Page 3 - Business Blunders 1 Teaching Note
P. 3
OBSERVATIONS
Like people all firms make mistakes. Often these mistakes
can be avoided with a little bit of forethought. If they are
not then the next best thing is often a quick remedial
response to minimise the magnitude of the error.
However, some mistakes can have disastrous
consequences. During the Second World War U.S.
submarines had been conducting a successful undersea
war against Japanese shipping. However, Andrew Jackson
May (Democrat), chairman of the U.S. House Military
Affairs Committee during the war became infamous for
his rash disclosure of classified naval information at a
press conference that resulted in the loss of an estimated
10 American submarines and 800 sailors. He had
commented that the high U.S. submarine survival rates
were due to Japanese depth charges exploding at too
shallow a depth.
After the news became public – late 1943, Japanese naval
antisubmarine forces began adjusting their depth
charges to explode at a greater depth.
Submarine sinking increased after this.
