Raids on Saipan late 1944

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 01:33:14 +0900, Gernot Hassenpflug
wrote:

note: I posted this to sci.military.naval, and then realized it might
have more to do with rec.aviation.military!

I hope I will get a chance to complete the translation of part of an
interesting article over the weekend, here is the gist. I wonder if
anyone knows where to get good refs for the US side of the story?
Google turned up nothing useful for me.

In short, on November 3rd, again on November 7th, and for a thrid time
on November 26th, the training squadron (Type 97 bombers) of the IJAAF
(not the IJNAF) heavy bomber wing at Hamamatsu raided Saipan's B-29
airfields at night and at low level. In the first attack the 9
aircraft lost 5 of their number after hitting the target, causes
unknown (navigation error probable, but maybe shot down), the
following raids were carried out by the remaining aircraft without
loss. 1200km to Iwo Jima for stopover, then another 1200km from around
8pm to Saipan, descending to low level (10-15m) for the attack and
dropping 'Ta' type bombs (75 bomblets in a large bombcasing) plus
machine gun fire, back to Iwo Jima, refuel and back to Hamamatsu in
the space of one night/two days.

For the IJAAF of the time this was more than a major feat, it had been
deemed impossible and only became possible because the chief
navigators had trained in the Navy's overwater navigation methods.

I am looking for any useful information from the US side on these
raids. The article I read is written by Mr. Chuu-ichi Jou-no, who was
navigator in one of the bombers and took part in all three raids. To
put it mildly, the training for extreme-low-level long-distance
over-water night-time missions was pretty rough, the missions
themselves scary and they were glad to get home in one piece after
three of these. He writes that one everyone's mind was the issue of
fuel: missing Saipan even by a short margin meant there was no chance
of making it back to Iwo Jima.

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevo...s/b029-10.html

Says something about a Nov 2 attack which damaged some B-29s. Not
much.

The Spaatz Papers at the Library of Congress manuscript division in
Washington might go back that far. He didn't reach Saipan until March
1945, but he appears to have vacuumed up everything in sight for his
records.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

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