To commemorate the 70th anniversary of this amazing US Army Air Corps mission I offer the video below. It is pretty gripping reality TV in my book. It’s a 43 minute clip and if you’ve got the time to watch it I don't think you'll be disappointed.
[flash width=420 height=315] http://www.youtube.com/v/Da5ZNT29EZo?version=3&hl=en_US [/flash]
Sadly, there was a huge controversy over this mission. Two of the pilots in the 16 plane mission were part of the “kill flight” and both took credit for shooting down the Betty Bomber that Yamamoto was in. Granted, it couldn’t have happened without the participation of all 16 pilots, especially the remarkable navigation skills of mission leader John Mitchell, but that’s human nature. Initially Tom Lanphier took full credit and then Culver Orygun native Rex Barber asserted that he was the trigger man.
Over 40 years later it was pretty much settled that Barber’s account was correct.
I sort of have a dog in this dog fight. Not only was Barber a hometown hero with a bridge named after him, but...
...my dad arrived at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal shortly after the Yamamoto mission as a pilot with the 68th Fighter Squadron. Shortly before he died in the late 1980s I asked dad about it. He never met Rex Barber, but he characterized Lanphier as a “loud mouthed S.O.B.” who was running his mouth off 24/7 on the island telling everyone how HE had shot down Yamamoto’s plane. A braggart pilot was always suspicious in dad’s eyes.
68th fighter Squadron, April, 1943, at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. Dad is the guy seated at the far right in the front row.
Mike,
Very cool.
Thanks for sharing.
I hope you can make it over to the Evergreen Museum some time,
they have a great display and video about the whole Yamamoto affair.
Scott
> 68th fighter Squadron, April, 1943, at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. Dad is the guy seated at the far right in the front row.
I found him!!! Handsome guy!!! :-$ :good: B-)
Thank you for sharing... I have a soft spot in my heart for Vets, esp WW2 ones. Maybe because of this:
Good planes those P 38's, counter rotating props +, but in a dive it needed to be watched diligently, exceeding a certain speed they would come apart or lock up the control surfaces and dive to the ground, think they called it compressibility, it was about reaching the speed of sound and not being designed for that stress. They were used for photo missions later in the war.
jud
I watched a TV show the other night about the naval war in the Pacific and was very interesting. it described the intercepted message about Admiral Yamamoto and how we found out where he was flying to, and we shot his plane down.
This show was mostly about the navy, and was very good.
Keith
Yamamoto was a stickler with being where he planned and at the time specified. His staff went to great lengths to comply and all knew it, including our leadership. Being known for being on time is what killed him, the range limits of the P 38 allowed little time for loitering in wait.
jud
Jud - in the video they state that the US sent another long range flight the next morning to Bougainville. The reason being is we wanted to make it look like this was a new tactic and that shooting down the bomber Yamamoto was in the day before was just happenstance. So the Japanese wouldn't think we'd broken their code. At first they suspected we had, but then they discounted that belief. Talk about a game of chess!
Did not see the video, but have read about this and some discovery shows several years ago. Did not know about the second flight, sounds like a good idea, got the intended results. The distance, time elapsed, wind and drift over large body's of water, air speed and you have one heck of a navigation problem with little chance of success of an interception.
jud
