The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast is the creation of Seth Paridon and Bill Toti.
Seth is a World War II historian with over 20 years experience whose many roles in his career have been serving as a chief historian for The National WWII Museum for 15 years. Bill is not a historian, but a retired submarine commodore and military planner with a unique perspective as one who spent more than a decade sailing the same waters where these Pacific Battles took place.
Each week, Bill and Seth take deep dives into topics pertaining to the Pacific War during World War II. The team dissects the battles, tactics, strategies, and personalities that drove the United States' victory on the largest battlefront in human history. Make sure you subscribe to get notifications of every fresh upload and new show!
Theme song: "Quiet Triumph" by Taizo Audio.
Bill authored "From CO to CEO: A Practical Guide for Transitioning from Military to Industry Leadership"
I watch this episode frequently, if possible …. getting John P. and Drach. to do a special segment on how the ‘Allies’ improved the tactics and equipment post Pearl Harbor.
The admiral's English diction is terrible. He can't get out a sentence without saying "You know." I had to turn it off before the halfway mark. Somebody should tell him.
I did meet a veteran tha loaded the planes for thier trip over the hump. He casually daid he spent the war loading 55 gal drums onto planes in the middle of nowhere.. The Hump? I asked. He laughed and said yes. He stated it was hot, dusty and monotonous l.
I'd like to know, what on Earth got her so interested in the CBI theater that she decided to write a book on it. That's quite a task, that's a lot of work and research. There's got to be a story behind how she became interested in this. Great presentation by the way
It's two days after the Saturday Surprise episode and only 1300 views posted. I think the number of views will skyrocket when the Tuesday crowd checks in. "!What did we miss!"
Seth, you thanked Caroline for us all. I shall get the book, and donate it to the local library after I read it. You may be happy to note that my Phoenix Public Library has had a great percentage of books you have recommended. It prompted me to call them to ask if they had a program to receive recently purchased books. They do.
Great episode as usual and nice to have coverage of the lesser known CBI theatre. My father was a member of the 598th air engineering squadron/382nd air service group of the 10th AAF. I’m fortunate to have his extensive photo album and letters home to my mom. As your guest pointed out there are some incredible stories of the many heroes that are not widely known.
Like Admiral Rickover who came later, Admiral King was highly intelligent, accomplished and nothing seemed to be beyond his capabilities. Unfortunately those kind of people are egomaniacs and are extremely hard to work for. Nevertheless, those kind of people get things done.
Fascinating to me to hear about how successful Sho-Go-1 was in terms of influencing the US Navy to allow Kurita to actually get close to a position whence he might be able to do serious damage. The tragedy is that it was already too late...and Kurita didn't have enough force to accomplish his mission anyway.
For an "obscure" subject like flying the Hump. The facts are like the campaign in Alaska, little is known by the general public. Yet when the danger of it all is weighed. The event is eye watering and awe inspiring!
This was outstanding! I was aware of the Hump flights, but no specific knowledge of the details. The guest, as always, was knowledgeable and a great storyteller. Thank you!
Guys, very good episode. But with respect, I disagree with the description of this operation as an assassination. An enemy commander is always a legitimate military target. It's no different from telling your snipers to target enemy officers. Soldiers on 18th and 19th century battlefields were commonly told to shoot the enemy's officers and non-coms (flag-bearers got a lot of attention, too). You mentioned Nelson--he was probably shot down by a French marksman up in rigging of the French ship Redoutable, who was doubtless under instructions to shoot English officers. Nobody at the time or since thought that was "an assassination." Killing the enemy's commanders is a legitimate tactic of war. Just because Yamamoto in particular was selected and targeted doesn't make it illegitimate.
This is frickin awesome and along with the SeaBee interview is in many way's the most precious and enlightening of the RU-vid videos because it brings into focus the rest of the success story of WW2, that of logistics. Without bullets the combat troops would have been in a world of hurt. My dad was a Quartermaster Lt. in Philadelphia for the war and picked to do this because he was an accountant at Gen Motors and was valued for this skill. ALL service men contributed to that effort. the brief discussion of the transport pilots over the hump and that they were somehow "less than" the fighter and bomber pilots starkly illustrates the importance of covering the wider war effort.
Very interesting. Both my wife and I were Foreign Service brats and both families have been affected by the politics of US - China relations since we were born (I in 1945). Professor Alexander's comments definitely illuminate our experiences. I remember that Stillwell's nickname for Chiang Kai-Sheck was "Peanut".
Thank you, Dr. Alexander, for this riveting and informative tale of the experiences of the men who flew The Hump. My father was a Basic Training instrument flying instructor for the Army Air Force during World War II (except, ironically, for one month in 1944 during which the Air Force decided it would be a good idea to train him as a truck driver for when the Burma Road re-opened). His students sat in a flight simulator (The Link Trainer) that could turn and bank and shake in order to mimic the physical effects of flying. I cannot imagine how pilots could make use of those same instruments to try to figure out where they were in space and how they were supposed to be flying when natural forces such as you describe were tossing their already dangerous machines about in the air. No matter how we feel about the wisdom and success of this effort, we need to continue to remember the remarkable men who were involved in it.
Many years ago I worked with a pilot who had flown the hump. He flew a cargo version of the B-24. He had some exciting experiences which I didn’t fully appreciate. This was the early 1970’s and he was still flying.
She is amazingly knowledgeable, long winded, and I was bored to death. My Uncle flew the hump and he told me many stories. In her telling it became more of a novelesque ramble filled with moral judgements and over pronounced pathos. I couldn’t finish the video. I learned more from my old Unc in ten minutes. Geeeesh !
This was a great episode.Fascinating - far more interesting than I expected,. And since I have little exposure to CBI history, I learned quite a bit. My sincere thanks for the effort you both put in to the show. It is something I look forward to every week.
Ok, I love all your guests, but I really love Dr. Alexander. I don't know if there a kernel of truth to a story I heard years ago, but here it is. A Hump pilot was getting razzed by a fighter pilot about flying a cargo plane, slow, unmanuverable excetra. Hump pilot asks him what his best climb was. Fighter pilot tells him and scoffs at it. TellsMr. Fighter Jock that his C-47 could do 1000 feet in a couple of seconds. He laughs at the absurd claim. Hump pilot tells him about some of his experiences. Others confirm the claim, he shut up after that. I would be interested in seeing the award rate of DFCs by the Hump pilots.
Interesting factoid: American cowboy actor and singer Gene Autrey had a pilot license and flying experience prior to WWII. He volunteered for the Army Air Force and flew cargo planes over the Hump. Don't know how many missions he flew. I wonder if there were any required number of missions before opting out of flight duty.
If Caroline writes half as well as she speaks, her book must be a masterpiece. My father flew the Hump after flying B24s with the 8th Air Force in Europe and flying on the Ploesti, Romania bombing mission. (He flew B24s out of Okinawa afterward.) Unfortunately he died before I was born so I never got to talk to him about it. My mother had a Flying Tigers jacket he brought back and some pictures of C47s that crash landed. Caroline made me realize that the Hump was even more dangerous than I thought it was.
Thanks Caroline - I had very little knowledge about these flights but knew they were inefficient and wasteful (so much of war is), but not how poor in returns the effort turned out to be. I had swallowed the propaganda about the importance of keeping China in the War and hadn't really thought about how the Japanese had a tiger by its tail and had to hang on no matter what.
Excellent. All of your guests have a real high level of communication that really shares the heart of the historical significance, and she is another fine example.
I was really intrigued by Bill and Caroline's short discussion of the interplay between spirituality (not religion) and theoretical physics. That is a much older discussion than most of us realize; it goes back to ancient Greece. The Apostle Paul, an excellent scholar of Greek Philosophy, taught about this in his books, quoting several of those philosophers, and pointing out that the spiritual was in a fourth dimension, not the three we are able to experience and observe, and that the transformation from our current bodies into the spiritual body happens at the level of the atoms, using Epicurus' definition of the smallest possible particles, not the 1700s definition when the chemists of the day thought they had discovered that smallest possible particle. I know this channel is not the place for this discussion, Bill, but if you ever decide to create a channel to explore this interplay, I will be one of your first subscribers. It's a fascinating field of speculation.
My aunt and uncle lived through Santa Tomas with a new born boy. My uncles’s mother was the last to die before liberation. She had come to the Philippines to help care for the newborn. Helen Everett wrote a recollection of the Santa Tomas experience. I can make a copy of it if you two would like it. Let me know if you want it.
Captain Toti, thank you so much for bringing these Pearl Harbor episodes to us. So very informative. I hope to get to Pearl myself someday. I've been on the USS Drum in Mobile several times. Incredible tight quarters. Even if you aren't 6'5" like me 😅. My nephew served as an officer on the Key West a few years ago. Part of that tour was during a lengthy refit period. During Covid no less. 😮
