Looking @ the picture of Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo, April 1942 (presently the cover star - to use Picadilly Palare- of this blog- and also the foto @ left), I'm reminded of a story of an even bigger bomber 'landing' on a carrier. Aprocapkal (sic) story, maybe. Plus it didn't LAND on the carrier....wait, from the beginning.
So, Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo in April '42 was could be considered a 'cheap publicity stunt'. The Japanese armed forces had run wilde after Pearl Harbour- The Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Battle of the Java Sea, the Dutch East Indies= they were honestly like the '84 Tigers starting the war, except they were 40-0, not 35-5. For those of you who know the war, 18 April 1942 was less than two months before Midway, so the Japanese only had a few more weeks where they could still believe they had a chance (Think the "Tampa Bay Devil Rays") to win the war.
But in April of '42, Coral Sea and Midway were in the future, so to get a little revenge for Pearl Harbour, the Americans decided to stage a crazy air strike on Japan. To start with, the first six months of the war had cleared away all airbases close to Japan where the Americans could hopefully stage a raid. The next thought was to use aircraft carriers, but the single engined planes of the early forties would never reach Japan unless the carriers got so close to Japan themselves that they would be put into terrible risk.
They solved the problem by slitely adapting B-25 two engines bombers and having them fly off of something they were not designed to take off from- the short, bucking in the sea deck of an aircraft carrier. Wasn't done in those days. The planes would carry short loads and heavy on the stored gas, and have to race and race the engines on takeoff to have any chance of getting off the deck. There was no way they could land on the carriers, so they would fly straight through Japan air space and land in China. The foto presently on the front of this blog shows the first plane (Doolittle's) off the deck of the carrier- rev, rev, rev, GO!!! The plane, upon reaching the end of the deck, plunged down below the level of the deck before rising to the cheers of the sailors on deck. Each successive plane had a little more runway in front of it.
The small US task force- it's all the Navy could muster after the severe disasters of the early war- sailed secretly to near-Japanese waters. They were discovered by the Japanese early, and the decision was made to send off the sixteen B-25's before the ideal range. Most planes made it to Japanese airspace, dropped their bombs, and did a little damage. Most planes crashed in China, and read the accompanying article for the rest of the story and for whatever I got wrong.
The raid, like I said, was a 'PR stunt'*= the tiny tonnage of explosives= FUCKING TINY IN CONTEXT OF THE REST OF THE WAR= In later raids on Germany, the RAF would put 600-700-800-900-1000 planes, with 14,000 lbs of bombs each, over Germany every other nite. This raid was 16 planes with what- it had've been no more than 3000lbs, and I suspect it was only one tonne a plane. However, it's a very interesting story in the war. There were thousands of raids by all sides, but few are more famous than this one.
So, that long explanation over, now I can get to the point. The B-25's in the Doolittle raid were great aircraft= read Eric Bergerud , (especially Fire in the Sky ) a great historian of the war in the Solomons and New Guinea (sp), for the general worthiness of different planes of that time (brilliant author)= but they were toys compared to one of the most singular pieces of equipment from the war The B-29 Superfortress (pictured above). Compared to the comparably tiny B-25, the B- 29 had twice the wingspan and almost three times the weight. Midget. The B-25 was a 'medium' bomber- two engines, lite bomb load- generally it had a ground support role (and shipping in the Pacific), though not always. The B-29 was the absolute latest thing in bombing. Giant planes, giant bombloads, totally pressurized for the long flites, and centrally controlled machine guns for defense. It was the main US bomber into the jet age, having a large role in the Korean War.
So the story goes= late in the war, the B-29's had begun to regularly raid the Japanese homeland. The Americans had bases for out in the Pacific (Marshall Islands) and would send the bomber forces over the pacific for hundreds of miles. So on one return flite from a fire raid on Japan, a B-29 pilot decided to fuck around when he saw an aircraft carrier on the return. The B-29 descended on the carrier, lined up with the runway, flaps down, wheels down, landing lites blazing; and jokingly tried to land on the carrier. It pulled away, less from the efforts of the signal man on the deck of the ship than to the obvious joking nature of the 'landing'. Knowing how big these planes are, I'dve loved to have seen it. And yes, any any attempt of a B-29 to land on a carrier, even the supergiants of today- would have resulted in a horrible crash- the Essex class carriers back then had a beam of 93 ft== 50+ feet skinnier than a B-29.
So, although most don't, I do like talking about planes and such, and I got a great laugh outta this story......
For the role of the B-29's in the Korean War, check out my crappy little web site done as a little bitty college student. It's shitty, but I loved doing it.
..................................................................
*= for some reason, I have to put'PR stunt'in parenthesis- lots died, i don't want to be cavalier.
So, Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo in April '42 was could be considered a 'cheap publicity stunt'. The Japanese armed forces had run wilde after Pearl Harbour- The Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Battle of the Java Sea, the Dutch East Indies= they were honestly like the '84 Tigers starting the war, except they were 40-0, not 35-5. For those of you who know the war, 18 April 1942 was less than two months before Midway, so the Japanese only had a few more weeks where they could still believe they had a chance (Think the "Tampa Bay Devil Rays") to win the war.
But in April of '42, Coral Sea and Midway were in the future, so to get a little revenge for Pearl Harbour, the Americans decided to stage a crazy air strike on Japan. To start with, the first six months of the war had cleared away all airbases close to Japan where the Americans could hopefully stage a raid. The next thought was to use aircraft carriers, but the single engined planes of the early forties would never reach Japan unless the carriers got so close to Japan themselves that they would be put into terrible risk.
They solved the problem by slitely adapting B-25 two engines bombers and having them fly off of something they were not designed to take off from- the short, bucking in the sea deck of an aircraft carrier. Wasn't done in those days. The planes would carry short loads and heavy on the stored gas, and have to race and race the engines on takeoff to have any chance of getting off the deck. There was no way they could land on the carriers, so they would fly straight through Japan air space and land in China. The foto presently on the front of this blog shows the first plane (Doolittle's) off the deck of the carrier- rev, rev, rev, GO!!! The plane, upon reaching the end of the deck, plunged down below the level of the deck before rising to the cheers of the sailors on deck. Each successive plane had a little more runway in front of it.
The small US task force- it's all the Navy could muster after the severe disasters of the early war- sailed secretly to near-Japanese waters. They were discovered by the Japanese early, and the decision was made to send off the sixteen B-25's before the ideal range. Most planes made it to Japanese airspace, dropped their bombs, and did a little damage. Most planes crashed in China, and read the accompanying article for the rest of the story and for whatever I got wrong.
The raid, like I said, was a 'PR stunt'*= the tiny tonnage of explosives= FUCKING TINY IN CONTEXT OF THE REST OF THE WAR= In later raids on Germany, the RAF would put 600-700-800-900-1000 planes, with 14,000 lbs of bombs each, over Germany every other nite. This raid was 16 planes with what- it had've been no more than 3000lbs, and I suspect it was only one tonne a plane. However, it's a very interesting story in the war. There were thousands of raids by all sides, but few are more famous than this one.
So, that long explanation over, now I can get to the point. The B-25's in the Doolittle raid were great aircraft= read Eric Bergerud , (especially Fire in the Sky ) a great historian of the war in the Solomons and New Guinea (sp), for the general worthiness of different planes of that time (brilliant author)= but they were toys compared to one of the most singular pieces of equipment from the war The B-29 Superfortress (pictured above). Compared to the comparably tiny B-25, the B- 29 had twice the wingspan and almost three times the weight. Midget. The B-25 was a 'medium' bomber- two engines, lite bomb load- generally it had a ground support role (and shipping in the Pacific), though not always. The B-29 was the absolute latest thing in bombing. Giant planes, giant bombloads, totally pressurized for the long flites, and centrally controlled machine guns for defense. It was the main US bomber into the jet age, having a large role in the Korean War.So the story goes= late in the war, the B-29's had begun to regularly raid the Japanese homeland. The Americans had bases for out in the Pacific (Marshall Islands) and would send the bomber forces over the pacific for hundreds of miles. So on one return flite from a fire raid on Japan, a B-29 pilot decided to fuck around when he saw an aircraft carrier on the return. The B-29 descended on the carrier, lined up with the runway, flaps down, wheels down, landing lites blazing; and jokingly tried to land on the carrier. It pulled away, less from the efforts of the signal man on the deck of the ship than to the obvious joking nature of the 'landing'. Knowing how big these planes are, I'dve loved to have seen it. And yes, any any attempt of a B-29 to land on a carrier, even the supergiants of today- would have resulted in a horrible crash- the Essex class carriers back then had a beam of 93 ft== 50+ feet skinnier than a B-29.
So, although most don't, I do like talking about planes and such, and I got a great laugh outta this story......
For the role of the B-29's in the Korean War, check out my crappy little web site done as a little bitty college student. It's shitty, but I loved doing it.
..................................................................
*= for some reason, I have to put'PR stunt'in parenthesis- lots died, i don't want to be cavalier.
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