samboct
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Joined: 1/17/2007
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Al
Seems to me that there's a lot of revision going on long after the fact- very reminiscent of the Swiftboating of Kerry.
But let me put a few more things in context about LBJ climbing into that airplane-
1) The B-26 was not a popular airplane at the time. During training, men often referred to the airplane as the Baltimore Whore (the wings provided no visible means of support, and Martin was in Baltimore) and commented about "two a day in Tampa Bay" during training when people were crashing. Eventually it was shown that the training was inadequate but that was long after June, 1942.
2) Lae- in contrast to some of the nonsense on the internet, was one of the major Japanese strongholds at the time and the Japanese had overwhelming air superiority.
3) Maintenance on these airplanes was chewing gum and chicken wire. The Southwest Pacific was at the long end of a torturous supply line and Germany had first priority. There were a number of crashes when a heavily laden B-26 would lose an engine on takeoff although pilots in the 22nd eventually figured out what to do. These airplanes were patched up wrecks and many of the men suffered horribly from dysentery and other tropical illnesses- not exactly confidence inspiring.
4) Johnson AFAIK was untrained in aerial combat- he couldn't do a damn thing except watch and these were indeed, very risky missions.
5) In an aside- this was the airplane that Truman had a hard on for- he desperately tried to kill it. There was a WWII Truman commission, and canceling the deployment of this airplane was one of its major conclusions. He didn't succeed, thankfully, because the B-26 went on to have a successful career in both Europe and the Pacific. However, when the Air Force was established in 1947 and there was a renumbering scheme- the A-26 Invader was given the designation of B-26 as the B-26 was stricken from the inventory. It's the only time this has happened, and some would suggest that this was Truman's final revenge against this airplane.
Thus it took a certain amount of guts just to climb into the airplane. It would have been trivial for Johnson to write up the results that these units were horribly ill equipped, yet bringing the fight to the enemy while suffering horrific losses while keeping his ass firmly in a chair on the ground, but he wanted to see things for himself. That none of those articles pointed this fact out clearly leads me to conclude that their biases have overcome their attempts at "fact-finding". YMMV.
In terms of relevance to the current thread- it's kind of interesting that the same problems continually resurface in US politics. Kerry's swiftboating critics quickly ignore the fact that those too were risky missions. Is it my imagination or is it generally the Republicans calling into question the wartime credentials of the Democrats? OK, my gaffe about Bush 1 earlier in this thread aside?
Sam
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RE: Are the Democrats Tearing Apart? - 
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