Posted on 02/20/2021 9:50:50 AM PST by fugazi
On the front page we see rows of Lockheed Hudson twin-engine bombers awaiting installation of their wing tips at Lockheed’s Burbank, Calif. plant (which is now the site of a water treatment facility). You may not have heard much about this plane, but it recorded several “firsts” of World War II: on Oct. 8, 1939 over Denmark, a Royal Air Force Hudson accounted for the first kill of an Axis warplane from a plane based in the United Kingdom. An hour before Pearl Harbor is attacked, a Royal Australian Air Force Hudson sinks a Japanese transport off Malaya for the first Allied victory in the Pacific. Near Newfoundland on March 1, 1942, a U.S. Navy PBO-1 Hudson crew scores the first American victory over a German submarine of the war.
And on Aug. 27, 1941, another RAF Hudson receives the unique distinction of being the first airplane to “capture” a submarine. U-570, operating to the south of Iceland, attempts a crash dive once they spot a Hudson lining up for the kill, and the depth charge attack nearly overturns the submarine. Heavily damaged and with what the crew believes to be deadly chlorine gas filling the sub, they surface and surrender. The captured U-570 becomes the only U-boat to serve in both the German and British navies, renamed HMS Graph and conducting three combat patrols for the Royal Navy.
[...]
But before they can hunt enemy subs, these planes have to depart the “neutral” United States. This process involves flying from Burbank to a new airport constructed by Lockheed for these transfers at Pembina, North Dakota where the plane is taxied to the U.S.-Canadian border. The planes are then towed into Canada either by vehicle or horse so the Hudsons are legally transferred to the Canadians and the pilots take...
(Excerpt) Read more at victoryinstitute.net ...
Pres. Roosevelt signed the Public Debt Act, raising the national debt ceiling to $49 billion. Adjusting for inflation it would take our 117th Congress about 56 days to spend that money, which is roughly $1 trillion in 2021 dollars.** And we aren’t mobilizing for a global war.
Not to drill too deeply into economics, but it is worth mentioning that 80 years ago our national debt was just 40% of our gross domestic product. Today’s official debt, not accounting for unfunded liabilities, is 140% of our GDP.
the official debt is greater than annual GDP. The unofficial debt is tens of trillions higher, I’m sure. Where is the money to pay the debt going to come from? Does the government have a secret stash of Bitcoin, to be sold as needed to cover it?
A scene in the movie “Darkest Hour” has Churchill speaking on his direct line to FDR during Lend-Lease. In the conversation, Churchill says he needs planes- FDR says he can’t fly them to a brit aircraft carrier00 these were Brit purchased bombers (Hudsons?) because of the Neutrality Act and other laws recently passed. He then offers to fly them to Canadian border. Here’s a clip from the movie.
“Look we could possibly..we could take your planes to about a mile from the Canadian border, and you send in a horse team over from Canada, nothing motorized.... we could do that, Winston...” Apocryphal not an actual quote, though the calls had to have been recorded.
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo4U1SqnRpA
You are quite right; our unfunded liabilities goes well above $100 trillion and barring some huge leap forward in our economy, such as quantum computing for example, there is probably no escaping the debt crisis we are in. I would say it presents a greater danger to us than the Axis did. But like I said, I didn’t want to drill too deeply.
LET’S BRING BACK THE 5 CENT CANDY BAR
When politicians particularly members of today’s in name only democrat party started pushing for a higher minimum wage. The focus should have been on purchasing power of the lowest coin of the realm. Each time it was passed the price of an item like an individual candy bar and everything else increased. What began at 5 cents in the 1940’s was when the minnimum wage was 50 cents an hour . As the rate steadily increased so did candy bar prices to what it is today. The result has always been since it began devaluing the purchasing power of the dollar.
I just read a series of histories of the war in the Pacific by Ian Toll in which he mentioned that the Japanese never really understood how to do efficient mass production. He mentioned that one of the factories that manufactured the Zero didn’t have an airstrip or a rail line, so they had to tow the Zeros by horse to an airstrip something like 25 miles away. Near the end of the war their horses were starving, so they lost a lot of them from overwork towing what had been a state of the art war plane at the beginning of the war.
Storyline is based upon a German BB (think Bismark) in the Iceland Gap circa 1940-1. The Costal Command is the coordinating group to bring air&sea attacks against it.
Hmmm. Can’t find it on a quick search, but weren’t planes transferred from the factory to Atsugi by rail tunnel?
mark
I’ll have to check out the COASTAL COMMAND and DARKEST HOUR movies. They look interesting!
“Adjusting for inflation”
Just a question. Are you comfortable using the government statistics on inflation? They always seem low to me. I know that may be all one has but I wonder how good they are. Not enough people note accuracy issues regarding the government’s published inflation numbers.
“...so they had to tow the Zeros by horse to an airstrip something...”
I’ve seen but cannot find the image, of one of the WWII German jet/rocket aircraft being towed around its airfield by a team of oxen due to the fuel shortages.
“Does the government have a secret stash of Bitcoin, to be sold as needed to cover it?”
Wouldn’t it be funny (but brilliant) if one of those mysterious government “data centers” was actually using supercomputers to mine bitcoin?
Just saw a Mark Felton 10 minute docu on the escapes from Berlin prior to the hitler’s joint suicides. All the different aircraft and the assignments given to individuals on them.
The particular aircraft which contained zinc lined fire protected boxes of hitler’s transcribed “memoirs” (these boxes put in the charge of his personal secretary, Schaub who, along with other duties on other locations of hitler’s “papers went to the Berghof to burn papers as well as to hitler’s munich apartment for the same). Had engine trouble, having left Berlin and landed somewhere for repair, and then was towed by oxen to the runway for takeoff (there being no fuel for aircraft tow tractors remaining). The petrol destruction by allies had a lot to do with all of their escapes. The plane with the 3 zinc boxes crashed, burned killing all aboard— and the papers-— “disappeared”.
Mark Felton— hitler’s lost secret papers-— 23 minutes fairly interesting, the segment on the oxen towing begins at 6:55 timehack— about the JU-352 leaving Berlin at 2 AM on April 21 continues on the operation until the crash with the boxes (tediously info laden, but well done. Crash site was raided by locals for souvenirs. The SS came for the boxes or so it is said). Anyway— oxen towed planes in Berlin....
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