Hiroshima Marks 80 Years Since Atomic Bombing

My FIL was with the Flying Tigers and Chennault's 14th Army Air Corp. 50 missions over Indochina (Vietnam), Burma, Hong Kong, etc.

After the Japanese surrender he was sent to Japan to do intelligence, debriefing Japanese officers and preventing plots against the American occupiers in the postwar period.

I've never been to Hiroshima, but I went to Peace Park in Nagasaki. It's eerie to see shadows of people burned into concrete ...

#20 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS

I'll check out the film. Thanks!

My FIL stayed in when the Army Air Corp became the Air Force. I have some incredible photos he took during bombing runs in their B-25 Mitchells.

Since supplies were so scarce, everything having to be flown over "the hump" to China from India, they developed a bombing technique for accuracy called "GLIP bombing." Most times, when they were going after a bridge or railroad, they where 100=200' off the deck, taking small arms fire.

The GLIP bombing technique and the B-25 "Bridge Busters"
www.youtube.com

He's memorialized at the Flying Tiger museum in China. We have his silk map, bomber jacket, and a whole lot of photos he took from the cockpit. Another cool one is my FIL playing poker with Chennault and some of the other guys from his bomb group.

This is an interesting and historically important story he told me:

The reason China is communist today is because of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese surrender. Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai Shek, and Gen. Claire Chennault (commanding general of the 14th AAC in China) were good friends. Chennault's commanding officer, Gen Joseph Stillwell, heard Chiang Kai Shek went over his head to President Truman to demand Chennault be reinstated as commander of the 14th AAC, and got a big case of resentment against Chennault. So, when the Japanese surrendered, and Chiang asked for weapons to fight Mao, Stillwell ordered that only rusty pieces of artillery, guns, mortars, and other rusty weapons from the Pacific and CBI be given to Chiang Kai Shek's Chinese Nationalist forces.

When Chiang got the weapons most of them didn't work. And that is why the Chinese Nationalists lost to Mao, who was outnumbered by them. True story.

BTW, my FIL was instrumental in seeing that African-American soldiers were given opportunities to advance in an era when AAs were largely relegated to kitchen duties and such. 1950's and 60's.

A retired general, he was an "Eisenhower Republican," and would have kicked BOAZ's traitorous ass and then done it again.

If Chiang had gotten the weapons he was promised instead of rusted out pieces of crap things could have turned out differently.

I got the story I related above directly from my late FIL, who was privy to the entire affair.