Re: The nukings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Keith B. Rosenberg wrote:
The existence of the 509th was known to most everyone on Tinian even
if its mission was not.

Given that the bombs fell and within weeks, the capitulation occurred,
you are expecting the Japanese to develop a coherent plan to mount an
attack 1,500 miles away, locate a single unit on a very well defended
island, then have everything work. The Japanese don't appear to have
the capability to carry out this plan in August 1945.

A squadron with special priveleges that is not
flying the same type of combat missions as everyone else is obvious.

So who is going to tell the Japanese this?

Once the nuclear weapons starting falling it would not take too much of a
genius to figure out that the 509th, which was known to be something
special, was the group doing the bombing.

The clock was already ticking down - how would they know that the 509th
was the only one doing the bombing? You assume too much, the fog of
war would've kept the 509th secrets long enough for them to finish
their mission.

A few aircrew captured from
other squadrons on Tinain and you get the information you need for
targeting.

Assuming a _lot_. Again, how would the Japanese know that it was a
single squadron dropping the bombs, from a single base?

The planes of the 509th were observably different as well
without gun turrets, except tail, and a different bomb bay configuration.

None of that is really all that different when the aircraft is parked
in a revetment and you are flying over at high speed, dodging AA and a
swarm of fighters on CAP.

I also note that the picture of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian does not
have the large round windows on the side of the fuselage that most
other B-29s did.

How close were you flying at 300 knots when you noticed this? Sir, the
EG is not THAT different from other B-29s and in a combat situation,
there isn't a pilot on the planet that would be able to tell you which
is which. German crews couldn't tell a Halifax from a Lanc; B-17
crewmen rather routinely tried to shoot down Mustangs (while claiming
109s), etc., etc. These are qualified airmen mistaking entirely wrong
types - while you are suggesting a pilot, after a 1,500 miles suicide
flight through several layers of defenses, is going to be able to tell
one B-29 from another. My job for several years was teaching aircraft
and ship recognition to Navy flightcrews and I can tell you
unequivocably that your "what if" mission would not have worked.

I am not saying that such an attack would have been easy, only
that it might be possible as an extreme response to nuclear bombings
if the Japanese kept fighting. As a suicide mission the Marianas are well
within the one-way range of several Japanese aircraft such as the Mitsubishi
G4m "Betty" which had a range of over 3000 miles.

Radar. Picket ships. Mustangs. P-61s. AA. A few CVLs loaded with
Hellcats. Overwater navigation for five hours behind enemy lines, for
most of that time closing in on a target that knows damn good and well
why you are coming and what your target is. The Yamato had the range -
but it couldn't penetrate the defenses. Assuming (and that is one
heaping helping of assumption) that they could make it to the target
area, the reception committee would make it a wasted trip long before
they could locate the 509th needles in the very crowded Tinian
haystack.

Honestly, I think your optimism for this impossible mission is
misplaced. There was no time, no assets, and no hope of success.

v/r
Gordon

.

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