I wonder if the Marines at Khe Sanh would agree?
Posted on 09/22/2020 7:55:17 AM PDT by w1n1
Thanks for addition. Makes complete sense.
Your Dad’s service as a navigator 24+ times was instrumental in winning the War so quickly. Be forever proud that he wanted so desperately to take the fight to the enemy even more directly. Thank Him. Thank You. God Bless!
The Japanese edge in aircraft and experienced pilots evaporated six months into the Pacific war, due to the Japanese defeat in a miraculous few hardfought hours at Midway. It still took over a year I think to fix the US' air-launched torpedoes.
US ground forces after D-Day complained that the commanders of large bombing runs that had been planned to, for example, blow a big hole for the 3rd Army to swoop through, wouldn't bomb the intended areas due to ground fire, and dropped their loads wherever there was none.
:^) But yeah, what you said!
Not to be picky, but IIRK, there was no U.S. Air Force during WWII. It was the U.S.A.A.F.
I should scroll before I post...
Being bombed by your own Air Force was a nasty bit of business, for sure. IIRC, that was the last time the Allies attempted to use heavy bombers in a ground support role.
I wonder if the Marines at Khe Sanh would agree?
Well, to paraphrase, a B-52 bomber can give you an . . . edge.
The Arsenal of Democracy Flyover is scheduled to happen around 11:30 a.m. this Friday, Sept. 25. The WWII aircraft will fly down the Potomac from the north, over the Key, Roosevelt and Memorial bridges, and down the National Mall.
I recall my world history teacher saying that the Soviets would only have 1 gun for every 5(?) troops that were sent into battle. The others would drop their clubs and pitch forks when one with a rifle was shot.
I have no idea if it was true or not, but sounds about right.
And while the Germans had their jet fighters towards the end of the war, they were so limited on fuel that they would use mules to taxi the fighters out to the runway.
I didn’t have any relatives in the Air Corp during the war. I had a few on the ground. One uncle was an AA gunner with the Third Army and one day there was a German plane coming into to strafe the area he was in. It was a low ceiling and the fighter swooped down to start his run.
My uncle said he cut loose with his AA gun and was hammering away and got a smoke trail coming out of the kraut fighter and thought he was going to get a kill and about that time two P-38’s roared through the ceiling and shredded the German fighter. I guess he got partial credit for the kill lol!
It was a team effort but the fighter jocks took the credit I’ll bet.
One of the problems was that strategic bombing was just a theory and the 8th Air Force was still building up in Britain when 1/3rd of it’s planes were taken away to form the nucleus of a new Air Force unit in North Africa (The one that bombed Ploesti). Consequently, the 8th AF was hamstrung by both lack of escorting fighters and sufficient mass to swamp the Luftwaffe.
Throw in ever changing targeting goals and Ike’s ‘borrowing’ the unit for 6 months to support Overlord and you realize that the Mighty 8th never really got going until late 1944.
“Doolittle decided to turn the fighters loose on the Luftwaffe and destroy their fighters instead of staying tight with the bombers.”
Well, so-called ‘close-escort’ didn’t really work. Very late in the war they basically sent late model P-47’s ahead of the bomber raid to sweep the fighters out of the sky and camp out over enemy airfields to keep enemy planes on the ground. This is how a relative handful of F-86’s dominated MiG-15’s later on in Korea. Orbiting a pair of fighters over the enemy airfield sends a rather large message at very little cost.
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