As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
In the annals of war and life, the events overtake everyone and everything. What seems unimportant causes horrendous and horrific problems. I'm going to examine two flight crews on the raid which General Doolittle performed against Imperial Japan in a first strike from America in World War II. What my focus is the nameless people, as they are what is important to the examination of how people not doing their jobs cause problems for innocent people.
The examination is of the 16 planes which General Doolittle led. The flights will be of 8 and 16.
The planes were lined up, 1 through 16 with Doolittle in the lead. Two white stripes were painted on the deck of the USS HORNET, one for the front wheel and one for the left wheel, so that the B 25 would clear by a few feet the island tower of the carrier in taking off.
The seas were heavy and the launch had to be moved up, as the Japanese had discovered the task force of 16 ships, inclucing the USS ENTERPRISE.
Flight 8 cleared the deck and moved onto Japan, and dropped it's bombs. The problem with Flight 8 though became at Alameda Air Base, when General Doolittle had ORDERED that no mechanic was to touch the carburators as they had been calibrated perfectly, and the B 25's would need every ounce of fuel.
The war was on in April of 1942, but the military leaders in California and the civilian mechanics were in no hurry or was there any urgency for the Doolittle mission to change the war.
Instead his orders were ignored and he had to appeal to his superior Hap Arnold, head of the Army Air Corp to light a fire under these people. The fire was lit, but Doolittle was stunned one day to see black smoke belching out of the engines as a mechanic was test firing that engine. He was just following orders after adjusting the carburator........yes the army officers at Alameda had been ordered to not touch the planes, but the word had not been passed down, and the engines had been adjusted.
Flight 8 was never able to get the engines burning gasoline to specs. When it took off for Tokyo, it was burning excessive fuel and once it had completed it's mission it did not ahve enough fuel to reach China, so against orders it landed in the Soviet Union where the communists held them prisoner as US allies and charged 30,000 rubels a month for their "care".
Numbers of Doolittle's Raiders were injured, died and were captured in China, again because the US Army there did not set out the radio beacons Doolittle had ordered and the Chinese had not performed the task, but the reality is Flight 8 never got the chance they should have, and ended up prisoners, because shiftless Army officers at Alameda and civilian mechanics had no urgency for the war and ignored the orders which were given them.
Being a shiftless asshole has consequences. I am certain the descendents of these assholes as Alameda speak glowingly of their kindred and live in the luxury of their lives, but those assholes harmed people's lives and almost destroyed a mission which American needed.
That is the story of Flight 8.
agtG
