Word: raiding
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Correspondent Teddy White won for "the courage and bravery he demonstrated when he flew important and dangerous missions" with the men of China-Burma- India. Command and the felt patch Bernard Hoffman wore sewed to the back of his shirt when he went along on the first B-29 raid on Japan, to identify himself to Chinese guerrillas in case his plane was forced down...
Flak was spotty. Fighter opposition-on some raids at least-was weak. But weather was playing the enemy's game. On one raid the cloud cover was so thick that B-29 men could hardly see beyond their wingtips as they nervously watched ice thickening on the leading edges. Soupy fog kept navigators and bombardiers on instruments. After one raid more than 70 Superforts had to make emergency landings on Iwo.*But the planes drilled through, and reported the clouds over one city glowing "like a hot plate" from the flames below...
Within a week, other secondary cities got the same treatment-Shizuoka, Toyohashi, Fukuoka, Kagamigahara. Small as they were (under 325,000 population), they contained valuable war plants, arsenals, little "shadow factories" dispersed in flimsy dwellings. In some cases one raid was considered enough to write off the productive capacity of a city. One such case was the great naval arsenal at Kure, last big plant of its type...
...longer a worthwhile target. Kobe is gone. Soon we'll be striking smaller cities in the 100,000-population class." Osaka had had it, and only ten square miles of Tokyo's 60-sq. mi. industrial area was left intact-one year after the first B-29 raid on Japan. Unlike Germany, Japan lacks the time, technicians and industrial savvy to rebuild ruined factories quickly. Said General LeMay: "It is just a matter of time before we get everything of value in Japan...
...bolt down meager lunches in the partly ruined Chicago of Japan. High in the heavy overcast the U.S. planes rode in-more than 400 B-29s and 150 escorting P-51 Mustang fighters. For three hours the planes were overhead. High-explosive bombs fell first, driving Japanese air-raid workers to the shelters. Then the fire bombs fell, destroying without interruption...