Kevin in ABQ @KevinInABQ - Twitter Profile

Pinned Tweet

about 4 years ago

@politicalmath As I said a few days ago: Never pass a law/define an executive order/create an agency you wouldn't want to put into the hands of your worst enemy.

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Kevin in ABQ @KevinInABQ

about 1 hour ago

@awstar11 @back_ttys Definitely not beautiful. Fashionable among certain unfashionable people.

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Kevin in ABQ @KevinInABQ

about 4 hours ago

@varadmehta And BK made the court only because he was a school years hoarder.

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KevinInABQ retweeted

Voices of WW2

@VoicesofWW2

about 9 hours ago

84 years ago today, a pilot running out of fuel made a decision that won the Pacific War. Most Americans have never heard his name. June 4, 1942. Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan's navy is undefeated. Four of the carriers that burned Pearl, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, are steaming toward Midway to finish off the US Pacific Fleet. At 7:52 AM, Wade McClusky launches from USS Enterprise leading 32 Dauntless dive bombers. Here's the detail nobody mentions: McClusky is a fighter pilot. He'd been given the air group weeks earlier and had barely flown a dive bomber in combat. Now he's leading every SBD the Enterprise has at the most important target in the Pacific. 9:20 AM. He arrives at the intercept point where the Japanese fleet is supposed to be. Empty ocean. Nothing for miles. The Japanese had turned. Nobody knew where. And now McClusky owns the worst math problem in naval aviation: his fuel is bleeding away, and every minute he keeps searching, he condemns more of his own pilots to ditch in open water where nobody will find them. Doctrine is clear. Turn back. McClusky keeps going. He works a search pattern, squeezing miles out of dying fuel tanks. 9:55 AM. Far below, a single Japanese destroyer is cutting a white scar across the ocean at flank speed. It's the Arashi, racing to rejoin the fleet after depth-charging the American submarine Nautilus. Think about that. A failed sub attack is about to give away the entire Japanese navy. McClusky reads the wake like an arrow and follows it. 10:02 AM. The horizon fills with the entire Japanese strike force. Four carriers, their decks crammed with planes being refueled and rearmed. Fuel lines snaking everywhere. Bombs stacked in the open. And here's the miracle: the sky above them is empty. Minutes earlier, American torpedo squadrons had attacked at sea level and been annihilated. Torpedo 8 lost all 15 planes. One survivor, Ensign George Gay, watched what came next while hiding under his seat cushion in the water. Those doomed pilots dragged every Japanese fighter down to the waves. The door upstairs was wide open. 10:22 AM. McClusky pushes over from 14,500 feet. Both squadrons follow him down onto Kaga. It's actually a mistake, doctrine said split the targets, but Lt. Dick Best catches it mid-dive, pulls out with two wingmen, and goes after Akagi alone. His single bomb pierces the flight deck into the packed hangar. It's enough. By 10:28, Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu, the third hit simultaneously by Yorktown's bombers, are floating infernos. Six minutes. Three carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, gone. Hiryu follows them to the bottom that evening. The cost of McClusky's gamble was real. Many Enterprise bombers never made it home, some shot down, others swallowed by the sea when their tanks ran dry. McClusky himself was jumped by two Zeros on the way out, took five bullets through his shoulder, and still flew his shot-up Dauntless back to the Enterprise. Admiral Nimitz said McClusky's decision "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway." Japan never won another major battle. One borrowed pilot. One destroyer's wake. One choice to keep flying when every gauge said go home.

VoicesofWW2's tweet photo. 84 years ago today, a pilot running out of fuel made a decision that won the Pacific War. Most Americans have never heard his name.

June 4, 1942. Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan's navy is undefeated. Four of the carriers that burned Pearl, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, are steaming toward Midway to finish off the US Pacific Fleet.

At 7:52 AM, Wade McClusky launches from USS Enterprise leading 32 Dauntless dive bombers. Here's the detail nobody mentions: McClusky is a fighter pilot. He'd been given the air group weeks earlier and had barely flown a dive bomber in combat. Now he's leading every SBD the Enterprise has at the most important target in the Pacific.

9:20 AM. He arrives at the intercept point where the Japanese fleet is supposed to be.

Empty ocean. Nothing for miles.

The Japanese had turned. Nobody knew where. And now McClusky owns the worst math problem in naval aviation: his fuel is bleeding away, and every minute he keeps searching, he condemns more of his own pilots to ditch in open water where nobody will find them.

Doctrine is clear. Turn back.

McClusky keeps going. He works a search pattern, squeezing miles out of dying fuel tanks.

9:55 AM. Far below, a single Japanese destroyer is cutting a white scar across the ocean at flank speed. It's the Arashi, racing to rejoin the fleet after depth-charging the American submarine Nautilus. Think about that. A failed sub attack is about to give away the entire Japanese navy.

McClusky reads the wake like an arrow and follows it.

10:02 AM. The horizon fills with the entire Japanese strike force. Four carriers, their decks crammed with planes being refueled and rearmed. Fuel lines snaking everywhere. Bombs stacked in the open.

And here's the miracle: the sky above them is empty. Minutes earlier, American torpedo squadrons had attacked at sea level and been annihilated. Torpedo 8 lost all 15 planes. One survivor, Ensign George Gay, watched what came next while hiding under his seat cushion in the water. Those doomed pilots dragged every Japanese fighter down to the waves. The door upstairs was wide open.

10:22 AM. McClusky pushes over from 14,500 feet. Both squadrons follow him down onto Kaga. It's actually a mistake, doctrine said split the targets, but Lt. Dick Best catches it mid-dive, pulls out with two wingmen, and goes after Akagi alone. His single bomb pierces the flight deck into the packed hangar. It's enough.

By 10:28, Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu, the third hit simultaneously by Yorktown's bombers, are floating infernos. Six minutes. Three carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, gone. Hiryu follows them to the bottom that evening.

The cost of McClusky's gamble was real. Many Enterprise bombers never made it home, some shot down, others swallowed by the sea when their tanks ran dry. McClusky himself was jumped by two Zeros on the way out, took five bullets through his shoulder, and still flew his shot-up Dauntless back to the Enterprise.

Admiral Nimitz said McClusky's decision "decided the fate of our carrier task force and our forces at Midway." Japan never won another major battle.

One borrowed pilot. One destroyer's wake. One choice to keep flying when every gauge said go home.

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Kevin in ABQ @KevinInABQ

about 6 hours ago

@redsteeze So it was happening two days ago?

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Kevin in ABQ @KevinInABQ

about 6 hours ago

@BertJohnson6290 @mkhammer @seanmdav It's an old age home.

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Kevin in ABQ @KevinInABQ

about 6 hours ago

@politicalmath He can resolve the moral issues of this while spending the summer at whites-only beach club at which he is a member.

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KevinInABQ retweeted

Melodies & Masterpieces

@SVG__Collection

about 18 hours ago

On this day in 1967, Jimi Hendrix performed a cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” at London’s Saville Theatre just days after its release, with Paul McCartney and George Harrison in the audience.