Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [141]
158 “I felt nauseated”: Fusako Sasaki in http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/fire_raids_on_japan.htm.
159 “pinpricks”: F. J. Bradley, No Strategic Targets Left (Nashville: Turner, 1999), 60.
159 “a swarm of interceptors”: 39th Bomb Group (VH) history, http://39th.org/39TH/aerial/61st/crew34.html.
160 “Shortly afterwards”: 873rd Bomb Squadron history, http://www.xmission.com/~tmathews/b29/56years/56years-4504b.html.
160 Whether the serious U.S. naval losses: Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 14: Victory in the Pacific, 233.
160 twenty American ships: Ship losses March 27 to May 11 compiled from ibid., 390–92. The figures for the periods before and after the B-29 strikes totaled thirty-five ships sunk or permanently disabled in eighty-seven days, or 0.4 ship per day.
161 “These airfields”: Bradley, No Strategic Targets Left, 60.
162 “How they got the ships”: Morrison, Point of No Return, 197.
164 One crew was lost to ramming: Koji Takaki and Henry Sakaida, B-29 Hunters of the JAAF (London: Osprey, 2001), 97.
165 “One morning in mid-April”: http://www.40thbombgroup.org/.
165 His crew was a well-drilled team: Author correspondence with Henry E. Erwin, Sr., 2000.
167 He believed to the end: Author interview with Senator Henry E. Erwin, Jr., December 2004.
167 “We received the news”: Robertson, Bringing the Thunder, 171.
168 “undiscriminating bombing”: “56 Years Ago Today,” http://www.xmission.com/~tmathews/b29/56years/56years-4505a.html.
168 “not at present”: Toland, The Rising Sun, 919.
168 “swell fires”: Navigator’s notes, 499th Bomb Group, 23–24 May 1945.
169 “When crews returned”: Wilbur H. Morrison, Point of No Return: An Epic Saga of Disaster and Triumph (New York: Playboy Press, 1979), 209.
169 “Tokyo just isn’t”: “56 Years Ago Today,” http://www.xmission.com/~tmathews/b29/56years/56years-4505b.html.
169 “As I ran”: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/fire_raids_on_japan.htm.
169 “a netherworld scene”: http://www.xmission.com/~tmathews/b29/56years/56years-4505b.html.
170 “If you are shot down”: Costello, The Pacific War, 548.
171 “May 25 was”: Halloran account, http://www.xmission.com/~tmathews/b29/56years/56years-4505b.html.
171 subjected to vivisection: Thomas Easton, “Japan Admits Dissecting WW II POWs,” Baltimore Sun, May 28, 1995, http://home.comcast.net/~winjerd/Page05.htm.
172 The most egregious sanctioned murders: Mark Landas, The Fallen: A True Story of American POWs and Japanese Wartime Atrocities (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), 116, 167, 251. Though few Japanese were hanged for crimes committed in Japan, 920 war criminals were executed, mostly for atrocities in other areas. Some notorious offenses went unindicted because Western law had no proscriptions for cannibalism.
172 That left 283 Americans: Toru Fukubayashi in Takaki and Sakaida, B-29 Hunters of the JAAF, 114.
172 “The time to get captured”: Bataan Death March symposium, Arizona Military Museum, Phoenix, AZ, 1993.
173 “considered to be futile”: Coox, Japan, 36.
CHAPTER SIX: PACIFIC PONIES
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175 “Mickey” Moore was typical: Major General Ernest M. Moore (Ret) correspondence with author, 1975.
175 “Iwo was perhaps”: Crim correspondence with author, 1976.
176 “When the war ended” and following: Ibid.
177 Taking one navy fighter squadron as an example: Data from Hikotai 407, Naval Air Group 221, Luzon, November 1944, compiled from information courtesy of Richard L. Dunn.
178 “We spotted the enemy planes”: Henry Sakaida, Imperial Japanese Navy Aces, 1937–45 (London: Osprey, 1998), 79.
179 In some twenty encounters: 343rd Air Group data compiled from Henry Sakaida and Koji Takaki, Genda’s Blade: Japan’s Squadron of Aces (UK: Surrey, 2003).
180 “I don’t believe” and following: Major General Ernest M. Moore (Ret) correspondence with author, 1976.
181 “I had about 500 hours”: Barrett Tillman, “The Mustangs of Iwo Jima,” Airpower Magazine, January 1977.
181 “We had practically”: Ibid.
181 “the ’51 with the fuselage tank full”: Ibid.
182 “After what seemed