Free Republic

One week after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt began pressing the U.S. military to immediately strike the Japanese homeland. The desire to bolster morale became more urgent in light of rapid Japanese advances. These included victories in Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, and the Dutch East Indies, as well as sinking the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse.Only improbable, audacious ideas warranted consideration, because submarines confirmed Japan placed picket boats at extreme carrier aircraft range. One idea even involved launching four engine heavy bombers from China or Outer Mongolia to strike Japan and fly on to Alaska. Captain...

Valor. When things were their darkest for the U.S. after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raiders gave the nation hope. Sixteen B-25s, each with a five-man crew, were lined up on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. This had never been tried in war—sending heavy bombers off a carrier. Because the Japanese military had learned of the strategy, the planes had to take off from farther out in the Pacific than had been planned. Their mission was to hit Tokyo, but now they would lack enough fuel to reach safety beyond Japan’s borders. They went anyway. They bombed Tokyo,...

One week after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt began pressing the U.S. military to immediately strike the Japanese homeland. The desire to bolster moral became more urgent in light of rapid Japanese advances. These included victories in Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, and the Dutch East Indies, as well as sinking the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse. Only improbable, audacious ideas warranted consideration, because submarines confirmed Japan placed picket boats at extreme carrier aircraft range. One idea even involved launching four engine heavy bombers from China or Outer Mongolia to strike Japan and fly on to Alaska....

Richard E. Cole On Monday, one of the last two surviving members of the WWII “Doolitte Raiders” will celebrate his 100th birthday. As one of the original Doolittle Raiders, retired Lt. Col. Richard Coledefied all the odds in what was considered a suicide mission to bomb Japan in 1942. Mr. Cole was co-pilot for Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, who led 16 B-25 bombers on the mission that is considered an event that changed the nation’s morale following the devastating attack on Pearl harbor. He was one of 80 fighters who volunteered for the dangerous, top-secret mission. The Raiders planned...

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau is credited with the famous remark, "La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaries" -- war is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. The idea that Clemenceau was trying to project through these words is that experts are often incapable of seeing beyond their profession and understanding the greater domains of necessity. Here in Hawaii, we are facing a transportation infrastructure crisis of the highest degree of peril. I assert to every single man, woman, and child of these Hawaiian Islands that our future is too...