quote:

Originally posted by CoolRich59:
Yep. I wish I could remember the book, but it discussed the "debate" amongst U.S. leaders of the morality of targeting Yamamoto. Some thought it was immoral to deliberately "assassinate" him.

I read somewhere (Book on MacArthur?) that FDR signed off on the plan to assassinate Yamamoto.

IIRC, Yamamoto was on an inspection trip to the island and the shoot down was in view of the base he was visiting.
The crash site is open to visitors and the remains of the Betty are still there.
Yamamoto was a pragmatic commander. I cant help wondering if he knew the Pearl Harbor attack would mean his own life was forfeit as a result.

There is an excellent clip from some movie or other to be found on Youtube.

But in any event, it was common knowledge here in UK at least sixty years ago when I did a project on the WW2 Pacific Theatre AoO at school.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Wait till you try and figure out who shot down the Red Baron. Some Aussie machine gunners, some ground folks, the guy shooting at him from a plane and several others all claimed shooting him down.

Hell I thought everyone knew that Snoopy shot down the Red Baron.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
IIRC, Yamamoto was on an inspection trip to the island and the shoot down was in view of the base he was visiting.
The crash site is open to visitors and the remains of the Betty are still there.
Yamamoto was a pragmatic commander. I cant help wondering if he knew the Pearl Harbor attack would mean his own life was forfeit as a result.

Wasn't he the one who was quoted after Pearl Harbor as saying, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant." He didn't know how right he was.

quote:

Originally posted by NK402:

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
IIRC, Yamamoto was on an inspection trip to the island and the shoot down was in view of the base he was visiting.
The crash site is open to visitors and the remains of the Betty are still there.
Yamamoto was a pragmatic commander. I cant help wondering if he knew the Pearl Harbor attack would mean his own life was forfeit as a result.

Wasn't he the one who was quoted after Pearl Harbor as saying, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant." He didn't know how right he was.

Yamamato knew, as well as much of the senior leadership of the Japanese navy. Many naval officers had been educated in the US, and they at least had a passing grasp if not an actual understanding of America and Americans, as well as our industrial might. The army generals did not, so they assumed an easy victory over the American mongrel race.

I am almost embarrassed to admit that I learned of this watching 'Black Sheep Squadron' when I was in junior high.
At the time, I assumed it was total BS, kind of like how some shows have, say, local law enforcement, saving the world on a weekly basis (Hawaii Five-O still does this crap). Turned out to be only partial BS.

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:

quote:

Originally posted by Bassamatic:
Sig 209: Don't feel bad. I had not heard of this either. Damn.

I'm a bit surprised.

I remember reading about this is a copy of Reader's Digest...I thought it was pretty mainstream

Of all of the Readers Digests that I read at my grandparents’ house in the 70s, that is the one article I recall.

quote:

Originally posted by Gene Hillman:
There was a James Cagney movie "The Gallant Hours" (1960) which tells that story. Not a bad watch.

Woooo, thanks for that! Rented on Amazon, I know what I'll be watching tonight!

quote:

Originally posted by mr kablammo:
If you like learning about obscure WWII stuff check out Mark Felton.

This is about the flying wing...

https://youtu.be/QD3JWVSkDuU

I've seen this aircraft in person. It's currently in the restoration facility at the Udvar Hazy Annex of the Air and Space Museum.

Yamamoto was on an inspection trip to Bouganville to inspect the garrison there. He was notoriously punctual, so we had about a 2 minute window of opportunity. Too early, and he would have been spooked away. Too late, and he would have been on the ground.

There was argument for years as to who actually shot him down. After the war, it was settled. Japanese witnesses and records confirmed that one Betty crashed in the ocean (this plane had the staff on board, and, IIRC, a couple of them survived). Yamamoto's plane crashed in the jungle, with all on board killed. Today we know, beyond reasonable doubt, the pilot who shot down and killed Yamamoto.

Funny that I don't recall the Baa Baa Black Sheep episode, but I read the book "Get Yamamoto" in the 1970/80s or so.

I remember watching the black sheep squadron episode on it on re-runs on the superstation but I already knew the story then. I was probably in elementary school when I learned this. It may have been part of growing up in Hawaii and learning about Pearl Harbor and the fate of the attack’s mastermind

Funny story about black sheep. I had to watch it in secret when I lived with my grandparents. My grandfather was a marine from 1938-1975. He despised pappy boyington. Said most marines did.

quote:

The army generals did not, so they assumed an easy victory over the American mongrel race.

Army General Yamashita was well aware that Japan wasn't likely to prevail in the long run and was basically exiled to duty in China after his early successes. He had expressed his pessimism early and did what he felt was his duty in the early successful stages.
He was brought back towards the end of the war by the leaders, but he knew they were fighting a losing battle without a negotiated end. He and the others thought the horrible casualty rate could wear down American will, otherwise they couldn't win.
The militarist leaders in Japan took over the government and started the war after sanctions had been applied by the US to stop their expansionism. They knew they had a short time to conquer and obtain the resources they needed in the Pacific region. As an island nation, lacking many of the natural resources needed to function, the sanctions would have stopped them in a few years at most.
Pearl Harbor was designed to take out the Pacific fleet and result in a relatively quick settlement. Bad plan and bad luck for them since the carriers were out at sea when they struck. Even if the carriers had been taken out we would have eventually prevailed. We had far more capacity then they did. Also, their army's quick advancement resulted in outrunning their supplies. Thay had hoped to capture supplies as they went but it also didn't work out that way. They wanted to invade Australia but made it to southern New Guinea. The first American counter offensives there found the Japanese soldiers in very poor shape and many starving.
Back to Yamamoto. The Japanese had already reached their high point and were starting to get pushed back slowly, one island at a time by the time of his death. Both Midway, where they suffered tremendous losses of carriers, and his death were due to breaking their codes and intercepting messages.
Once they lost control of the seas it's not possible to win a war where you are spread out on a bunch of far flung islands and are cut off from the supplies and resources needed to continue.
Only their fanaticism allowed it to continue as long as it did.

Interesting. Here’s a link for those that want to skip the book or full movie.

https://youtu.be/Y-1XcnV7F7I

We have a local group Valiant Air Command out of Titusville FL that has several warbirds in it's fleet, one of them is a P-38 might be worth the drive over to check it out...

https://www.valiantaircommand.com/

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:
The army generals did not, so they assumed an easy victory over the American mongrel race.

The Japanese never planned to truly "win" against the US, as in defeat/conquer the US. They knew this was not realistic.

The Japanese plan was a lightning strike to seize resource-rich territory in a wide swath of the South Pacific, then consolidate their holdings into an impenetrable defensive ring of naval forces and fortified islands, soundly beat back the first few attempts to retake these areas while inflicting high casualties on the Allies, and then use this position of defensive strength (combined with a lack of Allied will to continue paying such a high cost) to negotiate a diplomatic settlement to end the war and retain these new possessions. Then they could return their focus to finishing conquering China, using the additional resources now available from these new holdings (namely oil).

And even that plan was a long shot. Certainly not "easy".

P-38 was a great plane. It's one "flaw" was that in a dive the wing surfaces would actually go "supersonic" (or I should say the wind around the wings) and the pilot would lose all control.

That plane was hot. Just ask Major Bong.

quote:

Originally posted by Southflorida-law:

P-38 was a great plane. It's one "flaw" was that in a dive the wing surfaces would actually go "supersonic" (or I should say the wind around the wings) and the pilot would lose all control.

It actually had another major design "flaw." In a conventional twin-engine airplane, both propellors rotate clockwise (when looking forward). Because of this, the starboard engine has a greater moment arm than the port engine. In the event of an engine failure, if the port engine fails, the yawing tendency is greater than it is if the starboard engine fails. Thus, the port engine is called the critical engine.

Not too long ago, Piper dealt with this problem in some of its twin engine airplanes by using counter-rotating ("CR") engines: the port propellor rotates clockwise, as it always had, but in the CR models, the starboard propellor rotates counter-clockwise. In these CR models, there is no "critical engine."

The P-38 also had counter-rotating engines, but both of them rotated in the "wrong" direction! The port engine rotated counter-clockwise and the starboard engine rotated clockwise. Thus both engines could be termed the "critical engine."

I do not know why the P-38 was built this way, the design engineers must have had a reason, but I have no idea what it was. Perhaps one of the members who has better knowledge of this will chime in. Bueller? Anyone? Guppy?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

The P-38 also had counter-rotating engines, but both of them rotated in the "wrong" direction! The port engine rotated counter-clockwise and the starboard engine rotated clockwise. Thus both engines could be termed the "critical engine."

I do not know why the P-38 was built this way, the design engineers must have had a reason, but I have no idea what it was. Perhaps one of the members who has better knowledge of this will chime in. Bueller? Anyone? Guppy?

All I can tell you about it is that back in my combat flight simulator days, the P-38 was the only plane I never had to counter steer during take off. Engine torque on every other plane made it so I had to use some rudder to keep the nose pointed correctly.

quote:

Originally posted by Southflorida-law:
P-38 was a great plane. It's one "flaw" was that in a dive the wing surfaces would actually go "supersonic" (or I should say the wind around the wings) and the pilot would lose all control.

That plane was hot. Just ask Major Bong.

They fixed that "flaw" in later models of the P38.