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30 seconds 4/18/42

Ultradog MN

Ultradog MN

Well-known Member
Location
Twin Cities
We all know the story well.
How 80 men flew off from Shangri La to bomb Japan.
How the bombs did little damage but scored a major victory in the hearts and minds of the American public.
We all know how, after months of heady times of easy victories the raid put a cloud of doubt and fear into the minds of the Japanese public.
We know Isoroku Yamamoto heard of it while at home and was depressed and vowed to avenge the raid which could have killed the emperor.
We all know now that it made him set in motion the attack on Midway which was such a disaster for them and changed the course of the war.
We know of navy captain Francis Low who thought up the plan, of Hap Arnold and Ernest King who approved and nurtured it, of Bull Halsey who brought the raiders to Japan, of FDR who gladly gave the raid its final approval.
And we all know of Jimmy Doolittle and his men who carried out one of the most stupendous little victories in history.
It's a great story. One worth remembering.
So give a thought to it today.
 
"30 Seconds over Tokyo". Read the book as a teen and still remember it. Funny how the lack of information caused the premature launching of the raid and resultant consequences for the air crews. Did the picket ship see them? Did it successfully radio the information home? Was it received? Did anybody do anything about it, like the confusion at Pearl Harbor with the new RADAR that picked up the Japanese invasion aircraft but nothing was done as a result, or the mistaking the invasion for a flight of B17s coming in from the mainland.....the mainland is from the East, the aircraft were detected coming in from the NW...daaaaaaaaa......who knows.
 
IIRC it was confirmed that the picket boat did send some kind of a message. There was, however, an investigation on why it took the cruisers an inordinate amount of shells to sink it.
 
My grandfather was at Pearl days before the attack. Helped line all the aircraft up. He always said the enlisted people tried to warn them. It was a mistake. But all the experts told them they were crazy. Japan wouldn't dare attack America. How many died because of the experts.
 
That's one reason I got out after 9 years. I didn't want some kook determining my destiny, especially since I had no say-so in the selection process for my CO and such.
 
Had there been an "alert" put out when the radar spotted the Japanese planes the outcome would have changed very little. There was 51 minutes between the spotting of the planes and the first bombs dropping on Oahu. Getting a peacetime army and navy up and moving on a Sunday morning in 51 minutes would take a monumental effort - one that didn't exist. The air corps might have gotten a few planes in the air but all that would have done was alerted the US a bit earlier about how dominate the Zero was over the early war front fighters of the US.
 
Great to remember this event. The empire of Japan was huge up until 1945, with some 464 million people -- the vast majority enslaved. It wasn't like we were dealing with an innocent little island country.
 
President Roosevelt facetiously said the raiders had come from Shangri-La, the name for his Western Maryland mountain retreat known today as Camp David.
 
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