A small nugget of aviation history

Saw this and had no previous knowledge of the operational use of the B-32.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/b-32-waged-america-last-010900533.html

I knew of the B-32, but not of this incident. Tragic.

News to me. Very interesting how the Japanese pulled the props off a/c to keep the pilots from flying.

Knew of this some years back.

German a/c had props removed and gashes in the rear fuselage. Not sure who did the gashing tho.

This is, actually, not a new story. I'm surprised that it's not more widely known. Saburo Sakai told about it in his autobiography, "Zero" written with Martin Caiden back in the sixties.
The B-32 was built just in case the B-29 didn't work out. They were having a lot of problems with the airplanes. So many were lost right here in the states that the B-29 training program got the name, "The Battle of Kansas."

I remember this from 'Zero', but read the article anyway. It was a tragic incident.

I love how the author had to get a dig in at the USAAF. Alcohol would indeed be a strategic material because it is used in the production of numerous other items. Sugar would be used to produce alcohol. I certainly wouldn't consider that an 'indiscriminate' raid.

I also read Sakai's book but I don't recall this incident being related in it, but it's probably been 30 years since I read the book.

Side note: there are some who say the Sakai / Martin Caiden book contains a lot of fiction that doesn't appear in Sakai's Japanese language autobio.

Yeah, I'm highly suspect of some of Caiden's books. His stuff reminds me of the old pulp fiction type of writing. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually did do some stories for those old magazines. There's a lot of "The bullets slashed through metal as I dived with wind screaming past my cockpit..." type of prose. Fine with the pulp stuff, but not so much when writing "non-fiction." He did the same with Robert Johnson's "Thunderbolt." Both books were obviously not the words of either pilot.

Thanks for the information.
Had never known this bit of history, Thanks.