 I'm actually surprised that so many people came. I thought nobody came, so I can just turn around and go back, you know, because I really don't like to talk about books, you know, and things that, you know, is published and people then have to either read, you know, not read and give their own opinion and so on. So this is not a really session to boost the sales, you know, this is a government printing office publication. Okay, so I would just try maybe to explain you the way I did the book, you know, what I used, you know, what resources, you know, and then maybe having some main events, you know, from each of these three major fleet versus fleet operations, you know, and then hopefully we will have some questions and answers, you know. I don't like to talk more than 30, 40 minutes. I don't like to listen to my foreign accent, you know, so I don't want to bore you, you know, okay. So this is what I call schedule events, you know, what I will try to talk about, you know, those of you who are not familiar with operational art, you know, we pay great attention to certain definitions, you know, but this is the one thing which the U.S. Navy still today doesn't really get this thing straight in doctrine, you know, and thinking the joint doctrine provides good publication Army Marines, but Navy and Air Force are still behind, you know, but we have done, actually, the reason we're, you know, talking about this today is we have done these things, you know, it was not at that time called major naval operation, it was called Battle of Coral Sea, you know, Battle of the Philippine Sea, but really amounts to what we call major operations. The major operations consist of a number of strikes attacks, minor and major tactical actions, you know, and aim is to achieve some operational objective, you know, which is a part of the higher theater strategic, military strategic objective. And there's always one commander, you know, and there's always what we call operational idea or in modern terms, concepts or operations, okay. Okay. And I have the types, you know, so what I will talk today is really fleet versus fleet, and these are three selected major operations from the Pacific War. There was another one, Battle for Lately, which I didn't include because I wrote a book about that, so I didn't want to include in the book. Okay. So these operations are not very, conducted very often. They are rare, but they are extremely important because they result in major victories, which very often also, you know, signifies the change of phase in the war or campaign, you know, and so on. So they're very important, you know. Okay. This is the way I have organized these things. More or less, you know, each chapter follows essentially the same, you know, pattern. I always provide, you know, strategic setting that means providing broader picture or the situation at that particular time. And then I talk about operating area because I think is one important thing is to, especially for naval warfare, to know the physical environment, you know, the geometry or the theater, the basis, you know, and so on, weather, climate, things like that. And then I have organization, you know, and then I have always what the commanders knew at that time. I think common error very often is to analyze decisions made by various commanders in retrospect. But, you know, most important thing, this is nothing new. You have to see what they knew at that time. And then only then you can actually, you know, criticize or approve a certain course or action they had taken, you know. Okay. And then you know, execution, you know, and then I think one thing which I've tried always to do in this kind of studies, the reading of history, you know, writing of history without trying to learn something, you know, maybe term lessons learned is not proper. Some people will say lessons identified. Either way, we have to try to learn some lessons which are valid for today and for some time in the future. And when you look at the operational level, the major operation campaigns, these lessons are more durable. They're even valid today. Certainly tactical lessons or any of these major operations, they're all gone. They're all, you know, weapons and procedures change, you know, they're not really relevant today. Okay. I cannot change anything here. Restarting, you know. Okay. So I have selected, you know, certain things, you know, here for today. And one thing which I paid great deal of attention, you know, is to get documents which were already intercepts, you know, in the Pacific War. And that's really one good, excellent source to know why the commanders made decisions they made. And without knowing this, you really cannot evaluate properly and they cannot judge. So this is what shows here is the organization, Boston DC, we have a Navy radio intelligence section that's an OP 20G OP now, the CNO office. And then it was a security section that was one station called NEGAT that was used in the dispatches. That's an officer-neighbor communication. Then in the Pacific area, we have a Sink Park Freight Infusion Center, and there was a, you know, Luzan Commander Edwin Layton, an excellent officer. And then we have Freight Radio Unit Pacific, you know, Hypo H stands for Hawaii. And that was Joseph Rochefort. And then we have a station cast in Cavite until I think April 1942. And then we have a Belconin that's a nearby Cambera. And then it was an Allied Freight Radio Unit, Melbourne Frumel. Okay. And then, you know, these are some of the documents which were produced daily and they were distributed to the major subordinate commanders, all task force commanders, you know, they get all these documents, you know. Later on, I didn't include here, there was one bulletin issued by Jake Paul, Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Area, which was excellent, you know. And I have something to show you. You might take a look. I have here the CNO summaries of radio intelligence for April, June, that's for midway. And you might take a look, you know, to what extent, you know, our analysts, they are doing a great job here. Yeah, yeah, you can pass if you're not interested. And these are Edwin Layton collection from Naval War College here. Okay, so you might take a look, you know, I'm not asking to write, but we can see just, I have here a copy, okay, a copy. Okay, this is the, in terms of, as you know, the Japanese code books, GM 25 code book. And that was focused on work on Negat that was in Washington and cast Cavite and then later Belconen, you know, in Australia. And then this was one critical flag officers code that was focused on Hypo. And that's where Joseph Rochefort was working, okay. And then you have a naval code book D, which was supposed to be changed in, you know, in early May, it was until 27 May, that caused a lot of problems for us between 27 May and 5 June, we didn't almost know anything what was going on on Japanese side. But we collected enough, you know, enough evidence of the intentions, you know, before that, that was preliminary to the battle on midway, okay. Okay, that's this, what I already said. You might not take a look, but they have all here, all details on Aleutian phase, you know, midway phase, all the, all the summaries of what the Japanese were planning to do. Okay, that gives you the answer why we have been so successful, you know, okay. These small forces we are able to timely to concentrate our forces, you know, on the proper place, proper time. But one of the things which is, you know, the story is very complex. You have this excellent officer Ed Layton, and he was working very closely with Joe Rochefort in Hawaii. But Rochefort has major problems because he had a lot of enemies really in Washington. Brother Redman, you know, one of them was the admiral who actually were opposing to many of his assessments. In the end, you know, he prevailed, but later after battle on midway, he was replaced, he was, you know, essentially demoted, you know, went to be a commander, the floating dog, and only after his death, you know, his contribution was actually recognized, you know, but was also an excellent officer, you know, okay. So that's one of, just one day. That was the constant stream of messages which were sent to the sabonet commanders, so we have been excellently prepared, you know, and we knew almost everything, or any substance, you know, on the Japanese side, okay. As you know, time doesn't, I can be following this day by day for each of these battles, you know, and you will be amazed how much notion, you know, in addition to the Red Intercept, the comment, you know, we have certainly search plans, you know, we have submarines, we have some human, you know, in the Philippines and so on, but by and large, most of the documents, I mean, most of the decisions are based on the Red Intercepts. As you know, problem with Red Intercepts would, you know, if Japanese were not so dramatic, you know, and believing that their codes are breakable, that would actually open our social, to be fed with misleading information. So it was, you know, the fact is that Japanese never, you know, never believed that their codes are broken. The same thing happened in the European theater with the German Ultra, okay. And this is when I try to show you just, I mean, the many, each of the major operations ends with the conclusions and the operational lessons learned, and the way I did this, you know, it was always, you know, writing the conclusion based on the particular event and then in Italics, you know, I would say, draw certain lessons learned. You know, you might agree or disagree with that, you know, so on, but I think, you know, the way to do it, you know, there are two ways. One is to write conclusion first and then lessons, and that found that it's always better having a conclusion than immediately to lesson, you know. And so I try to draw more generic, more universal lessons which we can learn from particular event, you know, in that operation, you know. Okay. You know, this sentence, you know, that very often in decision making by commanders, you know, they rely on enemies' intentions, you know, and that's very, very basic generally, unless you know for sure that what intentions are. In this case, we knew, okay, but if you didn't, they're always better to rely on enemy capability. What enemy is physically capable of doing, okay. That's important to put it in, you see. Okay. And that's now lesson learned. Okay. And so, and that's a constant problem with Japanese planning, you know, in the Pacific War, in my judgment. Whenever they had a major force, superiority forces, they unnecessarily complicated the plans and they had too many forces fragmented and so on. And then one, another problem for them was that very often they were not taking into account what they can do. It was given that whatever they do, enemy will not actually react, you know. And that was constant problem, you know, in all this Coral Sea, Midway and the Philippine Sea. Okay. Okay. So, I have only a few things here, you know, I will talk about. This was the Japanese objectives, you know, which I have summarized. The main objective was operational. That means capturing Port Moresby today's Papua New Guinea, then capture Tulagi, that's lower Solomons, and to establish the sea plane base. And then capture the Boine Islands, that's in Lusiaids, that's also sea plane base. And then Samurai, that's in south eastern tip of New Guinea. The reason why they needed sea plane base, as we know, the Japanese navy, like US Navy today, was too offensively minded. And so pilots never liked reconnaissance, scouting. They always thought this is not really a job for fighter pilots. So as a result of that, they didn't have more than three or four reconnaissance squadrons during the war. So they rely on sea, establishing sea plane bases, you know, along the projected line of advance, you know. So that's the reason why, but also that shows you that many of these objectives they had to take simultaneously that require fermenting, available strength, you know, into number of the force elements. Actually for the Port Moresby, they have six force elements which had been moving from Rabaul and Trac, that's the center of Carolines, all the way toward the, you know, the southern part of the Coral Sea, and also Port Moresby. And I have here this what I wrote, you know, using, when we teach operational art, you know, we try to provide this broader what we call in our terms, concepts of operations or operational idea. So what I have drawn here is to, based on the plans by Japanese to depict that planning, you know, on the map, okay. And you can see how many from Rabaul how many of these elements has to move, and then you have the carrier force was here, okay. And that was planning the plan initially to bomb some bases, you know, on the northeastern coast of Australia that abandoned. But one, among many things, you know, what the major mistake there was one the carrier forces were tasked to ferry about 18 zero fighters. And these zero fighters were supposed to be launched, you know, and then landed to Rabaul. And that was supposed to be an easy task, but then was a bad weather. So they tried to do this, I think, three occasions, three times. They lost valuable time then synchronization movement with other forces was lost. And so when we attacked, our carriers attacked Guadalcanal to Lagi their carriers were beyond the range or the supporting range or to Lagi. And that was all given because the secondary objective became primary objective, you know. We always want, you know, to focus on primary objective, you know, and not to be sidetracked, you know, with other objectives, you know. Let me see. I don't know what. Okay. And this is about, this is very complex, you know, I will not bother you at all. You know, this is a depiction of the movements of forces over several days, you know, okay. And, you know, the results, I will show you, that's Lexington carrier. And this is the losses you see on left side, Japanese side, allies, and what we call in operational terms, we have, we have achieved tactical victory, I mean, I'm sorry, the Japanese achieved tactical victory, we achieved operational victory. Why? Because in the aftermath of the battle, Adnan Yinui, he intuitively knew that the remaining force was not sufficient to provide sustained support to the landing forces in Port Moresby. They were able to continue to Port Moresby, but they will not be able to sustain because they had only one carrier, another carrier was heavily damaged, it has to go over to Japan, and also they have a depleted, you know, the number of fighter aircraft. So, he wisely decided that operation has to be canceled, you know, and then they decided initially to repeat the operation on 3rd July, and then after Battle of Midway, which was in June, you know, that was certainly not possible, they decided to try to see Port Moresby over all the Stanley mountains, and that never happened because of strong defense, you know, so they never reached Port Moresby. Okay, so that was operational victory for the allies and the tactical victory for the Japanese. Okay. And then Midway, you are all familiar, we will not really go into details, I will just on the objective, see, again, was operational objective looting and destroying enemy carriers, because Japanese Admiral Isoroko Yamamoto, who was a chief or the commanding chief of the Combined Fleet, he believed that if we set him correctly that if Japan doesn't end war very soon within a year, then industrial might or United States will prevail, so he wants to complete, you know, the defeat of the US Pacific Fleet. And the reason why they choose Midway, they thought that would trigger our, you know, the Pacific Fleet to react, you know. What they didn't consider that our reaction will come earlier, you know, that we will be positioned and waiting on them, they thought that will happen after they capture Midway and then our carriers will come. But because of our knowledge or intelligence, we were able to position these forces much, you know, timely, okay. And then, you know, this was another mistake on the part of the Japanese, because the reason for that was not Yamamoto, but the Japanese naval general staff, that was the Navy section of the Imperial General headquarters, they had to, they had been on good terms with the Army General staff, and the Army wanted to see some positions in the Aleutians in order to prevent bombing of the Kurds in Hokkaido, and also they were hoping to cut off the lines of communication between the United States and Soviet Union. So they insisted that that operation should also include Aleutian phase. And that is one, in operational terms, one big mistake, because they fragmented the strength. They have what we call eccentric double operation, the two operations at the same time, you know, in different part of the theater. I will show you the map. And then, you know, some of the occupations are up to a piska, okay, and then destroying enemy ships and shore installations in Dutch harbor, okay. Okay, this was the search plan of movement of forces, and that's one reason that shows you that this is not what we call Batlo Midway. That's a major operation, because you're going to see how many forces were involved here. Almost entire combined fleet was actually the size of the combined fleet was double of the forces we had, okay. And this is the deployment phase, you see, the Japanese, these are the blues of the United States, okay. And this is the operational scheme which was based on the Japanese documents, okay. Everything was subordinate to End Day. End Day was the 15th to June capture Midway. So all these other dates were coordinated with that. And one major mistake was what MOTO has done, that he insisted that this operation cannot be delayed. You know, many of the subordinate commanders were asking to give more time for training and preparation, because as you know, in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the Nagumo's carrier force was extensively used in support operation Southern Pacific, and also they have foray in Bay of Bengal attack on Ceylon or Sri Lanka and so on. So the battle came at the beginning of May, back home, and they needed some time to, you know, reorganize, you know, and to be prepared. But the reason was here tactical. Midway was a subordinate objective, okay. And then everything was based on phase of moon and tides and currents. So they said if they had to delay until the end of June, by that time maybe you know, factor of surprise will be lost and so on. So he insisted that operation must go as originally planned, okay. And then this is occupation, you know, in the Aleutians, okay. Okay. So these are many events, you know, there are many events here. I selected the 4th June, and that's a really momentous decision by the Spruance, because Spruance really made a bold, really very high risk, because he launched, decided to launch all-out attack, you know, at almost extreme range, you know, of our aircraft, you know, toward the Japanese, okay. So if that failed, you know, then his force would have been exposed, you know, and to be defeated, you know. So these I see some of the events here, the launching of our attack, you know, then as you know, we have a tool task force, you know, the one was Enterprise and Hornet, the task force 16, and task force 17 was Yorktown and the Admiral Fletcher, and the Spruance was in charge of task force 16. Okay. And then you see Nagumo, and that one of the major men, or the major error Nagumo he made, you know, he wanted to wait until all the aircraft are rearmed, that would take almost like a 10, 30, okay, and advised by Admiral Yamaguchi, who was one of the youngest and very aggressive admirals to launch immediate attack, he rejected, you know. And result of that wait is, you know, we had the attack by our torpedo bombers, most of them were shot down, but they also helped the attack with their bombers, because, I mean, dive bombers, because when the dive bombers came, the Japanese zero fighters were too low, they were not able to gain altitude, you know, and result we have been lucky, you know, within a few minutes, you know, we hit three carriers later during the day, another carrier was sunk, so four carriers, that's what we call in operational terms operational center of gravity, or the Japanese fleet had been destroyed, okay. And that resolved the whole, you know, issue of the Battle of Midway. Okay, let's hear you. Okay. And that's a graphic presentation of that phase on the 4th June. Okay. And that's an ocean phase, okay. So I'm not going into details, you know, and then I have this, it's a losses, see, okay. And that signifies the turn of the tide in the Pacific, in strategic terms, the Japanese went on strategic defensive, and we went on strategic offensive, which was then exemplified, you know, with our landing in Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. And after, you know, after the end of war, we have been constantly on offensive. Japanese were never able to regain their balance, you know. Okay. And then you have Japanese cargo operation, you know, and we call this Battle of the Philippine Sea. I personally, when I wrote this, I had major problem, actually. A lot of time spent on this, you know. And one thing which I have been somehow buffered with reading other authors, especially second, there were always claims laid that there was not enough information that we, in contrast to midway, we didn't know much about that. And that's actually not true, okay. We have a steady stream of documents from radio intercepts, and also excellent service by our summaries, which were positioned, you know, nearby the basic area or the Japanese fleet in the Philippines. Okay. So I will focus on Admiral Spruin's decision, you know, 1819. You know, that's when he decided to stay near Saipan. Okay. And then he got the one message later by Admiral Nimitz, which should actually force, you know, somehow Comminskin to change the decision. Admiral Mitchell was, you know, very unhappy, but he wanted us, you know, Spruin to change the decision and go westward, you know, and to launch attack by 150, and in 00, I mean, 38 minutes after the mid-white, he finally said no, he will stay nearby Saipan. And that decision has, I mean, caused a lot of controversy, you know, at that time, especially, but what Nimitz and Admiral King approved the decision and they thought that he had done a proper thing, you know, okay. I mean, not me, but it doesn't matter to me. My reading on that was that was a different solution would have been better, actually, because, you know, the reason why he wanted to stay near Saipan because he certainly, his primary objective was to protect the shipping, you know, and the troops on the ground. But he also feared that the attack from the flanks, you know, that he might be bypassed, you know, and then Japanese might stick in attack forces, you know, nearby. So what he wanted to do is to, during daylight, you know, operating west of Saipan, and then, you know, moving back, during the night back forward. The problem was wind, you know, because if you're going westward, you cannot launch the aircraft because prevailing wind was from east, you know. So in order to close the distance, you know, he has to go, you know, westward, and he refused to do that, you know. There were some, also, beliefs, you know, that some of the people who were Marine journalists, you know, on the Saipan, that they really needed, didn't need a Task Force 58 to protect, they have a sufficient troops, you know, on the ground, and the transports were able to re-drew east of Saipan, stay out of any possible attack, you know, and then after the naval battle was completed, you know, then they come to the same position, you know. So I cannot tell you what is right or wrong, you know. There are a lot of things in favor of the, you know, the Spruance decision, but I think still that the Spruance had been too, somehow, conservative, you know, in a conservative, it was too prudent, you know. And he has done very similar thing in our invasion of the Gilbert's in November 1943, where he didn't allow the Task Force 58, you know, to operate freely, and we lost one, I think, independence, one carrier, and he didn't allow them. So, you know, this was not a situation for the carrier force to be so tight to the beaches, you know, that they need to operate much more freely, you know. Okay. So there's a matter of judgment, you know, whether that was, I mean, he didn't risk anything, but let's say if he really went after the Japanese force, maybe war would have been shortened, because as you know, as a result of that, we have to wait and we have to absorb their attack, and we were lucky that our pilots were excellent, but if Japanese pilots were much better, we would probably suffer many, you know, many losses, you know. Okay. Okay. And we say here, and then I have these losses, you see, but you see six carriers survived. Now, with our pilots, you know, the losses of pilots were enormous, you know. Japanese were never able to regain, you know, tempo, you know, because our operational tempo in Pacific was so fast, they were never having enough time to train the pilots, you know. And, you know, the one problem with the Japanese training was that they would keep their best pilots almost all onto the end, you know, so they were treated at a very heavy rate, and we have it due to another towers, you know, better system, where best pilots were being, you know, should use for training, you know, and so on. So we have always steady, you know, influence over the good pilots, you know, to our carrier forces, you know. So that's all, and I think three feet, they were all sunk by submarines. I think submarines have learned great. I would say that their service has not been sufficiently recognized in this operation, both in terms of detecting the movements of the Japanese forces and also in destroying, you know, all these three carriers, you know. Okay. So that's it. Okay. Okay. This is, I will not go into, I mean, I think, second sequence for this, you know, the major operation in the European waters, you know, that should be done this here, you know, so that we completed these two volumes, you know, the study of major naval operations, you know, so, okay. So that's all what I had to say. I know it's fast, you know, but I think 30 minutes is good. I told John Hutton, though, I cannot stand people with foreign accent to listen to them, you know, so, you know, I should not be better, you know. Okay. I like American accent, you know. Yeah. Talking about the Battle of the Philippine Sea, you didn't mention Admiral Halsey. Well, Admiral Halsey was not here in the Philippine Sea. It was Admiral Spruance. Task was 58. Okay. So, I guess I'm thinking of an earlier battle. No, no. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea Battle of the Philippine Sea, he was not there because he was, you know, we alternated, you know, Task Force 58, Task Force 38. And also, he was supposed to be in command for Midway, but he, you know, were ill. And then as a replacement came Admiral Spruance and that was a great choice, you know, and Admiral Spruance grew extremely and he had also excellent Admiral Fletcher, who essentially allowed Spruance to operate, you know, without being, you know, holding him rigidly because he was a senior admiral of Fletcher, you know. And as you know, Spruance was a surface officer, you know. He was not a carrier pilot, you know. Yeah. The Battle of Midway, you indicated in your timing the torpedo planes, of course, came in first were largely destroyed. However, the fortuitous placement of the gun alignment, which then kept the dive bombers able to get in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did we anticipate that or was that just fortuitous situation? Well, I would say that lack of coordination was a good thing. We usually try the dive bomber torpedo bombers should come. No, seriously, in this instance, the lack of coordination was actually a good thing. Okay. Even though they attack only a few minutes after the last attack by torpedo bomber. As you know, all torpedo bombers essentially, except few, they were all shut down. Okay. So sometimes, you know, lack of good planning may be a good thing, you know. You never know. But I will still argue you should always try well and not rely on the events, you know, which are unforeseen. Okay. I mean, we don't know that, you know. But, you know, if Nagumo he had four carriers, you know, against three, if he was more aggressive, you know, as Yamaguchi was, you know, maybe outcome would have been different. And, you know, one, I didn't discuss because there are also many things to discuss, you know. If the plan, properly the plan that these operations, you know, very, in very quick sequence, for example, Coral Sea took place in, you know, 1011 May. And so, because these two carriers, you know, the Zhukaku, Shokaku, one of them was heavily damaged. If they were not sent, let's say the operation took place much earlier, maybe these two carriers would be available for the midway operation. So, instead of four, he would have six carriers. And, you know, I don't want to go into vision's history but probably chances of their success would have been greater. You know, I don't know that, you know. Okay. The same thing, we have made mistakes in Coral Sea. I don't know the, in terms of command relationships, you know, we didn't have a really very good relationship, you know. Adnan Nimitz was Commander-in-Chief of Pacific Ocean Area and he was Commander of the Pacific Fleet. As a Singh poor, he was under Joint Staff, you know, Joint Chief of Staff. Under, as a Commander of Pacific Fleet, he was directly under Admiral King. And Admiral King actually was much influential in the decided movement of forces. So, he, his plan is, in Washington decided early 1942 in order to raise morale, to have a Task Force 16 which was under Hozi, you know, two carriers to put, you know, beat 25 bombers, you know, and then bomb Tokyo and so on. But that was a beneficial for us in terms of morale. But it affected our operations in Southern Pacific because these two carriers were not available for the Battle of the Coral Sea. So, if we had, let's say, four carriers versus two carriers against Japanese two carriers, probably our victory would have been much more important. So, it also shows you how, you know, I personally think that Admiral King made a mistake, you know, they should, you know, they should, you know, I don't want to be too harsh, you know, but, you know, sometimes people don't know what is going on. But what King and Nimitz others, they knew what the Japanese were planning, you know, in Southern Pacific. And I think it was a mistake at that particular time, you know, to move these four carriers up north, you know, and not to make them available in the Southern Pacific. I mean, I'm a great admiral of King, you know, I'm a social proancy, so don't put me in the wrong, you know, but, you know, we also try the historians, you know, or so-called historians, you know, to give some judgment, you know, based on logic and what was, you know, but I think, you know, when you know what they knew at that time, that's how the only way you can actually evaluate whether their decisions were sound or they were unsound. Yeah. I understand you're right. You're saying breaking the code was the main key to the victories? Well, I would say no. You know, I say what reading the code, we knew their intentions and their movement, their forces, and when you have a small force in other cut forces, you cannot make a mistake in, you know, poor disposition of your forces. So we have been able to put these forces in proper time, proper place, but it still depends on the quality of your pilots and your commanders to win the victory. You know, the intelligence itself is never, never enough, you know. And another thing is, I didn't talk about controversy prior to Midway, you know, where the admiral Nimitz had a great confidence with his intelligence officers, you know. If admiral Nimitz was a different person or some very often your commanders play a role of being their own officer, we will probably not be able to, you know, to mask these forces and never need Midway timely because at the same time, the people who are in Washington, OP 20G, they believe that the next attack by Japanese will be west coast or Samoa. And the Russia Fort and Leighton were, you know, firmly convinced there will be a Midway. And you know, they used one, they didn't know there was, you know, the Japanese will use certain abbreviations for various general places. So AF was actually Midway. And they thought AF is Midway, but others were disagreement. So what they did, they sent the convinced Nimitz to send an uncoded message that some of water installations on Midway need to be repaired and so on. So then they were following what the Japanese reaction was. And then they were able to find out that Japanese actually thought AF is a Midway. Later that abbreviation was changed to MI. But that was what, and then, you know, again, Admiral King was also making another mistake. He, after moving Task Force 16 from the Central Pacific, he moved to them again, I mean, to Southern Pacific. And Admiral Nimitz has to fight these things. Admiral Nimitz actually made decision on his own and saying to withdraw these forces and go back so they can timely be, you know, masked off Midway. And he calculated if he made a mistake, then King will reverse the decision and that didn't happen, you know, so that these two carriers were then available. If we have only one carrier, you know, in Midway, we will probably be successful, certainly, you know. And Yorktown, as you know, suffered damages here and was calculated that it would take about 90 days and when they came, you know, to the yard, you know, in, I mean, dockyard in Harbour, Nimitz requested three days. And so that's the reason why Yorktown then became available. So a lot of things have been happening. So I'm not, if I give you the impression that it's everything intelligence, no, it's not, you know, but certainly it's helpful. Okay. I mean, you know, so, yeah. Did they ever use U.S. submarines and accompaniment of these carrier task forces? Well, we, we, the submarines were helpful, they were properly positioned, you know, in Yolo, Tavi Tavi, you know, which was made in Anchorage and the Wow and so on. So they were monitoring and they were able to report timely when the fleet went out. That was not obtained. You see, the problem with the, I didn't have time to go into the Japanese way of doing the things. The reason why we were reading these messages was because of the messages transmitted by shore commands. But once the fleet was out, there was a total radio silence. So we were not able to read anything. Sometimes, you know, I remember when I wrote a book on the lady, we were able to get information or whereabouts or the striking forces because there were messages sent to supply ships. And then, you know, supply ships, you know, that we know they were, they were following these forces. So we were able to somehow deduce what these forces are. So it was total radio silence, you know. And, you know, what was also very beneficial, especially in submarine warfare, that, you know, we, not only that we knew known positions of the convoys and so on, we knew also what we called battle damage assessment. You know, when Commodore would then report to the shore command in Japan, how many ships were sunk or damaged and so on, we knew all these things, you know. It was a great, great help, you know. But again, if Japanese were not so convinced that their codes are unbreakable, that was also potentially cause of the problems, you know. Okay, the same thing, the same lesson also applies today. Okay. Who did Admiral Spruance report to? Admiral Spruance was subordinate to Nimitz. Because he was a, you know, Nimitz was a US Pacific Fleet commander. Okay. And Nimitz reported both to join staff and to King. Okay. But Admiral Spruance were, you know, I'm great admirer of Admiral Spruance and Nimitz and King, you know, despite their reputation in some quarters and so on, they were all school, you know, Admiral Spruance, who actually allow a lot of initiative on the part of the subordinates. Okay. They were not shy to replace somebody who was not effective, but they let the subordinates to command. And that's what our admirers today had to remember. Okay. Micro-management. Too much micro-management. Okay. One thing. Yeah. I broke in under a German chief engineer in the merchant marine. Yeah. You sound just like him. Okay, thanks. I guess that's a compliment, you know. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Did MacArthur have any influence on these operations? Well, he has an influence, you know, in the Coral Sea. And as you know, in those days, we didn't have, I didn't have, my book talks about command relationships and how it was established. The Coral Sea was in the area southwest Pacific area. So he was nominally in charge of that area. And we had, as you know, the Pacific Ocean area was divided by the joint staff into what we call today four theater operations. You know, it was the North Pacific, Central Pacific, Southern, and it was the Southeast Pacific, which we don't hear much. That's over the coast of Chile. And, but in terms of South Pacific, the Admiral Gormelik became Sopak, the commander. He was in May, still not there. He didn't come until June. Okay. So what we had a problem in, first the overlapping area between two theater commands and the other one was that we didn't have any intermediate commander between Nimitz and Task Force 17. So that was a problem, you know, because then you have one intermediate level less, you know. Okay. So we always say you should have not too many levels. You should not have too few. Okay. But you know, this is not to be critical because this is the first time we have been in a global war. We have been trying to get these things done, you know, and so on. And so they improved these things later on. The boundary between the Southeast Pacific area and Southern Pacific was moved, you know, and so on. But it has effect here because the land-based aircraft were used for search, you know, in Colosseum, but there was lack of coordination because there was not a good, you know, coordination between two commands, you know. Okay. The problem with Mark Carter was at that time too much chatter between pilots, you know, so Nimitz has to send him a message prior to the midway, you know, to be aware of the radio security, you know. Okay. Too much talks, you know, between pilots, you know. Okay. Yes. A question with regard to the Aleutian campaign. I thought it was planned by the Japanese to some extent as a diversion from the midway operation. Yeah. Is that... No, no. No, no. It was not a diversion. No, I don't think it was planned as a diversion. It was planned to seize Kiska Ato and Adak, you know, and also destroy installations in the Dutch harbor. And they wanted to prevent our land-based long-range bombers to bomb Hokkaido and Curies. It was a compromise because in order to get approval by naval general staff and army for the midway, they had to make compromises. And that's why Yamamoto agreed, but I think it was a mistake because a lot of forces were assigned to that, you know, and that these forces were not available to other, you know, to the main objective, you know, and so on. The army was happy with midway because they didn't have a... There was no need by the Navy to give them any troops. There were only few troops for the special forces of midway, nothing else, you know. And the naval general staff was more interested to go in July, so that plan was after the... If midway was completely successfully, the next phase of expansion would be Southern Pacific. That means attacking, you know, Samoa, Fiji, you know, and the strong points in Southern Pacific. When I was, you know, researching for the situation up in the prior to Colosseum, the Navy, naval general staff was pushing to invade Australia. You know, that was shortly after the, you know, invasion of Netherlands East Indies and so on. They thought the next step should be Australia. But the army was starting to oppose because out of 51 divisions, 11 divisions were committed to the operation in the Pacific. All others were in Manjuria and China, you know, and for home islands. So they didn't want any more, you know, divisions to be assigned. You know, they calculated 250,000 troops, you know, and so on. So as a compromise for that between naval general staff and the army, the decision was made then to go and to, you know, seize the new Caledonia, Samoa, and Fiji. Okay. So I think one problem here is which I didn't have time to discuss. Yamamoto was very influential, too influential, you know, and that he essentially undermined strategy because he was driving the strategy as an operational commander instead of naval general staff. So he, at any time, especially from midway, he threatened, you know, to resign if his wishes are not followed. So I was great at admiring Yamamoto prior to my study, you know, not today, but, you know, I thought he was a great commander in a way, but also I think too tactically oriented I think, in my judgment, okay? But that doesn't matter. I mean, who cares what I think, okay? Thank you. Yeah. Okay. When did the amphibious landings that we participated in occur in that area? In Southern Pacific, 7 August 1942. That was our first landing in Southern Pacific. And that was beginning of the offensive phase of our advance in the Pacific. 7 August 1942. You know, that's also one interesting stuff because, you know, after the midway, we have to exploit victory on midway. We call this operational success. If we wait too long, the Japanese will recover. So we have to move, you know, and it's really due to Admiral King. Admiral King single-handedly almost forced the decision that has to be done soon rather than to wait, you know, and so on. But we didn't have sufficient forces. We have also to deal with a strong Japanese resistance. And so we landed successfully on Guadalcanal. But we have to fight almost 7 months of attrition warfare around to consolidate our gains, you know, because the strong Japanese resistance, especially at sea, okay? During the whole, I think, Solomon's campaign, we have 15 naval battles and we lost those draw 12. And all due to the poor state of our night fighting capabilities and torpedo gunnery tactics, you know. So it is very interesting to read because Japanese, you know, in the previous years, they believe that any new war they will deal with the Britain and the United States. So to redress that imbalance in numbers, they intensified night training and torpedo gunnery tactics and so on, and also tried to build better, more modern ships and so on. And the reason for that was that, is a strategic because there was a Washington Naval Conference in 1922, they didn't get a parity in forces with Britain, you know, so they were very unhappy. And so they tried to redress this issue, you know, with I think starting 1927 all the way to the war and so on, they have intensified training. And training was so realistic, you know, many times ships were almost collided, one I think destroyer was sunk in 1927. They trained mostly in Northern Pacific and US Navy trained in Caribbean. Okay, so. And you know, what I always warn here, you know, that these kind of arrows in peace time, you know, are very difficult to, you know, redress, you know, once the war started, we never really reached the level satisfactory level of night fighting, you know, in the Pacific war. We didn't have a chance to discuss the issue, I think it was on 18 June, during the Battle of Philippine Sea, Admiral Mitchell, he wanted to use the battle line, the Willis-Lee battle line, which was specially established for night fighting to go, you know, in the night, you know, and to proceed Japanese as Provence and Willis-Lee would not do it because we didn't feel confident that we can win that kind of control, you know. My lesson is here. The arrows you do in terms of not realistic training or reducing training and education standards, you're going to pay later on in war. Okay. So that's what we always say operational lessons learned, you know, or identified, okay. In that context, were the Japanese effective, when were the Japanese effective with the use of radar? They were, no, they were, what they had, you know, in the war, they had better radar detectors. Radar detectors were able to detect our ships at longer range than were able to detect them. As you know, Japanese had excellent optics, you know, in many times, you know, especially Battle of Savo on 7th, 8th, August, you know, they had been much better. Actually, the ships detected our ships, you know, even though our picket destroyer had the right radar, they were not able to detect them. You know, the Japanese had done some very good things, you know, if you look, you know, the intropedo gunnery, the use of cruisers and the destroyer, they were unmatched, you know, and the U.S. Navy made a big mistake in, I think, mid-1930s when they decided to remove all torpedo tubes from cruisers, and Japanese didn't. Another thing was, Japanese advantage was that many of their modern destroyers had to reload capabilities, that in other words, after they launched torpedoes, then we withdrew and after 18, 20 minutes, then we come back and relaunch the attack, you know, and we didn't have this kind of capability. Plus, there are long lands torpedo 24 inches, you know, even though it was designed in 1933, we didn't have any inkling of our intelligence about that torpedo. Okay, so there are many things, you know, that these are technical, you know, but one thing I always found, especially in the fighting in Solomons, both sides were in dark about their successes. They're all exaggerated successes. You know, we thought we are doing well in night fighting so we didn't need to improve, you know, and they think that they're losing more ships, you know, when they're actually losing, you know, and then they put more and more ships in, you know, and then they, you know, they were not able to outproduce us, you know, they had to give up, okay. When did these ships get radar? You were late in the war getting radar? No, no, we got radars before the war. Before the war, yeah. And Japanese got to do it in the war, Japanese. But in the beginning they have a, you know, actually detect you a longer range than, you know, the radar can detect you now, so, okay. Okay. If you don't have any questions, I will be happy to escape you. The book is published by the work on press, but available only through government print office. You can get it online. We're not only able to sell anything on campus, but with a lot of harm. Thank you, Mila. Oh, thanks, yeah.