The Grounding of USS Darter — A Case Study of an Operational Security Disaster

The Okinawa campaign in WW2 has often been described as marking the end old style total war. Where “cork screw and blow torch” close combat to the death between American attackers who fought to live and Japanese defenders who died in order to fight played out its last dance.

Upon closer examination, as this first article in a series planned to run through August 2018 will demonstrate, the Imperial Japanese were a fell World War 2 high tech foe, punching in a weight class above the Soviet Union. In high tech warfare, as in everything else, the Samurai clan dominated Japanese military was smart, driven, capable, and deadly. Their culture was obsessive about doing everything their own way, partly copying, but always obsessive about the Japanese originality of the design. Whether we are looking at the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighter, the 72,000 ton and 18-inch gun armed Yamato Class battleships or the I-8 and I-400 class submarine aircraft carriers.   These innate skills as high tech warriors meant Okinawa was in many ways far better described as a high tech war for the electromagnetic spectrum between peer competitors.

Point in fact, Okinawa was a “secret radar war” where two opposing command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) sensor networks were directing land, sea and air forces in a series of moves and counter moves. And while the less technologically advanced, and organizationally deficient, Japanese military lost Okinawa proper. It still took advantage of US Navy institutional biases, American inter service rivalries, political weaknesses, US Naval high command unwillingness to learn from “non-approved” sources and most especially its operational security failures to defeat the US Navy’s original plan to overrun the Ryukyu’s.  Denying the American military the Northern Ryukyu air bases it originally sought to cover the proposed Operation Olympic landings.

The first block in that Japanese Pyrrhic electronic warfare victory at Okinawa was laid at Bombay Shoal, off Palawan in the Philippines. Where the USS Darter sank Japanese Admiral Kurita’s flagship the heavy cruiser IJNS Atago during the greatest naval victory in America’s History, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  And Japan had its biggest windfall of captured American secret radar documents in World War 2 — and second biggest secret document windfall over all — from Atago’s killer.

USS Darter (SS-227) grounded on Bombay Shoal off Palawan on 4th patrol, 24 October 1944
Figure 1: USS Darter (SS-227) grounded on Bombay Shoal off Palawan, the Philippines on 4th patrol, 24 October 1944. The shell holes from a Japanese destroyer, several US Navy submarines, and a Japanese air attack. This included 55 point-blank hits from the 6-inch deck gun of the Nautilus (SS-168) on 31st October 1944.  Unfortunately, Darter was boarded prior to that shelling by an away team from a Japanese destroyer and the entire unburned contents off her classified  technical library were seized for analysis by Imperial Japanese Naval Intelligence. Visible on the top of the conning tower are the undamaged radar, radio and identification friend or foe antenna’s. Photo credit — Navsource.org

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Fake Sailing News

I am calling b.s. on the recent story about the two women with their two dogs that got “lost” at sea for 5 months. There are just SO many questions that I have.

I have read a lot of books about sailing, boats and navigation, (although I don’t sail myself) and think that if faced with a life or death situation that a captain and one crew member could make something work and at least get one sail up on that boat (that looked in decent shape in photos and video) and hit some land just by sailing east or west (depending on the situation) with the sun as your only navigational guide in far less time than five months. Thoughts? Dr. Kennedy, paging Dr. Kennedy! (who I believe has sailed the Pacific).

“If we want an intact Iraq, the price of having one without fostering long-term strife across the Middle East is pushing Iran back out of Iraq.”

J.E. Dyer: Turning point: Iran’s influence in Iraq tipping to dominance:

In 6 years, Iran has dramatically transformed the operational landscape of Mesopotamia and the Levant. For multiple purposes, she now dominates and/or can use territory more than 200 mi. closer to key locations on the Med. coast. She has also built a formidable outpost in Syria and Lebanon.

A troubling and I suspect accurate analysis. Worth reading in full.

Preference Cascade

(Sorry for the lack of posting – I am trying to finalize A Fifth of Luna City, and Lone Star Glory — the follow-up to Lone Star Sons, and the days are just all too short. Herewith a rant about certain recent developments in pop culture for your weekend edification.)

Just to make it clear, I do not think that the NFL, or the So-Cal based movie-TV-media production industry usually described by the simple designation of ‘Hollywood’ are going to wither up and disappear in a puff of smoke and a puddle of goo like the Wicked Witch when Dorothy threw a bucket of water on her. No, likely the first will be diminished to relative insignificance over the insistence of many players to ‘take a knee’ during the national anthem, after a long train of other actions which increasingly put the well-reimbursed celebrity athletes of the NFL at loggerheads with the audiences in Flyoverlandia who watched games from the stand, or on TV, purchased season tickets, merchandise and premium cable service with the big daddy sports channel, ESPN.

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Josh Blackman: DOJ Shifts Position: “The Government Has Not Conceded That POTUS Is Subject to the Foreign Emoluments Clause”

Excerpt:

As it stands now, there is absolutely nothing that the Plaintiffs and their Amici have submitted to the court to rebut our position that the President is not bound by the Foreign Emoluments Clause. (The Legal Historians did make such a claim, but subsequently withdrew it.) Count I concerning the Foreign Emoluments Clause must be dismissed.

FTW

(Via Seth)