NFL WEEK 7 2021

 Good Sunday to you. We know when you woke up and said to yourselves "What is Rumpole going to write about on the blog? Wait, it's October 24, and that means Rumpole will ...."

Talk about the Battle of Leyte Gulf of course! See below. But first, our NFL picks, and a slight bemoaning our fate of having two running backs on a bye week and our other two running backs out with injury in our world famous Fantasy Football league. Woe is us. 

The Chiefs are at Tennessee and here's what you need to know. KC ranks 28th in rushing defense, and Tennessee has The Beast (Derrick Henry) at RB. Nuff said. Tennessee home dog +4.5. 

We like Da Bears getting 13.5 on the road against Tom Brady. Chicago has a good D and will keep it close, like they did last week. The Bradys also did not cover last week, so this is shaping up as a nice pick. 

We like our Fins at home to bounce back. Giving less than the normal 3 for being at home, Fins -2.5 over the Falcons. Miami is not as bad as they seem. 

Survivor Pool coming soon- most players have picked the Cardinals. 

week 7 by HR on Scribd

>The Battle of Leyte Gulf

By October 1944, the tide had turned against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). For the first time, Japan was entering a naval engagement with less aircraft carriers and battleships than the US Navy. The engagement was also the first time Japan employed kamikaze air attacks. 

The naval battle was part of General MacArthur's plan and promise to return to liberate the Philippines.  There were two US fleets involved in the invasion- the US Seventh fleet commanded by Admiral Kincaid, who was under MacArthur as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Pacific, and the US Third Fleet, commanded by admiral Halsey, who was under Admiral Nimitz who was the Commander in Chief of US Naval forces of the Pacific. See the problem? No unified command structure. The Japanese recognized this, and acted to exploit the issue. 

The American plans were clear to the Japanese. Halsey attacked Formosa in early October to establish a land base for US planes to support MacArthur's  landings at Leyte, The Japanese engaged Halsey's third fleet, and in what Halsey called a "knockdown drag-out fight",  the Japanese were routed, losing 600 aircraft in three days. Facing this defeat, the Japanese turned to their second plan "Sho-Go-1" in which their Northern Force commanded by Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa lured Halsey's Task Forces 38 & 34  away from Leyte, using Japanese carriers (that had few planes) as bait. The Japanese knew Halsey to be a hard-charging Admiral, easily irritated and ready to engage the enemy- his nickname was "Bull".  So they tricked him, using carriers that had no airplanes, and lured him away from Leyte, while the Japanese Southern Force, commanded by admirals Shoji Nishimura and Takeo Kurita would attack the landing forces which were no longer under the cover of Halsey's carriers. The Japanese Center Force, the most powerful of the Japanese Naval forces, would then sail through the San Bernardino Strait (which Halsey was supposed to protect) and also attack the US landing forces at Leyte. 

The Battle of Leyte Gulf may well have been the largest naval engagement of WWII as well as perhaps the largest naval engagement in history. Well over 200,000 sailors and airmen took part in the four separate battles - The Battle of the Sibuyan Sea (where the IJN sank the US carrier Princeton- the last US carrier lost in WWII); the Battle of Surigao Strait, The Battle of Cape Engano, and the Battle  of Samar. We could write a book of several hundred pages detailing all the strategic maneuvering of both naval forces in all four battles. But the most famous moment of the battle came when Admiral Kincaid, who engaged the strong Japanese Southern Force in the Battle of the Suriago Strait, sent Halsey an unencrypted message that his battleships were low on ammo and the situation was critical. Halsey, off chasing the IJN ghost fleet to the north, had been receiving Kincaid's messages out of order and late, He recounted in his memoirs that when he received that message, he was shocked, not understanding the full nature of Kincaid's troubles. 

Meanwhile, Admiral Nimitz, who had been monitoring the battle and the messages in Pearl Harbor, had a clearer picture of what was happening. He then sent perhaps the most famous naval message of all time to Admiral Halsey: 

"TURKEY TROTS TO WATER CG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINICH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS."

Having received this message, Halsey broke into "a sobbing rage" and turned his Task Force around, but too late to influence the battle. While the Japanese had succeeded in luring Halsey out of the action, and while their naval forces had inflicted serious damage to Kincaid's Seventh Fleet, it was not enough to stop the invasion. 

The Japanese were not the only ones to set a successful trap. The most successful part of the battle for the US Navy was the Battle of Surigao Strait, in which Seventh Fleet Admiral Oldendorf, commanding a task force of rebuilt and repaired battleships damaged at Pearl Harbor, engaged in the last battleship vs battleship battle in the Pacific. Oldendorf figured out the IJN plan of the Southern Fleet, and he was able to lure them into his own trap in which his battleships "crossed the T" of the IJN fleet*, and in the process sunk six of the seven battleships of the IJN.  

The Battle of Leyte Gulf is fascinating to war historians like Rumpole, because like Poker, it was a contest involving incomplete information. Each side had some insight into what the other was doing, but not enough, and each side made strategic decisions, some of which worked, and some of which did not. 

A word on the infamous "the world wonders" message that sent Halsey into a rage. The first and last three words of the message, including "the world wonders" were meant to be padding, nonsensical words designed to confuse the enemy. Halsey's staff correctly deleted the first section of padding, but mistakenly handed him the message with the last three words of padding included. October 25 happened to be the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Balaclava and the Charge of the Light Brigade, immortalized in Tennyson's poem. The phrase "the world wonders" may have been a take-off on the words in Tennyson's poem: "Flashed all their sabers bare, flashed as they turned in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while the world wondered." 

*Crossing a T is a naval tactic in which one side tries to get in front of the other side's ships that are lined up. By being the top part of the T, a naval force can bring all of the side guns of all its ships to bear on an opposing force, while the force of the bottom part of the T can only use its smaller front guns.