Aerial Photo of the Island of
This is a photo of Ie Shima in the latter part
of WW2 about 1945. Ie Shima is a little island located just
northwest of Okinawa. This was a strategic island and location for the
placement of WW2 Air Base for the
P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft to be used as bomber escorts against
Japan. |
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Aerial Photo taken on the
island of
The Island of Ie Shima
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| Look at the complexity of this WW2 Military Air Base.
This air base was probably built by the United States CB's after the
US Marines took the island. The base was primarily used as a
fighter aircraft air base with the P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft.
It was also used as an emergency landing base for the long range
B-29 Super
Fortresses and the
B-24 Liberators.
The P-47 Thunderbolt, even with external tanks didn't have the range
of the long range bombers as they were striking Japan in WW2 so a
closer air base had to be made for these bomber support aircraft. Normally it would take a long time to build an air base of this complexity. But in WW2 the CB's were trained to work efficiently and quickly. This air base had to be built very fast in order to act as a bomber escort base and for the United States to win the war against Japan. My friend Stan Speer was a US Navy CB in 1972 and he told me about the extra military training that they had to go through since they had to work in the front line areas with hostile fire still threatening them. |
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0007673300 width=460 alt="P-47 Thunderbolt Strike by Robert Taylor. Aviation Artist.">
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