Re: Korea - 50 years ago this week, Dec. 13-19

["LTC John N. Duquette" <wrangler01@prodigy.net>]

Glen,

>Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.  As a log kind of guy,
I know just
>how hard it is to move, and concurrently conceal, this stuff.  Unless we
are
>talking something along the lines of the old Ricin in the umbrella trick,
it
>would have stood out to any one looking for it.


I was thinking about your logistics laydown and "any one looking for it".
What came to mind was UK pilots & staff officers.  When the U.S. bombed the
Suiho Dam, the British just about had a cow.  One, because they were against
it and two, because they hadn't been consulted.  When Truman did not exclude
the use of atomic weapons when the Chinese entered the war, the Brits just
about had a cow--One, because they were against it and two, because they
hadn't been consulted.  If we had used GW in Korea, I think they would have
found out about it and yes--had a cow.   So what does that have to do with
UK pilots & staff officers?  Well, at the shootin' end, there were UK
exchange pilots with many U.S. squadrons (to include the 335th and 336th
Squadrons of Col. Mahurin's 4th FIG at Kimpo).  On the planning and
execution side, UK staff officers were at the Joint Operations Center (JOC)
in Seoul and on staff at Far East Air Forces (FEAF) in Tokyo.  It would seem
that these officers would have had many opportunities to view either the
planning, supplying or execution of BW and report it to their government.
The U.K. was not exactly "hand in glove" with the U.S. policy wise on every
thing we did during the war; they were naturally pursuing what was in their
best national interests--and being an ally to a GW user was not in their
interest.  I haven't seen anything on the British side to indicate that the
herd of cows was increased by one over the GW issue.  Just a thought.  And
yes, the logistics tail does wag the maneuver dog.  :-)

v/r

John D.