Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: DaveBB on July 19, 2015, 09:25:09 PM
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I was watching a documentary series narrated by Charlton Heston. Its called "Secrets of War". He said in the 50s, the CIA flew a P-38 and accidentally sank a British ship off the coast of South America. One of the Banana Republics down there was having a revolution, and the CIA thought the ship was loaded with guns and ammo. Turns out the British ship was just loaded with coffee and fruits. The P-38 dropped 3 bombs, only one hit, but it was still big enough to sink the freighter.
Anyone have any more information on this crazy event?
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Ha ha! Found it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Springfjord
P-38M dropped napalm on a ship in 1954 off the coast of Guatemala.
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Pretty sad to read the background, "having a revolution" wasnt the entire truth...
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That page linked me to another page about a B-26 pilot who flew for the CIA in '58. He was running amuck among the communist in the Pacific. He was eventually shot down by a P-51, bailed out, and sentenced to death. He was later released and came back to the states.
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Communist in the Pacific?
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There's various hints that the CIA may have used a couple of Mosquitos as well, PZ413 and A52-177 (Aussie-built). I'm just the messenger, have no idea if/how they were actually used.
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Wait, so the CIA was orchestrating a coup over farmland in Guatemala? :headscratch:
I figured there would be more pressing matters like hunting down Nazi's or Soviet spies.... Maybe I'm missing something with this story...
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Communist in the Pacific?
A rather nasty episode in Indonesia, civil war kind of stuff, still a bit of an open wound.
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Guatemala is North America bruh :neener:
The used p47s in the United Fruit killings also.
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A good read on the subject is "Bitter Fruit." South America begins at Colombia fysa.
DD
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Guatemala is North America bruh :neener:
Indeed it is, and Indonesia is in the general area of the Pacific, which is Pred's query to which I was responding, though I suppose it could be argued that Guatemala's coastline also qualifies it as "Pacific."
:old:
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So?
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I mistakenly said South America in my original post. Then after finding the incident, it turned out it was in Guatemala.
All 112 episodes of "Secrets of War" are on YouTube. All narrated by Charlton Heston. Very interesting series. I was startled to find out how much more effective the KGB was than the CIA. Stalin had spies in the U.S. who reported the first atomic bomb test. He knew about it before Truman even told him.
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If the KGB was really more effective than the CIA than everyone would think that the KGB was less effective. :) An effective secret organization is effectively secret.
There's 112 episodes?? :x
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The importantly lesson to be taken away from the whole United Fruit thing is that the american press was turned into a propaganda machine.
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Was?
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The media has has a definite bias much longer than that. Yellow press in the 1800s caused the Spanish American War. Coal dust blew up the U.S.S Maine. Journalism spun all the people into a furor about it being attacked in a *port*.