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Nov 29, 2023, 4:27 PM

Winston Churchill said that men had some of their finest hours during the Battle of Britain, in 1940.

But women had some of their finest hours in 1939, during the Golden Age of Hollywood. If you attended the 12th Academy Awards, your choices for best picture, and actress were…

Vivien Leigh – Gone With the Wind

Greer Garson - Goodbye Mr. Chips

Jean Arthur – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Great Garbo - Ninotchka

Betty Field – Of Mice and Men

Clair Trevor – Stagecoach

Merle Oberon – Wuthering Heights

And Bette Davis – in Dark Victory

Whoof. Why can’t every year be like that? Good luck picking best picture, or best actress, in 1939.

Screenshot-219

Instead, we end up with that. Or this.

If you haven’t seen The Room, or The Brown Bunny, don’t. An on-screen BJ from Chloe can’t salvage Bunny, and Room doesn’t even have that.

Back better days, the 1930’s, there was a war going on outside of the theaters. So while Gone with the Wind was in pre-production and filming…

…the Japanese Army was stuck in a quagmire in China with no hope of winning anytime soon.

And in Europe, certain other folk were starting to make waves.

In Germany, Hit ler was annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia to cheers and bouquets of flowers.

And he was pushing ahead with his very popular Autobahn project; sort of a road for cars only…no walkers or wagons allowed.

Hit ler also ordered that everyone in society should have access to an inexpensive vehicle. And by 1938 the design was becoming finalized. Here’s an early protype from 1932, with stylish sheet metal doors and a lovely brown carpet interior. If only they could come up with a name for this so called “People’s Car.”

In Italy, Mussolini was wrapping up a war in Ethiopia with tanks, planes, and mustard gas against spear wielding natives. It was one of the last victories Italy would ever have as a solo nation.

“All men and boys able to carry a spear go to the capital. Every married man will bring his wife to cook and wash for him.”
-Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassi

Halee Berry

Elsewhere, oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938, as it had been in Bahrain in 1932. No clue if there was enough to make a world impact though. Here’s the very first Saudi oil well, in the little town of Dammam…

And back in the Pacific, it was a time for military upgrades and improved technology. So this post is going be mostly about tracking that technology, as we inch closer to war.

American radar, 1930’s. Let’s call it sonar.

Without the treaty restrictions of the 1920’s and early 30’s, all nations were now able to build whatever they thought was necessary for their own defense. In America, 3 new carriers…the Ranger CV4, the Yorktown CV5, and the Enterprise CV6, came online.

The Ranger was actually a runt. By a quirk in the previous naval treaties, there was “left over” tonnage after the Lexington CV2 and Saratoga CV3 were converted from battleships. That meant that the Ranger ended up being far too small for actual combat. It ended up going to the Atlantic on convoy escort duty.

USS Ranger, CV 4. Note her 6 smokestacks. The Japanese would have turned those down, to prevent runway clutter and to get the smoke out of the way.

Like this.

Unlike the Ranger, the Yorktown and Enterprise were custom designed without restriction, and so were big enough to reflect all the lessons learned in the Fleet Problems conducted from 1925 right on up till the start of the war. So they ended up being outstanding carriers.

USS Yorktown, CV5 at San Diego

USS Enterprise, CV6 at New York

The USS Enterprise also had the newest control bridge technology.

Those three new carriers brought the size of our carrier fleet to six. Four legit combat carriers, plus the Langley CV1 and Ranger CV4. But there were no new US battleships under construction during this whole this time. The last battleship the US built was back in 1923, the West Virginia BB48. That would soon change, however.

Over in Japan, they were busily constructing a navy too. As backwards as it might seem to us now, their dilemma was such that the IJN Navy might have to bail the IJN Army out of a lurch in China. The Kwantung Army was in a war it couldn’t seem to win, and couldn’t seem to get out of.

It happens to everyone from time to time.

As long and US, British, and Dutch oil and steel flowed into Japan, they could maintain the status quo in China with their army. But if that flow ever stopped, it might be up to the Japanese Navy to go and find more oil. And they had some pretty big ships. It’s always about China in the Pacific.

Japan’s fledgling carrier fleet started with the testbed Hosho back in 1921, then they added their two battleship converts, the Akagi and the Kaga.

IJN Hosho, 1921, That’s why they call them “Flat Tops.”

And just like we added the Ranger to exploit a tonnage loophole, the Japanese did the same thing with their tiny runt, IJN Ryujo (the “Flying Phoenix.”)

IJN Ryujo

And then the Japanese added two pretty good custom designed carriers to their fleet also.

The Soryu, or “Green Dragon”

And IJN Hiryu, or “Flying Dragon”

That made the carrier balance of power between the US and Japan 6-6 in 1939.

There were aircraft upgrades as well in the late 30’s. In naval technology, there were three types of combat carrier aircraft at the time; fighters, vertical-dive bombers, and level-torpedo bombers. And those three types were constantly being upgraded.

It was a time when metal monoplanes were replacing wooden biplanes. Fabric is great for parachutes, but not so great in flaming crash and burns.

The army was just starting to get in the bomber business in the late 30’s. Boeing introduced the B-9 bomber.

Followed by the B-15.

No word yet if Boeing planned to further develop their bombers after the B-15. The Russians were making bombers too, and experimented not only with dropping bombs, but dropping people, too.

And with bombers came the idea of bomber escorts, for long range missions over enemy territory.

Bomber development is a lot of fun. We might have a dedicated post coming up just on that. But the Russians could get a little crazy.

Meanwhile, back in the Pacific, and in the American Navy, the Grumman F3F navy biplane fighter…

Was being replaced by the Grumman F4F “Wildcat” monoplane fighter.

Our top-of-the-line dive bomber in the early thirties, the Curtis He77diver…

Was replaced in the late 30’s by the Douglas Dauntless Dive-Bomber.

And our top torpedo bomber, the Martin T4M

Was replaced by the Douglas Devastator.

The same thing happened in Japan. Their older Yokosuka B3Y Torpedo Bomber…

Was upscaled with the Nakajima B5N “Kate”

Their Aichi D1A biplane Dive-Bomber…

Was replaced with the much sleeker Aichi D3A “Val”

And most famously, their frumpy Nakajima A4N navy fighter…

Was replaced by the Mitsubishi A5N fighter…

Which was quickly superseded by the Mitsubishi A6N fighter, in front here. Aka, the Zero.

So that’s the military arms tally two years before all he77 breaks loose in the Pacific, again. Although we usually think of the 1930’s as a time of peace, in fact there were more than 70 wars during the decade, all over the world.

There was the Spanish Civil War, the Ethiopian War, the Chaco War in South America, revolts and coups in Greece, Austria, India, Tibet, Iraq, Hungary…everywhere. People just seem to like fighting. So what’s it all about?

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