I am not sure what planet Col. Cool lives on, but I suspect that it is not the same as the one that I am one. Or he is trying to see how much trouble he can stir up with a big load of disinformation.
I have done a lot of research at the US National Archives, with part of that time going through the files of the intercepts of Japanese naval messages. The Japanese knew perfectly well that those planes came off of a carrier, and were frantically trying to get something into position to intercept the US carrier force. What was a surprise to them was that we were able to get B-25 medium bombers off of a carrier to begin with. As for landing back on the Hornet, the B-25 had no arrester gear fitted, nor could the landing gear have handled a carrier landing. As for ditching near the Hornet, that pretty much would have been a death sentence for the plane’s crews, except that given that the Hornet was supposed to head back to Pearl as soon as the planes launched, and they launched about 400 miles further out than planned, the bombers would have been very hard pressed even to get back to the launch position, much less fly even further.
The Japanese Army was already extremely heavily involved in China, and had been since mid-1937, not counting the takeover of Manchuria in 1931. The whole purpose of the attack to the south was to seize the Netherland East Indies for its oil to support the Chinese war following the cutoff of US oil shipments in July of 1941. As for the Doolittle Raid increasing Japanese control of China, it did lead to the Japanese taking over those areas where the B-25s that make it to China crashlanded or where the crews bailed out. As for Jermofoot’s inane comment about “supposedly the Japanese made an attack on China for helping the US, killing 250,000 civilians in reprisal.”, there is no supposedly about it. The Tokyo War Crime trials put the death toll at about 500,000, and that is probably a conservative estimate. I also notice that Col. Cool does not mention that several of the flyers captured by the Japanese were executed for daring to bomb Japan. Also, Col. Cool, one plane did land in Russia, with the crew being interned for the duration of the war, and the plane being used by the Russians. Since the last thing the Russians wanted was a war with Japan, there was no way that they would have let the aircraft land in Russia.
Chiang and Claire Chennault, commander of the US air forces in China, knew that the planes were coming, but the early launch meant that the bombers were also early, and flying at night rather than day as the Chinese Air Warning Net expected. There was no way for the Hornet carrier group to inform China of the early launch, as they were operating under radio silence.
With respect to a Japanese threat to Australia, tell you what Col. Cool, you spell out in detail, with authors and book titles, the Americans and British who claim that there was no threat to Australia. Darwin, Australia was being raided on a fairly regular basis by Japanese bombers flying from Indonesia, Port Moresby on the southern coast of New Guinea was the objective of the Japanese task force that turned back as a result of the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Japanese force that advanced over the Owen Stanley Mountains to within a few miles of it. Milne Bay, on the eastern tip of New Guinea was subject to an amphibious attack by the Japanese, which was defeated by the Australian troops in the area. The purpose of the air field at Guadalcanal was to support a further move south to New Caledonia in an effort to cut the supply lines to Australia from the US.
Names, Col. Cool, I want names and sources for your claims. Either give your sources, or stop your posting.
