Japanese US2 Flying Boat

【4K】US 2 父島での訓練 Part5
([4K] US 2 Training in Chichijima Part5)
The video is a little slow moving, but it is a big, expensive aircraft, so you want to be careful. Engine startup begins before the one minute mark. after that:
2:10 aircraft starts moving, but the motion is barely perceptible for about 15 seconds
2:50 nose wheel touches the water, using reverse thrust to slow their descent into the water.
3:25 aircraft is afloat
3:45 landing gear retracts
5:45 the aircraft has turned sideways and one of crew is waving, or maybe he's just wiping the window
7:05 break in recording, airplane has completed its turn into open water
7:35 break, aircraft continues taxiing across the harbor
8:24 break, spectators standing on the breakwater
8:32 break, wide shot of breakwater with aircraft in the distance
8:42 break, aircraft maneuvering, rock in foreground
9:42 break, aircraft begins takeoff run

Flying boats are the epitome of cool. They were the first aircraft to cross the oceans, reducing days of travel time to hours. Plus all the people who flew on them were cool. Of course they were cool, they were rich and could afford to buy fancy clothes that made them look cool. Plus Jimmy Buffett had one, and what could be more cool that island hopping in the Caribbean in your own private flying boat? I mean this is the stuff of a million fantasies.

Recorded on October 23 at Ogasawara Village, Chichijima Futami Port

The ramp is clearly visible on a satellite image:

Chichijima Aircraft Ramp

Okinawa (center left), Chichijima (center), Iwo Jima (just below Chichijima)

Chichijima is really out in the middle of nowhere. It is about 600 miles from Tokyo, 900 miles from Okinawa and just over 100 miles from Iwo Jima.

I think the US-2 was the largest operational flying boat for a while. It has recently been eclipsed by one from China, which might be operational.

78 Years Ago Today the US Marines Secured the Island of Iwo Jima

Memories of Iwo Jima
Marines

Via A Large Regular

Jacklyn Lucas

DDG-125 USS Jack H. Lucas acceptance trials

New ship, commissioned last week. Lots of detail in that image. Named for Jacklyn Lucas.

Jacklyn Lucas

Jacklyn? What is this? Some cross dressing twerp that Biden's minions have decided to plaster on the front page? Uhm, no. He was one tough SOB who had the most bad luck of anyone in the world, but  somehow managed to survive:

Wikipedia:

Jacklyn Harold "Jack" Lucas (February 14, 1928 – June 5, 2008) was an American Marine in World War II who was awarded the Medal of Honor at the age of 17 years as a private first class in the Marine Corps during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

During a close firefight in two trenches between Lucas and three Marines with 11 Japanese soldiers, Lucas saved the lives of the other three Marines from two enemy hand grenades that were thrown into their trench by unhesitatingly placing himself on one grenade, while in the next instant pulling the other grenade under him. The grenade he covered with his body exploded, and wounded him severely; the other grenade failed to explode. He is the youngest Marine and the youngest serviceman in World War II to be awarded the United States' highest military decoration for valor. He later commissioned into the United States Army and reached the rank of captain.

. . .

He joined the United States Army in 1961 and served in the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper to conquer his fear of heights. He reportedly survived a training jump in which both of his parachutes malfunctioned.

. . .

In 1977, Lucas was notified by Maryland police that his second wife and son-in-law were plotting to kill him; the two pleaded guilty to conspiracy and were granted probation after Lucas asked the court to show mercy. By the 1980s, Lucas was living off his life savings. In 1985, his mobile home burned down, forcing him to camp. In August of that year, Lucas was arrested when marijuana plants were found in the corn field he was camping in. The State of Maryland initially planned to charge Lucas with unlawful manufacture and possession of controlled dangerous substances, but the charges were eventually dropped.

 

Rare Earths from the Bottom of the Sea

A vast deposit of rare earth minerals has been found in the Pacific seabed within the Japanese exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the island of Minami-Torishima - some 1,250 miles south of Tokyo. Mud samples taken from the seabed about 18,000 feet down are of “superb quality,” registering a rare earth density of between 1,000 and 1,500 ppm (parts per million) - several times higher than rare earth depots found in China, whose density averages 400 ppm. The discovery was made by a team led by Yasuhiro Kato, an earth science professor at Tokyo University. - Yoshiko Sakurai Official Web Site (metric measurements deleted).

    Rare earths are essential for many of our modern electronical gizmos. Red China is the principle producer these days, and they have been restricting their export recently (surprise, surprise).
    "Superb quality". Well, they are 4 times denser than what you might find in China, but it's still only one-tenth of one percent. Not very stinking much, it still means you are going to have to process a thousand tons of ore to get one ton of metal. Plus this stuff is at the bottom of the sea, over 3 miles down. That's not as deep as some of the oil wells being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, but it's pretty stinking deep. I imagine they are probably going to use ROV (remotely operated vehicles) and maybe some really long hoses. It's going to be a major engineering effort to haul enough dirt up to the surface to make it worthwhile.
    The island is really in the middle of nowhere. Iwo Jima and Wake Island are it's nearest neighbors and they are almost 1,000 miles away.
    A story in the Telegraph got me started.

Update December 2016 replaced missing picture.

Weekend

Just got back from Eugene, took Ross back to school. 230 miles round trip in 215 minutes. Traffic was relatively light. Still the occasionally dummy I had to slow down for.

Saw three movies with Ross this weekend. Anne and John went with us to see "The Last King of Scotland" Saturday afternoon. Starred Forrest Whitaker portraying Idi Amin.

Ross and I had dinner at Tosis restaurant on Sandy Boulevard in Northeast Portland. Nice standard restaurant. Ross noticed the menu had lots of meat on it, which suited us fine. Ross had prime rib and fries, I had a cheeseburger and fries.

We went down the street to the Hollywood Theatre to see David Lynch's "Inland Empire", a three hour nightmare. Lots of good acting, lots of interesting photographic work. There was something of a plot, but it got pretty lost in all the confusion. There was no coherent story at all. And it was three freaking hours long. It was interesting for the first hour, and for the second hour I kept hoping all these bits were somehow going to be tied together. The third hour I was just waiting for it to be over, and when it finally did end, some people applauded! I was shocked! I would have booed, but I was in shock, and all I wanted was to get out.

Sunday afternoon Ross and I went to see Clint Eastwoods "Letters from Iwo Jima", the Japanese version of the pair of movies he made about the World War II battle.

Quote of the Day

There is a simple reason for all the effort that goes into portraying World War II as "not such a bad thing after all." The state ultimately cements its hold over society by promising to repel the barbarians who always seem to be about to storm the gates of civilization. And if we believe this, we will eagerly surrender liberty and treasure to the state's officers in return for safety. And in case we wonder if the barbarians really are plotting to storm the gates, the state can point to recent episodes when indeed they did, and when the state protected us from them. Thus, the function of the "World War II as the last good war" line is to keep the people from asking uncomfortable questions about the legitimacy of Leviathan. - from The Consequences of World War II by Sheldon Richman, November 1991

I was thinking about money and how we talk about billionaires now the way I imagine people talked about millionaires back in the 1920's. Shoot, even when I was kid in the 50's and 60's, a million dollars was still an impressive amount of money. Now it just means well off.

Anyway, I got to wondering about how much WWII cost all told. I mean there was that line about how you start talking about "a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money". And then there was that scene in Clint Eastwood's movie about Iwo Jima where they are talking about selling war bonds and they need to raise so many billions of dollars or the war effort will collapse, and this is near the end of the war. How many billions had gone before? The same article quoted above says WWII cost the US $350 billion, and that was then. Add in inflation and you could call it $5 trillion in today's money.

Ira Hayes

Johnny Cash...The Ballad of Ira Hayes
Johnny Cash recorded this song in 1964, long before Clint Eastwood made his movies about Iwo Jima. I don't remember it, but then music, while endorsed as a cultural good by my parents, was not a big part of our lives.
    It's very weird how artists can make a statement in an extremely popular show, but it gets over-ridden, ignored, shouted down and trampled by the chatter boxes that provide much of our political discourse.

Prompted by a story on Timeline. Wikipedia article about Ira.

The Last Bomb

36 minute video about the B-29 bomber missions from the Mariana Islands to Tokyo during the last year of WW2.


The Last Bomb
Bomber LeMay divided his 720 planes among three islands: Guam, Saipan and Tinian. The P-51 fighter escorts were based on Iwo Jima, which is about half way to Tokyo. I suspect one reason for putting the planes on multiple islands was to minimize congestion. With four runways you could get all the planes in the air four times faster than if they were all using the same one. The trip was 1500 miles one way and took 15 hours round trip. Each B-29 could hold 9,000 gallons of fuel. 9,000 gallons times 720 planes means each bombing mission needs 6.5 million gallons of av-gas, not counting the fighters or refueling on the way home. A WW2 era oil tanker (ship) could hold about 4 million gallons.

Link to larger map.

The weird thing is that although the Japanese were pretty well beaten once we started bombing them with the B-29, they didn't give up, or at least the high command refused to surrender. Just the nature of crazed people to be stubborn, I suppose.

Update September 2018 replaced missing video. 

Update January 2021 replaced missing map.

Pic of the Day

PACIFIC OCEAN (Sept. 7, 2014)  USS George Washington passes the island formerly known as Iwo Jima. U.S. Navy photo by Trevor Welsh. Click to embiggenate.

Super Huey

Bell UH-1Y Venom aboard the USS Iwo Jima somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. 

U. S. Navy photo by Shelby M. Tucker.

I looked at this picture and I said 'wait a minute, what kind of chopper is that?' It kind of looks like a Huey, but Huey's only have two blades, don't they? And this one has four. Seems the Marines have grown so attached to the Huey that it has been reincarnated with a bunch of new stuff including bigger engines and a four bladed rotor.