[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

1st, If you have 'valuable cargo' on board, for instance say... oh A CONGRESSMAN you do not continue forward when you detect enemy fighters. If I am a Japanese fighter protecting my turf, who am I going to attack? The guys who are about to enter my air space and bomb my turf? Or the guy who turned and ran long before reaching my air space? Can you imagine the propoganda bonanaza the Japs would have if they had shot down a CONGRESSMAN??? The military would never allow that to happen.

2nd, Who the hell said anything about McCarthy??? My post was in response to a comment about LBJohnson's Silver Star. It had nothing to do with McCarthey. Johnson was on board as an observer. On top of that, the only reason he was there was to get 'personal knowledge of combat conditions'. In other words, he had NO military purpose for being on board.

You lack of knowledge on political motivations and agendas has not precluded your 'slam' on a post on which you lack accurate reading comprehension.

[dark_lord]

Mea Culpa. The thread was on McCarthy and I did not read your reference to Johnson. I apologize. You are correct, Johnson did not deserve the Silver Star. As to the "mechanical difficulties" part, yeah they might have used that as an excuse.

Separating might in reality have made them a target as the citation mentioned -- it happened plenty of times. The fighter pilots were not just concerned with the current raid, but also future raids. A bomber knocked down this time is a bomber they won't see next time -- so in fact a common tactic was for two or three fighters to immediately go after any bomber that separated from the group.