B-29 AIR RAID BOMBING IN TOKYO FILM NARRATED BY RONALD REAGAN "TARGET TOKYO" 74382

this is where it began here in the exact geographic center of the United States Grand Island Nebraska the men were brought here from every corner of the country and a few corners outside the country they were a hand-picked American mixture of draftees and West pointers of butchers teachers and bankers of your sons husbands and fathers they were men like Kenneth Gibson of Salt Lake City who served in England at the Far East who enlisted as a private and was now a full colonel john van Trigg of ottawa illinois and the south pacific gordon wong of Boise Idaho and Canton China Fred Montgomery a b24 gunner from the Aleutians Harry brand a b-17 flight chief decorated in the battles of Guadalcanal and Midway there were men who had flown in forts or liberators in all of the combat theaters but now they were introduced to a ship that was something else again she was the b-29 the super port with 2,200 horsepower in each of four engines with a fuel capacity equal to that of a railroad tank car a tail that climbed two stories into the air a body longer than a Corvette designed to carry more destruction and carry it higher faster farther than any bomber ever built before and to complete this mission that's exactly what she was going to have to do the day they first took up a 20-9 the men felt like the Wright brothers all over again better be good fella it was a million bucks on the wing by the second flight they were in love with the ship and old hands and starting to get impatient but the army told them nothing just kept them flying it kept them wondering they wondered about when they'd finally be off which way they go how they do and how long it would be before they'd be on their way home again well while they were wandering the big wheels decided almost the first amended it was 5:00 in the morning and they were on their way the chaplain gave each of the crews the st. Christopher medal Christopher's the patron saint of travelers he explained before he blessed them and if there's one thing you boys are going to do it's travel the chaplain was right this was the takeoff for one of the greatest mass flights in history first lap from Grand Island 1321 miles westward to make their field California Mather field was their POA II bored of aerial embarkation here the crews had to go through a final production line checkup then they were ready for the second lamp from Mather field to Pearl Harbor two thousand four hundred and fifteen miles further west when they passed over the Golden Gate Bridge it was like having a door shut in their faces so long California so long USA on this first overwater hopped it was the navigators who are on the spot with all their fancy equipment their mind still had to make the final calculations an error of two degrees would wind their ship up over nothing but ocean with empty gas tanks diamond hit right on the nose good old navigator the crews relaxed now they began to think about hula girls and the beach at Waikiki at Pearl Harbor however they found themselves restricted to the airfield the only hula girls they saw were painted on the doors of the px for something much bigger was in the making in an office on that same field a new bomber command was being born the 21st Brigadier General Heywood Hansel commanding to include all the planes and all the crews that had left Nebraska Hansel conferred with Lieutenant General Millard Harmon general Arnold's deputy for b-29 activities in the Pacific and that he tales were set for the 21st bomber commands initial strike after briefing next morning general Hansel and the men left Hawaii their final pace was no longer a mystery 4,000 miles farther west with only one refuelling stop on the way lay the island of Saipan less than four months before it had still been in the hands of the Japanese that was something for the men to think about it was for them that the Battle of Saipan was fought for a base big enough to hold their b-29 soldiers sailors and Marines paid a price for that base afterward aviation engineers and service groups sweated over it that too was for the b-29 realizing it made every man anxious to get there to make saipan payoff the 21st farmer command has arrived when we've done some more fighting we loose more talking the crews found Saipan to be a paradise free from any of the discomforts borne by war oppressed civilians at home plenty of area apartments nicely decorated adjoining showers no long lines at the local barber shop reasonably priced concerts private beach club and elegant sundeck only trouble was their neighbors got a little noisy b-29s on Saipan were like artillery pointed at the heart of Japan the nips made a desperate attempt to knock the face out I came over at night to a paid admission but they got some of ours the chaps might just as well have tried to stop Niagara Falls a 21st Bomber Command was ready to hit its first target a target for today planet located 11 miles west of Tokyo the man had hoped the first one would be Tokyo and they were delighted but they weren't kidding themselves not even those who'd been over Berlin or Ploiesti or Vienna London to Berlin and back was 1,000 miles the Foggia ploy has to run 1150 miles the 4g of vienna run 900 miles but Sipan to tokyo and back was over 3,000 miles no land-based planes had ever hit this target before crew chiefs and maintenance men worked right through the afternoon and night the ordinance men fused the payload dawn the coolness reminded them of that other door not so long ago in Nebraska only now they were sweating it was kind of funny to think of themselves making history the lead ship was a square one dauntless dotty its pilot was Robert Morgan its Bombardier Vince Evans remember them they were the pilot and Bombardier who flew 25 missions over Germany in a b-17 called the Memphis Belle five o'clock back home you'd have been turning over for another couple hours sleep or just coming in from a date each superport carried well over 7,000 gallons of gas more than six thousand rounds of ammunition with their great load of 500 pound general purpose bombs and incendiaries they weighed almost 70 tons apiece the barometer should have been falling in Tokyo this was the final lap of the long mission over 10,000 miles almost halfway around the world to return a visit that had been paid to Pearl Harbor three years before Pearl Harbor was on their minds now a 2,000 American dead Hickam Field in flames the Arizona and the Oklahoma and the Pennsylvania there were other things on their minds there was the triumphant feeling of being the first the advanced guard of a long procession of super ports that would smash Tokyo there was the grim satisfaction of making the Nipponese High Command eat its words Tokyo the Japanese High Command that broadcast is out of range of land-based American bombers there were the uncertainty the fear of the unknown 1,600 miles lay between them of their target what kind of a defense with the Japs put up how much flag how accurate 1,600 miles lay between the target and getting back to Saipan how many of them would get back they recalled very clearly the fate of the Doolittle Flyers would crashed in Japan and been kept six hours later through the clouds they saw it Fujiyama ancient symbol of Japan here comes some modern symbols phosphorous bombs and flak and fighters inside a super port you can't see its guns you fire by remote control but the guns are there and now the autumn is Tokyo within a radius of 15 miles of the Imperial Palace lives 7 million Japanese a people we used to think of as small daily polite concerning themselves only with floral arrangements and rock gardens and the cultivation of silkworms but it isn't silkworms and it isn't imperial palaces these men are looking for in the suburbs of Tokyo is the huge Nakajima aircraft plant well but what are you waiting for of the b-29s that have taken off at dawn all the two got back to Saipan that night and that's where it ended the first Superfortress mission to Tokyo but more than an ending it was a beginning as the commanding general of the Army Air Force has put it no part of the Japanese Empire is now out of our range no war fact to remote appeal our bomb the battle for Japan is now underway with full speed ahead

Channel: PeriscopeFilm

Views: 589,654

Rating: 4.7494569 out of 5

Keywords: Periscope Film, Stock Footage, Tokyo, Boeing B-29 Superfortress (Aircraft Model), Target Tokyo, Air Raid (Fictional Character), Bombing Of Tokyo (Military Conflict), Ronald Reagan (US President)

Id: BzQmTjDPL5c

Length: 21min 46sec (1306 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/Figsak]

I initially read that as "raid from Spain".

[u/MisterMeatloaf]

good stuff