July 20, 2021: Reader Tips

Reader Tips 59 Comments

These days I’m listening to the audiobook of Victor Davis Hanson’s The Second World Wars. There’s a chapter that focuses on the air power of the Allies and the B-29 Superfortress features prominently. Prior to learning of this, I had no idea how important this plane was to the eventual defeat of Japan. Here’s an interesting documentary about this engineering marvel.

Your best tips of the past day would be most appreciated!

59 Replies to “July 20, 2021: Reader Tips”

  1. Fields of Battle: The wars for North America by John Keegan also has excellent coverage of the B-29 campaign. It is also very good on the American Revolution, and the British conquest of New France.

    1. “Life should be fun not dumb,” reads her profile bio.”

      Well, it turns out THAT was a lie……

      1. Buzz…..LMAO, too true..!!

        I do not understand these morons….none whatsoever.

        Might have something ot do with surviving a 1987 60′ climbing fall only broken buy a 10″ Fir Branch ~10 feet above the granite = 11 months in the Ottawa Gen/Rehab centre with 4 separate surgeries on my R hip, obliterated R knee, R Arm, and a fully dusted left forearm, cracked, skull, crushed L heel and broken jaw…other than that I was just fine…lol

        They got “lucky” and died.

    2. I think that’s what her generation calls “living life to the fullest”.

    1. July 20, 1976: Viking 1 lands on Mars.

      It was originally scheduled to touch down on July 4, the American Bicentennial, but that was postponed due to a storm in the landing area. July 20, being the Apollo 11 lunar landing anniversary, was selected as a suitable alternative date.

    2. And I was in Hinton on a Cdn Forces Bush Survival course…..missed it all.!!

      But my dad, ended up obtaining a first day issue sort of envelope (He sent it to them – they sent it back stamped with “Apollo 11 CVN12 Hornet”) . the Hornet was doing the capsule retrieval. I still have it and a later one from Apollo 14.

      We had sat together since the first Mercury blast-offs right through the Gemini and the early Apollo test shots..Always 3:30 AM wake ups (we were in YVR then), to see what was happening at Cape Canaveral. I’ll never forget those days

      History….

  5. Oh gawd, latest tabloid news is Prince Harry is writing an intimate and heartfelt memoir.

    1. Prince?
      If I’m not mistaken when someone relinquishes a title they also surrender any use of the honourifics such as “sir”, “royal highness”, duke, earl, baron, or in this case prince.
      He asked for it, so the best he gets now is Mr. Windsor ….. or to be precise….. Mr Markel.

    2. Of the Royals, my favourite is Harry. He seems very human, while most of the are too uptight. I will look forward to his memoir.

      1. He is donating proceeds to charity.
        In life sometimes it’s not so much what you do as how you do it.

        1. If the charity is Archewell, then the money will flow back to his wife and him.

  7. A squadron of Lancasters was working-up in the U.K. to drop “the bomb” should the B-29 have been unable. Fortunately the B-29 was able; Lanc’s would’ve been slaughtered over Japan. And lest haters jump me for saying that, this is simple math; Lanc’s flew 10,000′ lower and 100 kts slower, as would be expected of a ten-year-older aircraft in the era of rapid development that WW2 brought-on. By 1945 Japan was running out of fighters capable of facing end-of-war aircraft, but even the venerable (and increasingly obsolescent by then) Zero would’ve had no trouble shooting-down a Lanc. Especially as the Lanc was not designed for thousand-mile transits to its target, kinda’ a waste of time in Europe, so its interior would’ve been filled with auxiliary fuel tanks and there likely would’ve been no room or carrying capacity for gun turrets. The raid on the Tirpitz in Faettenfiord demonstrated the problem; 617 Sqn had to launch its attack out of Russia, as no UK airfield was within flying range.

    The B-29 was the most expensive weapons project of WW2 by a pretty wide margin; twice as expensive as “the bomb”, and it gave endless teething troubles, especially the engines. One pilot reminiscence I read, talked-about operating piston-engined aircraft (especially the B-29) in tropical heat. On a normal aircraft, you got off the ground and clawed for height; on a B-29 you stayed low and clawed for speed, to get sufficient airflow through the engines to cool them. Climbing before then would be suicide, as you’d overheat the engines and crash in flames; indeed, several heavily-laden B-29’s taking off from Saipan / Tinian did just that, ditching in the bay and too often, taking their crews with them. R.I.P.

    And why was the Lanc earmarked for this from the beginning? – Thin Man. Four styles of “bomb” were under consideration; Little Boy, a U235-fuelled gun bomb, was the first to be dropped, on Hiroshima. An implosion-type U235 bomb was considered; ultimately, bomb cores for fission weapons (and igniters for thermonuclear weapons) would be made of an alloy of U235 and Pu239, but the main effort was in Fat Man, a Pu239-fuelled implosion weapon. There was a fourth design considered though; Thin Man, a Pu239 gun bomb. A plutonium gun bomb was just asking for trouble; it’s extremely hard to get pure Pu239, and what Oak Ridge and Hanford were producing was contaminated with other isotopes of plutonium, which were usually hellish neutron-emitters. So a plutonium gun bomb had to be assembled very quickly, which required a long gun barrel – and once the calculating was done, Thin Man would not fit in the B-29’s bomb bay. And not an easy task lengthening the bomb bay – the wing spar was in the way, and that’s not something you can just cut. The only allied bomber with an existing bomb bay that could fit a Thin Man was the Lanc; but Leslie Groves, the U.S. General in overall command of the Manhattan Project, said “No WAY our nuclear bomb is gonna’ be dropped by a BRITISH bomber!”

    Politics…

    1. Doubt it.

      By the time of Hiroshima, Curtis LeMay was running out of targets to bomb in Japan. When asked what he thought about Hiroshima he said something to the effect, ” We were killing more every day. No big deal”

      B-29’s were more than capable of carrying outsized payloads, as they did into the late 1950’s.

      2. I think you’re being a bit ungrateful for an erudite and interesting post from our friend Mr. Knott. But you’re apparently quite right that Hiroshima did not decide the war. A few years back, some historian was able to go painstakingly through the reconstructed records and track the deliberations of the Japanese Cabinet almost literally hour by hour, and concluded that they had decided within about 24 hours after the boom that: 1) this was an a-bomb, and b) so what? They can’t have that many of them. We’ve definitely got more towns than they got bombs. Bring it on. I paraphrase heavily, but that’s the drift. The historian tells us that as consequence they took Nagasaki in stride, and were getting on with the long war when Stalin invaded Manchuria and pulled the rug right out from under their strategy, at which point they gave up. Now a loyal Stalinist would say that in any event, but this guy seemed to have good grounds.

        But that wasn’t really relevant to Y. Knott’s point. And the fact that the B-29 later demonstrated unexpected capability doesn’t address the specific point, and isn’t relevant to what was understood of the plane’s capabilities in the middle of the war, before they’d been appreciated or perhaps even developed.

        So, a good point, but I think you’re a bit rude to Y. Knott. Consider yourself chided. Sorry to be so harsh, but I’m in a nasty mood this morning.

          2. Don’t forget that America was the arsenal of the Soviet Union during WW II. Many planes were built in the U. S. and flown to Siberia through Canada and Alaska.

          3. By the time of Hiroshima, LeMay was running out of incendiaries. I suspect he had more on order… And the Japanese army said “meh – no big deal” but the Japanese people hated and distrusted the army, as they always had – the army had spent decades since the 1920’s building-up martial spirit in the populace, but it was obvious by then that the war was progressing “not necessarily in a favourable direction” and the people were heartily sick of it. More to the point, so was the Emperor. It became known to the army that Hirohito had recorded a message to be played on Japanese radio, announcing to his subjects his intention to accept surrender, and young army hotbloods broke into the palace the night before it was to be played, trying to find the tape so they could swipe it and stop its being broadcast.

            LeMay’s role in the firebombing of cities makes interesting reading. LeMay was sent to replace a General who was “relieved at the helm” for poor achievement bombing Japan with an extremely expensive new weapon system, the B-29. There just wasn’t all that much war-ending industry to bomb in Japan, as much of Japanese industry was based-in “mom-and-pop shops” in the urbs, and explosive bombs only blew shrapnel holes in paper walls – easy to patch with a strip of paper and a pot of glue. LeMay knew he’d have to do better or the same fate would befall him; and at the same time, damaged B-29’s returning from bombing missions over Japan passed-on an interesting observation. If they couldn’t remain at high altitude anymore, they’d have to descend a ways; and while flying home at medium altitudes, the flak left them alone. It turned-out the Japanese had heavy flak to shoot at high altitude planes, and light machine-gun flak to shoot at low-altitude planes, but no medium flak – and the light flak couldn’t reach them, and the heavy flak couldn’t traverse fast enough to keep them in the sights. And from these two factoids, LeMay started the firebombing campaign – his first incendiary mission, flown at medium altitude on the warm, windy night of 9-10 March 1945, devastated Tokyo and was the single most destructive bombing raid in history.

            You can read about Thin Man and the problems fitting it into the B-29 in Richard Rhodes’s excellent book, “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” – a tour de force of “the bomb”, and where I got my Leslie Groves quote. I heartily recommend it (and sadly, no, I don’t get royalties for plugging it); in other words, look it up yourself – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverplate – . The Little Boy bomb itself caused a roomful of designers to cry themselves to sleep when it was handed them; it was to be based on a U.S. Army howitzer, but howitzers weighed many tons and it was almost certain that a B-29 couldn’t even get off the ground carrying so much weight, let alone with enough fuel for a round trip to Japan. But then they pored-over the plans for a howitzer, and started pointing-out all the parts of it that Little Boy would not need: wheels, a train, gun shield, recoil mechanism, gunsights, a heavily-reinforced barrel (Little Boy was only going to fire once), a breech to reload it (no point when it’s going to vaporize itself) – Little Boy only weighed ~10,000 lb, half the weight a Lanc could carry.

            Unique among U.S. bombs, Little Boy was never test-fired; only one was ever set-off, over Hiroshima. Nobody really liked it. You see, if you accidentally set-off an implosion device, its explosives will blow it up alright; but there’s not a critical mass of fissiles inside it, and without the explosive lensing going off just-right to crush the core into critical mass, you won’t get one – and hence, no nuclear detonation. But the gun bomb had well over a critical mass in its two parts, and even dropping it on its nose could theoretically set it off. Incidentally, the solid slug of U235 was welded centered-on the end of the gun barrel – an outer ring of U235 was what was fired down the barrel to go around it.

            And ultimately, the Wright R-3350 TC engines were removed from the B-29. Instead, the P&W R-4350 “corncob” engines were installed, which were more powerful and much more reliable; the B-29 with those engines was rechristened the B-50 and as mentioned, flew for many more years.

          4. And the Tu-4, the Bison? Funny story…

            Russian airfields were offered to the U.S. as diversion fields for weather or damaged aircraft. One badly shot-up B-29 diverted to one; even then the Cold War was evolving, and the Base asked what was to be done with the aircraft and crew. Stalin replied, “Return the crew, but keep the aircraft. And I want those aircraft flying in the Soviet air force in one year.”

            “Keep the aircraft? – the U.S. will declare war on us!” “Naw, they won’t even notice – now get on with it, comrade!” Even moreso than with Hitler, everybody knew what happened to people who disappointed Comrade Stalin; Mikoyan was put in charge of the project, and the Russians got on with it.

            The challenges were many – the Russians had to produce an engineering school to teach junior engineers to measure in feet-and-inches – but the solution to everything was simple; Stalin had said “that aircraft”, and that aircraft it was. As an example, there was a tiny drill-hole in one wing panel; it wasn’t in the matching panel on the other wing, nor was it there at all on another B-29 that subsequently diverted to a Russian airfield, but Stalin had said “that aircraft”, and that hole was in that wing panel on every Tu-4 made.

            And a year later, the Tu-4 was flying in the Soviet air force. There was only one question that Mikoyan could not answer, and dared not draw attention to himself by asking Stalin – did Comrade Stalin want red stars on the tails, or white stars? Logically, it should be red stars – but Stalin had said “that aircraft”, and that aircraft had a white star – he might have something sneaky in mind for them. Mikoyan dared not get it wrong, and he dared not ask Stalin – so he asked Beria instead.

            Beria dared not ask Stalin either, but he knew his man; he told Stalin about Mikoyan’s dilemma as a joke, and interpreted from the way Stalin laughed, what the correct answer was. The Tu-4’s subsequently all wore red stars, and Mikoyan was not shot in the basement of the Lyubyanka, so I guess Beria got it right.

    2. My way of understanding nuclear blast just from my own investigation.
      All gases are flammable and would ignite by a nuclear weapon, except Nitrogen gas.
      Nitrogen gas rest period and not vibrating is around minus 400 Celsius which most of our atmosphere is made of.
      This gas keeps trying to compress back down to its at rest temperature.
      So, this with centrifugal force exerting off our planet, allows water particles(evaporation) to occur.

      You will NOT find my studies in any research papers as it doesn’t follow our governments in the box narrative.
      Nuclear weapons are highly reactivate to Nitrogen gas expansion and contractions.
      And helped prevent the burn off of our atmosphere.

  8. Dear Leader Teddy Bear had a wonderful time yesterday throwing money around. Hopefully he and his staff are well rested at their taxpayer funded hotel. Today he continues his election tour at taxpayer expense. Mohammad Justin attends and speaks at a mosque in Hamilton. But don’t worry, he still will be throwing money around after his prayers. Still no word from him on the recent church burning.

  9. Somebody find Juthtin the Prime Moron and cram that teddy bear up his ass.

    “The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation recorded eight student deaths at Marieval from its opening in 1898 to its closing in 1997. The institution was taken over by the federal government in 1968 and then the First Nation in 1987.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/catholic-register-survivors-offer-clues-to-who-may-be-buried-in-cemetery-next-to-marieval-residential-school/ar-AAMlCYA?ocid=entnewsntp

    From the beginning, Delorme has maintained that the area surveyed also held remains of others from the community and surrounding region who did not attend the school.

    “This is a Roman Catholic grave site. It’s not a residential school grave site,” he told CBC News.
    “Other Roman Catholic faith-goers, Indigenous and not, adults as well, have been buried there…. There are one-metre-apart graves. We understand that those are not adult sizes.”

    1. Using the dead for nefarious purposes appears to be a common practice for the left. After all, if they can vote in elections, why not recruit them in a race war?

  10. Blacklock reports that the Mounties support Adolf’s new censorship bill. They state it will help them charge bloggers and Facebook users. And Blackie’s cabinet will be making a special effort to promote French on Turtle Island.

  11. Vaccinologist Dr. Geert Vanden Bosche,17 whose resume includes work with GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, published an open letter18 to the World Health Organization, March 6, 2021, in which he warned that implementing a global mass vaccination campaign during the height of the pandemic could create an “uncontrollable monster” where evolutionary pressure will force the emergence of new and potentially more dangerous mutations.

    “There can be no doubt that continued mass vaccination campaigns will enable new, more infectious viral variants to become increasingly dominant and ultimately result in a dramatic incline in new cases despite enhanced vaccine coverage rates. There can be no doubt either that this situation will soon lead to complete resistance of circulating variants to the current vaccines,” Bossche wrote.19

    Pfizer expects a minimum revenue of $15 billion to $30 billion in 2021 alone
    Moderna expects sales of $18.4 billion in 2021; Barclays analyst Gena Wang forecasts the company’s 2022 revenue to be somewhere around $12.2 billion and $11.4 billion in 2023
    Johnson & Johnson expects sales of $10 billion in 2021

    https://conservativeplaylist.com/2021/07/20/covid-shots-are-driving-mutated-variants/

    1. Well…that totally fits in with the Deposition Dr David Martin gave vis a vis the ~4000 Patents surrounding Corona Viruses since 2000.

      And as his testimony stated, the First Corona Virus vaccine utlilizing the S Spike protein, Ace Receptor and Ace2 Domain was patented in the same year.. NOT NOVEL eh.??

      SARS and COVSARS2 were manmade with the latter being used primarily to drive the Western hemisphere HERD to experimental – untested- non biological – non vaccines that are DESIGNED to mask infection………….. All for an initial Meal of massive $$$$$$$$ & with a growing side of “accidental deaths”

  12. Rex Murphy at the National Post, writes about Cuba. The Trudeau cult fights back in the comments section.

    1. The media reports that Canadians racist ways have killed more Muslims than any other G7 countries in the last 5 years…
      Hmmm, I must be senile. Don’t remember any of that.
      Another media opinionated hyped up story?
      Trudeau certainly believes it as he wants immigration at the highest levels to fight our racist ways.

      2. The Canadian media are dumber than a bag rocks and less useful. Stupid people both pandering and lying to equally stupid people.

  13. Did you know that First Nations are still running residential schools (now rebranded as “boarding” schools)? And there are serious problems; indigenous former students are suing indigenous authorities:

    ‘A First Nations-run education authority in Northern Ontario is facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for allegedly failing to protect students who lived at one of its boarding facilities from sexual abuse.

    Six men from northwestern Ontario are suing Northern Nishnawbe Education Council (NNEC) for $2-million each for aggravated and punitive damages, including past and future loss of income, as a result of alleged sexual crimes committed against them as young boys in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when they left their homes to attend high school in Sioux Lookout. The plaintiffs are also seeking the costs of culturally appropriate mental-health treatment.”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-first-nations-run-school-authority-faces-multimillion-dollar-lawsuit/

  14. The main story at the Breitbart website right now, is the Coptic Church burning in B.C. I hope this doesn’t put a damper on Mohammad Teddy Bear’s sermon at the Hamilton mosque today.

    1. Very good. Hope this influences other people in positions of authority to resist the government’s tyranny.

    1. Welcome to the wonderful world of government decisions at all levels.
      A REAL CRISIS will show how fucked we truly are!
      Without proper leadership, we’re just sitting ducks and really going to feel the pain.
      My mirror sees our fuel being shut off at the US border as our politicians waste time bullshitting how prepared we are for this.
      Not at all.

    2. Buddy, as one who has had a relatively, wink wink, passing experience with the military procurement and supply system, it has been fucked for years.

  18. We built the US Airforce into a key weapon in winning a war. That was when we weren’t afraid to win wars. Fast forward 75 years or so and we’re leaving Afghanistan in the middle of the night with our collective tails between our legs.

    1. That shit started in Korea.
      Until they decide to amend their ROE for TOTAL winnable WAR…don’t bother going otherwise..But that isn’t the purpose now is it.??

      Military Industrial Complex wanting nothing more than War NEVER ENDING so as to suck the lives and money out of the populace.

      So either make a Decision to go ALL in or STFU..right..??

      1. Don’t forget that during the Korean War, there was the fear that the conflict would spread.

        The Americans knew that many of the enemy’s fighters were based in China, but they wanted to avoid an international incident by prohibiting USAF and USN planes from going north of the Yalu River. Of course, that didn’t prevent the Chinese and Soviets from sending men to fight.

  20. My wife and I recently received letters from Interior Health in B.C.
    Printed boldly on the outside of the envelope: A Covid 19 vaccine has been reserved for you.
    Learn more inside.
    Inside was a form letter from Bonnie Henry.
    As another person complained, putting that message on the envelope is a breach of privacy.
    What next? A knock on the door?

    1. Yea…we’ve been getting fancy govt of Canada notices dropped in our mailbox…goes straight into the recycling box.

      When the GOVT – MEDIA – HEALTH Assholes are trying everything in their playbook to outright COERCE you to put this shit in your system….?? one would think any Critical Thinking person would say GFY.

      Apparently not….

  21. Mohammad Justin spent a lot of time at his press conference today, blaming Harper and the Conservatives for Islamophobia. His loyal media asked him questions on when he is going to ban hurtful messages against muslims on the internet.

    1. steer science in the direction of Social Justice

      That’s why I’m letting my membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which I’ve had since 1977, finally lapse. It’s no longer about research and the pursuit of knowledge. It’s about inflicting a socio-political ideology on an unknowing and unwilling population.

      It’s, frankly, become a joke and a far cry from the AAAS that Thomas Edison knew.

  23. The destruction of the USA started with the election of Barrack Obama, and Americans compounded the error by giving him a second term. The demise continues with Obama’s third term vicariously through Biden. Unfortunately Canada is going through the same destruction with it’s love affair with the liberals. Rest In Peace

    1. Unfortunately, that destruction would have started had McCain won and would have continued under Romney.

  24. The big topic on Blackie’s CBC political show this evening was the new GG not being able to speak French. What the talking heads fail to mention is the Governor General is never welcome in Quebec, because she represents the Queen.

  25. I think this may be very, very, very important!

    https://britbonglogpost.com/

    He stated if reports of him committing suicide, don’t believe it.
    A Deadmans Switch.

    This could be huge or even shut down the whole internet.
    And anything on the internet could be affected including banking.
    Being an Anti-virus company…
    It could be ANYTHING, or EVERYTHING…

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