LETTER: You sunk my battleship!
In this aerial photo taken Aug. 2, 2014, the U.S. Navy USS Essex is shown docked near downtown Seattle during the annual Seafair summer festival. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
In his Jan. 8 letter, Peter McMurran writes, “The U.S. carrier fleet decimated the Japanese fleet, including battleships, at Midway in June 1942.” In the Midway operation, the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers and one heavy cruiser. Of the seven Japanese battleships that participated, only one ever came under attack and it escaped undamaged. Nevertheless, three of them were sunk by carrier aircraft later in the war.
This factual quibble, though, does not detract from Mr. McMurran’s points about the efficacy of large battleships in modern warfare.
