False History Report

[NavyCanDo]

Say what you will about the sloppy reporting by NBC - it was atrocious, but take nothing away from the accomplishments of the Tuskegee Airmen, who escorted my uncle Oliver who navigated a B-17 in the Sicily Italy campaign, later killed in the crash of a B-29 in 1947. 
And this story on false reporting is not exactly accurate itself.   The first of the Tuskegee, the 99th Fighter Squadron first aerial combat of was in June of 1943 when most of the German Aces were still flying. Their training began in 1941 months before Pearl Harbor.   And most of the KIA German Aces were killed in 1944 the year the 100th, 301st and the 302nd joined the 99th to form the 332nd Fighter Group. Many other German Aces survived the war. (look it up)

I wasn’t there, so I won’t make a claim that they were up against the best the Nazis could throw at them or not, but I will let someone who was there speak to that.

one B-24 pilot recalled

"The P-38s always stayed too far out. Some of the Mustang group stayed in too close ... Other groups, we got the feeling that they just wanted to go and shoot down 109s ... The Red Tails were always out there where we wanted them to be ... We had no idea they were Black; it was the Army's best kept secret."

I don’t know who started it, but the claim that they never lost a bomber was floated around for decades – but it was eventually discredited. The 332nd lost 25 bombers

The combat record of the Tuskegee Airmen speaks for itself:
•   over 15,000 combat sorties (including 6000+ for the 99th prior to July '44)
•   111 German airplanes destroyed in the air, another 150 on the ground
•   950 railcars, trucks, and other motor vehicles destroyed
•   1 destroyer sunk by P-47 machine gun fire (Lt. Pierson's flight)
•   sixty-six pilots killed in action or accidents
•   thirty-two pilots downed and captured, POWs
•   150 Distinguished Flying Crosses earned
•   744 Air Medals
•   8 Purple Hearts
•   14 Bronze Stars

[ABX]

Yep Navy, they were amazing. I think the mistake in the report came from the fact they are generally given credit for shooting down the first Nazi jet (not plane)- I found a lot of references online to that but as I posted above, their own website says that isn't correct and they give credit to all 60 or so pilots who shot down Nazi jets (two of which were TAs). So even their own website goes out of its way to correct that error- says a lot to the character of those who are tasked to keep the history alive.

[sneakypete]

•   1 destroyer sunk by P-47 machine gun fire (Lt. Pierson's flight) <<

Something wrong about that report. You can't sink a destroyer with a machine gun. Maybe it was a patrol boat or wooden minesweeper?

[NavyCanDo]

Sneaky, you worry me sometimes. Are you trying to discredit the NBC News reporting by the original post or the Tuskegee Airmen? There are websites devoted to the later, who are about as far off the reservation as  9/11 Truthers. I do hope that is not where you are getting your research.

Yes you CAN sink a destroyer by gun fire alone. An armor piercing .50 cal BMG round will penetrate 20mm of armor plate.  32 x .50 cals machine guns (four P-47 with their 8 x .50 cals), that's a lot of firepower. The official account is that machine gun fire hit the powder magazine and sank the ship


If you don't believe me, will you believe the Coast Guard.
 
The US Navy Report of War Damage series briefly outlines all incidents of damage to US Navy Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Destroyer Escorts as they were known at the time the document was published. Causes for sinkings were listed as follows:

• 38 by torpedoes alone (41.3 percent)
• 16 by suicide planes (17.4 percent )
• 12 Bombs alone (13 percent)
• 11 by gunfire alone (12 percent)
• 6 by torpedoes and gunfire (6.5 percent)
• 5 by mines (5.4 percent)
• 4 by torpedoes and bombs (4.3 percent)
• 1 by bombs finished off by gunfire (1.1 percent)

[sneakypete]

Sneaky, you worry me sometimes. Are you trying to discredit the NBC News reporting by the original post or the Tuskegee Airmen?<<

Tell you what,click on the NBC link and make your own choice. If you are one of those who believe anything blacks do is superior because they aren't white,you will reach one decision. If you judge it based on what you see in the link,you will come to another conclusion unless you are nuts.

 >>There are websites devoted to the later, who are about as far off the reservation as  9/11 Truthers. I do hope that is not where you are getting your research. <<

There is and was nothing "special" about the skills or ability of the Tuskegee Airmen. What made them special was their status as the first black fighter pilots in the US military.

I get fed up with the attitude that they were better than anyone else because they were black. They were no better as a unit than any other unit in the USSAAF during WW-2. Or any worse. Their skin color was,is,and should always be irrelevant.  We are either going to do away with racism,or embrace it. Make up your minds.

..Yes you CAN sink a destroyer by gun fire alone. <<

Does the Navy consider a 50 cal to be a "Gun"? I know they have different standards than the Army,but don't know what those standards are.

>>An armor piercing .50 cal BMG round will penetrate 20mm of armor plate.  32 x .50 cals machine guns (four P-47 with their 8 x .50 cals), that's a lot of firepower.<<

20 mm equals roughly 3/4 of an inch. I would be shocked to discover a destroyer only had 3/4 of an inch of armor plate on the top surfaces where they can expect to receive hits from Naval Guns.

>> The official account is that machine gun fire hit the powder magazine and sank the ship <<

Ok,that was the part of the story that was missing. Some idiot left the hatch to the powder magazine,and a tracer hit inside where the black powder was stored,created a spark,and set the black powder off.


If you don't believe me, will you believe the Coast Guard.
 
>>The US Navy Report of War Damage series briefly outlines all incidents of damage to US Navy Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Destroyer Escorts as they were known at the time the document was published. Causes for sinkings were listed as follows:


• 11 by gunfire alone (12 percent)

• 1 by bombs finished off by gunfire (1.1 percent)<<

The Navy considered the 16 inch shells fired from WW-2 battleships to be fired from "guns",so unless you define what type of guns it was,that statement is meaningless. The 50 cal is the equivalent of a 22 short derringer when it comes to Naval armament.

@NavyCanDo

[NavyCanDo]

I don't need to click on the NBC post to learn anything about the Tuskegee Airmen and what has been said about them both in truth and in error, because of people I have known in my life.    One was a  Tuskegee Airman and a member of my VFW Post 10018, who on a couple of occasions prior to his passing would be a guest speaker, providing interesting accounts of his time in the squadron and he himself dispelling myths - so we get the right scoop.
The other person a WWII B-17 pilot that I worked with (he did not serve in the same theater as the Tuskagee Airmen) who was a  conspiracy nut and I would call a racist,  who went so far as to say to me when the movie was still in theaters, that the movie was BS because blacks did not fly during WWII.   I heard the truth, and I heard the lies, and I am smart enough to figure out and hold onto truth.

[sneakypete]

I don't need to click on the NBC post to learn anything about the Tuskegee Airmen and what has been said about them both in truth and in error, because of people I have known in my life.    One was a  Tuskegee Airman and a member of my VFW Post 10018, who on a couple of occasions prior to his passing would be a guest speaker, providing interesting accounts of his time in the squadron and he himself dispelling myths - so we get the right scoop.
The other person a WWII B-17 pilot that I worked with (he did not serve in the same theater as the Tuskagee Airmen) who was a  conspiracy nut and I would call a racist,  who went so far as to say to me when the movie was still in theaters, that the movie was BS because blacks did not fly during WWII.   I heard the truth, and I heard the lies, and I am smart enough to figure out and hold onto truth.

Ok,now explain to me how all,or any,of that tells you what Willie Geist said on tv this morning.

[don-o]

Ok,now explain to me how all,or any,of that tells you what Willie Geist said on tv this morning.

For it to b a a serious debunking, you must have PROOF that he said it.

[NavyCanDo]

Ok,now explain to me how all,or any,of that tells you what Willie Geist said on tv this morning.

I already admitted that the NBC reporting was atrocious if that is what Willie Geist said.  And let me add that it would be a disservice to the Tuskegee Airmen by spreading more lies for the conspiracy nuts, the worse of them denying the group ever existed.

[Smokin Joe]

I find keywords, hashtags, etc far more useful, mostly because many articles have multiple categories they can be put in.

When at FR, the keyword "energy" could be added to any thread discussing energy.  Whenever I wanted to browse that topic, I could find any thread on it, even if it wasn't tagged by the original poster.  Then more specific keywords such as "oil", "solar" etc could be added for those specifics.

It made it far easier to search to go back to find a specific thread discussed in the past.

I've found just embedding "#energy" into a thread here in any post makes it searchable to find already.  If an individual's favorite searches could be saved, this feature could be even easier to use.

I find here at GOPBR, I don't go through many of the categories at all, I don't see many threads because of the overwhelming number of categories and subcategories.

I browse by clicking on the show unread posts since last visit. Then I scan down through the stack for what interests me. Now that isn't a search directed at one topic, but I get to see what is being posted and discussed all over.

[sneakypete]

And let me add that it would be a disservice to the Tuskegee Airmen by spreading more lies for the conspiracy nuts, the worse of them denying the group ever existed.

It took me a long time,but I  finally accepted the fact that you just can't reason with nutcases. They believe what they believe because they love believing it,and nothing you can say or do will get them to listen to reason.

Their favorite ploy is to ask you to post links so they can go to them and deny anything in them is true,and ask for more links. No matter what you post,it will never be good enough,so why bother?

[sneakypete]

For it to b a a serious debunking, you must have PROOF that he said it.

Yeah,because the actual official NBC link that shows a video of him saying it just ain't good enough.

[thackney]

I browse by clicking on the show unread posts since last visit. Then I scan down through the stack for what interests me. Now that isn't a search directed at one topic, but I get to see what is being posted and discussed all over.

I find it too much noise and it seems if that was the common method, the multitude of categories are useless.

[geronl]

It was a torpedo boat that Italy classified as a destroyer I think

[geronl]

http://www.historynet.com/tuskegee-airmen

The group’s kill total for enemy aircraft was 103. They also have long been credited with sinking a German destroyer, using only their machine guns. Actually, the ship—a former Italian destroyer converted by the Germans to be a torpedo boat—was severely damaged but not sunk. It limped into harbor, where it stayed for the rest of the war, so sunk or not, it was put permanently out of action.

[geronl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedoboot_Ausland

possibly something like described here

[sneakypete]

It was a torpedo boat that Italy classified as a destroyer I think

OK,that makes a lot more sense.

Thanks!