Bearing Straight

With yesterday's announcement about the Navy's intention to build a new class of Battleships, we thought we'd look back at a discussion from earlier this year - where Jack and Ryan asked: What is a Battleship? Does this new class fit the description; or can a modern Battleship be whatever it wants, so long as its large and well armed?

6 days ago | [YT] | 9

Bearing Straight

In this episode, we follow Emmons to Okinawa in spring 1945, where she and her sister ship Rodman were already dealing with numerous radar contacts and probing aircraft as Operation ICEBERG commenced. What unfolds is one of the most intense destroyer actions of the Pacific War.

1 month ago | [YT] | 9

Bearing Straight

It's with deep sadness that Jack and Rick share news of the death of our friend William H. "Bill" Garzke, Jr. Bill would have turned 90 in October. He was a wonderful guy, a good friend to a multitude of people, and of course an expert on battleships and a prolific book author. Bill enjoyed remarkable careers in both naval architecture (Gibbs & Cox) and naval history. He worked with his best friend and late co-author Robert O. Dulin, Jr. to produce several of the most authoritative histories of the world's battleships ever placed into print. He was the lead author for Battleship Bismarck: A Design and Operational History, a major work which the Naval Institute Press published in 2019. Though it proved to be his last book, in recent years he was putting together a similar study of HMS Prince of Wales, as well as revising his previous books. Our interview with Bill in 2023, and his full obituary are linked below. "Fair winds and following seas," Bill!

www.mountcastle.net/obituaries/William-H-Garzke-Jr…

7 months ago | [YT] | 30

Bearing Straight

In April 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, and nine other Japanese warships, embarked from Japan for a suicide attack on Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. The Japanese force was attacked by U.S. carrier-borne aircraft before it could reach Okinawa; Yamato and five other Japanese warships were sunk while 10 American aircraft were shot down. Operation Kikusui I refers specifically to Yamato's sortie, although it is often popularly known as Operation Ten-Go which was the overall name for all Japanese kamikaze operations during the entire Okinawa campaign; several ships in the U.S. carrier task force suffered moderate damage from aerial kamikaze attacks while shooting down 100 Japanese planes.

8 months ago | [YT] | 15

Bearing Straight

#OTD, 60 years ago, Paramount released Otto Preminger’s epic war film, “In Harm’s Way,” starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, and Patricia Neal. It was Wayne’s last black & white film.

Based on James Bassett’s 1962 best-selling novel “Harm’s Way,” the movie follows the intertwined fates of about a dozen characters. Make no mistake, though, the movie centers on Wayne’s character, Captain Rockwell “Rock” Torrey. On December 7th Torrey is in command of a heavy cruiser known only as the “Old Swayback,” a wartime reference to channel favorite Salt Lake City (CA-25). For scenes onboard Old Swayback, the Navy made USS St. Paul (CA-73) available.

Ordered to find and attack the Japanese carrier fleet with his inferior surface force, Torrey stops zigzagging to extend his cruising range but is torpedoed by a submarine. Torrey’s arm is broken in the attack, but the injury leads to his meeting nurse Maggie Haynes, his love interest played by 39-year-old Patricia Neal. For throwing away the book and not zigzagging, he is relieved of command and sidelined ashore, routing convoys. Previous wrongs are eventually made right, and Torrey is promoted to rear admiral. By the end of the movie most of the people Torrey cares about personally have been killed, including his son. Forced to engage super-battleship Yamato, his surface group is decimated. Old Swayback is sunk. Torrey loses a leg in the climactic battle. Finally revived from a coma and fearing the campaign has been lost, CINCPAC II instead congratulates him for a great naval victory and promises to slap a peg leg on him, put him in command of task force, and let him stump his way to Japan.

Bassett was a newspaper reporter turned public relations officer and witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor first-hand, While Bassett drew on his experiences and knowledge of the Pacific War, the story was heavily fictionalized. Like Bassett, Preminger tipped his hat to several famous naval engagements, from Pearl Harbor and Guadalcanal to Samar. The naval action revolves around cruisers, destroyers, and MTBs. Torrey’s son’s PT-boat is even rammed and sunk by a Japanese warship, a not so veiled reference to the loss of PT-109.

If you are of a certain age (like Rick), the stellar supporting cast included such familiar faces as Burgess Meredith, Dana Andrews, Stanley Holloway, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Carroll O’Connor, George Kennedy, Slim Pickens, Bruce Cabot, Patrick O’Neal, Larry Hagman, Hugh O’Brian, Christopher George, Jill Haworth, Brandon De Wilde, and James Mitchum, Robert’s oldest son. Nine months later, Meredith, who plays a reserve naval intelligence officer, would set elementary school playgrounds abuzz as TV Batman’s arch-villain “The Penguin.”

The parts of “CINCPAC I” and “CINCPAC II,” presumably Admirals Kimmel and Nimitz, were played by Franchot Tone and Henry Fonda, respectively. Although Tone and Fonda were born only 3 months apart in 1905, Tone appears too old for the uniform and in fact had already been diagnosed with the lung cancer that would kill him in 1968. By contrast, Fonda played Nimitz again, turning on his easygoing Great Plains charm for a second time in “Midway” (1976).

“In Harm’s Way” received an Oscar nomination for best cinematography. For her portrayal of Nurse Haynes, in 1966 Patricia Neal won the prestigious BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actress.

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8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 39

Bearing Straight

Jack and Ryan are filming new podcast episodes next week, but in the meantime, don't miss this week's episode of Channel Markers!

9 months ago | [YT] | 11

Bearing Straight

Don't miss the latest review on the channel - and pick one up while you can!

1 year ago | [YT] | 12

Bearing Straight

The next episode of Brick Built History is coming soon!

1 year ago | [YT] | 31

Bearing Straight

Congrats ‪@Drachinifel‬ on your upcoming publication!

1 year ago | [YT] | 15

Bearing Straight

Happy Thanksgiving! As we give thanks for family and friends, as well as those standing watch on our behalf, at Bearing Straight we say thanks for the great support!

There's no video today, but we would like to note that, despite evidence to the contrary, we have a soft spot for small surface combatants. Some two weeks ago we missed the 80th anniversary, on November, 13th, 1944, of patrol frigate USS Rockford (PF-48), which was manned entirely by Coast Guardsmen, and minesweeper USS Ardent (AM-340), sinking a Japanese submarine while they escorted a convoy from Honolulu to San Francisco. Postwar records revealed the boat to be the I-12, which was on its first war patrol. After sinking the Liberty-ship SS John A Johnson two weeks earlier, I-12 had notoriously turned machine-guns on survivors when trying to ram their lifeboats and kill them with her props failed. Kudos to the vigilant crews of Rockford and Ardent that decisively, if unwittingly avenged their fallen comrades.

On November 23rd, 1944, in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, President Roosevelt called 1944 the "year of liberation." Almost one year later, with the world finally at peace, the President's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation came from Harry S. Truman, and he called 1945 "the year of our victory." But Truman reminded everyone, referring to those who would never come home, "Our thanksgiving has the humility of our deep mourning for them, our vast gratitude to them."

Jack & Ryan will return next Thursday with another Portholes Podcast.

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1 year ago | [YT] | 33