Category: Random Stuff

This is an interesting historical footnote from World War II:

Deep in the forests of southwestern Oregon is a redwood sapling — a peace offering at the site of an act of war.

Friday marks the 81st anniversary of the end of the only enemy aerial bombing campaign to strike the continental United States during World War II. 

The plan was to firebomb the vast forests of America’s northwest in retaliation for the April 18, 1942, Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. The Japanese hoped their modest effort would torch millions of acres of trees and deprive the U.S. defense industry of tons of wood crucial to the war effort. The Americans would have to send thousands of troops to fight the fires.

Nobuo Fujita, a veteran Japanese Navy pilot, advocated the attack and was given the honor of taking the war to the American home front. 

Twice he would fly his submarine-launched floatplane over the forests near Brookings, Ore., release his bombs and make his way to a rendezvous with the I-25 transport submarine waiting for him off the coast.

Though Fujita did not know it at the time, nearly all the bombs fizzled. An alert student forest ranger stomped out one small flare-up. The wet forest floors took care of the rest.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The French Air Force is currently conducting training with their U.S. and Japanese counterparts during the Northern Edge exercise:

A French Rafale fighter prepares for takeoff at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, July 5, 2023. (Hannah Strobel/U.S. Air Force)

 The French air force trained alongside its American and Japanese counterparts across the Indo-Pacific recently even as the French president objected to NATO opening an office in Tokyo.

French President Emmanuel Macron has told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg he opposes such a plan, Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported Sunday.

The plan was revealed in May amid concern about Chinese aggression toward Taiwan with one defense expert suggesting Yokota Air Base, the home of U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo, as a likely site. 

However, an unidentified official at France’s presidential office told journalists Friday that articles of the NATO alliance specify its geographical scope, which is the North Atlantic, according to NHK.

Meanwhile, the French are training alongside U.S. and Japanese forces as part of Northern Edge, which began July 2 and wraps July 21, Air Force Lt. Col. Keegan Dale, commander of 13th Fighter Squadron, told Stars and Stripes by phone Friday. The squadron, from Misawa Air Base, Japan, was deployed to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, south of Hiroshima, for the exercise.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I feel horrible for the surviving child that saw his parents and sibling gun down in front of them:

Three members of a Korean American family were among the deceased victims of a weekend shooting spree at an outlet mall in Texas, a South Korean diplomatic mission said Sunday.

The couple in their 30s and their three-year-old son were shot to death in Saturday’s rampage at the mall in Allen, while another child of the couple was injured and is being treated at a hospital, according to the South Korean Consulate in Dallas.

The shooting has left at least eight people dead and seven others injured, according to CNN.

The gunman, identified as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, was killed by a police officer who was at the mall for an unrelated issue. The motive behind the killings remains unclear.

Yonhap

What I find interesting about his shooting is the media has been focusing on how he is an alleged white supremacist without mentioning the irony of judging by his name he is Hispanic. The focus really should be on is that this guy has long had mental issues. He was kicked out of the Army back in 2008 after only 3 months of service due to mental health issues. So how is a guy too unstable to stay in the Army allowed to buy a gun?

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and an even better New Year!