Station HYPO with special guest Rear Admiral Sam Cox-Episode 106 

The admiral will be back

LOL. These videos would be like teaching high school kids an advanced post graduate MIT physics course. A lot of high school, and even college students wouldn’t be able to tell you what century WW2 took place in.

​@highdesertutah 😅😅😅

@@willl7780 Worl War 11?

@@amadeoszaszdi136 LOL I get it. I can't remember where I heard that but I remember cracking up

Fingers crossed!

Indeed. As much as I HATE Hollywood changing history. I 'learned' about the Midway battle from that movie. Before that, what I knew about the war was confined to western Europe and Pearl Harbor. Now, I've read a fair bit since and no longer think Matt Garth won the battle. However, as much as they got some of it wrong, they sure as he'll gave a 15 year old kid the feel of the battle, especially with the sensorround thing they had then. You could 'feel' the planes before you heard them. In the newer editions of this movie , they take out yhe Coral Sea battle etc. When I saw the movie at our little local theater it took two 2h showings to get it done. Sure like to see the longer version again.

The Midway movie of 1976 was crap. The contrived melodrama with Heston (as the father), the son, the girlfriend, and the girlfriend's family was a dark Hallmark Xmas subplot that had nothing to do with the real battle. My father, a USNA'43 grad and an Atlantic theater destroyer gunnery officer in WWII, was really disgusted with that film. I can only imagine what his Pacific-assigned classmates thought. In summary: a bad screenplay and a bunch of famous actors making cameos overwhelming a few nuggets of accurate history. What does ring true in Midway'76 is the IJN hubris revealed in the carrier bridge dialogue, e.g. - "we shall simply destroy them a few days earlier than planned", etc. There was real arrogance in planning the operation. A shout out here for the hard work that located the wrecks of Kaga, Akagi, and Yorktown - just outstanding. Great 2023 video elsewhere on YT.

Thanks!

Thanks Josh!

Many thanks. Team effort.

I'm sure we will cover this when we do the episode where we talk about Yamamoto's demise

ISTR reading somewhere that Adml Yamamoto's itinerary was sent out in their most secure code, with the details re-transmitted in lesser codes to units on the route. Thus it was not apparent that JN25 had been broken. This re-transmition was, of course, a major security breach. 'But the Admiral is coming'.

Glad you enjoyed it!

I was in the Army 22 years. I wasn't a military musician, but had played band in high school. I really liked your comment, band mates work together well and form an incredible team. I saw Army bands play, but also work together to provide security in Iraq and at Eighth Army in Korea. They were great Soldiers, fun people, and supported each other. I would have put them against almost any other unit in terms of cohesion and professionalism. One of the sad things to me is military bands have been greatly reduced in number in the last twenty years.

I’ve said that before as well and I agree. Japan never could’ve won a sustained war with the US.

@@UnauthorizedHistoryPacificWar Finally !!! Someone who doesn't think that I'm crazy !!! Even Yamamoto knew what would happen but Tojo an his pack of psychotics just went ahead with their perverse plans then Yamamoto was in a corner.

You don’t seem to recognize the real threat.

@@barryfleming8488 A government unconstrained by our Constitution that flagrantly violates the Bill of Rights is indeed a threat.

There's a lot of three-letter government institutions here in America that scare the hell out of me! I had heard somewhere down the line that Google was actually started by the CIA or DHS. Makes sense to me, it's all about gathering info on all of us! Frightening.

​@@barryfleming8488Meaning?

We do try to make sure we don't represent the historical facts as subjective. We may not get everything right every time (particularly me-- Bill) but we try to represent the facts honestly. Like you said, opinions about the relative merit, importance, or motivation behind historical events ARE subjective, and we try to make it clear when we are moving into that territory. That's why you have Bill saying on paper we should have lost Midway, while Jon (who has forgotten more about Midway than I will ever know) disagrees....

Sorry-- we should have covered that a bit more thoroughly. The expression "traffic analysis" pertains to situations where you can't yet break the code so you can't yet read the message. But you can often tell where the message is being transmitted from (heavy hand on the morse code key, etc), where it's going, how much traffic, where Radio Direction Finder (RDF) tells you what bearing the traffic is on, how many units are transmitting where in the ocean, etc. So it's not quite up to the level of codebreaking, but you can still learn a lot.

Its about volume analysis from a known point-the carrier strikes in early 1942 against the carolines and wake-this produced lots of radio messages by the japanese. There is a book called "breaking the emperors codes" that is rather informative

Tommy I hope you see the reply below and can reference the book, I'll be looking for it as well. And it goes to show it's a combined effort!

McArthur was a weenie ... an accomplished liar.

Agreed. This for me is not Army v. Navy, but calling out a bullshitter.

I agree! Always heard what a great general McCarthur was. After studying the war, he was a clown! He did some great things but treated people like manure! Unacceptable!

Bill is also Maximus Interruptus, my only criticism, and upsets the coherence of f the podcast

Me too. He should have had to face a firing squad.

It's not a happy story. Will put it on the list

Viagra?

We actually spoke to the Naval History and Heritage Command about this. The recent version (2019) is more accurate overall, without the melodrama of the love story. However the bit about Dick Best at the end where he lands way after he would have run out of fuel was not accurate.

Not very good I'm afraid. They had good radio direction finding equipment, and could do traffic analysis. But we way outclassed them in SIGINT and code breaking.

I would also love to get some information about King's relationship with FADM Leahy and GA Marshall. It's probably fairly telling that the five star promotion dates were carefully set up to ensure FADM Leahy and GA Marshall had (nominally) superior rank to FA King. Interservice politics also played a role, as did Marshall holding four star rank longer than King. I do share the hosts' respect for FA King and FA Nimitz, they were both immensely capable leaders. As an aside, as a retired Army officer, I have immense respect for George C. Marshall. As Army Chief of Staff, he was the right man in the job when and where we needed him. I have no doubt he would have been a great field commander, but he was absolutely indispensable to the war effort. That left Ike (his star protege) for Europe. I also don't care much for Douglas MacArthur and his towering ego; his early career work was exceptional (particularly in WWI). However, it is no excuse for his poor judgement and behavior in WWII and his insubordinate behavior in Korea. The real justice is that Harry Truman (who had been an Army Captain in WWI, and Reserve Army Colonel) relieved him. I can imagine the sting that must have been for MacArthur, and relish it... The other thing that I respect about Marshall and Leahy is that they chose a deliberately different title than "General of the Armies" for the Army five star rank, leaving General of the Armies John Pershing (who was still alive) as the most senior ranking military officer in the U.S. Class act on their part, and John J Pershing was certainly deserving of that treatment.

@@nkgoodal Sir, I concur. I think Gen. Marshall was one of the finest men of the 20th century. I am also sure he would not have much to do with me. I talk too much! His, like Ike's, was a very tricky assignment dealing with varying personalities and getting them especially in Gen. Marshall's case to eat of out of his hand due his indisputable reputation of a man of exceptional competence and fairness. (with the exception of Joe McCarthy, but I digress). GCM's bio is on the net, its 3 volumes and worth reading. I can fully see GCM working his 5-star title to not supersede that of Gen. Pershing. Gen. Marshall forsook hubris and with Gen. Pershing being Marshall's mentor it seems in step. However, in retrospect, I would argue that GCM did more to put the right men in the right places, monitored everything, built up an army from 300,000 to 12 million in a couple of years, than Pershing ever did and that, in time, I would certainly advocate that GCM be elevated to 6 star rank. I think his task was the most difficult of the war along with that of Ike. I say that because aside from the crushing logistical work, there was the managing of all these personalities. For Marshall, it was the politicians as well as the military and the Navy. For Ike, it was the military and civilian leaders of a number of countries all of whom thought they knew better. I think Ike was a better choice for political office than GCM would have been, but Marshall was remarkable as Secretary of State as well. There is a story told by Gen. Bradley that during the Coronation of QE2, Marshall, as the US representative, came to the door the Abbey, presented his credentials and began the long walk to the altar. As he did so, he noticed that people had began to rise. He turned around to see which King or Queen had arrived and there was no one of note. It was for him ... What a serendipitous and very moving show of respect for a man who as much as any had guaranteed their personal freedom and then feed them when their country was economically spent after the war. I don't we will see a man of his stature for a long time. Marshall was certainly a man of his times, and had learned to curb his temper, but his aura was very austere and I can't imagine how he would have coped with the social consciousness of today. I think things are taken way too far today, but I think he must have been a forbidding person with whom to work with and I am not sure if that elicits the best from subordinates. In his day Ike worked well with him and did not get on with King and MacArthur which is telling. I find Leahy an enigma. His rank supersedes everyone but the President, yet when one reads about the war it is Marshall or King that is directing affairs. Perhaps, Adm. Leahy was there as a liaison with the President or to step in if GCM or Adm. King was unable to continue as he would largely know what was going on. Dunno. As a teenager I read MacArthur's self serving biography, but as I age, I am becoming far less enamored with him. I guess we all lie a bit, all our memories are suspect at times, perhaps we see a greater roll for ourselves than was actually true, but DM seems to relish this and that image is more important over substance. I find this the antithesis of most military men I have either known or studied. Perhaps in the past, with overarching authority and little to no public accounting (as long as they won) some military leaders could get away with it as DM did. However, I think that far less possible today witness perhaps the turnovers of command in Iraq over matters that in the past would largely have been hushed up.

@@henrivanbemmel - Great comments. Loved them. Absolutely agree on all you said about GCM, and about Ike. That anecdote about GCM at the coronation is so great. Pershing was not Marshall, but without Pershing there would never been a Marshall or a modern American Army. He was the giant whose shoulders Marshall (who is probably an even bigger giant) stood upon. I also find Leahy an enigma. However, I'll posit this: if his job was to advise the President (essentially being the first CJCS), he seems to have executed it well and to have found a way to not draw much attention to himself. Continuing in this vein, he seems to have reinforced the role of POTUS as Commander in Chief. Once again, Leahy's an engima to me, but I think that probably is a positive indicator that he was the right leader in the right place.

"Flash" is not a technological term, but an administrative one. No matter what the technical means, a single transmitting station (whether a morse code telegraph, radio set, whatever) could only send one message at a time, however slow or fast. So there's always a queue of messages stacked up, waiting to get transmitted. "Routine" means "send in the order submitted". There's several levels of precedence higher than that to jump a message in line somewhere ahead of the tail end, with "Flash" being the top level, most urgent. Basically just tells the comms folks "stop the entire queue and send THIS message RIGHT NOW." I'd urge you to do some reading on the Battle of Leyte Gulf regarding the Halsey thing with the famous radio message. I believe you will find details of the real event more interesting and complex. 🙂