Going Back To The Second World War

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 The Great Satan is planning to revive an old and abandoned World War 2 airfield on the tiny Pacific island of Tinian. First here is some news then some of my views:
My Comments : Tinian Island is 39 square miles in area. In July 1944, just a year before the end of World War 2 the Americans captured Tinian from the Japanese. The Japanese had occupied Tinian  since the First World War in 1914.  By the Second World War Japan had built a sizeable airbase on the island. 
Immediately upon capturing it from the Japanese in July 1944 the Americans began using Tinian Island as their own forward airbase. The US Marines Combat Engineers or Seabees immediately began extending the runways even before the Japanese defenders had been fully subdued. Some of the construction was done under fire. 
The runways were extended to accommodate the giant B-29 Superfortress bombers.  The two extra-heavy atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan were flown off this airbase.  The B29 Superfortress bomber needed longer runways for extra safety. 
But before the atomic bombing of Japan, the giant B29 bombers from Tinian flew firebombing missions all over Japan including the infamous firebombing of Tokyo on 9-10 March 1944.
The Bombing of Tokyo (東京大空襲, Tōkyōdaikūshū) was a series of bombing air raids launched by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Known as Operation Meetinghouse, the raids were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9-10 March 1945, and were the single most destructive bombing raid in human history.
16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 people.

So this was quite the killer island.
The Americans operated Tinian Airfield (North Field) for just over a year until the war ended with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Tinian was abandoned almost immediarely after the end of the Pacific War.
The two pictures below here give a view of Tinian Airbase during the height of operations from July 1944 until August 1945. In that brief one year period Tinian Airbase became the largest operational airport in the world.







The picture below shows the present state of Tinian Island. The jungle has almost fully overgrown the airbase. 

Once again the corrupt Pentagon generals and the American defense contractors are fleecing the US taxpayer of their money to build multi-billion Dollar forward airbases on really tiny Pacific Islands. This is not the Battle of Midway where the Japanese navy could not be found because there were clouds in the sky. Or the radio in the Japanese scout plane got jammed. 
In the present day 21st century warfare the Chinese have cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, Stealth bombers, nuclear submarines, long range drone fighters and bombers, drone submarines and drone torpedoes all of which make forward island bases quite nonsensical. Any American troops and weapons based on Tinian Island would become sitting ducks.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
By Syed Akbar Ali 

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