just finished "the last flight of bomber 31" harrowing tales of american & japanese pilots who fought in ww 2's arctic air campaign - by ralph wetterhahn. copyright 2004, 1st edition, carroll & graf publishers new york, isbn: 0-7867-1360-7. price $26.00, 357 pages. a must read!!! & from more of a personal account of the men, both u.s. army / navy aircrews, as well as japanese aircrews, not to mention the japanese anti aircraft crews who occupied the region prior to u.s. invasion. the amount of u.s. planes downed in action & accidents up their from the aleutian islands, to the planes low on fuel or damaged that diverted to ww 2 russian territories such as kamchatka, & petropavlovsk & the crews that were interned their, to the planes lost over the japanese kurile islands, epecially paramushiro are staggering!!!! one can only imagine the planes still in russian regions!!! the crew of bomber 31 (a pv1 ventura)was recovered their in 2003, & another super rare pv1 still sits basically intact at agattu island, very close to attu to this day!!! but of course the navy has it's talons gripped thoroughly around it!! in total the the book author documents 73 u.s. army airforce aircraft losses up their & 42 u.s. navy losses. usaaf planes are mostly b-24's, b-25's p-38's, p-40's. the navy planes being mostly pv1 & pv2 venturas & pby catalinas. i know some japanese recoveries have been made in the kuriles in recent years, but the russian regions are even more remote, the preverbial butthole of the world!! preservation conditions must be fabulous!!! it is a tribute to u.s. ww 2 strategy to keep the pressure on the japanese up their during the war by diverting many of their aerial assets when they could have bolstered their war effort in the south pacific & made things even worse for the u.s.!! cough up the $26.00 for a great book, you won't be sorry!!
regards, tom
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