Random News and Notes 4 June
During WWII, Commander Joseph Rochefort was in charge of Station HYPO, a secretive cryptanalytic team based in a windowless basement at Pearl Harbor. Rochefort and his cryppies broke the Japanese naval code and by the use of a simple tactic – having a message sent with info the Japs would use and talk about – pinpointed the objective of the next Japanese operation; Midway. The four day battle for the Island and naval supremacy in the Pacific started on this day in 1942.
The Japanese were planning an ambush attack on US forces responding to an invasion threat on Midway. Rochefort’s people discovered the plan via decrypted radio intercepts and told Admiral Chet Nimitz. What would unfold is an ambush of the ambush. By the time the Battle was over, 4 Japanese flattops would be resting on the bottom alongside a cruiser and 292 aircraft. The US lost the USS Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann and 145 aircraft.
The Jap losses at Midway crippled the vaunted Kido Butai and tipped the balance of power in the Pacific. The Japanese would fight an increasingly desperate defense for the rest of the war.
Marvin Heemeyer was an Air Force Vet, welder and muffler shop owner in Granby, Colorado. WHen the town conspired against him, he took revenge. Over the course of several months, Heemeyer modified a Komatsu D355A bulldozer, welding on armor plate and installing an external camera system to allow for navigation from within the enclosed cabin. On this date in 2002, Heemeyer put his plan into action.
On the day of the incident, Heemeyer emerged from his shop and began destroying properties associated with the town’s zoning board, the concrete plant involved in the dispute, and various municipal structures. The vehicle’s modifications made it resistant to standard law enforcement interventions at the time.
Heemeyer and Killdozer caused an estimated (\$7) million in damage. The rampage ended after the machine became immobilized in the basement of a destroyed hardware store. Heemeyer took his own life inside the cabin before authorities could gain entry; there were no other fatalities.
We start the current events part of today’s RNN with the news that John Bolton is pleading guilty to to one count of illegally retaining classified documents and will pay more than $2 million in fines.
Bolton stored diary entries from his time in the White House at home and shared over a thousand pages of sensitive material with family members via personal email.
CBP and Coast Guard intercepted 240 Haitian boat people. U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations from Jacksonville, along with the Coast Guard and international partners, located the overcrowded vessel this week and coordinated its interdiction. The boat carried 191 adult males, 44 adult females, and five minors, none of whom reached U.S. soil*.
The migrants were offloaded in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
*The US maintains a ‘feet dry’ policy for boat people. If they do not make it above the high tide line before that are interdicted, they go back. If they make it above the high tide line or are feet dry as it were they are allowed to make claims for asylum. And yes, I realize some retards find the term boat people offensive. I don’t care.
This one isn’t all that newsworthy, but it is cool AF. An Indonesian dude built his self a 1/32 scale RC replica of the KMS Bismarck. Indonesian model builder Julius Perdana shared the 28-second video of his manned 1/32-scale RC Bismarck, blending remote control with hands-on piloting on a detailed gray hull.
Perdana’s Instagram shows the full build, from painting to fireworks gun tests.
Not for nothing, the 15″/52 caliber SK C/34 guns on the Bismarck are .45 caliber at scale. You’d need a 24″ tube though, so something custom.
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner had an incident while at the gate in Frankfurt. The nearly five-month-old Boeing 787-9, named ‘Herne’ and set for a flight to Los Angeles, suffered a nose gear collapse around midday on Thursday at Frankfurt Airport. The incident injured crew and ground staff who were on board, prompting a quick emergency response and cancellation of the flight.
Better at the gate in Frankfurt than on the runway in LA.