Five months after the Pearl Harbor attack, everything in the Pacific was going Japan's way. The Philippines, Singapore, Wake and Guam, all fallen. If it weren't for the bad news, there wouldn't have been any news at all.
Then Lt. Col. Doolittle led his squadron of 16 B-25 bombers on a raid over Tokyo. While it caused little actual damage, it electrified the American home front, and Lt. Col. Doolittle soon found himself Brig. Gen. Doolittle, holding a freshly minted Congressional Medal of Honor.
That's the story. There's a lot behind the story that doesn't get told, and is perhaps forgotten: of the voyage on the Hornet through foul weather, aircraft lashed down to the flight deck. Of the absurdly short distance in which they had to get airborne. It's been left to the imagination, and my imagination is sadly lacking in this regard.
The Internet Archive has film footage taken in that stormy April of 1942. Seeing the ship and planes laboring through the storm, the rain-slick flight deck, the men arming the bombs made up for my sorry lack of imagination.
The next time I see Al Gore, I'm going to thank him for this Internet thingie.
UPDATE 6 July 08:28: Embedding is broken. I'll have to fix it later. Grr.
UPDATE 6 July 2009 19:21: Looks like it's working now. Man, two posts going south in the same day. Not up to our usual standards, nosir.
I have to say that the computer age, expiration of "classified" status, and a renewed interest in WWII, has brought foot a lot of long buried archival footage and some stills. But, mostly film footage. Some it has been digitally remastered and put on DVD. It's now cropping up on The History Channel and The Military Channel, much to my delight.
ReplyDeleteAl Bore or not, I'm happy.