Posted on 04/18/2002 11:03:11 AM PDT by Come And Take It
The IJN lost the last of their experienced carrier pilots sinking Hornet. That ship sure took alot of punishment before going down.
This was the one built after CV-8 was sunk.
CV-12 destroyed almost 1,500 Jap planes and was never hit by a Kamikaze.
This ship has a fantastic history!
I'd always hoped they'd berth the Missouri on the other side of the pier in Alameda.
But this movie will probably be the only recent reference to the Dolittle raids that most younger people (gen Xers) will see. Unless they are fans of the History channel.
Good article. Thank you Free Republic!
Actually, it was over Bougainville, on a flight from Rabaul.
It followed the book very closely and very well done.
This raid was the first notice to the people of Japan that they were not invincible. From that moment, they knew what was coming, just a matter of time.
DOOLITTLE, JAMES H. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Brigadier General, U.S. Army. Air Corps. Place and date: Over Japan. Entered service at: Berkeley, Calif. Birth: Alameda, Calif. G.O. No.: 29, 9 June 1942. Citation: For conspicuous leadership above the call of duty, involving personal valor and intrepidity at an extreme hazard to life. With the apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or to perish at sea, Gen. Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland.
But is it a true historical fact that Jimmy Doolittle promised to leave the country if Mussolini was not elected president? Or called for mobs to lynch republican congressmen? Or beat up Kim Bassinger?
After the raid, Lawson's crew flew on to China, and ran into a storm off shore. It was getting dark, and so Lawson figured he could land on a beach, wait 'til dawn, and find the airstrip in daylight. The B-25 lost an engine as they came in on final, over the water, and hit the surf at about 120 mph. Lawson's left thigh was ripped open from crotch to knee as he flew thru the canopy, the co-pilot suffered the same to his right leg, the bombardier, McClure, was slashed up when he went thru the nose greenhouse, and the navigator broke both shoulders.
The crew washed ashore, still alive, and the only unhurt man, Thatcher, the gunner, connected up with Chinese guerillas, who smuggled the whole crew on stretchers to Chungking. Lawson wound up losing his leg above the knee to infection, and then got home to write his book.
You have to wonder if clinton, or baldwin, could have done it for real...
"Nearly stalled" may not be wholly accurate either. I was an Army pilot of a heavy twin -- but I wasn't there. Short field takeoffs put you into the air without as much airspeed as you want, and your choice is to climb or accelerate. If you climb near stall speed, any engine burp or gust can bring you down. The only real choice is to accelerate until you get to single engine flying speed. The B-25s presumably had 70 knots or so off the deck from the wind plus the Hornet's headway. With the additional lift from the propwash over the wings and flaps, the B-25 might have already been at or above stall speed so any acceleration would be gravy.
To an observer on the deck, watching the takeoffs would be "painful" because they would look like they're struggling to fly. However, they only needed 30 or so knots above their base airspeed (headwind plus headway) to be at the best airspeed to clean up the flaps, etc. In other words, the takeoffs would look a lot worse than they actually were.
Then there's the ground cushion whether you're over water or not. This is where you really need to find one of the actual pilots to determine what their briefing was. Within about 30 feet of the surface, the air under your wings is compressed slightly giving you a bunch extra lift. On short takeoffs, you can get "just" airborne, pull the gear up, and accelerate on the ground cushion to get the speed you need, clean up the flaps, and zoom off into the wild blue yonder. The critical zone is accelerating from liftoff to single engine flying speed -- maybe about 30 knots for a loaded B-25. No problem when the ground is ground. But they were presumably in heavy seas. How much was the "ground" undulating? It wouldn't do to try to ride a ground cushion over 30' waves!
The post below yours seems to accurately recount the movie with Van Johnson playing the part of the flapless pilot. What was left out is that one of the Hornet's crewmen lost an arm in one of the propellers of that airplane as it was running up. That was a serious distraction, and both the pilot and copilot missed the flaps item on the checklist. But the actual incident is proof that the takeoffs were anything but barely within the B-25's flight envelope. That's probably the only airplane that had to ride the ground cushion.
As I said, you've written a fine article!
Besides, there is actually no reason that someone could not or should not be able to put a package into orbit. If we had waited for the government to provide us with airplanes and automobiles, everyone would still be walking...
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