I’ve seen pictures of sailors during the Pearl Harbor attack firing pistols at Japanese planes.
When Dad was living in a tent in New Guinea they fired M-1s, a Thompson and 1911As at aircraft during air raids. They hit a guy who bailed out.
I am watching that from the start. Guadalcanal, 1942. Dad was in a tent in New Guinea with the 5th USAAF. He saw a Japanese guy rifling his tent, they both ran in opposite directions. He had teeth fall out and they weren’t wearing uniforms because of fungus growing on them. I wish I had been knowledgeable enough about WWII to ask him about operation tower and the battle of the Bismark Sea. He came home when his little brother was killed in an aircraft training accident. Dad died when I was sixteen. We saw a B-52 at my grandfather’s farm near Jacksonville AFB. I was awestruck; he had seen so much, shoveling brains out of a B-25 and stealing Cokes out of MacArthur’s B-17 that he was not impressed. 
Typo: a B-58 Hustler at Grandfather’s farm.
16:72 Is that George Marshall?
Sorry to post so much, but 17:32, MacArthurs B-17! Dad worked on it. Landing (I think Australia) the radio operator left the antenna unretracted. It was a long wire with a weight on the end, reeled out in the air, reeled in before landing. The antenna wrapped around a tree, and the radio was pulled out of the aircraft. Dad was working on it in 100 degree heat. The B-17 had the bomb bay welded shut, with a sofa and a refrigerator in the bomb bay. Dad’s Sargent took two Cokes from the frig and he and Dad drank them.
Agreed. And the multi-layered smokescreens took away much of Kurita’s striking power.
Oh, yeah, the Yanks were lucky and did everything right defensively, but if Kurita hadn’t funked out Taffy 3 was screwed period.
If Kurita had his head screwed on straight, he would have had his destroyers form a vanguard screen before engaging and let them deal with the US counterattack. The Japanese advantage in even tin cans would have been decisive. The heavies could have focused on reaching out and touching up the carriers.
Absolutely.
Agreed. When Kurita ordered General Attack, he really blew it. On the other hand, Taffy 3 was only 2/3 of his opposition. The other Taffys could batter him from a safe distance.
Correction: Taffy 3 was 1/3.
True, but it is reasonably implied that it’s poison ivy as he complains about itching, and he complains about the thick calamine-looking lotion on his hands and neck.
My Grandmother put that stuff on me in the 1960s.
Calamine might have been applied to nearly any skin condition back then. And plenty of skin conditions cause itching, too.