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Highlights during WWII and Other Lesser Known Historical Facts

Khalid Elhassan April 27, 2020 34 min

Junkers Ju 88 - Aviation — A Junkers Ju 88. World Warbird News

23. Operation Vengeance

Operation Vengeance’s flight paths. Thing Link

Taking advantage of the intercepted message revealing Yamamoto’s schedule, planning commenced for killing the Japanese admiral blamed for the Pearl Harbor attack. The result was the aptly named Operation Vengeance. The operation, which sought to shoot down Yamamoto’s plane, had to be precisely timed. Fortunately, the Japanese admiral was known for his punctuality.

Much as the US Navy wanted Yamamoto dead at the hands of its own personnel, the admiral flight route was beyond the range of American naval airplanes. However, it was within the range of US Army Air Force P-38 Lightning fighters that had recently been deployed to Guadalcanal. Accordingly, 16 Lightnings, equipped with drop tanks for extra range, were sent on a 600 mile roundabout flight to meet Yamamoto’s plane as it arrived at Bougainville on April 18^th, 1943.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.