If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
The prisoners of Rabaul (Was: P-39's, zeros, etc.)
From: Cub Driver lo
ed flying to Australia in one of them. I can look this up in Bloody Shambles if you like. I just bought this two-volume set (and damned pricey at 29.95 pounds per volume) with high hopes. Haven't begun on it yet, but noting your comment above I turned to the description of the MacArthur evacuation and noted, alas, errors of no small moment. The authors state that of the 4 B-17s originally sent for MacA., two turned back with engine trouble, true enough, but then say that a third crashed off the Australian coast. Very wrong. This was Capt. Godwin's B-17, which he put down into the sea short of the runway at Del Monte Field, close enough that the crew could wade ashore and Godwin could receive some choice words from them complimenting him on his flying skill. It was also at Del Monte where Godwin met MacArthur and charmed him into making him his personal pilot for the flight down and then put him on his staff. This is all pretty well known stuff and for the "Bloody Shambles" trio of author's to not know this, especially considering how it affected future air operations, is distressing. Further on the authors' state that 3 "new" B-17s were sent to fetch McA. At first reading I took this literally and snorted, as there were no "new" B-17s in the theater at the time, and with the lack of spare parts--or even any facilities where engine changes could be performed--any "new" B-17s sent to Australia very quickly would have been well used. But on reflection it could be interpreted that the authors by writing "new" meant to say "additional" or "other," so I'll let that go. But having spotted this blunder among others on first cracking open the cover, I wonder what other gross errors litter the text. And this is supposed to be one of the better researched books on WW2 aviation. Crap. Chris Mark |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Where I mention Godwin I meant Godman. And re those three "new" B-17s sent,
one of these aborted within minutes of leaving Batchelor Field and never left Australia, let alone made it to Del Monte Field, so only two got in. Bloody Shambles says this plane developed engine trouble at Del Monte field. If so, it never would have left it. Because there was not way to repair it and no way a B-17 could get out of that field on three engines. Apparently the authors of BS (good acronym for this book) believe fixing a B-17 engine is a trivial matter, easily accomplished without tools or spare parts, or those totally unnecessary drones, airplane mechanics. Chris Mark |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
|
#4
|
|||
|
|||
when 3 B-17s and 10 B-25s flew up from Australia As a footnote, two pilots of these 13 aircraft were awarded the medal of honor in subsequent actions, both for raids to Rabaul, both posthumously One was Capt. Pease. The other was Maj. Ray Wilkins. Chris Mark |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Apparently the description in Bloody Shambles of MacArthur's extraction from
Del Monte, as well as the description of the B-17/B-25 episode is lifted from John Toland's But Not in Shame. I've been told that the BS author's real interest was BCE stuff and they didn't really give much attention to the US side. At least they're not as bad as Costello (The Pacific War) in which he mentions MacA's B-17 flight from Mindanao to Darwin took five hours, and that at Darwin MacA boarded a train for the remainder of his journey. Are there no reliable books covering this part of the war? Chris Mark |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
From: tomcervo@aol
There are probably some people still working with the Martin Caiden book Ragged Rugged Warriors--check the bibliography and adjust your respect accordingly. I don't see that book in their biblio, but they do list Walter D. Edmonds They Fought With What They Had. Edmonds was a popular novelist (Drums Along the Mohawk), not a historian, and he wrote a story with an eye to narrative excitement rather than strick accuracy. I believe Edmonds wrote, or partly wrote, the script for that old movie "Air Force" about the B-17s flying out to Hawaii and the PI just as the Japs bomb Pearl Harbor. I suppose the official USAAF histories remain the most reliable, although they have a touching belief that orders and official documents actually have some bearing on reality. Chris Mark |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
From: tomcervo@
There are probably some people still working with the Martin Caiden book Ragged Rugged Warriors--check the bibliography and adjust your respect accordingly. On looking closer I see that Bloody Shambles does indeed include the Caiden book in its bibliography--a bibliography arranged alphabetically not by author but by book title, curiously including indefinite article--but not definite article. Thus the first book listed is "A Flying Tiger's Diary" by Bond followed by "A Mouse in My Pocket" by Everard and only then "Army Air Forces in WWII, The," by Craven and Cate The penultimate book is "You'll Die in Singapore" by McCormac. The last book is "70 Days in Singapore" by Faulk, listed last, I guess because the title has a numeral in it--? Then in the text of the book they have things like "Lt. Roland S. Barnick, who later wrote: 'Blah blah blah...'" without any footnote or other reference, so you don't know the source. Turning to the biblio, even if he is the author of a book they cite, you can't just run down the list. You have to look at each title individually until you find his name--which I couldn't. So you have no idea at all what credence to lend to this quote. And you have no way, if you want more info, to go to the source. As far as the japanese info, assuming it is accurate, it is interesting--as far as it goes. i was interested to learn how the japs had had to pull air resources out of southeast Asia to smash bataan, evening bringing in the big Sally army bombers. I was even more interested to know how badly hurt they had been by AAA from the Bataan defenders. But when I wondered what unit with what weaponry were doing this damage, the text was silent. I also wondered what altitude the Sallys were bombing from, and if the Jap experience with US Army AAA at Bataan influenced them to fly at 22,000 feet over port moresby, greatly reducing their effectiveness, that being ironic because there was no AAA at Moresby. I was also interested to learn that the Japs bombed the dug in troops on Bataan with 50kg bombs, and I wondered what genius had decided on that. The text, of course was silent, the authors not apparently being aware that this was a futile exercise that almost certainly caused little or no casualties or damage--but at the cost, according to the text, of a number of "badly damaged" bombers. On the subject of the B-17/B-25 raid they include the story that 5 of the B-25s were sent to a satelite field 40 miles away. True, but not the truth. Because these five bombers, when they got to Valencia Field, were refused fuel. The people there were expecting fighter reinforcements to come up from Australia and they were not about to let some transient bombers suck up their precious stock. So the B-25s had to head to No.3 (the second take off--in a short period--without rest since completing their 10-hour hop from Australia; these guys were beat, and ****ed off, being ordered all over the damned island in what looked like a classic cluster ****), getting in just as darkness fell, a pretty close call, the field having no lights. Then the ground crews worked all night hauling gas in drums up from No. 1 to get them fueled up, not to mention pulling out their long-range tanks and getting them bombed up, doing engine service, etc. I suppose i am beating this to death, but I had high hopes for these expensive volumes and it looks like the usual rehash, at least as far as US operations go. Some questions I would still like to know the answers to: Why were the 19th BG ground crews at No.3 Del Monte? When did they get there? Did they ever get out of the PI? What happened to these tired, hungry, hardworking, apprehensive guys who were promised that they would be picked up before the Japs got to them? I would also like to know what actual damage the B-25s did on their raids. BS only reports the optimistic "believed to have been sunk" reports of the contemporary press releases and has nothing from any Japanese sources. BS also doesn't mention the first day attacks on Jap air assets, only the attacks on shipping. Chris Mark |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
On looking closer I see that Bloody Shambles does indeed include the Caiden book in its bibliography--a bibliography arranged alphabetically not by author The British may not be as aware of his reputation for fictionalizing. Caidin is likewise cited in the new book from Grub Street: Buffaloes Over Singapore http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...f=nosim/annals The last book is "70 Days in Singapore" by Faulk, listed last, I guess because the title has a numeral in it--? The usual rule (at least in the U.S.) is to put numbers first! As far as the japanese info, assuming it is accurate, it is interesting--as far It's as accurate as can be done with the sources available. The Japanese stuff was provided by a Dr Izawa, who is an aviation buff who has written several books about the Japanese Army Air Force. as it goes. i was interested to learn how the japs had had to pull air resources out of southeast Asia to smash bataan, evening bringing in the big Sally army bombers. I was even more interested to know how badly hurt they had been by AAA from the Bataan defenders. But when I wondered what unit with what weaponry were doing this damage, the text was silent. I also wondered what Well, the Japanese wouldn't have known that! As always, what an individual writes about his own side is generally fairly close to the mark. It's when he's writing or yarning about the other side (how many planes went down, what kind of planes they were) that he goes astray. altitude the Sallys were bombing from, and if the Jap experience with US Army AAA at Bataan influenced them to fly at 22,000 feet over port moresby, greatly reducing their effectiveness, that being ironic because there was no AAA at Moresby. I was also interested to learn that the Japs bombed the dug in troops on Bataan with 50kg bombs, and I wondered what genius had decided on that. The Perhaps all they had? The Japanese were always operating ahead of their supply line. They set out to invade Burma without drop tanks for their fighters. That's one reason the first raid on Rangoon was Dec 23, two weeks after the war began. I suppose i am beating this to death, but I had high hopes for these expensive volumes and it looks like the usual rehash, at least as far as US operations go. I found the Philippines chapters impossibly dull, and concluded that you had to know something about the campaigns before you could appreciate Shores & Co's day by day account of the fighting. The Burma and Malaya accounts do stand up to the closest scrutiny. Can't say about Indonesia, and I yield to your knowledge on the Philippines. all the best -- Dan Ford email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9 see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
From: Cub Driver look@
be the material from Japanese sources. That would be completely new. I guess. I don't know. Oh, it is. My Flying Tigers book was published in 1991, and it was the first to identify the Japanese units and airmen who fought in Burma and China. The Bloody Shambles books came out in 1992, so of course we didn't have the advantage of one another's work. Hata & Izawa's book on the JAAF in English translation only came out this year! www.danford.net/jaaface.htm The Japanese navy fared better. John Lundstrom's First Team 1984 was the first to do this kind of research for the navy carrier pilots. The Hata & Izawa volume on the JNAF came out in English translation in 1989. The pace has picked up more recently, with a bunch of Osprey books using Japanese sources, and the Buffaloes Over Singapore book just published by Grub Street. There were a few articles published in places like the AAHS Journal and the British air magazines, but nobody paid any attention to them. Once information has become accepted, we think it's been around forever. It's hard to believe that up to October 1991 everyone accepted without question that the AVG Flying Tigers had fought the A6M Zero in Burma and China, and most people believed that Japan had only one (presumably independent) air force. I picked up a recent book on the war in the Solomons and New Guinea, which was okay as far as it went. But i stopped reading it because the author did not have even one Japanese source. In the intro he made some excuse about how hard it was to get Japanese sources. So what the japs did, how allied actions affected them, etc., were speculation or based on war-era allied intelligence estimates. So, for example, the fact that the Japanese military had better maps of the Solomons than the allies is, according to this author "a mystery." Such a piece of crap I won't even mention the author or title. He should be ashamed. But it's not a lot better with the Med. Everybody knows, for example, about Omaha Beach, or even Guadalcanal, for that matter. But who knows about the US Army Ranger units--1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions--that were massacred at Cisterna. Of 767 men, only 6 escaped. Mention this and get only blank stares or straight-out disbelief. It is simply amazing to me that six decades after the war, aside from what happened in northwest Europe, much of the war remains obscure, what little written about it all too often riddled with myth, error and nonsense. I'm glad you've done something to correct that picture. Chris Mark |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Chris, these stories are enough to make a man cry. If you got this information out of a book, please post the title. On the other hand, if you didn't, then please write the book and post the title! -- G Hassenpflug * IJN & JMSDF equipment/history fan |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|