WWII History - Operation Vengeance

[El Chivo]

My favorite sidebar of WWII was the operation to get Admiral Yamamoto. It happened 70 years ago today. We broke their code and knew where he was going to be.


I have some pics. There's also a good read on Wikipedia.


http://www.musicstudents.com/Yamamoto



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vengeance



It's also the 71st anniversary of the Doolittle Raid.

[Ji in Hawaii]

I highly recommend this movie "The Admiral" very well made telling the story of Admiral Yamamoto in detail. He was Harvard educated, spoke English fluently, and served as naval attache' in Washington DC before the war. Yamamoto personally opposed the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the subsequent land war with China (1937), and the 1940 Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. As Deputy Navy Minister, he apologized to United States Ambassador Joseph C. Grew for the bombing of the gunboat USS Panay in December 1937. He was personally against war with the USA. These issues made him a target of assassination threats by pro-war militarists. He ultimately chose loyalty to the Empire having to put his personal feelings aside. The movie has some amazing effects even of his assassination by P-38s. Watch it if you can find it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBQotim_ZHA

[Charles]

Yamamoto was a key military asset of Imperial Japan and as such needed to be taken out. But on a personal level, he was a hell of a guy and there was much to admire about him.

[olyinaz]

Yamamoto was a key military asset of Imperial Japan and as such needed to be taken out. But on a personal level, he was a hell of a guy and there was much to admire about him.

Well put.

[guido4198]

Yamamoto was a key military asset of Imperial Japan and as such needed to be taken out. But on a personal level, he was a hell of a guy and there was much to admire about him.

Well put.

[El Chivo]

I'm sure he was a great guy to go hit the sake bars with (which I'm sure he did celebrating his sneak attack on Pearl Harbor). But two things in particular appeal to me about it. One, they underestimated the American ingenuity in breaking their code - even after Midway. Two, totalitarian regimes place a lot of importance their leaders, and taking one out really throws them for a loop. So I think it had great psychological importance negatively for them as well as a boost for us.

[guido4198]

Did anyone else notice: THAT America wasn't afraid to just go ahead and call it "Operation Vengeance".

[missionary5155]

Good morning
If my memory is correct Lindburg had rescently been out to the p-38 base and flown several missions with them. He would come back with more fuel in his tanks than everyone and the mechanics started asking how he did it. He adjusted carb vacume pressure and naturally got better mpg. Well the other pilots received instruction and this added another 100 mile range to the fighter sweeps.. and that made the shootdown that much more feasable as the japs thought they were oput of range.
Sadly good men make alianzes with bad governments and end up paying the price.
Mike in Peru

[Grizz]

Lindburg flew combat? Didn't know that one. Good read on that hunting story.

[Ji in Hawaii]

If memory serves me Lindbergh was relatively old (41) and a civilian was not authorized for combat.
Edit: I just found this article on Lindbergh, and how he was able to fly 50 combat missions as a civilian and get away with it. He shot down one enemy plane, I thought it was more: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/lindbergh2.htm

Here's an interesting 1994 Japanese documentary about Yamamoto, and the Pacific War (with English Narration): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NDRDVavpWs
Yamamoto constantly bumped heads with his superiors their tactics dating back to 1904 Russo/Japanese war strategy, and Yamamoto's innovative thinking not meshing. Yamamoto's death was a severe blow to the morale of the Japanese military which they never recovered from.

[Ji in Hawaii]

I'm sure he was a great guy to go hit the sake bars with (which I'm sure he did celebrating his sneak attack on Pearl Harbor).

Actually quite the opposite. Yamamoto believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had become a blunder — even though he was the person who came up with the idea of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It is recorded that "Yamamoto alone" (while all his staff members were celebrating) spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression". He is also known to have been upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were technically at peace, thus making the incident an unprovoked sneak attack that would certainly enrage the enemy. He predicted Japan could not sustain momentum for longer than a year and would loose a prolonged war with the US and her industrial might. He was right.

[AJMD429]

These days we're too politically-correct to even call a military operation "vengeance"...

[Grizz]

These days we're too politically-correct to even call a military operation "vengeance"...

hey doc, have you thought about ditching the leftist 'term of art' and substituting the term 'politically-corrupt', which seems to me to be a very accurate translation of the 'politically-correct' meme.

shouldn't we choose the term that illuminates truth, rather than the one that hides it?

like 'sexual-pervert' for 'gay'

like 'statist tyrant' for 'liberal'

etc...

ya think?