Listen My Children and You Shall Hear.....

[MIflyer]

The 18th of April. The officer at the Left rear of that individual crew photo is my High School Math and Mechanical Drawing teacher, Bomb/Nav for Plane 10. He said, "Eighty mortals and one immortal were on that raid."

 

[MIflyer]

And from the boxtop of the current Atlantis release of the old Revell 1/64 B-25. By the way, Revell did a special production run of those kits and made chrome plated ones they gave to each of the Raiders. A B-25 recovered from a lake in SC is the mascot of the Columbia SC local baseball team.

 

[glennasher]

IIRC, 18 April, 1943, was the date that Yamamoto met his demise, just one year after the Doolittle raid.

 

[SaparotRob]

IIRC, 18 April, 1943, was the date that Yamamoto met his demise, just one year after the Doolittle raid.

Correct. I had to look it up.
"I will run wild for 6 months to a year." About 6 months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Battle of Midway. One year to the day* he lost his life. The guy called it.

* International dateline not withstanding.

 

[MIflyer]

The Raiders took off from the Hornet 400 miles early due to the force being discovered by a Japanese ship. As a result, only one of the B-25's crossed the coast of Japan at the planned point. That was the one navigated by my teacher.

Originally there were supposed to be only 15 B-25's on the raid. But two pilots left Eglin to go pick up another B-25 and when they got back to Eglin Doolittle and his airplanes were gone. They then tracked them across the country by stopping and finding out "They went thataway." When they got to Oakland, Doolittle saw them and blew his top. Security had been compromised. So he directed that the two pilots and the B-25 they had brought be put on the Hornet, too. They had no crew but managed to find enough extra personnel to form one. And that was the B-25 that diverted to the USSR, where the crew were interned before "escaping" into Iran.

And the aircraft Carrier USS Shangri-La was named after the mythical land where FDR said the B-25's came from. So in one sense the carrier was named after the Doolittle Raid.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

IIRC, 18 April, 1943, was the date that Yamamoto met his demise, just one year after the Doolittle raid.

It's also the same date as the opening of the War of Independence at Lexington, in 1775. It's a famous date in US history.

 

[MIflyer]

And unfortunately on 18 April 1986 there was an unpleasant USAF event that I was present for. SLC-4E at Vandenberg AFB. I was not underneath the thing but was able to observe it from an almost comfortable distance. Note that was the same week that USAF F-111F's hit Libya,

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

IIRC, 18 April, 1943, was the date that Yamamoto met his demise, just one year after the Doolittle raid.

UHotPW YT channel put this up last year regarding Yamamoto's demise:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fScnmA2jI3w&list=PLvwPt9MhP599uw-MIOt9rmNGmSl7k014i&index=9

 

[Barrett]

UHotPW YT channel put this up last year regarding Yamamoto's demise:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fScnmA2jI3w&list=PLvwPt9MhP599uw-MIOt9rmNGmSl7k014i&index=9

As fighter aces secretary I dealt with about half of the 400 members we had in the 80s. I already knew Rex Barber from Oregon and was friendly John Mitchell. Tom Lanphier not so much......................... But in discussing memorabilia for display at the Champlin Fighter Museum, John said he still had the strip map from The Mission. He said "I couldn't navigate like that again if my life depended on it."

I thought better of noting that the admiral's life depended on it.....

 

[MIflyer]

A few facts about that mission:

1. One of the "Shooters" that were to go in and get the Admiral was a P-40 pilot with no combat time in the P-38. He filled in when a "Shooter" blew a tire on takeoff. And he was the one that did not come back.

2. None of the escorting Zeros were shot down, although all of them were claimed.

3. Most of the P-38's were away from the "Shooters," preparing to pounce on the 80 Zeros expected to boil up out of the base in response to the attack on the Bettys.

4. The 80 Zeros had no idea what was going on and did not boil up out of the base to defend the Admiral. Just like Midway, most of the fighters on both sides were with the cheerleaders or in the locker room.

5. Three Betty kills were credited, although there was no third Betty.

6. A Japanese expedition to the Admiral's Betty crash site many years later revealed that there were no bullet holes in the Betty, just as the recovery of his body had shown no bullet holes. Nobody shot down Yamamoto. The Betty crashed either due to frantic low flying or structural failure from frantic low flying.

7. Lamphier wrote the action report himself, immediately after the mission. He had been a reporter before the war and thus was an excellent typist as well as experienced at assembling a story.

 

[BiffF15]

A few facts about that mission:

1. One of the "Shooters" that were to go in and get the Admiral was a P-40 pilot with no combat time in the P-38. He filled in when a "Shooter" blew a tire on takeoff. And he was the one that did not come back.

2. None of the escorting Zeros were shot down, although all of them were claimed.

3. Most of the P-38's were away from the "Shooters," preparing to pounce on the 80 Zeros expected to boil up out of the base in response to the attack on the Bettys.

4. The 80 Zeros had no idea what was going on and did not boil up out of the base to defend the Admiral. Just like Midway, most of the fighters on both sides were with the cheerleaders or in the locker room.

5. Three Betty kills were credited, although there was no third Betty.

6. A Japanese expedition to the Admiral's Betty crash site many years later revealed that there were no bullet holes in the Betty, just as the recovery of his body had shown no bullet holes. Nobody shot down Yamamoto. The Betty crashed either due to frantic low flying or structural failure from frantic low flying.

7. Lamphier wrote the action report himself, immediately after the mission. He had been a reporter before the war and thus was an excellent typist as well as experienced at assembling a story.

What is your source on no bullet holes in his plane, I had not heard that. Just want to read up on it.

 

[MIflyer]

What is your source on no bullet holes in his plane, I had not heard that. Just want to read up on it.

A book, entitled "The Reluctant Admiral." Shot from that expedition below.

 

[Admiral Beez]

IIRC, 18 April, 1943, was the date that Yamamoto met his demise, just one year after the Doolittle raid.

I wonder if he'd lived to receive the Emperor's order to surrender, would Yamamoto have been tried and executed after the war? Yamamoto was not a political leader like Hideki Tojo, but others were also executed like Admiral Shigetarō Shimada.

 

[MIflyer]

I wonder if he'd lived to receive the Emperor's order to surrender, would Yamamoto have been tried and executed after the war?

Yamamoto was almost executed before the war. He was not enthused over the idea of war with the USA and the Japanese Army was plotting to kill him. He managed to redeem himself, though, by talking tough. You have to wonder if he would have not pushed for a peace treaty much sooner than 6 Aug 1945, although if he very well might not have survived that effort. As it was, even after 9 Aug 1945 radicals in the Army even tried to stop the Emperor's announcement, but they were foiled in part by a B-29 raid in the middle of their attempted coup.

 

[MIflyer]

Here is an article by Rex Barber.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Here is an article by Rex Barber.

View attachment 775718View attachment 775719View attachment 775720

By this account, both Bettys were holed.

 

[Viking1066]

I watched this the other day. It's quite interesting.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w03hc43v9do&pp=ygUUUGlsb3RzIHdpdGggWWFtYW1vdG8%3D

 

[Peter Gunn]

A few facts about that mission:

1. One of the "Shooters" that were to go in and get the Admiral was a P-40 pilot with no combat time in the P-38. He filled in when a "Shooter" blew a tire on takeoff. And he was the one that did not come back.

2. None of the escorting Zeros were shot down, although all of them were claimed.

3. Most of the P-38's were away from the "Shooters," preparing to pounce on the 80 Zeros expected to boil up out of the base in response to the attack on the Bettys.

4. The 80 Zeros had no idea what was going on and did not boil up out of the base to defend the Admiral. Just like Midway, most of the fighters on both sides were with the cheerleaders or in the locker room.

5. Three Betty kills were credited, although there was no third Betty.

6. A Japanese expedition to the Admiral's Betty crash site many years later revealed that there were no bullet holes in the Betty, just as the recovery of his body had shown no bullet holes. Nobody shot down Yamamoto. The Betty crashed either due to frantic low flying or structural failure from frantic low flying.

7. Lamphier wrote the action report himself, immediately after the mission. He had been a reporter before the war and thus was an excellent typist as well as experienced at assembling a story.

I hate to be argumentative but number 6 there is highly suspect. I thought it was established that the admiral had two bullet wounds, one in the shoulder/back and one to the jaw/eye socket. Also Barber's account of hitting the Betty with his guns, perhaps there were no bullet holes in whatever was left of the fuselage and they mistakenly extrapolated from that.

 

[33k in the air]

By this account, both Bettys were holed.

Yes, holed in the engines — the accounts specifically state the Betty engines being shot. So no holes in the remains of the fuselage should not be surprising. What do the remains of the engines show?

 

[33k in the air]

The following video from the WW2TV YouTube channel might be of interest:

Dead Reckoning - The Death of Yamamoto

It's an interview with author Dick Lehr about his book on the mission.