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History lesson time for
all you kids. On this date, 4 cities of Japan were, without warning,
bombed by 16 United States B-25 bombers. A major war crime if there
ever was one. The unthinkable happened. Planes of the United States were
overhead dropping bombs on the poor people of Japan.
Can't you just see
this? 16 planes came calling, each carrying a small load of bombs. This
is a major crime what these brave crews did. A total of 80 men at the
time. 5 men per plane.
These 16 planes were
loaded up on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. The Army and Navy worked
up and put this operation together. The Navy carrier would at great
risk get as close as it could to Japan. The B-25s would then take off
and fly the rest of the way. The idea was to drop the eggs and then
make it to friends in China. For some yes they made it, for others no,
things even well laid plans do go wrong. Some came down in unfriendly
hands. Some men went though a so called court trial. Some were
murdered. It was said what they did by bombing cities of Japan was a war
crime. I guess it was all right to have bombed Pearl Harbor. Some
landed in Russia, those that did so was put in a prison in Russia, some
friends wouldn't you say? Oh they were treated fairly, but never the
less it was a prison.
Now understand this.
Army planes took off from a carrier. A bomber such as the Army had was
just not made for such a take off. It took training, and much of it to
get the hang of such a short take off. This operation was a great risk.
Every one of those planes got off the deck and made the trip. Those were
indeed special and very brave men.
The thing is, it wasn't
so much the damage the 16 planes could do.. it was a given, little in
the way of damage to what ever would be very little.. The thing is, it
showed we were fighting back. Things were very dark at the time for the
United States. Nothing much good was coming our way. Here was a boost
to our cause. We bombed Japan. At the time I don't think any person on
the street knew but what great swarms of our planes was bombing the
devil out of Japan. It did come out in a day, or two it was just a few,
but never the less we bombed Japan. If we could do it once, we could do
it again was the thought.
Now the planes hit 4
cities. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya. That would figure 4 planes
to each. It also would figure lots of people looked up and seen bombs
falling out of the sky.. Here these same people had been told it just
would not happen. Well it did, and so the Togo and gang had to do some
patch up works on the it can't happen deal. That was the reason for the
murder of some air crews.
These men became known
as the Doolittle Men. That was the commander of this brave unit. You
know, we should call them “The Few, The Proud, The Brave, the men of the
Doolittle raid.” Of the 80 men of that raid, 16 still live. They just
had to be boys at the time, 17, 18 years old.
It was a long time
coming,, but the day came. The sky over the cities of Japan were darken
with the big boys. The B-17s, B-24s, then the big fellow; the B-29.
Then came the two B-29s with the bomb to end the mess started with the
attack on Pearl. Then the day the Battleship USS. Missouri parked in
Tokyo Harbor. The real unthinkable.
Bill Walker
missourisage@yahoo.com
Tinker and Poo; The Boys Write
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