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Quality of sailors
The RN had a vastly superior manpower pool serving aboard its vessels during the Napoleonic war versus the French and the Spanish.
Conversely, the USN against the IJN was a different matter, with the IJN have a much greater degree of professionals at the start of the war vice the USN. The WW II USN was composed of hostilties only sailors and officers with a leavening of experienced regulars. I believe at Leyte the average age of a US sailor was 19.6 years of age....on of whom was my Dad who south of that number.
My Dad told me the story of a friend of his from the old neighborhood....name of Mark. Mark had 2 years of college so he got a commission (21 years old). He was sent to a shipyard in Illinois where he became, as an ensign, the XO of an LST. His captian was a LTJG (22 years old). Of th eentire crew, they had boatswains mate who was 24...he was the oldest and most experienced...joined the Navy in 1939. Anyway the sailed their LST down the Mississippi, out into the Gulf and across the Atlantic to the UK. That was their shakedown cruise. The first time they birthed their ship was near Portsmouth. After they pulled away from their birth, the next time they "birthed" it was in the afternoon of 6 June 44 at a place called Omaha. Mark said it wasn't unitl their third trip across the Channel that they stopped saying left and right and satrted saying port and starboard.
That little story is actually a kind of microcosm of the development of the USN in WW II.
Oh, and Ray Spruance was a better commander than Halsey....Spruance actually GOT the Japanese carriers (Midway, Phillipine Sea) which Halsey tried to get.
PS: I don't have time to grammar or spell check..sorry!
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"Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves." TSGT Oddball, Tank Commander
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