It's time for an Israeli decision on Iran.
Amos Regev..
Israel Hayom..
03 August '12..
Those were dark, ominous days in the United States, perhaps the darkest in the months since the war began on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese delivered a devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Americans did not know what had hit them. Their mighty fleet, which boasted some of the best warships made by man, went up in a plume of smoke. Japanese forces had invaded the Philippines and Southeast Asia, consolidating their control of the sea and air routes. After a string of victories, they proudly planted their national flag, with its famous red sun, into the soil that had become part of their empire, one which was expanding by the day, like an unstoppable tsunami.
In Washington, officials barely had time to process what had just happened. In the American capital, the leaders set in motion the process of recovery: military draft prcodures; manufacturing and production geared for a wartime economy; building and training of forces; expansion of the military; dispatching reinforcements, and planning for combat in two theaters, one against the Japanese, who had dragged the Americans into the war, and the other against the Nazis, who were allied with Japan in the Axis of Evil.
The challenge facing the Americans was complex. What should they do in the meantime? How to take the initiative and boost morale? How would they go about proving that while anyone could take America by surprise, nobody could defeat it?
President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered his armed forces to deliver a vicious counter-blow by launching a military operation unprecedented in the annals of human history. The military was instructed to strike the Japanese by hitting at the heart of their arrogant empire, Tokyo.
From an operational and a logistical standpoint, it was mission impossible. At the time, the U.S. did not possess long-range bombers, nor did it have military bases close enough to hit Tokyo. It only had a few aircraft carriers, but even these were only able to transport short-range bombers, thus making them suitable for naval combat.
Was there no military solution? There always is, as long as one summons the necessary talent, skill and initiative, and employs the element of surprise.
This was how American planners came up with the “Doolittle Raid.” Led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle of the U.S. Air Force, it was a plan that required volunteers to undertake a dangerous mission, so dangerous that it was doubtful whether they would return home. The idea was to outfit U.S. aircraft carriers with medium-range B-25B Mitchell bombers. Although they were originally designed to operate from a terrestrial base, the plan was to place them on aircraft carriers. Once the carriers moved into position close enough to Tokyo, the planes would be ordered to take off for bombing runs of the Japanese capital.
How would these pilots get back to safety? There was no turning back. The B-25Bs were not designed to operate from aircraft carriers. B-25B pilots had never previously flown them from aircraft carriers. Because this plane lacked the necessary arrestor hook with which all planes that took off from aircraft carriers were outfited, the bombers would not be able to land back on the carriers.
This was a one-way mission. The pilots had to take off, drop their deadly payload, and continue onward in the direction of China in the hope that they would land there and hook up with friendly Chinese forces, while avoiding hostile Japanese troops.
Was this impossible? The military had no trouble in finding the necessary number of volunteers. There were 80 air crew members, five for each of the 16 planes that were to be deployed.
“I just came here to do my duty,” one of the participating pilots was quoted as saying recently, as the U.S. celebrated the 70th anniversary of the operation. “We had total faith in and complete respect for Lt. Col. Doolittle. Our country was at war. We were pilots, air crews. Of course we volunteered. Why wouldn’t we?”
On April 18, 1942, the mission received the go-ahead. Doolittle’s bombers, including Doolittle himself leading the run, shocked the Japanese when they descended from the skies over Tokyo at low altitude and began bombarding the city. One of the bombs exploded near the palace of the Japanese emperor.
Most of the air crews landed safely in China, subsequently returning to their units for active duty. Three airmen who could not eject in time were killed, and eight were taken prisoner. Three were executed and one died as a result of inadequate treatment of his wounds.
The Doolittle Raid was symbolic in nature, but it yielded tremendous psychological benefits. It convinced the American public that the Japanese were not immune, and that their capital was vulnerable to attack by the long arm of the U.S. military. The operation proved to be a humiliation for the Japanese, who had to wrestle with the realization that they were no longer impregnable or immortal. The raid also made clear to Japan that this war would be no walk in the park, and that they needed to contend with an America that was determined to summon all of its capabilities.
For the U.S. military, the raid showed that there was no such thing as “mission impossible.” There are only challenges that can be overcome with a spirit for combat.
Obviously, no two historical periods are identical in nature. It also goes without saying that any military operation designed to remove the Iranian nuclear threat would be different, unique and more complex than many other military operation undertaken in history, either by us or by others. The Israel Air Force has proved itself repeatedly over the course of the last 64 years, successfully executing missions that were far more intricate than the surprise attack on Tokyo. There was the pre-dawn raid of June 5, 1967; the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, and (according to foreign media reports) the strike on the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.
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