The Right PLace at the Right Time

[just another jocky]

Some outstanding b&w photos from WWII here (http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/581/The-Right-Place-at-the-Right-Time.aspx).


Warning....prepare to spend 20+ minutes of your life on this, but it's well worth it!

[Lightning5]

Superb photo's, accompanied by great write up.

[Pontius Navigator]

That link should come with a warning. Set plenty of time taskforce before clicking

[MPN11]

WOW! And more links to be followed.

Thanks, jaj :ok:

[Lyneham Lad]

Well, that has blown this evening's schedule! Thanks for the link.

[Airbubba]

Awesome photos and history. Thanks for sharing the link. :ok:

[Roadster280]

Most humbling.

[West Coast]

Superb and enlightening. I spent a good minute trying to figure out the image of the aircraft coming out the side of the carrier before I read the text, learned something new.

[Ddraig Goch]

Thank you for sharing those amazing photos with us.

[Arclite01]

That site needs a health warning.

I've just spent an hour on there !!

Amazing, fascinating and humbling all at the same time. The words also strike the correct tone.

Arc

[Tashengurt]

That is a fascinating and at times, heartbreaking collection.

Thanks for posting the link.

[Chugalug2]

I'm going to have to work through this a bit at a time. Thanks OP, an incredible and highly informative site, though I would take issue with:-
Sadly, they were later executed by the desperate and unstable Japanese, as were six other US Navy airmen shot down in the same period.
referring to the defenders of Chichijima. The Imperial Japanese Army behaved much the same wherever it was, be it China, Burma, or half a hundred Pacific Islands. Brutal and sadistic perhaps, but unstable? Sounds like a a bit of a get out of jail clause to me.

There is a petition running in the UK calling for the State Visit of President Trump to be cancelled, lest it embarrass HM the Queen. Given the tyrants that she has had to welcome here on State Visits for dubious political reasons over her long reign, that of a democratically elected US President is far less likely to embarrass her than, for instance, that of the WWII Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1971:-

The politics behind the pomp of state visits - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38808647)
In 1971, Emperor Hirohito of Japan was welcomed by the Queen for a state visit as a deliberate attempt to help usher the country back into the family of nations after its post-war isolation.
Not surprisingly, the invitation of the man who had led Japan during World War Two was hugely controversial, and many former army veterans and prisoners of war turned their backs on the royal procession in silent protest.
Some wore red gloves to symbolise the blood they saw as being on his hands while others whistled ribald old army tunes. A tree the Emperor had planted was uprooted.

[OMG Itz Fulovstarz]

Gentlemen,

For those that are interested, the photos of the VT-15 TBF in which AMM2 Loyce Deen was killed in, and subsequently buried at sea in, appear to come from a film of the incident.

It was filmed from the ship's island (and later the deck) and shows the TBF landing on with severe damage to the turret. The blanket shown in the stills was subsequently replaced with the "Stars and Stripes" for the burial.

I found the sight of the airframe being pushed over the side with the flag in place to be very poignant.....

IIRC there are a couple of versions of the film online. One was sanitised, one wasn't - due to the graphic nature I'm not posting a link, but if you're interested you can check yourselves.

It, like the other photos shown, are a reminder of the real cost of war.

[Treble one]

The 249 Squadron pilot putting on his harness is of course (then) PO Tom Neill Later Wg Cdr Tom Neill DFC* AFC, the famous author and one of the few of 'The Few' left with us.

[NutLoose]

One gun camera photo I remember and someone answered it saying it was me when published, it was of a coastal freighter being straffed, and in it you saw the rounds hitting the water, going up the sides and hitting the superstructure, and between both wing gun tracks you could clearly see a person on the deck pressed up against the superstructure as rounds are hitting both sides of him... as he said, he survived.

[NutLoose]

As films are mentioned this was one that saddened me, in 1943 they were putting on a flypast for the press when tragically it all went wrong................ what a waste..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfuUvfxWrWM

[MightyGem]

And the photo of the aircraft getting splashed by a bouncing bomb. Sadly this one wasn't so lucky.

PCGpzRzY7fY

[Fareastdriver]

On that clip you can see the wings bending down under the negative G when the tail came off.

[megan]

but unstableI think it may be a word used at the time in an attempt to explain why the Japanese were so seemingly sadistic and cruel compared to the Western mind set. How could a human do what they did to another human sort of thing.

[onetrack]

If you understand the WW2 code of Bushido, you understand why Allied executions by the Japanese took place.
It was extremely honourable for a Japanese warrior to die in war, and shameful for a Japanese warrior to survive war action and return alive.

What the Japanese could not, and still cannot excuse, is the torture and suffering they nearly always inflicted on their Allied POW's.
Being confined inside a cramped steel box in the hot sun for days and weeks - burning prisoners alive by setting fire to a building when the POW's were locked inside that building - machine-gunning tied-up POW's - starving POW's and not providing medical assistance - the list goes on and on.

In the case of the Tol plantation massacre, the Japanese marched around 160 Allied (Australian) soldiers and local civilians into the jungle, tied them to trees and bayoneted them in the rectum to ensure a lingering and painful death.

The anger and outrage when the atrocity was discovered by other Australian troops led to the evaporation of any goodwill by Australians, towards the Japanese military, during WW2.

[megan]

Tol plantation massacrePeople my Father knew. Was in country from the day the fracas started to the day it ended, member of the NGVR.

[MightyGem]

For those that are interested, the photos of the VT-15 TBF in which AMM2 Loyce Deen was killed in, and subsequently buried at sea in, appear to come from a film of the incident.

Film here. :(
https://www.facebook.com/DirectorTimHull/videos/1522359191419780/