During quarantine, I had the chance to rewatch Battle 360. A quick question is how the Japanese population viewed the Grey Ghost. I know the Japanese shut down a lot news such as the battle losses from Battle of Midway. I'm also familiar with some of the propaganda they spread about USMC.
The question is was the USS Enterprise a living symbol to destroy from the Japanese? Such as the Bismarck was in the European theater? Or was the news involving anything with the USS Enterprise so throughly rewritten to fit their narrative that the general population and Imperial Navy were unaware that the single carrier was so effective on the battlefield.
I would also welcome any critique on my comments or misinformation as watching Battle 360 made me question how much of the stories were sensationalized to fit a uber American patriot narrative. Thank you for any info.
Well there are a couple of things.
First off. Most average people didn’t really know about ships during the war, or at least they didn’t know too much. Only naval personal or other military ranking personal really payed attention to what ships where and what not, and even then, they didn’t see the ship as “the enterprise” but instead “an American carrier” so the short summery would be that the Japanese didn’t really care too much about the enterprise and instead cared in general about American carriers.
Now the thing about the enterprise also it that it is an effective carrier with a trained crew, but any other carrier with a veteran crew would be able to do what they did, and we can see this later in the war with other carriers like Hornet, Wasp, Bunker Hill ect where they performed extremely well too.
As far as Japanese information went and wanting to sink Enterprise, it wasn’t as important as some think it was. Enterprise was a Carrier and the sinking of any American Carrier was seen as a major plus. Whether it be Yorktown, St Lo, or any others, the sinking of a carrier would be a big tactical win to the Japanese, and in the heat of battles the opposing side really couldn’t tell ship names apart, and both sides sometimes reported killing ships that weren’t even in that theater.
Also there is nothing wrong with your comments. It’s ask Historians! I personally haven’t seen battle 360 but I may check it out now. And I also believe you should give that Uber patriot view a break. To be honest I’m a little bias as my family fought in World War II with some fighting in the pacific. If it wasn’t for the crew of the enterprise, hornet, bunker hill, Yorktown, ect and ect, then a lot more people would’ve died.