Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

usna63.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#31

Post by KarlKemp »

ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #11

Does anybody know why reader mode on Safari shows only two divs towards the end of the article? For all the cool features the iPhone brings, I wish they focused more on getting this right.

This is the xpath for the last paragraph. I don't know Safari's reader mode fails here, but find it more remarkable that its normal mode works: /html/body/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/font[1]

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#32

Post by nopenopenopeno »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

From Roosevelt’s personal log: “Had that torpedo hit the Iowa in the right spot with her passenger list of distinguished statesmen, military, naval, and aerial strategists and planners, it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war and the destiny of the country.”

>it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war

Unlikely. The Soviets defeated the Nazis and nobody outside the Anglosphere questions this fact. FDR was a decent president at home, but the collaborationism of the British and U.S. leadership (see Churchill’s prioritizing of international trade relations via gold standard) meant their offense was very late to the table and more focused on claiming victory than fighting for it.

>and the destiny of the country

Possibly for the better. The AFL-CIO pact was a wreck for working Americans. At the end of the day, FDR was exactly what he claimed to be: “capitalism’s best friend.”

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#33

Post by mgarfias »

hutzlibu wrote: post #21
sandworm101 wrote: post #18

This ship's story isn't unusual. Every ship during WWII was a safety nightmare. Fratricide was common. So too were dangerous navigation errors. Every weapon system was one checklist item away from a deadly mistake (ie torpedo primers being the only safety mechanism during a drill). We wax nostalgic for all the heroes of WWII, but by today's standards a WWII crew was a bunch of under-trained kids manning extremely dan…

"but by today's standards a WWII crew was a bunch of under-trained kids manning extremely dangerous equipment. " In nazi germany in the end, it was literal kids.

I once knew a Japanese dude, older guy, now dead. As a kid (like 12-13) he was conscripted by the Japanese military and made to flight test aircraft.

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#34

Post by _0ffh »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #32
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

From Roosevelt’s personal log: “Had that torpedo hit the Iowa in the right spot with her passenger list of distinguished statesmen, military, naval, and aerial strategists and planners, it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war and the destiny of the country.”

>it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war Unlikely. The Soviets defeated the Nazis and nobody outside the Anglosphere questions this fact. FDR was a decent president at home, but the collaborationism of the British and U.S. leadership (see Churchill’s prioritizing of international trade relations via gold standard) meant their offense was very late to the table and more focused on claiming victory th…

Lmao! If he was a friend of capitalism, he could have let his actions speak for themselves. To the contrary, FDR's economic policies bordered on outright, open corporatism. He obstructed and stymied the free market at every opportunity. Some of his policies were so overreaching that SCOTUS nullified them as unconstitutional. With "friends" like that, who needs enemies?

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#35

Post by graeme »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #32
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

From Roosevelt’s personal log: “Had that torpedo hit the Iowa in the right spot with her passenger list of distinguished statesmen, military, naval, and aerial strategists and planners, it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war and the destiny of the country.”

>it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war Unlikely. The Soviets defeated the Nazis and nobody outside the Anglosphere questions this fact. FDR was a decent president at home, but the collaborationism of the British and U.S. leadership (see Churchill’s prioritizing of international trade relations via gold standard) meant their offense was very late to the table and more focused on claiming victory th…

The Soviets didn’t defeat the Japanese though, and they benefitted substantially from American supplies. As did the British, which kept the Nazis occupied in North Africa, in the air, and elsewhere.

Anglosphere people underrate the Soviet contribution but it’s not clear the Soviets could have done it alone.

Though in fairness, by November 1943 when the torpedo attack happened perhaps they could have.

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#36

Post by tharkun__ »

hutzlibu wrote: post #21
sandworm101 wrote: post #18

This ship's story isn't unusual. Every ship during WWII was a safety nightmare. Fratricide was common. So too were dangerous navigation errors. Every weapon system was one checklist item away from a deadly mistake (ie torpedo primers being the only safety mechanism during a drill). We wax nostalgic for all the heroes of WWII, but by today's standards a WWII crew was a bunch of under-trained kids manning extremely dan…

"but by today's standards a WWII crew was a bunch of under-trained kids manning extremely dangerous equipment. " In nazi germany in the end, it was literal kids.

Reminds me of this film. "Die Brücke" (the bridge)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Br%C3%BCcke_(film)

Not exactly the same but heart wrenching (and gut spilling). IIRC we watched this in history class once.

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#39

Post by ren_engineer »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #32
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

From Roosevelt’s personal log: “Had that torpedo hit the Iowa in the right spot with her passenger list of distinguished statesmen, military, naval, and aerial strategists and planners, it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war and the destiny of the country.”

>it could have had untold effect on the outcome of the war Unlikely. The Soviets defeated the Nazis and nobody outside the Anglosphere questions this fact. FDR was a decent president at home, but the collaborationism of the British and U.S. leadership (see Churchill’s prioritizing of international trade relations via gold standard) meant their offense was very late to the table and more focused on claiming victory th…

>The Soviets defeated the Nazis and nobody outside the Anglosphere questions this fact

Stalin and the Soviet's top general admit they would have lost badly without lend lease. Stalin was publicly begging for the US to open up a second front. You unironically fell for post WWII Soviet propaganda that they did everything themselves, plenty of communist sympathizers were happy to help spread that message as well

Stalin- "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war"

Zhukov - "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."

Without the lend-lease the Soviets starve and run out of ammo around 1942 and get routed. GDP numbers don't tell the whole story, the Soviets were able to give the US a wish list of high value items so they could focus on manufacturing things they were best at. Almost all their planes used US provided fuel

Re: The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

#40

Post by dreamcompiler »

sandworm101 wrote: post #18

This ship's story isn't unusual. Every ship during WWII was a safety nightmare. Fratricide was common. So too were dangerous navigation errors. Every weapon system was one checklist item away from a deadly mistake (ie torpedo primers being the only safety mechanism during a drill). We wax nostalgic for all the heroes of WWII, but by today's standards a WWII crew was a bunch of under-trained kids manning extremely dan…

Based on some recent inexcusable and fatal mistakes, it's hard to believe that modern US Navy training has become much better.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/16/navy-ho...

Post reply on HN