On the anniversary of the Japanese surrender, New York Times journalist David Sanger shared the story of his father, Ken, who narrowly avoided shooting down the Japanese delegation. Ken was gracious enough to share the story with Sea Control, as well as to tell the story of “his war,” including fighter direction in the Second World War, what it was like to experience kamikaze attacks, and pulling into Nagasaki just weeks after its bombing. Hang out for the end to hear Ken ask some questions about modern air defense!
We spanned 16 time zones to bring you Dr. Sebastian Bruns from Kiel’s Center for Maritime Security Studies and John Bradford from the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Affairs discussing lessons learned from CIMSEC’s recently concluded Regional Strategy Week, to include the importance of resources to development of national strategy, budgetary pressures of building and maintaining a navy, and more!
We’ve made it to Episode 17 and the Bilge Pumps crew have been joined this week by the exceptional Prof. Sal Mercogliano (@mercoglianos), who is joining us to discuss pod propulsion, incremental manning, and all sorts of other fun and interesting things which could be coming to a national navy near you just as soon as they pay proper attention to the merchant navy.
Sal is the History Professor at Campbell University, an Adjunct USMMA, a prolific maritime historian, a merchant mariner, Captain-Northwest Harnett VFD, and an all-around brilliant passionate advocate for the sea and maritime security.
So after all that what is Episode 17 about? Well the #Bilgepumps team are being topical of course, what can be learned from things like the RMS Queen Mary or the Rolls Royce Experiments in uncrewed ships, the real question is will Alex or Drach crack the first bad joke or pun?
#Bilgepumps is still a new series and new avenue, and although possibly no longer having the new car smell, we are getting the impression that it’s liked. But now we need you. Do you have suggestions for topics? Comments on how we could improve? Or most importantly, ideas for artwork, then please either tweet them to us the Bilgepump crew (with #Bilgepumps) at Alex (@AC_NavalHistory), Drach (@Drachinifel), and Jamie (@Armouredcarrier). Or you can comment on our Youtube channels (listed down below).
To conclude Regional Strategy Topic Week, Abhijit Singh and Collin Koh join the program to discuss the maritime balance of power between India and China to include a brief history of India-China relations, the recent conflict over the Line of Actual Control, India’s geographic advantage at sea, and the difficulty of conflict in a high-traffic area.
