26 FEB 44
I have mentioned previously that the War Diary is replete with administrative minutiae. The log notes every ship and every interloper that came within visual, radar or sonar range of Princeton. It also makes mention of contacts found by other vessels and reported to the Task Group as a whole.
For instance, at 1215 on February 26th "search planes from the USS SARATOGA reported a CVE and 2 destroyer escorts bearing 179˚, distant 27 miles from this force." Innocuous but required entries according to the previously mentioned OPNAVINST 3100.7C.
The vast majority of sightings mentioned in Princeton's War Diary turn out to be other U.S. military ships, blips, submarines or aircraft. Which got me thinking about the colossal miscalculation made by the Japanese in the lead up to Pearl Harbor. Again, one has to wonder what on earth were they thinking?
In the book Midway Inquest by Dallas Isom, Admiral Yamamoto is quoted as telling Prime Minister Konoye in 1940:
"In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
Yamamoto's lack of religious belief necessitated he become his own prophet, and in this instance he was a good one. On two days in early June of 1942, six months almost to the day after Pearl Harbor, any hope of a Japanese victory was obliterated at The Battle of Midway.
Our nation's leaders, knowing America's participation in the war (certainly in Europe, likely in the Pacific) was virtually inevitable, had been subtly preparing the nation's industrial base for the transition to a wartime manufacturing economy.
A series of charts contained in The U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945 tell the story of Japan's hopeless cause.
The average Officer or Sailor, especially on a ship at war, doesn't have a lot of time to ponder the big picture. That's the job of politicians and Admirals. For most, every hour of every day is spent putting one foot in front of the other, bringing ever-closer the common goal of getting things over with so all could go home.
The one thing everyone did know, however, was that the Japanese were not going to give up, no matter how hopeless their situation.
And so, on this day, Princeton remained just north of Eniwetok, providing CAP over the atoll and the Task Group as well as an afternoon cycle of Surface Patrol.
One foot in front of the other. Each a step on the road to home.
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