Eisenhower in the Pacific: Part 1 The Shoestring Warriors of Luzon
- Thread starter galveston bay
- Start date
"The moral is to the physical as three to one."
"An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined."
"In war, moral factors acount for three quarters of the whole; relative material strength accounts for only one quarter."
- Napoleon Bonapart
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bronchitis has been kicking me pretty hard the last couple of weeks, but hopefully soon
been there, that can be a pain to get over...hope you get to feeling better soon
Your health is more important than any updates. I wish you a speedy recovery GB but do not push yourself.
Thanks for your dedication and I will await when you are able to update.
Me too, finally had to see the doctor when the damn thing wouldn't go away. Antibiotics and I'm feeling better now though nowhere near 100%...
Driftless
Donor
A couple of home remedies to consider, depending on the nature of the way the bronchitis is afflicting you...
A spoonful of tabasco really works to clear stuffed sinuses - for real... The capsacin (sp) in the peppers reduces some soft tissue inflammation apparently. Anyway it does work from personal experience.
A thousand years ago, in the days of my youth, a college roommate was suffering from bronchitis - cough, congestion, stuffed sinuses. As he could not afford to see the Doctor, he called his grandmother and she prescribed a mix of brandy, honey, and lemon. My roommate tried this concoction and found the lemon unpleasantly tart, so he dropped that out of the loop. Later he found the lack of lemon made the mixture too sweet, so out went the honey as well. He eventually finished off the brandy by itself, and was incoherent after that. The next day, the resulting hangover was worse than the effects of the original problem, according to him.... Needless to say, he over-did the whole thing - if he stuck with Grandma's plan and schedule, the package should have helped.
I hope you feel better soon. Bronchitis is a bugger.
A spoonful of tabasco really works to clear stuffed sinuses - for real... The capsacin (sp) in the peppers reduces some soft tissue inflammation apparently. Anyway it does work from personal experience.
A thousand years ago, in the days of my youth, a college roommate was suffering from bronchitis - cough, congestion, stuffed sinuses. As he could not afford to see the Doctor, he called his grandmother and she prescribed a mix of brandy, honey, and lemon. My roommate tried this concoction and found the lemon unpleasantly tart, so he dropped that out of the loop. Later he found the lack of lemon made the mixture too sweet, so out went the honey as well. He eventually finished off the brandy by itself, and was incoherent after that. The next day, the resulting hangover was worse than the effects of the original problem, according to him.... Needless to say, he over-did the whole thing - if he stuck with Grandma's plan and schedule, the package should have helped.
I hope you feel better soon. Bronchitis is a bugger.
Heroin is evidently really fucking good at dealing with a nasty cough.
That's a bummer. Energy drained, so ideas seethe through the brain, but can't make their way to the keyboard.
Get well soon, we can wait. A really good way to get rid of a nasty cough is decapitation
The IJA ran into a similar situation on Guadalcanal when it came to getting supplies in/men out. The Tokyo Express was actually a very poor transport system. A destroyer has precious little extra space to store supplies, so the amount that could be brought in was low. They also didn't have a good system for unloading the supplies and getting them to the beach. Quite often they would simply pull up as close to the northern shore of the island as they dared and kick over the side a sealed 55 gallon drum (or the equivalent) and, hoping it floated, let it drift to the beach. They had a real pressing need to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible so getting the supplies off and getting moving again was vital. Any men brought in would only have basic weapons and personal supplies, heavy equipment being beyond the capacity of a destroyer. Evacuating men, especially injured ones required boats and that used up a lot more time.
To make matters worse, a destroyer gets extremely poor fuel mileage. It was perhaps the least efficient way of moving supplies and men, which made the Tokyo Express a ridiculously expensive proposition. On the average, a cargo ship is 30 times more efficient as a destroyer when it comes to moving supplies, when you take into account fuel efficiency and cargo capacity. But using a slow moving freighter in the hotly contested waters of the Slot was absurdly dangerous even to the Japanese so they were forced to use the fleet-footed destroyers.
The Tokyo Express, despite being a dashing and bold enterprise, was doomed to failure from the outset. With that said, I have to give the IJA/IJN a lot of credit for even trying, given the tactical and strategic realities of Guadalcanal. High morale is indeed a force multiplier and I am sure the average IJA soldier on that stinking island was uplifted every time they pulled a barrel of rice from the surf. A similar lesson can be applied to GB's scenario when it comes to submarine supply: doomed to failure, but we should still give it a go because it is the right thing to do.
To make matters worse, a destroyer gets extremely poor fuel mileage. It was perhaps the least efficient way of moving supplies and men, which made the Tokyo Express a ridiculously expensive proposition. On the average, a cargo ship is 30 times more efficient as a destroyer when it comes to moving supplies, when you take into account fuel efficiency and cargo capacity. But using a slow moving freighter in the hotly contested waters of the Slot was absurdly dangerous even to the Japanese so they were forced to use the fleet-footed destroyers.
The Tokyo Express, despite being a dashing and bold enterprise, was doomed to failure from the outset. With that said, I have to give the IJA/IJN a lot of credit for even trying, given the tactical and strategic realities of Guadalcanal. High morale is indeed a force multiplier and I am sure the average IJA soldier on that stinking island was uplifted every time they pulled a barrel of rice from the surf. A similar lesson can be applied to GB's scenario when it comes to submarine supply: doomed to failure, but we should still give it a go because it is the right thing to do.
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"Imperial Japan" and "good logistics" don't belong in the same sentence.
Many of the drums ended up being sunk by PT Boats. And you're right, DD's can't deliver things like artillery or vehicles - both of which were desperately needed. There were a few attempts to deliver material by submarine, including subs towing large un-powered cargo containers with ballast tanks so they could stay underwater with the sub. These too proved to be failures. The IJA later built purpose-designed supply subs but I don't think many got into service...
I have been researching this very issue for the last couple of weeks for operations involving the Philippines and further south
Destroyers are not the ideal transport by any measure, but still better than nothing if the importance is high enough
A better solution would be converted 4 stackers (APDs) but they aren't an option yet (and they still aren't anywhere as efficient as a transport)