WacoOne wrote:
JFS61:
My feelings exactly!
Bill
I second that statement. I have read Ford's book and it is pretty interesting and seems well researched. But he doesn't explore how a society like Japan's of that era dealt with failures in written reports. Were there euphemisms that were understood but not defined? So a post war reader not in on the deal reads the report at face value. As I remember he seemed to make a great deal of post war interviews of Japanese veterans by USAAF interrogators. I figure that in many cases these veterans saw a way of building up their country or themselves by exaggerating their accomplishments and downgrading the AVG. Since probably most records never made it back from Burma who would know? The AVG being in actuality a Chinese organization the USAAF wouldn't be too vested in challenging any claims. I don't remember Ford addressing the AVG claim that bonuses were paid only on aircraft wreckage that was visited by Chinese AF officers either because if the 299 number claimed destroyed correlates to 299 visits before payment that would be extraordinary for any combat squadron in history.
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