Rick Bigelow, about islands in the Pacific during World War II

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It's Rick Bigelow, and he's our historian, and he's great. He, he fills me in on, on a lot of stuff even when he's not on the program, so we absolutely love him. And, uh, he's got some things to talk about, Tarawa and the continued battle in World War II in the Pacific. Rick Bigelow, welcome back to The Bob Codaro Show. How are you, my friend?

Doing great. Glad to be with you, Bob.

All right, so tell us, uh, let's start it right out. Tarawa and the Makin campaign, November 20th to 23rd, 1943.

Okay, you know, w- we talked about this about a year ago, but I, I know you've got, uh, new listeners coming in all the time, and I thought this time we, we'd, uh, focus a little bit more on, uh, Admiral Nimitz, too, and the decisions he made, uh, for the island-hopping campaign across the Pacific. So, you know, by way of background, a- after Pearl Harbor, uh, we were reeling, but, uh, w- we had stopped the Japanese, uh, going to Port Moresby in, uh, in New Guinea at the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 4th through 8th, 1942, and then we surprised the Japanese Navy and sank their four carriers at the Battle of Midway. Uh, at, at the same time, uh, we were, uh, landing forces in North Africa, and, uh, within, uh, several months we were landing in Sicily, and we were moving up the Italian Peninsula. So not only were we fully engaged in the Pacific, we were starting to get really engaged in, in the, uh, Mediterranean and the European campaign, too. And, and I-

It really is amazing the resources that this country put together, and it, and it brings you back to, uh, that admiral who said, uh, "We have wake, woke, wakened a sleeping giant." Uh, um, I don't think the United States knew how resourceful and big it was at that time.

Well, you're absolutely right, and we did it very quickly. Now, I mean, to FDR's credit, he saw, uh, that there was a very good chance we'd get involved in the European war.

Mm-hmm.

So he signed the Two Ocean Navy Act in 1940, which really started, uh, production and, and, uh, commissioning of, of aircraft carriers and new battleships and transports and all, all that sort of stuff, so... A- and, and of course, Pearl Harbor happened at the end of 1941, so we kinda had a, a year and a half, two-year headstart on, on building up the, the fleet that we needed. But it was-

And thank for, God for FDR's, uh, foresight. Who, who was the driving force beyond, behind that? Like, were there, were there driving forces, or this is FDR's own initiative?

Well, I, I think the real, uh, driving force was, uh, Congressman Vinson from, uh, from Georgia. Uh, in, in fact, he was the one who pushed