Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
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Chugalug (#10519),
No apology needed for the release of this hare, m'dear chap ! These "hares" have always been the life-blood of this incomparable Thread, and the more of them that are running, the more interesting it gets.
Thank you for the links in your (#19508), particularly for the second "Der Spiegel" article.
As for Hess's flight, and wartime air navigation in general, I've always stood in awe of our Bomber Command navigators, who could fly for hours in all weathers over a blacked-out Europe, with only a sketchy idea of the en-route winds, no external aids (until Gee-H came in late-on), and just a bubble sextant, in an aircraft which was constantly 'weaving' to dodge flak and night-fighters - and still wind up within an average of 5 miles error ! It was a bloomin' miracle every time IMHO.
I get annoyed with the tender-hearted souls who now castigate them for not "confining themselves to military objetives". What does a "military objective" look like over a blacked-out city ? How about a black cat in a coal-hole at midnight ? Their hearts may be in the right place - it's their heads that need looking at.
As for my own navigational abilities, they were no more than would be expected of any good Boy Scout (ie simple D/R and map-reading). The last F.414A (22/9/42 after OCU) had a little rubber stamp: "Has he shown aptitude as a pilot/navigator - yes". Mind you, it also said "Ability in air gunnery - Average" (I hadn't fired a single aimed shot on the Course !) Thereafter nobody seemed to be particularly worried whether I could navigate or not (so long as I could get there and come back).
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Octane (#10520),
I don't think we can take it that Hess was necessarily "running away" from Hitler. More likely he was acting in concert with him to sound out the possibility of an "armistice" with Britain along the lines I suggested in (#10509). As you say, we'll never know.
Cheers, both, Danny.
No apology needed for the release of this hare, m'dear chap ! These "hares" have always been the life-blood of this incomparable Thread, and the more of them that are running, the more interesting it gets.
Thank you for the links in your (#19508), particularly for the second "Der Spiegel" article.
As for Hess's flight, and wartime air navigation in general, I've always stood in awe of our Bomber Command navigators, who could fly for hours in all weathers over a blacked-out Europe, with only a sketchy idea of the en-route winds, no external aids (until Gee-H came in late-on), and just a bubble sextant, in an aircraft which was constantly 'weaving' to dodge flak and night-fighters - and still wind up within an average of 5 miles error ! It was a bloomin' miracle every time IMHO.
I get annoyed with the tender-hearted souls who now castigate them for not "confining themselves to military objetives". What does a "military objective" look like over a blacked-out city ? How about a black cat in a coal-hole at midnight ? Their hearts may be in the right place - it's their heads that need looking at.
As for my own navigational abilities, they were no more than would be expected of any good Boy Scout (ie simple D/R and map-reading). The last F.414A (22/9/42 after OCU) had a little rubber stamp: "Has he shown aptitude as a pilot/navigator - yes". Mind you, it also said "Ability in air gunnery - Average" (I hadn't fired a single aimed shot on the Course !) Thereafter nobody seemed to be particularly worried whether I could navigate or not (so long as I could get there and come back).
'''''''''''''''''''''''
Octane (#10520),
I don't think we can take it that Hess was necessarily "running away" from Hitler. More likely he was acting in concert with him to sound out the possibility of an "armistice" with Britain along the lines I suggested in (#10509). As you say, we'll never know.
Cheers, both, Danny.
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Fantom Zorbin (#10521),
Thank you for welcoming me back into our fraternity !
I wouldn't have thought a "Black Buck" type operation with the Doolittle Raid Mitchells in 1942 was remotely possible. As it was, they couldn't even land back on their carrier and carried on to China, where all were written off and the crews got a mixed reception !
It was a pin-prick as far as the Japs were concerned, but it achieved its objective in boosting US Home morale. The fatal blow to Japan's Pacific ambitions came two months later, when the SBD "Dauntless" dive bombers (advt !) in twenty minutes (or less), totally destroyed the Japanese carrier group at Midway, and thereby irrevocably turned the tide of the Pacific war against Japan.
Revenge was doubly sweet, for this was the carrier group which had done the damage at Pearl Harbor. It was a victory almost as important to the US as the BoB was to Britain, and why "Midway Day" (June 6th) isn't celebrated with equal ceremony over there has always been a mystery to me.
As for your
the certain answer was "No". The Japanese did not give in easily !
The Japanese soldier fought till he died (surrender was impossibly shameful for a fighting man), and even the B-29 heavy fire bombing of Tokyo later in the war had no effect on their resolve. It took the overwhelming horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince Hirohito and the Imperial Staff that "the game was up" - and only then as they did not know how many more "Lightning Bombs" the US had up its sleeve (I believe the answer was "None", they'd "shot their bolt" - but it was enough).
Danny.
Thank you for welcoming me back into our fraternity !
I wouldn't have thought a "Black Buck" type operation with the Doolittle Raid Mitchells in 1942 was remotely possible. As it was, they couldn't even land back on their carrier and carried on to China, where all were written off and the crews got a mixed reception !
It was a pin-prick as far as the Japs were concerned, but it achieved its objective in boosting US Home morale. The fatal blow to Japan's Pacific ambitions came two months later, when the SBD "Dauntless" dive bombers (advt !) in twenty minutes (or less), totally destroyed the Japanese carrier group at Midway, and thereby irrevocably turned the tide of the Pacific war against Japan.
Revenge was doubly sweet, for this was the carrier group which had done the damage at Pearl Harbor. It was a victory almost as important to the US as the BoB was to Britain, and why "Midway Day" (June 6th) isn't celebrated with equal ceremony over there has always been a mystery to me.
As for your
... "However, would this in itself have been enough to sway the tenacity of the Imperial hierarchy to pursue the war come what may?...",
The Japanese soldier fought till he died (surrender was impossibly shameful for a fighting man), and even the B-29 heavy fire bombing of Tokyo later in the war had no effect on their resolve. It took the overwhelming horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince Hirohito and the Imperial Staff that "the game was up" - and only then as they did not know how many more "Lightning Bombs" the US had up its sleeve (I believe the answer was "None", they'd "shot their bolt" - but it was enough).
Danny.
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Don't think it was none. I understand that a second plutonium core was on its way to Tinian and more were in the pipeline. I think the calculation was this:
Everyone knew that a Uranium bomb would work but it was painfully slow to produce.
Prior to Trinity no one knew if a plutonium bomb would work.
After Nagasaki the Japanese knew that a plutonium bomb worked and that it probably could be produced in quantity. Their thinking changed.
Everyone knew that a Uranium bomb would work but it was painfully slow to produce.
Prior to Trinity no one knew if a plutonium bomb would work.
After Nagasaki the Japanese knew that a plutonium bomb worked and that it probably could be produced in quantity. Their thinking changed.
Danny (10517):-
It is curious indeed, as the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service was, as its name implies, established to serve the aviation needs of the Army, much as the German Luftwaffe was. The Oscars (Nakajima Ki-43) in Burma were part of the 3rd Air Army, HQ Singapore. As fighters they were primarily for interdiction and one would have thought that allied dive-bombers that were hammering IJA strong points would have been obvious targets for them.
The Japanese armed forces though, rather like their German equivalents, were prone to mutual competition and jealousy. Relations between the Army and the Navy was so bad that the Army had its own fleet of escort carriers to safeguard its troop convoys. If there were any Zeros near Burma they wouldn't have involved themselves in assisting the Army anyway, but the Oscars most certainly should have.
The IJN submarines didn't bother much with the USN supply transports, surely the key to the Pacific War, as they saw their raison d'etre as attacking and sinking US capital ships. Could it be that the Oscars saw their corresponding targets as Allied front line fighters and bombers? Could it be that lumbering dive-bombers and transports did not have the same cachet and brought little honour in their destruction? In short Danny, perhaps you and your colleagues were viewed as beneath contempt and thus left alone to carry on your good work. If so I for one would have savoured such contempt and welcomed it, and suspect you would too. As you say, I doubt we'll ever know. Unless of course there are those better informed who do?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Eighth_Army_(Japan)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperi...my_Air_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-43
My "What If ?"s are on a much smaller scale. What if the Japanese 28th Army Commander in Arakan had set his Oscars on our "boxes" of VVs, which were daily unearthing his defensive bunkers in his '43/'44 retreat ? We wouldn't have stood a chance (all the Hurricane pilots who'd done "fighter affiliation" training exercises with us told us so). ..... bye-bye Danny and "Stew" !
The Japanese armed forces though, rather like their German equivalents, were prone to mutual competition and jealousy. Relations between the Army and the Navy was so bad that the Army had its own fleet of escort carriers to safeguard its troop convoys. If there were any Zeros near Burma they wouldn't have involved themselves in assisting the Army anyway, but the Oscars most certainly should have.
The IJN submarines didn't bother much with the USN supply transports, surely the key to the Pacific War, as they saw their raison d'etre as attacking and sinking US capital ships. Could it be that the Oscars saw their corresponding targets as Allied front line fighters and bombers? Could it be that lumbering dive-bombers and transports did not have the same cachet and brought little honour in their destruction? In short Danny, perhaps you and your colleagues were viewed as beneath contempt and thus left alone to carry on your good work. If so I for one would have savoured such contempt and welcomed it, and suspect you would too. As you say, I doubt we'll ever know. Unless of course there are those better informed who do?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Eighth_Army_(Japan)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperi...my_Air_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-43
Last edited by Chugalug2; 29th Apr 2017 at 07:05.
Danny (10523)
You are totally correct. I'm afraid I was looking at the "what if" with tunnel vision.
Sadly, where the enemy has no thought for its own life the 'fight' takes on a wholly different dimension ... as we see today.
You are totally correct. I'm afraid I was looking at the "what if" with tunnel vision.
Sadly, where the enemy has no thought for its own life the 'fight' takes on a wholly different dimension ... as we see today.
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Chugalug (#10526),
Thanks for the links - and for the masterly research into the background of this strange Jap inaction. We were grateful for it, as you say, but to the very end, we had this Sword of Damocles hanging over us - "it's not 'if', but 'when' " - every time we took off on a sortie. It was almost more nerve-wracking than actually being attacked.
Another "what if" (it was more of a "why", really), was the premature (IMHO) AHQ decision to pull the VVs out of the line on the onset of the '44 monsoon. As I've said on previous Posts, the ostensible reason ("to re-equip with the Mosquito") made no sense at all. The new, fully trained Mossie crews came out with their aircraft at that time, true. But all they wanted was our Squadron names and numbers. The old VVs and their crews (who were all almost on the last year of their India tours anyway), could "get lost" as far as they were concerned !
It looked as if we might have had to be brought back into service in the panic which followed the Mossie self-destruct episode (and I was sent down to Yelahanka to "convert" Mossie drivers into dive-bombers in three easy lessons) but, probably, fortunately for us all, they got the glue problem licked just in time. But at that, I don't think any of the Mossies got into service out there until '45.
Even so, why not use the VVs as well as the Mossies for that one last (but we did not know it then) dry season ? Accom. was no problem, and you can knock up a "kutcha" strip in no time. But as it was, there were winners, Danny spent his last year as the big fish in a tiny pool and was Monarch of All He Surveyed. Heady stuff for a 23 year old !
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Fantom Zorbin (#10527),
Yes, an enemy with no fear of death is a formidable foe indeed ! And I suppose it explains the utter disgust and contempt they felt when Percival surrendered Singapore to a fighting force half his size in '42. That he did so to spare millions of non-combatants from death by thirst * would cut no ice with them, as they'd demonstrated in China.
* The Japs had got control of the fresh-water supply to the city.
Same goes for any of our troops they captured, and I suppose that it explains (but does not exculpate) their barbaric treatment of prisoners.
Regards to both, Danny.
Thanks for the links - and for the masterly research into the background of this strange Jap inaction. We were grateful for it, as you say, but to the very end, we had this Sword of Damocles hanging over us - "it's not 'if', but 'when' " - every time we took off on a sortie. It was almost more nerve-wracking than actually being attacked.
Another "what if" (it was more of a "why", really), was the premature (IMHO) AHQ decision to pull the VVs out of the line on the onset of the '44 monsoon. As I've said on previous Posts, the ostensible reason ("to re-equip with the Mosquito") made no sense at all. The new, fully trained Mossie crews came out with their aircraft at that time, true. But all they wanted was our Squadron names and numbers. The old VVs and their crews (who were all almost on the last year of their India tours anyway), could "get lost" as far as they were concerned !
It looked as if we might have had to be brought back into service in the panic which followed the Mossie self-destruct episode (and I was sent down to Yelahanka to "convert" Mossie drivers into dive-bombers in three easy lessons) but, probably, fortunately for us all, they got the glue problem licked just in time. But at that, I don't think any of the Mossies got into service out there until '45.
Even so, why not use the VVs as well as the Mossies for that one last (but we did not know it then) dry season ? Accom. was no problem, and you can knock up a "kutcha" strip in no time. But as it was, there were winners, Danny spent his last year as the big fish in a tiny pool and was Monarch of All He Surveyed. Heady stuff for a 23 year old !
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Fantom Zorbin (#10527),
Yes, an enemy with no fear of death is a formidable foe indeed ! And I suppose it explains the utter disgust and contempt they felt when Percival surrendered Singapore to a fighting force half his size in '42. That he did so to spare millions of non-combatants from death by thirst * would cut no ice with them, as they'd demonstrated in China.
* The Japs had got control of the fresh-water supply to the city.
Same goes for any of our troops they captured, and I suppose that it explains (but does not exculpate) their barbaric treatment of prisoners.
Regards to both, Danny.
Danny,
Therein lies the value of this thread and your posts. WWII is now a well rehearsed tale of one thing following another, with all the seeming inevitability that is implied. None of it of course was inevitable, hence my interest in the what if's. If the Oscars had done their job and kept the skies over Burma clear of allied aircraft then that campaign might well have gone in Japan's favour, endangering India to the very end.
Add to that the 20 minutes you direct us to at the Battle of Midway. If the Zeros had remained in their full Combat Air Patrol disposition, they would have made short work of the USN Dive-Bombers. Fortunately they had been otherwise engaged with the Torpedo equipped Devastators. Their sacrifice meant that the Zeros were low, short of ammunition and fuel, and gave the opportunity for the Dive-Bombers to despatch the IJN carriers. Without USN success at Midway, how would the Pacific campaign have gone? Would Tinian (or any other US held airfield within range of Japan) been available for exploiting Trinity?
As you have said, Danny, the what-if's can be pondered upon for ever. They do though have one lesson for us all. The tale may be well rehearsed but it could so easily have been so different. When we feel the urge to pontificate we would do well to remember that.
I'm afraid posting links to Wiki hardly counts as research, but what it says about the 28th Army, the Oscar, and the JIAAS seems to mainly accord with other sites (eerily word for word sometimes!).
to the very end, we had this Sword of Damocles hanging over us - "it's not 'if', but 'when' " - every time we took off on a sortie. It was almost more nerve-wracking than actually being attacked.
Add to that the 20 minutes you direct us to at the Battle of Midway. If the Zeros had remained in their full Combat Air Patrol disposition, they would have made short work of the USN Dive-Bombers. Fortunately they had been otherwise engaged with the Torpedo equipped Devastators. Their sacrifice meant that the Zeros were low, short of ammunition and fuel, and gave the opportunity for the Dive-Bombers to despatch the IJN carriers. Without USN success at Midway, how would the Pacific campaign have gone? Would Tinian (or any other US held airfield within range of Japan) been available for exploiting Trinity?
As you have said, Danny, the what-if's can be pondered upon for ever. They do though have one lesson for us all. The tale may be well rehearsed but it could so easily have been so different. When we feel the urge to pontificate we would do well to remember that.
I'm afraid posting links to Wiki hardly counts as research, but what it says about the 28th Army, the Oscar, and the JIAAS seems to mainly accord with other sites (eerily word for word sometimes!).
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Well, if we are hypothesising, how about what would have happened if ...
The French, with their significantly superior armoured forces, had actually achieved what that superiority SHOULD have achieved against the Panzer thrusts (fast but incredibly lightly armed and armoured in comparison).
The flaw seemed to have been the FR ORBAT/C&C, and distrubution of armour in 'penny packets' to low level formations, instead of concentrating the 'shock and awe' that GE did.
So ... FR halt GE at the Maginot line (or nearby), no Dunkirk disaster, no Phony War ... what then? Does Hitler want a war of attrition in 1940 on the Western Front? Speer says GE was really only geared up to 'Totales Krieg' for 1942. So Herr Hitler, the chancer, gets a bloody nose at the FR border ... and how coukd things have evolved from there?
Forget SEALION, forget BARBAROSSA, ... "Ach, ve haf eine grosse probleme". Where now, Adolf?
The French, with their significantly superior armoured forces, had actually achieved what that superiority SHOULD have achieved against the Panzer thrusts (fast but incredibly lightly armed and armoured in comparison).
The flaw seemed to have been the FR ORBAT/C&C, and distrubution of armour in 'penny packets' to low level formations, instead of concentrating the 'shock and awe' that GE did.
So ... FR halt GE at the Maginot line (or nearby), no Dunkirk disaster, no Phony War ... what then? Does Hitler want a war of attrition in 1940 on the Western Front? Speer says GE was really only geared up to 'Totales Krieg' for 1942. So Herr Hitler, the chancer, gets a bloody nose at the FR border ... and how coukd things have evolved from there?
Forget SEALION, forget BARBAROSSA, ... "Ach, ve haf eine grosse probleme". Where now, Adolf?
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There is a character (some General or other, IIRC) in "War and Peace", who makes a profound remark to the effect that: "....a General may start a battle , but once he has done so, the battle takes on its own mind and develops in unforseen ways now quite beyond his control ...."
And it is a truism that: "No Battle Plan survives its first contact with the enemy".
And it is a truism that: "No Battle Plan survives its first contact with the enemy".
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... and Politicians under-fund them 
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Danny ... 
"Is a Just War less violent than a Proper War?"
S. O. Baldrick, Private.
"Is a Just War less violent than a Proper War?"
S. O. Baldrick, Private.
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Possibly not for this thread, but WW11 anyway.
Could be an interesting read...
The luckiest Lancaster: Bomber that survived 109 missions | Daily Mail Online
Could be an interesting read...
The luckiest Lancaster: Bomber that survived 109 missions | Daily Mail Online
Danny,
reminds me of the Confederate Cavalry General Nathan B. Forrest's dictum' 'get there fastest with the mostest'. It certainly worked for him.
reminds me of the Confederate Cavalry General Nathan B. Forrest's dictum' 'get there fastest with the mostest'. It certainly worked for him.
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it worked for Nathan Forrest until the overwhelming industrial power of the North wiped them off the map.
Now, how does the West compare with the Russians?
T-34 by the thousands versus Tiger in the hundreds?
F-35 in the tens versus Mig-35 or Su-T50 in the hundreds?
Mass does tend to overwhelm skill/equipment. Should we worry?
Now, how does the West compare with the Russians?
T-34 by the thousands versus Tiger in the hundreds?
F-35 in the tens versus Mig-35 or Su-T50 in the hundreds?
Mass does tend to overwhelm skill/equipment. Should we worry?