Major General H.W. Blakeley, USA, Ret., 32d Infantry Division World War II
Jeez, I read that one headline as...
Army releases Eleanor Roosevelt.
I didn’t know they had her but they should have never let her go.
Iwo P51s are in the news a lot. Captured airmen were allowed to give any info to ease their situation. Good info here:
http://506thfightergroup.org/mustangsofiwo.asp
In July, the last full month before the Japanese agreed to unconditional surrender, the Iwo Jima fighter groups received some P-51D-25s as replacement aircraft. Many of these had the lead-computing K-14 gyro gunsight in place of the old N-9 which required a good deal of skill and “Kentucky Windage” in making deflection shots. The K-14 required a smooth touch on the controls to be truly effective, but was deadly accurate in nearly any tactical situation. It could only be defeated if the target aircraft rapidly reversed its turn in a curving combat, momentarily tumbling the gyros when the P-51 attempted to follow.
One 21st group pilot familiar with the K-14 was shot down and captured by the Japanese. Under standing authority from intelligence officers, captured airmen were allowed to divulge almost any information which would ease their situation, and the 21st pilot explained about the K-14.
The Japanese took this information as a lesson learned, but the tale has an ironic and—to the Mustang pilots—a humorous end. In one of the last large dogfights the Mustangs fought over Japan, at least eight Franks were shot down because their pilots assumed all P-51s now had the K-14 when actually only a relatively few replacement aircraft had the lead-computing sight. When the Franks reversed their turns to topple the K-14 gyros they presented their pursuers with a brief no-deflection shot for which the N-9 was ideally suited! Had the Franks kept turning in their original direction they would have stood a good chance of outmaneuvering the 51s.