Jim Downey
speaker
621 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 13 Jul
Jim Downey’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Led by Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi, the 8th Fleet sails through an area known as the Slot within the Solomon Islands.
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Japanese cruisers lay waste to Allied American and Australian ships and sailors near Savo Island, then speed off, leaving the devastated Allied forces to pick up the pieces.
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It's the worst naval loss the Americans have seen since Pearl Harbor, and by some accounts, the worst fair defeat the United States Navy has ever suffered on the open sea.
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The Japanese leave the Battle of Savo Island, as this August 8th through 9th engagement is called, convinced that the Americans are quite defeated.
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Well, bad as it is, Uncle Sam's amphibious nephews are still building a new airbase on Guadalcanal.
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They dub it Henderson Field, in honor of Major Lofton Henderson, who gave his life leading bombers during the Battle of Midway.
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As the hot summer days pass, a pattern develops.
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The Japanese bomb the marines from the air by day and send ships with supplies and fresh reinforcements to the embattled islands hanging on Japanese forces through the slot by night.
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These nighttime deliveries are dubbed the Tokyo Express or the Cactus Express, based on Guadalcanal's code name of Cactus.
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During the days after these deliveries, the Japanese hit the U.S.
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Marines with larger and larger bonsai attacks.
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That's right, the same ferocious fight-to-the-death type of attack we saw on the Aleutian island of Attu at the start of this episode.
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The August 21, 1942 Battle of the Tenaru River is especially bloody, and Japanese tactics shock the Americans as they break the usual codes of conduct.
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For instance, dying Japanese soldiers call out for help only to shoot, stab, or use a grenade on their American helpers.
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But even these low blows don't win the day.
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The Americans continue to hold Guadalcanal.
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At sea, the battles continue to go fine.
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To quote dive bomber Harold Buell on August 24, 1942's Battle of the Eastern Solomons, it "...must be listed as a minor victory for the United States, in that the Japanese lost the small carrier Ryujo while we had damage done to the Big E, that is, the aircraft carrier Enterprise, but did not lose her."
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It had been a frustrating bag of missed opportunities, individual errors, and some of the worst dive bombing done in the war."
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Well, Harold may be frustrated with the dive bombers especially, but his analysis is on point.
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Showing 281–300 of 621 · page 15 of 32
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