A remarkable tale

Sent message to small group of family and extended family about a doctor's visit. I still remember a story he told me for first time, although I have run across it a couple of times since.

As I recall, and don't hold me to details, our Army Air Force was told that we had broken the Japanese code in late WWII. They intercepted a message (or were given one by another branch), that famous Admiral Yamamoto was going to inspect troops on Wake Island, I believe it was. It was said that this highest-ranking officer who was in charge of the attack on Pearl Harbor, was obssessed with punctuality.

The decoded message was addressed to troops and informed them the admiral's plane would land at 1300 (1:00 P.M.) let's say. Our men met to see if the plane could be intercepted as it would be a mammoth P.R. coup to shoot him down. The nearest place for us to take off, I believe, was in the Mariana Islands, probably Guam or Saipan. The best plane we had for the job was the P-51 (Mustang) but it could not make the round trip, fuel-wise. They struggled and struggled with ways to remove any weight that wasn't essential, stripping down to the barest possible aircraft.

The diagnosis was that our pilot would have about one minute over the island and practically no room for error. Cutting to the chase, our plane shot down the target while it was at its most vulnerable, mid-way into its landing, and in front of thousands of troops all lined up to be inspected by their hero.

Is that a great war story, or not? Maybe some of you know more facts and could correct me? (For instance, I say Army Air Force only because I feel fairly sure that Navy did not use P-51s. Were they "too hot" for carriers, I wonder? Or not enough of them to go around?) I remember when they first came out. I was in high school, saw them in magazines, and drew them from memory in study halls and, ahem, maybe an occasional class??? (There are those who would say that that might explain my grades?) Beautifully designed. Matter of fact, my interest in latest planes helped me come in second on the Naval Officer's qualifying exam when I was 16. But that's another war story. (I was still getting USN recruiting stuff while a seaman in the South Pacific a year later.)

Whoops. If there's enough interest, I can tell about the time that Jean and I were up on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Saratoga, (aircraft carrier) in about 1995 +/-. There were 5,000 of us civilians up there, watching as planes did "touch-and-go's." THAT was a thrill.