1944 Battle of Kansas 

Well, Operation Bagration in 1944 was arguably even more devastating for the German Army than Stalingrad.

EXCELLENT VIDEO and my thanks to THG🎀 ❣👀👍

With an incredible amount of respect, I believe you were mistaken when you said that LeMay changed the strategy to firebombing. He was ordered to firebomb...he was sent to the Marianas by Hap Arnold specifically because Arnold believed that he would follow orders and make firebombing work. Heywood Hansell was replaced because he was resistant to firebombing. Firebombing Japan was national policy, and was announced to the press by George Marshall himself in November of 1941...he specifically threatened that the USA would burn down Japan's wood and paper cities if they dared attack the US. Doolittle's Raiders each carried an incendiary cluster bomb as part of their payload, and when you look at the priorities of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the National Defense Research Committee that came after it, incendiary weapons were considered to be of very high importance. Yes, LeMay was cold enough to push his planes and his men to maximum effort to make firebombing work, but his contribution was only tactical/operational...the strategy of firebombing goes back to well before the US and Japan were at war.

@@iKvetch558 in his book LeMay says it was his decision, necessitated by weather that made precision bombing ineffective.

@@TheHistoryGuyChannel That is true, but that was a tactical/operational level decision. The choice to firebomb was made long before LeMay went to the Marianas, and at a level way above his head. LeMay's bomb dumps in the Marianas were already filled with incendiaries when he arrived, he did not have to order them and wait for their arrival. As I noted, Marshall was committed to the use of firebombing at least as early as November 1941. The details of Marshall's announcement to the press are on page 109 of Michael Sherry's The Rise of American Airpower...at least it is page 109 of my paperback edition.✌ I realize it is not a distinction of monumental proportions, but it seems a somewhat important difference...that LeMay was ordered to make firebombing work, rather than making the choice to use that ordinance himself.

From what I hear here, Arnold barked orders, put Bailey in charge of sorting out the mess and got out of his way. So it seems to me that Bailey should get most of the credit.

American ingenuity...

It's likely that your grandfather and my father worked together. My father was commissioned a 2nd Lt. in June of 1942, and spent the next year and a half working on aircraft maintenance and logistics at training bases from Atlanta to the Mississippi River. In the summer of 1944, we went to Kansas to work in the development of parts supply, maintenance facilities construction and operation, and overall logistics to support the B-29s in Kansas and then transfer those programs and knowledge for B-29 operations in combat in Asia. By the autumn, he was in Kharagpur, India, with two sets of orders, first to assure the best possible aircraft maintenance support for the B-29s in India, the operations across the "Hump", and missions from Chengdu in China; secondly, his job was to arrange the transfer of parts, tools, supplies, and maintenance personnel from mainland Asia to the Marianas as soon as bases could be developed. He was told to be ready to move to Guam (where the 20th Air Force from India and the 21st Air Force being assembled and trained in the US would be combined for the bombing campaign against Japan) with 20th Air Force command personnel as most of the B-29s were moved to Saipan and Tinian but as the last B-29s were leaving for Clark Field, Philippines, he was told to stay where he was in India. After a few days, on April 2, 1945, he received orders to be on a C-54 leaving Kharagpur for Yontan airfield (called "Kita" by the Japanese) on Okinawa, he arrived on Yontan about 36 hours after the invasion of Okinawa bagan. Yontan was a Japanese airfield that was fully operational but the surrounding terrain made it unsuitable for much expansion. The plan was to make Yontan as useful as possible for interim use and continue the Japanese construction of a field about 5 miles away at Kadena for use as a B-29 "super-hub" field. (Kadena's use through today is another important story!) His maintenance team on Yontan performed emergency repairs (exhaust stacks and propeller controllers) on Bock's Car as part of the diversion of the return flight of the second Atomic bomb raid on Nagasaki. He was transferred to the 8th Air Force as part of the never-finalized move of the 8th Air Force from Britain and Europe to Okinawa, then sent home in 1946 and released from service.

My dad was a Mechanic Instructor in 44 in Salinas KS. 20th AF

@Charles where did your grandfather live in Kansas. There were plants scattered all over Kansas and one was about 25 miles from where I grew up.

David, I'm not sure where grandpa lived during the war, possibly Newton or Whicita. All of my life, he lived in Wellington in the big house right across (northside) from the county courthouse and worked at the Whicita plant

Hi Rick, I work for a company that supplies Spirit Aviation. We're in the East Midlands of England, bordering on both "Robin Hood country" and Pilgrim Fathers country. We're "a long way from Kansas", but our airframe seals are sent all the way to Wichita.

Oh yeah. There's no mistaking "Doc" for anything else. You don't have to see it to know it.

hello neighbor!

I live 2 miles from Doc's hangar. It's a joy to see him pass over head.

​@Simon Gleaden That's very cool Simon, I work just northeast of Spirit with the T-6 trainers.

No wonder they wanted to kill him, the B-29s bombed civilian targets and murdered innocents by burning them alive. And somehow only the Japanese were tried for war crimes.

who cares.

When I was in high school, I had a geometry teacher who seemed older than Methuselah and just as deaf. It wasn't until midway through the year that we found out that he was a B17 pilot and did several missions over Germany. He lost some of his hearing when an anti-aircraft shell hit his plane. Some of his crew didn't make it but he still managed to land his plane. Props to him and his service in the military.

@@notlisted-cl5ls I care, I thought it was an interesting story.

I’m amazed he wasn’t shot by the soldiers

Strategic bombers were something like 40% of the entire Allied war effort. Someone really convinced the top leaders that they could win the war by themselves. After the war ended, they found out that most of the bombs missed. Because dropping a bomb from 5 miles away is really unlikely to hit what it's aimed at.

​@@Heike-- Nope, more WW2 myths from revisionists who just want to act like authorities on subjects. The Germans and Japanese both admitted after the war that USAAF strategic bombing severely hampered their war effort and dramatically shortened the war, every single time I come across someone who makes the claim that USAAF post war studies determined that the strategic bombing campaign was a failure or didn't make any difference I challenge them to name the report along with chapter and page where that claim is made and of course no one ever can because it simply isn't true. As far as the claims that the bombers weren't accurate that's another myth where people make wild exaggerations and used highly biased math when making those claims, people who say things like "only 5% of bombs only hit within 5 miles of the target" are people who are doing nothing but passing around misinformation or just plain lies they make up, the fact is the Norden bombsight could consistently place a single bomb within 400 feet of it's aiming point from a B17 traveling 225 MPH at 25,000 ft, but the issue is that in Europe the majority of bombs dropped weren't aimed using the Norden bombsight instead they were aimed using the H2X ground scanning radar system, especially during the winter months when overcast skies prevented optical sighting, something like 65% of all the bombs dropped by the 8th Air Force in Europe were aimed using the H2X system in a "Pathfinder" lead plane that all the others in the formation toggled off their bombs on it's lead, also people like to include in the math bombs dropped on the wrong target due to the lead navigator of a mission flying an entire formation of bombers to the wrong target resulting in it getting bombed and recording it as a "zero bombs on target" result, even though the bombardiers plastered what they were actually aiming at. Other things that skew the math is things like the Germans lighting off smoke pots to obscure visibility, them camouflaging targets and setting up decoys nearby along with a variety of other factors. Even with those factors the results of the bombers accuracy were far greater than the wild claims like "only 5% of bombs landed within 5 miles of the target" that people like to throw around just for the sake of acting like experts on the subject, if that was all the more bombs that could hit their targets then people like FDR, Gen George Marshall and others would certainly have pulled the plug on strategic bombing and used the resources elsewhere.

@@dukecraig2402 Another worthy point is that even if bombs didn't hit their intended targets, they sure had a huge impact on morale, as psychological weapons. The V-1 Buzz Bomb, and V-2 ballistic missile which literally came down faster than you could hear it, were horribly inaccurate, but a few came down in populated areas and caused mass panic and fear. Likewise the cost to the enemy isn't just the damage the bombs themselves do, but the costs of trying to prevent such damage, such as the decoys, camouflage, smoke pots, and so on that you mention, plus the Luftwaffe and Flak air defenses, putting factories in caves or underground, and so on. All the disruptions to logistics caused by both the bombs themselves and efforts to be less vulnerable to them. The threat of a weapon can often be as damaging as the weapon itself.

@@dukecraig2402 You are Really informative. I wonder where you get your information. You seem credible, even Truthful, and your perspective really makes me wonder about all of the other prognosticators.

@@Heike-- My step-father-in-law flew the Eagle during the Gulf War (in fact, the footage of an airfield getting bombed from early on was taken by his co-pilot), and pretty much confirmed that guided ordnance is what made the air force relevant - so much so, in fact, that land forces became mostly obsolete from that point forward. von Rosen tells of his Tiger group getting bombed for 2 hours at Normandy. It is a harrowing experience to read, but while the bombs knocked all of their sights off target, only one Tiger was lost and that was because the bombs flipped it upside down! The rest were actively fighting within hours, successfully knocking out a number of Shermans and Fireflies. Allied air power was constantly a nuisance to the tank crews directly, but not much more than that. What it did really impact was their logistics and supply lines, which did end up substantially hindering the tankers. But the whole concept of precision strikes by air power to take out targets proved mostly ineffective.

What was your grandfather's b29 named? my grandfather's was Gone with the wind

There were no tail gunners in B29. It was controlled by computer. B29 also did not fly the hump

@@tinindian7816 It was Snuffy Smith.

@@josephjackson7269 Bull Shit. .

@@josephjackson7269 B-29s DID have tail gunners, just look at a picture of one. B-29s DID fly the hump from India into China from where they could reach Jap targets.

Which one? Norton? Cincinnati?

Salina has a long aviation history that few people know. The airport has one of the longest runways in the country. In fact its so long that it was on the list for the space shuttle to land on.

I too am from Salina and thought I knew a lot about Shilling AFB (previously Smokey Hill), but I was not aware of most of this. Thanks for the history lesson.

I think the Smokey Hill Museum downtown has a section on the base's history.

more research indicates most of this "war" happened in Wichita not Salina??

​@Rick Florke Is also used for Air Force One pilot training

My mom and I fly out of Rocky Mountain Metro airport (KBJC) in Broomfield, Colorado. It always seems like that airport has the craziest weather in the whole area, winds can be light everywhere else and howling there. I think it's because of where it was built, on top of a mesa, right where wind comes howling out of a canyon. I ponder the story of the airport's origins, if designers knew that when putting it there. The location seems pretty ideal, one of the few flat spots around, so until hanging out there for a little while you wouldn't realize the crazy winds. Perhaps this wasn't realized until construction began, by which time contracts were already signed. Or it was known before that, but the site seemed so ideal in other regards they decided to accept that compromise. Or maybe it wasn't as bad 60 years ago, I certainly think Colorado's weather has gotten even weirder over the past decade or two.

That's because they are such large open areas.

Is that where they make the C-130?

Yes. I believe every C-130 has been made there. They also assembled the C-5A Galaxy in Marietta. They used to fly over my house in Atlanta on landing approach.

Martin also had a B-29 plant at Offutt Field in Omaha. The Enola Gay and Bockscar were built there. The “Building D” old giant hanger is still part of Offutt AFB today.

A friend of mine has a farm on the north side of Atlanta. His dad is the consummate old rancher. Blue jeans Dodge dually the works. I never really understood why there were all kinds of aerial photos of the farm hanging up. Then one day hand I got to talking and I learned that before he retired he was a test pilot at Lockheed in Marietta. So he was flying regularly and every once in a while he would come across over the farm and grab a quick picture. Apparently he also buzzed the playground where my friend was in school a time or two😊

The plant in Ft. Worth has a similar pedigree. During WWII Consolidated built B-24s there. This was followed by the B-36, the B-58, F-111, F-16 and F-35. Of course the plant has gone from Consolidated to Convair to General Dynamics to now Lockheed-Martin. I worked there in 1975-77 on the F-16. The main factory building is one mile long. Raw materials enter the south end and completed airplanes rolled out the north end.

That I saw a video of. General Paul Tibbets son, was in the left seat and experienced B'29 FIFI pilot Charlie Tilghman in the right seat for assurance. Charlie, when I knew and flew with him, was the Check Ride pilot for Southwest Airlines. I've flown several times in FIFI with him. Robert M. Bob Robbins, Boeing B-29 Test Pilot, was a.personal friend of mine. I am a historian, and have been honored to meet and be among many great men who contributed so much to our nation's war and peace time efforts.

Finicky is a bit of an understatement. They had a bad habit of bursting into flames due to overheating and the flammability of their magnesium engine components.

@@jamesrogers47 "Overheating" was not helped because the engine nacelles had to be "streamlined" for reduced drag to meet the "impossible" promised range spec. The "atomic bomb" squadron received the best engines, planes, and other care possible to enable them to claw into the air (with all fingers crossed).

TurboCompound Engines. A plumbers and a mechanics nightmare.

Yep, the overheating issues were from poor cowling design on the B-29 to increase range. The Turbo Compound feature came out after WW2. The problems were worked out later, and they have a good track record for airliner use.

​@@jamesrogers47 That's a myth, only some pre production B29's had alloy engine cases, all production B29's had forged steel cases despite all the incorrect online articles citing them having magnesium alloy one's. The US entered the war while the Wright R3350 engine was still being developed, almost immediately magnesium was placed on a list of materials that were considered in short supply and war essential, since the tooling and production lines hadn't been set up yet for the R3350 engine it was decided to switch them to forged steel cases for all production engines. The narrative that magnesium engine cases were a problem in aircraft engine's due to them burning through wings is just silly, it doesn't matter what an aircraft engine is made of once on fire and spewing out oil and fuel and being fanned by 200 MPH+ head winds it's going to burn through the aluminum wing of an aircraft no matter what. And the association of B29 engine fires had nothing to do with the materials they were made from nor did they just "burst into flames from being hot", the problem with the B29 engines stemmed from a poorly designed supercharger inlet that caused induction (intake manifold) fires once an engine that'd been sitting in the heat of the Pacific on a plane waiting it's turn to take off would experience a backfire into the supercharged intake system from a cylinder running too lean, unlike the centrifugal superchargers of other aircraft engine's that were designed by General Electric the Wright company insisted on designing their own mechanical supercharger for the R3350 engine which had a tendency to pool fuel in it's poorly designed elbow, induction fires weren't unique or exclusive to Wright R3350 engine's just far more common with them due to their supercharger design. It's because of their supercharger design that led to induction fires during take off is why the Wright R3350 engine was switched from having the single point fuel injection Bendix carburetor to direct injection to solve the problem. And while the B29's supercharger system used a turbo for it's second stage for high altitude performance the turbo compounded engine's that 3 turbos were hydro coupled back to the engine's crank weren't developed until after the war and were never on B29's.

And "production", itself, is another, entirely separate, story of logistics. In order to produce, you need the steady stream of raw materials.

It's not just lack of leadership. Our young are too busy on their cell phones, complaining about our government not giving out more in handouts. Patriotism is dead. Without that, there is no way to amass enough workers in such a short time to endure that kind of work ethic. Which is why we must maintain our military strength at the highest level, without the need to play catch up, as we did back then.

@@jimdavis6833 We don't need a huge military. They only get used to launch wars of aggression. Did you know we're occupying Syria right now, and stealing their oil? Yes, that's right, we're pumping it out of the ground and selling it and pocketing the money. Say, can anyone tell me why we're at war with Syria? I don't know and neither does anyone else.

The “leadership” gets the credit but is overrated for barking orders that would amount to nothing without the hard-working individuals that complete the necessary tasks.

Box Car*

@@bbeen40 it was called Bocks car

@@scottdunkirk8198 I just googled it and damn, I'm wrong. Thank you!

Consider feeding/replenishing a 2 front moving military during the war. The logistics behind that amazes me

NASA flies U2 flights out of there now. I can track them on flight aware climbing in 50 mile circles up to 60,000 feet then they're off radar.

Good stuff!! Thanks for that info, guys!

Runway 17-35 at the Salina Regional Airport (formerly Schilling AFB) is 12,300' long.

Awesome museum.

Common sense has become highly uncommon.

In kansas, we still are a very tight-knit community. If you're in the aviation industry, you have friends in kansas

We can come together. The next time you hear someone spouting propaganda designed to divide us, call them on it. Don't just accept hating your fellow American as "patriotism."

you should look the up how they made the F17 Nighthawk then. They had to get one of the worlds first super computers JUST to calculate the placement and angles correctly of the stealth system. Some of it was even done by hand with Math.

No computers by your modern definition. There were several computers available at the time, massive things like the computers on warships that wanted firing Solutions, and the computers on the B-29 that computed lead four sights for defensive guns. Computers are just tools that do some of the hard work so human Minds don't have to, and considerably more quickly! But the human minds of the engineers were and still are the greatest computers of all. The greatest advantage of modern computers is that they can show an engineer the result of their work much more quickly and cheaply then the old days with modeling and wind tunnels

There were actually computers...but just not in the sense of the computers we have been using the past 40 plus years.

Gobel was an instructor for the B-26 Marauder airplane.

George talks about WWII in OK at 18:30 mark. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K9lis3lCo9s.html

Gobel was stationed in Altus, OK

@@frankdodgee Well, no Japanese planes attacked Altus, OK either.

April 26, 1991 The "Andover Tornado". Crossed the McConnell AFB flight line a quarter mile or so south of a flightline packed with a Bomb wings worth of B-1 bombers

You are forgetting about Walker AAF, about 10 miles east of Hays, near Victoria. Lots of mod work done there as well. IIRC, Dodge City was an advanced air crew training base for the B-26 in 1944, wasn't involved in the Battle of Kansas

@@bizjetfixr8352 Thank you for the information.

Respect and gratitude to your grandpa.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bVSvGW_S948.html

The type 14 torpedo debacle is one of the worst examples of an extended systematic failure of administration ever.

@@johnassal5838 That's what I was thinking of but couldn't remember the name!

Smoky Hill was renamed Shilling. Forbes is at Topeka

​@@moose2577 That's right! I was young then, I think I got them.mixed up alot as a kid to I! Thanks! Edited to correct name...

And for a feminist, who just wants equality, being treated the same as everyone else is a painful slap in the face. Because men don't treat women poorly. We treat each other poorly, and we try to be nice to women. Acting like "one of the boys" is going to get you treated like "one of the boys". And we play rough.

@@Heike-- well said. "True equality is indifference"👍🏻

It is not so much that they cannot do the work, but rather wont do the work for which they demand equal pay. Construction, electrician, mechanical engineering, …………..must I go on?

An interesting and little remembered aircraft.