities of the actors on both sides of the allied leadership, and even the minutiae of 'time in rank' of that leadership. My mind gets dizzy even trying, but you cannot fully understand unless you do pay attention to it.

[@WW2TV]

Thanks for the feedback and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? kzbin.info/door/UC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin

[@Idahoguy10157]

IIRC the US Navy made priority for itself when the Hellcat was introduced. While the FAA wanted Hellcats they got Corsairs. Which at that time the American carrier navy was refusing. The FAA had to tame the Corsair into a carrier aircraft. Which the Americans then came to appreciate

[@bufatutuagonistes8876]

I was surprised at how interesting this was. Stuff I never knew about the Brit's role in the Pacific and about their interaction with Yanks. One small correction though: Admiral McCain was not the grandfather, as noted by the excellent Phil, of the late Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain; he was Senator McCain's father.

[@gagamba9198]

Very informative presentation. For Britain in Asia, Burma tends to dominate interest. And the Japanese carrier raid. This one adds a lot.

[@petestorz172]

Up until late 1943, USN torpedoes were awful. The only semi-good thing about the Mark 13 aerial torpedo was that it did not have the magnetic exploder, which did not work. But it was slow, ran deeper than set, and the contact exploder was unreliable.

[@Chiller01]

It’s true as an American/Canadian I’m fairly ignorant of the British fleet in the Pacific Theatre.

[@petestorz172]

Re the attacks on DEI refineries in January 1945, by this time the IJN's fleets were, ummm, much reduced. OTOH, lack of fuel was a major impediment to IJA and IJN pilot training and air operations. So reducing the flow of refined fuels was very significant.

[@petestorz172]

For the sake of comparison, USN Essex class carriers carried 90 or more aircraft, and Independence class light carriers carried 33 or 34. I suspect that the Illustrious class carriers carrying 50+ aircraft was due to the US fighters and bombers being designed for parking on deck. I won't dive deeply into the armored decks debate-abyss, except to note that Illustrious class and Essex class carriers had similar deck armor thicknesses, but where the former had armored flight decks, the latter had armored hangar decks. The US fleet carriers that were sunk in WW2 were all sunk due to torpedo hits.

[@blueboats7530]

I came for the Kamikazes but left with a condensed history of the BPF

[@TheRFA007]

I was of the opinion that the UK perfected RAS abeam operations before the USN. Is this true?

[@parrot849]

Great show, your guest made a statement regarding Admiral Spruance, “taking the carrier groups and making his name there.” Actually Admiral Jack Fletcher was in command of the American naval forces at the battle of Midway. Spruance only took charge after Fletcher, in a very mature decision, handed the mopping up portion of the operation after the destruction of the bulk of the Japanese forces. And only because Fletcher would have had to shift his flag from the sinking Yorktown to a cruiser. History has not been kind to Fletcher. To listen to any Pacific war history buff you would think Spruance commanded the entire battle. One other point, your guest stated Admiral Marc Mitchner was deeply trusted by Spruance. This is completely untrue. Mitchner lied to Spruance regarding his USS Hornet’s miserable performance during the Midway battle. In fact, Nimitz relieved Mitchner of command for a good period of time for falsifying reports. Only later, at Nimitz’s request did Mitchner again assume command of the fleet carriers from admiral Palnell the following year.

[@MegaBloggs1]

if sommerville had attacked at night, nugamo and ozawa would have realised there were more rn carriers around-end result 2 rn carriers and battleships on sea floor

[@brianaustin8989]

Armoured Carriers series is brilliant, as lot of the dialogue is told by those who were there at the time, plus "Carrier Pilot" by Norman Hanson brings it to vivid life with text. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6GZfZ9thbCYpqM

[@MegaBloggs1]

if the seafire was so great why were they so unavailable -why? because it wasn't designed for carrier use-undercarriage too close together and too weak-range way too short get up get down. There is so much footage of seafires being bent on deck landings-corsair much better carrier fighter.

[@MegaBloggs1]

iron coffins were the r class battleships

[@MegaBloggs1]

Fraser was lucky in north cape-the strikes against the Sumatran oil refinerys was a disaster wrt the air crew loses-40 aircraft lost-what was the point of the second strike???

[@MegaBloggs1]

if sommerville had attempted a night strike-likely result would have been a Japanese carrier damaged and having been alerted the sinking of 5 British battleships and two more aircraft carriers-ive read his diary- he was right to be wary of the Japanese strike force.british carriers not equipped trained with corsairs and avengers until mid -late 1944

[@MegaBloggs1]

pat m barracuda nickname was bucket of bolts-the crews hated them-unreliable and a compromised design-a torpedo bomber trying to be a dive bomber

[@MegaBloggs1]

German subs were based at Penang in Malaya! not indonesia

[@jameswebb4593]

Its obvious that to many working alongside senior American military commanders that they saw a hidden agenda regarding European colonies post war. Enoch Powell when a Lt/Col in Army intelligence in N.Africa , wrote home in 1943 " I have discovered our greatest enemy , far more dangerous then either the Germans and Japanese , our ally America. . To disregard Powell as a right wing politician would be completely wrong. An intellectual , classical scholar fluent in many languages . Rose from private to Colonel in a short period , understood more then most about American post war motives. So when sailors and airmen started querying as to why they are throwing their lives away against mainland Japan , they are seeing the bigger picture.

[@WW2TV]

Not sure I agree with much of that, but thanks for the comment

[@skyking643]

Probably a great presentation, but I couldn't watch it long. I wonder how many thousand times Phil says "um". Very annoying and made it unwatchable for me. Shame to, my father was an board a destroyer, on picket station #1 north of Okinawa when his ship was attacked by a reported 22 kamikazes on April 16 1945. I was very interested, then so disappointed by his incessant "umimg" !!!!

[@WW2TV]

Comments like this really grate I'm afraid. These shows are live, not prerecorded, where a perfect narration can be inserted over beautiful images. Because they are live, viewers can interact with the historians and comment in real time. Sure some people say um, but most viewers simply focus on the great content. May I also remind you that the channel is free and yet people find the time to leave negative comments. Well in two worfd - tough shit.

[@parrot849]

@@WW2TV- You shouldn’t get so upset about this comment. I found your guest very interesting and informative, but truthfully his incessant “umming” was quite distracting. But regardless he was a fountain of information and a wonderful guest. Your somewhat over the top prickly response to what was a honest comment was in my opinion unwarranted. You have an outstanding program and you shouldn’t react to honest negative comments like that. It was a fair evaluation of a interview and there was nothing malicious in opinion in the comment. It was a excellent program and it is beneath you react in such an obscene way.

[@billboy0]

Think about all the information this guy is filtering through his mind while sticking to the context of the conversation. Tough shit

[@rollotreadway9251]

In general Woody's guests are experts in their field but not always natural speakers, however they are giving us the benefit of their knowledge for nothing so we should readily excuse the shortcomings of the speaker as not everyone is a speaker of JFK's repute, it's what they are saying that counts.

[@EddietheBastard]

Absolutely on the trajectories of allied and Japanese forces in the far east once we get into 1944, a generation of experienced elite Japanese Air Force pilots have been lost, and the allies now have Martlett, Corsairs and late model Seafire and Fireflies at sea and Thunderbolts, Beaufighters, Mosquitos and A20 and A21 strike aircraft from land. The advances in AA equipment with radar targetting for the 4.5, 5 and 5.25 inch heavy weapons and a preponderance of 20mm Oerlekon and 40mm Bofors light AA were also key. The numbers of ships and their scale were also telling with the US Essexes and lesser numbers of British Armoured carriers operating inside near impenetrable combat air patrols. US submarines rescued a number of allied (of course, mostly US ) airmen, important work give the way the Japanese treated those taken prisoner.

[@EddietheBastard]

Important point about Somerville's planned night action is that his Swordfish torpedo bombers were equipped with radar, and so were three? of his battleships - facing them would have been the Japanese carriers and four Kongo class battleship/battlecruisers - with armour that was utterly inadequate against Somerville's BL15s while Japanese shells were reported as having relatively poor anti-armour performance. Had Somerville's plan come off - with the Japanese carriers being struck at night many thousands of miles from home then any hit by torpedoes may well have been lost, while any Kongo that didn't "use its speed to reject action" or took significant hits before it could have escaped would too. Radar as the North Cape and a major actions in the Med and later pacific war showed was a lethal advantage. The advantage of radar equipped night capable aircraft armed with torpedoes against the Japanese is shown by the US Catalinas being highly effective in operations in the pacific.