The Roundtable
Forum
Official Newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable
9 April 2010
Issue Number: 2010-13
Our 13th Year
~ AROUND THE TABLE ~
MEMBERS’
TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE:
1. From Our Archives: Torpedoing the Kaga
2. Waldron’s Turn—to Port or to Starboard?
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1. FROM OUR ARCHIVES: TORPEDOING THE KAGA
Ed. note: I’ve recently
fielded a couple of questions from members about American torpedoes in the BOM,
focusing on their unreliability as evidenced by the fact that all of the battle
damage done to the Japanese at Midway came from dive bombers. But one U.S. torpedo did strike a Japanese
carrier during the battle. Here’s a
message from nine years ago in which Jon Parshall gives the amazing details of
the attack on Kaga by the submarine Nautilus.
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1 May 2001
From: Jon Parshall
Minnesota
co-author, Shattered Sword
USS Nautilus attacked Kaga at 1359, about 3.5 hours after Kaga had been dive-bombed. Our latest interpretation of her movements (based on work that Jeff Palshook did at Nauticus when they went out looking for Kaga in 1999) is that she limped roughly north-northwest at between 2 and 3 knots before her engines conked at around 1300. Nautilus, who had been tracking her for a while, had been unable to close due to Kaga remaining under power. But at 1300 she noticed that the distance was now closing, and at 1359 she fired a spread of four torpedoes. The first fish failed in the tube. Two of the remainder missed fore and aft, although how one misses a target as large as Kaga sitting dead in the water is completely beyond me—apparently the fish ran wild.
The final shot hit Kaga on the starboard side
amidships, but failed to detonate. Lt. Kunisada Yoshio, a damage control
officer who had just escaped the lower hangar deck with a small group of men,
was standing on the top of Kaga's anti-torpedo bulge when the fish came
in. He rightly thought he was a goner.
But the fish impacted and was a dud, and broke in two. The aft
section of the torpedo, containing the buoyancy chamber and engine, remained
afloat, while the front warhead section sank. As improbable as this sounds, my
friend Fred Milford (who knows more about torpedoes than anyone on the planet)
ran buoyancy calculations on the Mk. 14 torpedo, and it will indeed float if
the warhead comes off. Some of Kaga's survivors who were already in the
water apparently used the torpedo as a flotation device.
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2. WALDRON’S TURN—TO PORT OR TO STARBOARD? ( See issue 12 )
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3 April 2010
From: Scott Kair
Illinois
The question of whether VT-8’s course can
be extrapolated from S-turns performed by the high elements of the HAG is
addressed on pages 14-15 of Weisheit’s The Last Flight of Ensign C. Markland
Kelly, Junior, USNR. Weisheit
states that Waldron turned off before VS-8 and VB-8 reached their attack
altitude of 15,000 feet. VF-8, though,
was already at 18,000 feet, performing a “constant series of S-turns to scrub
off speed” while the SBDs were climbing to altitude. I’d leave it to those with
more expertise in aircraft performance and procedures, but it seems safe to
assume that a formation of SBDs with full loads of armament and fuel would not
be performing S-turns while climbing to altitude.
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~ NOW HEAR THIS! ~
NEWS
& INFO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Yorktown’s Most Popular Sailor
- Link of the Week
- BOM Anniversary and Unit Reunions
- Editor’s Notes
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YORKTOWN’S MOST POPULAR SAILOR
In No Right to Win, you read of ship’s baker Raymond
“Jerry” Eichorn, who was one of the most popular sailors among the crew of
CV-5. Jerry was renowned for his pies, which
were sometimes procured by crewmen through negotiation, barter, or occasionally
by theft. Jerry joined the Roundtable
during its early years with the assistance of his daughter, Helen Imes, who
handled the computer chores for him.
Jerry joined the Navy in 1940 and was assigned to the Yorktown
directly out of recruit training, as was about half of his graduating
company. After four months with the
forward port side five inch gun crew, he was assigned to the galley and
commenced training as a ship’s cook and baker, rising to the rank of Baker 2/c
by 1942. He had a natural flair for
baking, and his reputation as a master of the craft spread about the ship. Over the years the Roundtable received
several comments from Jerry’s former shipmates attesting to the quality of his
baked goods and what the guys sometimes did in order to indulge.
Jerry endured the Yorktown’s tribulations at Coral
Sea and Midway in the familiar manner.
After stateside leave, he was assigned to the USS Pinkney (APH-2),
a transport employed to evacuate wounded personnel from the combat zone to rear
area hospitals. On the Pinkney, Jerry’s
reputation in the galley was regenerated and he was kept very busy meeting the
needs of some 500 men aboard the ship, including patients.
Shortly after being promoted to Baker 1/c, Jerry was
transferred to USS Signet (AM-302), a minesweeper at Puget Sound. The small ship was a drastic contrast from
the likes of Yorktown and Pinkney with their huge galleys and
large crews. But a severe stomach ailment
caused an abrupt end to his naval career in January 1945, and he was medically
discharged. Returning to civilian life
in Illinois, Jerry worked a 36-year career in a bakery, retiring in 1981. He continued to cook and bake for family and
friends, never tiring of the art and never losing the reputation for quality
that he earned aboard the Yorktown.
Jerry passed away on April 2nd at the age of 91. His Yorktown shipmates and other friends
on the Roundtable are invited to visit the funeral home’s web site in order to
sign and leave comments in his memorial book:
click
here
Farewell and following seas to an honored Midway veteran
and friend of the Roundtable.
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LINK OF THE WEEK
John Rasor in northern California has provided a chart that
many of you, particularly authors and historians, may find interesting and useful. it’s a bearing and distance chart for Midway
atoll, Kure atoll, USS Hornet, Kido Butai reported, and Kido Butai
actual at 0755, Midway time, on 4 June 1942.
If you ever wanted to really know who was where, how far from anyone
else, and in what direction as the BOM began, this may be a very good start.
Click
here for the link of the week.
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BOM ANNIVERSARY AND UNIT REUNIONS
Here are the BOM anniversary and reunion events for 2010
that have been reported to us. Please click this link to add
or update an event to the list.
Each event has an open invitation for BOM veterans, and many are seeking
guest speakers. Interested members can
make direct contact with an event organizer via the e-mail address provided in
your “new issue” announcement.
Non-members can request info here.
1. May 12-16: VF-42 reunion,
Bryson City, NC.
2. May 26: NOUS BOM luncheon, Macao’s
Restaurant, Phoenix, AZ.
3. May 31 - June 5: “Return
to Midway” Pearl Harbor symposium and Midway tour. For details, click here
4. June 3: NOUS “Dining Out” at Army-Navy
Country Club, Arlington, VA.
5. June 3 - 6: Annual Yorktown
CV-5 reunion, Little Rock, AR.
6. June 4: USN BOM commemoration at the Navy
Memorial, Washington, D.C.
7. June 4: USN BOM
commemoration, Fleet Forces Command, Norfolk, VA
8. June 4: Naval War College, BOM
commemoration with Jon Parshall as guest speaker, Newport, RI.
9. June 4: NOUS “Dining Out” Newport RI (Jon
Parshall also guest speaker at this one).
10. June 4: NOUS BOM luncheon at the Hess Club, Houston, TX.
11. June 5: USN BOM commemoration aboard USS Midway museum, San
Diego, CA
12. June 5: Navy League BOM luncheon, Phoenix, AZ.
13. June 5: NOUS “Dining Out” at Naval Postgraduate
School, Monterey, CA. Details: click here.
14. June 5: NOUS “Dining Out” at Marines Memorial Club, San Francisco,
CA.
15. June 5: NOUS & Navy League “Dining Out” at Renaissance
Center, near Jacksonville, FL. web site
NOUS = Naval Order of the United States
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EDITOR’S NOTES
~ I’ve been working a great deal to update our
web pages due to the transition to a new web host. There are some new pages and many others have been revised. I will appreciate being informed of any
links or pages that have any sort of problem.
I’m finding and fixing minor glitches on an ongoing basis, and all help
in catching them will be welcome.
~ One of our new web pages worthy of special
mention is CINCPAC’s Midway operations plan, 29-42, which has been at the heart
of many of the Roundtable’s topics. You
can now read the original document by clicking the link under “Special
Features” on our home page. (With thanks to Rich Leonard.)
For a glossary of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used in The
Roundtable Forum, click here
or go to our home page and click "The Roundtable Glossary" link.
Unless otherwise noted, all
original content in this issue of The Roundtable Forum, the Official
Newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable is copyright 2010 by Ronald
W. Russell (see the “About
the BOMRT” page). Permission to
forward, copy, or quote from this issue is granted if the following citation is
included: “The Roundtable Forum, official
newsletter of the Battle of Midway Roundtable, www.midway42.org.”
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