The Pacific Battles
In many of the crucial battles of the Pacific, for instance Coral Sea and Midway, battleships were either absent or overshadowed as carriers launched wave after wave of planes into the attack at a range of hundreds of miles. The primary tasks for battleships in the Pacific became shore bombardment and anti-aircraft defense for the carriers. Even the largest battleships ever constructed, Japan's Yamato class, which carried a main battery of nine 18.1-inch (460 millimetre) guns and were designed to be a principal strategic weapon, were seldom given a chance to fulfill their potential. They were hampered by technical deficiencies (slow battleships were incapable of operating with fast carriers), faulty military doctrine (the Japanese waited for a "decisive battle", which never came), and defective dispositions (as at Midway).
Read more about this topic: Battleships In World War II, Operations
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or battles:
“American future lies in the East. The great free markets of the Pacific Rim are the American destiny.”
—Donald Freed, U.S. screenwriter, and Arnold M. Stone. Robert Altman. Richard Nixon (Philip Baker Hall)
“Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)