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Death by P-38
Posted on: 2013-06-07 15:01:39 By Don Hollway @ HistoryNet.com That Saturday afternoon the "Opium Den"—the smoky, sweltering, ramshackle command bunker at Henderson Field, on Guadalcanal—was packed with Navy and Marine brass hats. Lowly flyboys Captain Thomas Lanphier Jr. and Major John W. Mitchell, commanding officer of the U.S. Army Air Forces' 339th Fighter Squadron, arrived last, but were treated like guests of honor. Mitchell was handed a teletyped radio message marked "Top Secret": a flight schedule for an inspection tour by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Read on... |