Two things; Did the torpedo loaded B-26ers score any hits or were they all splashed like most of the land based aircraft launched from Midway? And I just learned that the RAF called the B-29 “Washingtons” although it was probably post-war.
Yikes. The first torpedos the pilots ever dropped were dropped in battle. Collins and his crews were given sketchy instruction by the Navy in torpedo bombing, the most nearly suicidal air tactic of the war, but had never dropped a torpedo when a flight of four, commanded by Collins, was sent 1,200 miles westward to Midway on May 29
The Soviet Northern Fleet even manged to equip their Bostons with torpedoes by fixing a "torpedo beam" (girder) externally on the underside.
Here are just a few things I have learned about in the last year. 1. Operation Unthinkable, Churchill's crack-brained proposal for a Western Allied offensive to drive the Soviets out of east Germany and Poland, possibly even with help from reorganized ex-German troops. Nobody can hate what the Soviets did to Eastern Europe more than I--part of my family is Czech--but it was surely a mercy that the Chiefs of Staff shot this idea down. Montgomery was particularly vehement in his opposition to it. Oh, and apparently rat bastard agents in Whitehall (Homintern?) leaked the thing to Stalin. 2. The Soviet equivalent of the above was a projected offensive to occupy France and Italy--conceived in 1944, well before Unthinkable was mooted. 3. George Marshall was willing to allot landing craft to the British for a projected landing in Istria, yet another dumb idea. 4. According to Pavel Sudoplatov, the Soviet plan for Operation Mars (the failed 11/42 offensive at Rzhev) was deliberately leaked to the Germans via a double agent. This was done as a deception to distract the Germans from the Stalingrad counteroffensive. 5. In his memoirs, Erich Von Manstein deliberately fudged some of the dates so that Paulus, and not himself, would get the historical blame for 6th Army's failure to break out of the Stalingrad pocket.
The Hellcat F6F brakes could overheat when taxiing and steering long distances on the ground and lock. Not a problem on carriers.
This is, as Dave would say "100% Grade A BS": Rzhev was a 15 month slaughter where July 1, 1916 was a permanent fixture The battle was "forgotten" by the Soviet side for decades in the shadow of Stalingrad because they suffered grotesquely high casualties there, even by Soviet standards, that were totally out of proportion to what was accomplished.
Well, I am reporting what I have recently read. Is there a reference anywhere which would refute Sudoplatov? If so I'd be happy to look at it.
David M. Glantz wrote a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Zhukovs-Greatest-Defeat-Disaster-Operation/dp/0700614176
Steinway Victory Vertical pianos. Victory Verticals - Steinway & Sons *SOLD* Steinway Victory Vertical | Piano for sale
Jean Maridor November 1920 - August 1944. What did that make him.....24 years old.? Tragically he died just one week before his wedding day. There are Thousands and thousands of stories like this in WW2 I had never heard of this young man until today. I believe he was engaged to an English gal. Her name was also Jean. What a Horrible, Horrible time Remembering Jean Maridor – the hero of the V1 flying bomb - The Vintage News
The last few minutes of the 1942 movie One of our aircraft is missing was filmed in one - well worth a watch.
