Big June 19 Stuff!

It's the beginning of the American Pastime today. On June 19, 1846, in Hoboken New Joisey, the New York Baseball Club met the Knickerbockers in a game of "baseball", under the auspices of Mr. Alexander Cartwright himself, creator of the rules. The NYBC beat the Knicks 23-1. General Abner Doubleday was nowhere to be seen. But then, this being 15 years before the Civil War, he wasn't a general yet either. Maybe that's the problem...

Jumping to 1944, it's day one of The Battle of The Philippine Sea, as the Japanese call it. The Americans call it "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot", which gives you a pretty good idea of how the battle went. It was the last stand of the Japanese Navy, in a sense; as they objectively had a chance. If sending your outnumbered, less well trained and inexperienced aviators out to do battle with more pilots, better trained, and with more experience, and oh by the way vastly superior aircraft is an objective chance. At any rate, by the end of the battle on June 20, the Imperial Japanese Navy was short three carriers, at least 550 aircraft, and most of the pilots. 350 or more planes were lost by the Japanese on June 19, Day One. In fairness, they did damage one US ship, and shot down a whole 30 US fighters. Turkey Shoot indeed.

Oh, and by the end of this first day, US submarines had also damaged or destroyed two enemy carriers. In one instance, while her planes were in the air. Oops.

Day Two would see a 550 plane raid launched by the Americans, against a foe who could now muster less than 50 planes for defense. Two Japanese fuel oilers and a carrier were sunk, and two more carriers and a battleship were damaged. Again, the Good Guys lost 20 planes. By the time they started to return to the carriers, the US planes were low on fuel, and it was dark. Want to know how confident the navy was? Admiral Marc Mitscher, commander of the carrier forces, took a calculated risk and turned on the lights of the ships to guide the planes home. Saved a LOT of men's lives that night, though the recovery operations on the carriers were chaotic to say the least. About 80 planes crashed, though most of the crews were rescued by the fleet. Planes could be easily replaced. Pilots would be a bit more problematic, so the US was happy to have that outcome.

So how bad was it? The once feared Japanese Carrier Fleet was wrecked. They went into the battle with about 400 aircraft for their carriers, and came out with about 35. A few months later, in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese used their carriers as a decoy force, as they were no longer capable of any real mission. (they succeeded in that mission, which is a whole different story).

Switching gears, in 1978 a comic strip debuted, featuring a lasagna loving cat. It's sadly still going, though I don't know who reads it anymore. It's been rehashing the same jokes for about 20 years, which haven't been funny for about 22 years. Meanwhile, Bloom County, Peanuts, John Darling, Travels With Farley, and Calvin and Hobbes are all just a memory.

There's no justice in the world, I guess.

And on that depressing note, we end.