Yesterday's Weapons Forums

i feel there should be an entry here for him , i did say things as did others in the current events 'coffee cup'' forum but it seems there should be something here as well ,
ill try not to repeat anything for those who browse , but add something for those of us who read

from the "IOWA NEWS" nov 21 , 1994 ........
"it was new, big , shiny , sleek and deadly . they called it the superfortress " , " it was the B29 , the ultimate long range bomber , destined to deliver the final , fatal , world war II blows to the empire of japan" [this was a reunion of sorts of 29ers from the watrerloo-cedar falls area , it got covered in the local paper]

and so it did , the first raid on thanksgiving day of 1944 was only remarkable for its being the first , but over the next nine months they dominated the sky over mainland japan , devestating the empires ability to continue the war it started , it culmninated with two B-29 flights in early august of 1945 , hiroshima and nagasaki[by default] ceased to exist as japan and the world knew them ,

as the first preasureised bomber it made the trip in 6 hours to the target , that meant they had another 6 hours home pluss the agonising time over target , not what you would call a walk in the park considering the accomadations , and the required apperal to survive the subfreezing temps , add the fighters and flack , it could turn your hair gray[just a bit of humer - my fathers hair was black when he went to saipan - and gray when he returned .....as an aside mine was also black at 17 and going gray by 19 - the same age/time period]

they also delivered leaflets to the targets prior to the bomb runs , and took photos after - they were shot at in both cases ,
and they delivered relief to the POW camps in japan and korea , one waterloo fellow was in the last one shot down during the war - they were delivering supplies to POWs

tibbits was placed smack dab in the middle of the biggest contraversey the world has ever known when he and his crew were selected to carry the first atomic bomb-little boy , in the "enola gaye" , to hiroshima
in contrast "bockscar" with bock and crew were leseser remembered for delivering "fatman" to alternate target nagasaki[kokura was obscured by clouds and smoke] three days later
but both suffered the stupidity of retro historians and illiterate protestors years later when their planes were put on display in museums ,

the world remembers the mushroom cloud , but forgets [conveinently] the peril the 'globe' was in at the time ,
we owe a thankyou to col[gen] tibbets and bock too , it would be a far diferent world if not for them - one where these free thinking criticisers would be unable to speak , and possibly unable to survive

Just wonder what Japan would look like today if the US had to invade the islands, Harry Truman was right in using the bomb, imagine the deaths that would have occured in conventional fighting on the home islands.

An important chapter of history which should never be forgotten.

i heard a historian on MPR discussing this and he was speculating on the number of lives "SAVED" on the japanese islands , he mentioned those who would die in the defence and those who would die in the bombings that preceeded the landings but his major point - the civilian lives , he sited the number of suicides and ptricides on the islands of saipan and tinnian as an example , there were an enormouse number of civilians who leaped from the cliffs as well as throwing their children to their deaths all based on the japanese governments propaganda of the merciless americans ,
they essentialy described their own acts in china and korea of rape , torture , killings of childen and babies with rifle butts and bayonets , and the enslavement of the concurred but attributed that behavior to the americans , the people would rather die and kill their own children rather than suffer that ,

the 'other' aircraft to carry an atom bomb to target .....
http://aeroweb.brooklyn.cuny.edu/databa ... tm?id=1863