LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

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MakeeLearn
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LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by MakeeLearn »

A gamey bombing mission:


"One of the more interesting bombardment missions occurred without radar in the early summer of 1944 during the battle for Biak Island, which featured B-24s in a ground-support role: Artillery pounded these positions [caves above a new American airdrome] for four weeks. Long after we were operating from the strips, the Nip was still in the caves, still making it unhealthy to move on the airfields.

During the construction and improvement of the strips, the engineers had to put down their instruments and pick up rifles to shoot back at snipers .... One afternoon, he [Col David W. Hutchison] and Major General Jens Does, commander on Biak, were watching the artillery attempt its noisy but futile endeavor to clear out the caves.

[Colonel Hutchison came up with an idea.] The next day nine B-24s took off from Owi on the usual daily workout on targets in the Halmaheras. Instead of proceeding on course, however, as usual, they flew low over the coral ridges of Biak. They formed, and then flew in perfect order, four thousand feet above the ridge. They circled for fifteen minutes. Then they left on their mission.

[The routine continued for the next two days. Each day, more Japanese came out to watch the bomber formations fly harmless patterns over the field.] The fourth day the planes came again. They circled over the ridge in formation. They stayed there for their fifteen minutes. But they didn't go off on any mission. They opened their bombay [sic] doors suddenly and from the low altitude of four thousand feet they dropped sixty-four one-thousand pound bombs.

Thirty-two tons of explosives on an area three hundred yards long and seventy-five yards wide. And then the infantry attacked. When they reached the ridge they waited. Not a shot was fired at them. They clambered onto the ridge. There were one hundred dead Japs sprawled on the ground. There were seventy-five more who were alive, but they were motionless, stunned."


And people say "sweeping" can get gamey.






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rustysi
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by rustysi »

[:D]
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Hume

In every party there is one member who by his all-too-devout pronouncement of the party principles provokes the others to apostasy. Nietzsche

Cave ab homine unius libri. Ltn Prvb
Buckrock
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by Buckrock »

Or another take on this incident involving the only reported use of B-24s in a ground support role during the Biak campaign.

From G.E. Salecker's book "Rolling Thunder Against the Rising Sun", page 154:-

For a week and a half, the Ibdi Pocket refused to crumble. Finally, on July 21, the 41st Div used a ruse to draw the Japanese into a
trap. "At 1030" noted the divisional historian, "603 Tank Co [1st Platoon] blew up seven pillboxes on the landward side of the cliffs
to make the Japanese mass for a push from that direction." After giving the Japanese enough time to move most of their men to the
threatened section of the pocket, a squadron of B-24 heavy bombers roared in on July 22nd and dropped sixty-four 1,000-pound bombs
on the area. Later in the day, when the GIs and tanks moved forward, they found hundreds of dead or stunned Japanese. A week later,
the Ibdi pocket was just an ugly memory.


So whose ruse did they use?

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MakeeLearn
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by MakeeLearn »

The B24 account is from "Capt Donald Hough and Capt Elliott Arnold, Big Distance (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1945), 142-45"

Could have been both ruses. As the Japs would not come out of the caves unless they though all was clear on the ground, then the planes would give them a reason to leave the caves.


How many sides to a story?






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kaleun
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by kaleun »

Gamey, Gamey! Could not happen!
Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you.
Sun Tzu
Buckrock
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by Buckrock »

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

The B24 account is from "Capt Donald Hough and Capt Elliott Arnold, Big Distance (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1945), 142-45"

Could have been both ruses. As the Japs would not come out of the caves unless they though all was clear on the ground, then the planes would give them a reason to leave the caves.

How many sides to a story?
Its clear from his account that Colonel Hutchison was adamant about this B-24 ruse having occured but when you read details of the Biak
Campaign, it seems really surprising to hear of the Japanese taking the risk of wandering out from their caves, pillboxes and shelters
just to watch a flight of B-24s cruise around their position at low altitude. Not only had the defenders of the small Ibdi Pocket suffered
heavy shelling on a daily basis from the 9th to the 20th of July, they were also being regularly bombed and strafed by US aircraft operating
from the two nearby airfields (that were also visible to the Japanese).

And despite all that, the defenders were still prepared to wander out and risk observation by the surrounding US troops.

Silly Japanese.

I agree though, there are normally several versions of an incident, all of which purport to be true.
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anarchyintheuk
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by anarchyintheuk »

Given 24/7 cave life, I'm pretty sure that any opportunity to get out of them would be used.
bradfordkay
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RE: LOOK! BOMBERS!!!

Post by bradfordkay »

4E LBA bombing ground units from low altitude? Isn't that a violation of the house rules? [;)]
fair winds,
Brad
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