Odin & Aesop

The U.S. entered the Second World War in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  In January 1942, the United States established the 8th Bomber Group.  By February 1942, the 8th Bomber Group had a detachment in England, its first combat units arrived in June, and it launched its first raid on July 4th, 1942 as the 8th Air Force.  The 8th Air Force was the centerpiece to the U.S.’ precision daylight bombing campaign against Germany.  By the middle of 1944 it had over 200,000 people.  During World War Two the 8th Air Force conducted over 440,000 bomber sorties over Europe and dropped 697,000 tons of bombs.  All this came with a price.  47,483 members of the 8th Air Force were killed.  A very small cog in this big machine was B-17 co-pilot Bert Stiles.  He arrived in England in March 1944 and flew with the 91st Bomb Group.  He wrote “Serenade to the Big Bird” while doing it.

This is part 2 of 2 on Sean Naylor’s “Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command”.  In April 1980, the U.S. military tried to rescue 52 Americans captured when Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran.  The rescue attempt was called Operation Eagle Claw and it failed.  Eagle Claw involved helicopters flying from a Navy ship and fixed wing aircraft carrying the assault force and extra fuel flying from another country.  All the pieces converged in the middle of the Iranian desert at night in a place called Desert One.  One of the helicopters collided with one of the aircraft during ground refueling.  Eight Americans died and seven aircraft were either destroyed or captured.  Even though the individual pieces of the Eagle Claw plan may have been capable of performing their part, the mission fell apart when the pieces came together.  According to the author Sean Naylor the U.S. answer to was to have all its counter terrorist pieces from different parts of the military in one standing joint task force.  The U.S. formed this counter terrorist task force in December 1980 and called it the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).  JSOC went on to play a central role in the Global War on Terror. 

In April 1980, the U.S. military tried to rescue 52 Americans captured when Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran.  The rescue attempt was called Operation Eagle Claw and it failed.  Eagle Claw involved helicopters flying from a Navy ship and fixed wing aircraft carrying the assault force and extra fuel flying from another country.  All the pieces converged in the middle of the Iranian desert at night in a place called Desert One.  One of the helicopters collided with one of the aircraft during ground refueling.  Eight Americans died and seven aircraft were either destroyed or captured.  Even though the individual pieces of the Eagle Claw plan may have been capable of performing their part, the mission fell apart when the pieces came together.  According to the author Sean Naylor the U.S. answer to was to have all its counter terrorist pieces from different parts of the military in one standing joint task force.  The U.S. formed this counter terrorist task force in December 1980 and called it the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).  JSOC went on to play a central role in the Global War on Terror. 

The U.S. Navy started World War Two leaning towards the idea that its submarines were supposed to remain hidden and cautiously scout ahead of the surface fleet.  With the surface fleet destroyed at Pearl Harbor, that idea got turned around.  Instead a new generation of aggressive commanders rose up.  They roamed the vast Pacific on independent war patrols that lasted months.  By war’s end the Japanese merchant fleet had lost close to nine million tons of shipping and was only 23% its pre-war size.  Over half of those losses came at the hands of U.S. submarines.  U.S. submarines also sank close to seven hundred Imperial Japanese Navy ships over five hundred tons.  William Ruhe’s “War in the Boats” offers a first hand account of the submarine campaign in the Pacific.  We were privileged to be joined by Rear Admiral Scott Pappano for this episode. 

On the night of 30-31 March 1944, 795 Royal Air Force bombers attacked the city of Nuremberg.  95 of those bombers were shot down, ten more were written off as complete losses after landing, and 545 bomber crewmen were lost.  More aircrew were lost that night than the whole of the Battle of Britain.  It is the bloodiest day in Royal Air Force history. 

On September 11th, 2001 the terrorist group Al Qaeda hijacked four civilian airliners and used them to attack the United States.  Two planes were deliberately flown into and destroyed New York’s World Trade Center; another plane was flown into the Pentagon; and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.  It appears the fourth plane was headed to attack another target in Washington, DC but crashed early when the passengers tried to take back control.  These four attacks killed 2,977 people in addition to the nineteen hijackers.  That evening, President George W. Bush addressed the nation.  He said, “The search is underway for those who were behind these evil acts. I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.”  Nine days later in a speech to Congress, President Bush said, “The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as Al Qaeda”, as being responsible for the September 11th attacks.  He went on to name Osama Bin Laden as the leader of Al Qaeda and said, “Our was on terror begins with Al Qaeda.”  It took about ten years but the United States found Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  On May 2nd, 2011 the United States military conducted a raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound and killed him.  One of the people who participated in that raid and witnessed Bin Laden’s death was a Navy SEAL whose pen name is Mark Owen.  Owen’s memoir “No Easy Day” tells the story of the decade he and his teammates spent fighting America’s War on Terror.

The Allies kicked in the door on NAZI occupied Europe on June 6th, 1944.  The 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, lead the way on the eastern part of Omaha beach.  John C. McManus’ book “The Dead and Those About to Die” is the story of what they did that day.

Hans Ulrich Rudel was Germany’s most decorated soldier of the Second World War.  He flew over 2,500 combat missions, destroyed over 500 Soviet tanks, sank a battleship and cruiser, was shot down more than 30 times and somehow lived through all of it.  Join us for a review of his autobiography “Stuka Pilot”. 

Britain was facing NAZI Germany alone when David Stirling had an idea.  He imagined using the vast emptiness of the harsh North African desert to allow small bands of raiders to attack enemy airfields and overextended supply lines along the coast.  Join us for a review of Virginia Cowles "The Phantom Major" to learn how Stirling and his men lived their motto of "Who Dares Wins".