Memorial Day brings up the Greatest Generation and the battles it fought to keep the World Wars away from the US, and save other countries from tyranny along the way. One of the greatest of those battles was at Midway, about half a year after Pearl Habor. It carries some object lessons in why this generation was so successful, and what makes America great. I am watching Battlefield 360, a History Channel program that profiles the aircraft carrier Enterprise. The production is absurdly over-the-top and padded with cheap filler, yet also full of compelling history.
The story of this battle, as for all others, is a search for truth, which then leads to success. A mere 33 years after the Wright brother's first flight, the US christened aircraft carriers like the USS Enterprise, which carried 90 airplanes. Mastering flight was the first step to a new form of long-range mobile warfare. The US had broken the Japanese naval code, enabling us to know the truth of what Japan planned for its invasion of Midway. The US ran an experiment to nail down the meaning of one word in the code, which clearly denoted a place, but which place? The truth came out when the Japanese took the bait and relayed our (fake) news that Midway was short of water. The word was their code name for Midway.
The US had learned quite a bit about the dangers of fire aboard aircraft carriers, which are awash with fuel, bombs, and artillery rounds, which led to a variety of novel equipment and training, such as CO2 purging of fuel lines before facing attacks, fire-fighting foams, and dedicated, pre-positioned fire control crews. This led to the Enterprise being able to take three direct bomb hits and not sink, while in the battle of Midway, the US sank four enemy carriers with only a couple of bombs each. The Japanese had not learned the value and truth of protective design and effective fire suppression.
The US had radar, a new way to find out the truth of enemy positions, so critical to both defense and offense. As in the old board game of battleship, naval warfare is a game of cat and mouse. The more you know, and the more you can blind your opponent, the more successful you will be. The search for truth has been so integral as to be almost unconscious in our military (not to mention "intelligence") culture. And in the post-war era, it led to a broader cultural commitment to education and research which has formed US preeminence in physics, chemistry, and biology, among many other fields, including notably climate science.
Which all leads one to wonder why lying is now one of our leading national characteristics. Who does our president regard as the enemy, and who the friend? Why is, for him, truth in journalism so dangerous? What is the morality of a whole party lying habitually about fundamental economics, about public interest regulation, about democratic values, and about the future of the planet? What has happened to us?
- Damage control on Yorktown.
- Wall Street wants docile Democrats.
- Cancer cure ... the hardest part.
- Some thoughts about the crazy.
- It is not entirely clear why we side with Saudi Arabia over Iran.
- Meanwhile, it is worth sticking with Afghanistan.
