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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Bad Luck and Good Luck.

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

Sometimes someone's bad luck is someone else's good luck.

We launched the Doolittle raid on Japan in 1942 pretty. Many are aware of it, and aware that it was little more than pinprick (except perhaps for one lucky bomb hit on a carrier). What most do not realize is that the bombers were supposed to strike under cover of night. That was the plan, designed as part of an effort to have maximum survival of the crews (there were no Japanese night fighters and flak would not be very accurate).

The spotting of the strike force resulted in the bombers being launched early and much further away. Bad luck for the crews, some of whom paid for the mission with their lives as a result, rather than making it safely to China.

But consider the ramifications, the utter embarrassment and loss of face of the Japanese military because, not only did the Americans bomb Japan, but they flew over the home islands in broad daylight, dropped their bombs, and escaped virtually unscathed. Could there have been a greater affront to the Japanese military in that period that the strike was not delivered as a coward under the cover of darkness, but boldly in the light of day in defiance of the full might of the Imperial Japan.

It is difficult now to gauge what added effect the arrival of bombers over Tokyo in the light of day had on the deliberations of the Imperial General Staff, but it must have served as an additional goad to over reach themselves in their effort to protect their own homeland.