Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [154]
Ziel, Chester, 92
About the Author
Barrett Tillman is an internationally recognized authority on air warfare and the author of more than forty books on military topics. The former managing editor of The Hook (the magazine of the Tailhook Association), Tillman has appeared in many television documentaries. He has received six awards for history and literature, including the Admiral Arthur Radford Award. He lives in Mesa, Arizona.
Admirals Chester W. Nimitz (left) and William F. Halsey, key players in the Doolittle Raid against Japan. Nimitz approved the joint Army-Navy operation, and Halsey commanded the two-carrier task force that carried it out.
Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle (center left) and USS Hornet’s Captain Marc A. Mitscher with other Raiders prior to bombing Japan, April 1942.
A B-25 takes off from the Hornet, headed for Tokyo and environs, April 18, 1942. All sixteen bombers safely got off the deck, but fifteen were lost to fuel exhaustion over the China coast. The other landed in Russia.
General Henry H. Arnold (left) of the Army Air Forces and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commanding the U.S. Pacific Fleet. They oversaw grand strategy in the air campaign against Japan, not always in full accord but with unmistakable results.
Army engineers and Navy Seabees literally reshaped the earth to provide level ground for airfields in China and the Mariana Islands. Heavy equipment was used to remove huge boulders and clear enough space for runways to accommodate B-29s.
Rock crushers were used by aviation engineers to provide the base material for runways that would support heavy bombers. The engineers often set up their equipment within days of initial landings on Japanese-occupied islands.
Two of the leading players in the strategic bombing of Japan. Major General Curtis E. LeMay (left) consults with Brigadier General Haywood Hansell on Guam in early 1945. LeMay relieved Hansell, who had conducted initial B-29 operations from the Marianas.
Three B-29s in formation over Kure Arsenal, a major target complex on the Inland Sea. One of the largest naval shipyards in Japan, it was repeatedly attacked by U.S. aircraft in 1945.
The bomb bay view of the war as ordnance falls toward its target, Osaka’s port facilities and warehouses. The city was attacked numerous times, resulting in 35 percent of the urban-industrial area being destroyed.
The cockpit view of the war. Superfortresses approach a target at Kobe that has already been struck, sending a cloud of smoke thousands of feet into the air. More than half the city was razed during B-29 missions.
Air-sea rescue received a high priority in the Marianas bomber command. A crew from a downed B-29 is rescued from the ocean and transported from a destroyer to a seaplane tender.
Lieutenant Isamu Kashiide examines the wreckage of a Superfortress he shot down over Tokyo. He claimed seven B-29s to become recognized as one of the leading B-29 slayers.
Eight of twelve men in Major Sam Bakshas’s crew perished in this crash on March 10, 1945; the others died in captivity. Hidesaburo Kusame, a child at the time, later erected a large monument at the site.
A Japanese cameraman caught the last moments of this Superfortress descending on fire, one of some 400 lost on combat missions in 1944–45.
Admiral William F. Halsey (left) and Vice Admiral John S. McCain, who led the fast carriers. Halsey’s Third Fleet included McCain’s Task Force 38, which conducted most of the U.S. Navy air operations over Japan from May through August 1945.
Namesake of the ship that launched the Doolittle Raiders in 1942, the new Hornet steamed to Japan’s shores three years later, part of the mightiest carrier fleet of all time—Task Force 38/58 under Vice Admirals Mitscher and McCain.
The Fast Carrier Task Force at Ulithi Atoll, 1,300 miles south of Japan. The flattops are anchored in what sailors called “Murderers’ Row,” awaiting departure for the initial series of U.S. Navy