Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [136]
40 Estimates of full-scale production: Osamu Tagaya, 2007, citing Senshi Sosho, Volume 19.
40 “Now the enemy”: Richard L. Dunn, J-Aircraft.com, October 21, 2007.
42 The man who pulled it together: http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=7545.
42 American resources were scarce: Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 7: Services Around the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), xix.
42 “Headquarters figured”: First Lieutenant Bedford Hertel, 27th Troop Carrier Squadron, author interview, c. 1990.
42 Construction of XX Bomber Command bases: http://www.cosmos=club.org/web/journals/1996/adams.html.
43 fewer than half: Werrell, Blankets of Fire, 93.
44 “We knew basic problems”: 462nd Bomb Group Web site, http://www.geocities.com/jr462nd/Hellbird_Stories_p7.html.
44 Accommodations were basic: Morrison, Point of No Return, 59.
46 “We lost”: Wait ’Til the 58th Gets Here (Nashville: Turner, 1999), 16.
46 “Broken Nose Charlie”: Bedford M. Hertel to author, c. 1975.
46 On June 5, Wolfe’s command: XX Bomber Command mission summary, 5 June 1944; Werrell, Blankets of Fire, 101.
47 “The city appeared”: Saburo Sakai with Fred Saito and Martin Caidin, Samurai! (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 317.
50 “acceptable number”: Werrell, Blankets of Fire, 102.
51 “I was scared!”: Koji Takaki and Henry Sakaida, B-29 Hunters of the JAAF (London: Osprey, 2001), 9.
52 In all, fifty-seven American fliers: XX Bomber Command mission summary, 15 June 1945.
52 “the sight of”: Jonathon Delacour, “Japanese Remorse?”, The Heart of Things, http://weblog.delacour.net/archives/2002/08/japanese_remorse_hardly.php; Masuo Kato, The Lost War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946), 8.
52 “By the time”: Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi with Martin Caidin, Zero: The Story of Japan’s Air War in the Pacific (New York: Bantam, 1991), 193.
53 “People sat around”: LeMay and Kantor, Mission with LeMay, 322.
55 Burning wreckage: Takaki and Sakaida, B-29 Hunters of the JAAF, 13, 16.
56 From the American perspective: During the night thirteen more bombers departed for Yawata, having been delayed by a crash on the runway. Ten bombed the primary, escaping without harm. XX Bomber Command mission summary, 20 August 1944.
57 Beyond that, LeMay was five years younger: The Navy’s youngest two-star (rear) admiral was Harold B. Miller, who became Admiral Chester Nimitz’s public relations officer in 1945 at age forty-two. AAF chief Arnold had pinned on his second star at age fifty-two in 1938, but only because of his superior’s death.
58 “If I’m going to command”: Thomas M. Coffey, Iron Eagle (New York: Crown, 1986), 109.
58 “utterly absurd”: LeMay and Kantor, Mission with LeMay, 322.
59 Perhaps LeMay’s greatest success: Sortie and tonnage figures computed from XX Bomber Command statistics for June to August versus October to December 1944.
59 the “aircraft plant”: Henry Sakaida e-mail to author, December 2007; René J. Francillon, Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War (London: Putnam, 1979), various entries; U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Aircraft Division Report No. 34, Army Air Arsenal and Navy Air Depots, Corporation Report No. XIX, February 1947, via Jim Long on J-Aircraft.com. Total production from April 1941 through 1945 was 966 aircraft and 2,100 engines.
60 “Damage to the plane”: Brigadier General Jack Ledford (Ret) et al. 40th Bomb Group Association Memories, July 1997. (Some accounts state that Ledford flew 20th Century Unlimited but apparently that name was applied to the opposite side of the fuselage. Heavenly Body’s memorable nose art was the work of a former Esquire magazine artist.)
61 “negligible”: XX Bomber Command mission summary, 11 November 1944.
62 Meanwhile, the four: Personal papers provided by Mrs. Jody Smith, December 2007.
62 That night of the 21st: Dr. Frank Olynyk, USAAF (China-Burma-India Theater), Credits for Destruction of Enemy Aircraft in Air to Air Combat, World War 2 (Privately published, 1986).
63 “Dear Curt”: Coffey, Iron Eagle, 123–24.
63 “persistent reports”: 40th