Japanese bomb Ryugu

[AleisterCrowley]

Hopefully the UN will step in, and this will not escalate into a Galactic War

(all very clever- check out; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47818460)

[bungeejumper]

If I remember correctly, Japan's military are correctly called the Self-Defence Forces. This is a legacy from the Second World War, which neatly circumscribed their scope for playing about with munitions and suchlike. The only way the Japanese can legitimise this current assault on a faraway asteroid, then, is to present reasonable proof to the world that the Ryuguans attacked them first.

BJ

[MaraMan]

I think you will find that times are a changin and they want to change the constitution in Japan.

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/j ... 70258.html

[scotia]

If I remember correctly, Japan's military are correctly called the Self-Defence Forces. This is a legacy from the Second World War, which neatly circumscribed their scope for playing about with munitions and suchlike. The only way the Japanese can legitimise this current assault on a faraway asteroid, then, is to present reasonable proof to the world that the Ryuguans attacked them first.
BJ

I regularly visit an old (96 years) sailor who is only too familiar with Japan playing about with munitions and suchlike
The suchlike was a Kamikaze strike on the Aircraft Carrier HMS Formidable, while he was on deck. I must tell him that Japan have upped their game!

[kiloran]

I regularly visit an old (96 years) sailor who is only too familiar with Japan playing about with munitions and suchlike
The suchlike was a Kamikaze strike on the Aircraft Carrier HMS Formidable, while he was on deck. I must tell him that Japan have upped their game!

Small world! My dad was in the Fleet Air Arm on Formidable! Never talked about it much, though.

--kkiloran

[scotia]

I regularly visit an old (96 years) sailor who is only too familiar with Japan playing about with munitions and suchlike
The suchlike was a Kamikaze strike on the Aircraft Carrier HMS Formidable, while he was on deck. I must tell him that Japan have upped their game!

Small world! My dad was in the Fleet Air Arm on Formidable! Never talked about it much, though.

--kkiloran

It is indeed a small world!
http://www.armouredcarriers.com/hms-for ... 4-kamikaze gives a full description of the Kamikaze strike on Formidable on 4th May 1945. The British Carriers had an armour plated deck, and my old sailor friend told me that the resulting big dent was filled with quick drying cement, with flights resuming within a few hours.
On 9th May they were hit again with another Kamikaze!
Formidable was broken up at Inverkeithing in 1953.

[MaraMan]

Very small world, my uncle was a Chief Petty Officer on the Formidable at that time too. He didn't talk about much either, I think he was badly affected by it and suffered bad nightmares (what we might PTSD these days I guess) and in fact became a pacificist after the war with CND etc.

MM

[Itsallaguess]

Just an update on this - they've managed to find visual evidence of the crater on Ryugu -

The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft has sent back images of the crater made when it detonated an explosive charge next to the asteroid it is investigating.

On 5 April, the Japanese probe released a 14kg device packed with plastic explosive towards the asteroid Ryugu. The blast drove a copper projectile into the surface, hoping to create a 10m-wide depression.

Scientists want to get a "fresh" sample of rock to help them better understand how Earth and the other planets formed. Hayabusa-2 has now taken pictures of the area below where the "small carry-on impactor" (SCI) device was to have detonated, and identified a dark disturbance in which fresh material has been excavated from beneath the surface.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48065282

It seems, however, that the explosion had a much better outcome than they expected -

Scientists working on the Japanese Aerospace Agency (Jaxa) mission said the blast area on the surface measures about 20m in diameter - twice the size of the crater they expected to see.

The mission's official account tweeted: "We did not expect such a big alternation, so a lively debate has been initiated in the project!"

Surely in this digital age, a quick video snippet of 'The Italian Job' attached to the tweet would have gone down well?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[kiloran]

And now it's on its way home: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50403272

--kiloran

[stevensfo]

And now it's on its way home: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50403272

--kiloran

As somebody who grew up reading SciFi, this is really scary....

Japan's space agency, Jaxa, said the collected samples could shed light on the origins of the Solar System.

Great! Bring 'em back to earth, then wait for the spores to regenerate.

Then again, it may lead scientists to finally explain all those weird things that popped up in our universe, but really shouldn't exist.

....like Peter Mandelson and Nigel Farage!

Steve

[DiamondEcho]

Small world! My dad was in the Fleet Air Arm on Formidable! Never talked about it much, though. --kkiloran

I'm late to this... but my dad was Fleet Air Arm too. The ships names I recall are HMS Stephenson and HMS Indefatigable, Singapore bound, as they went via stop-offs UK > Gibraltar > Malta > Cyprus > Palestine > somewhere in/off modern-day Yemen, when VJ day was declared and they headed homewards. He never used to mention it until he was about mid/late-70s, maybe when excercising his right to have his service medals finally issued. Now we can't visit my parents without him getting his WW2 photo album out, again, [No disrespect, it is fascinating, but he does do it like clockwork and doesn't quite realise we see them each visit].

[scotia]

Small world! My dad was in the Fleet Air Arm on Formidable! Never talked about it much, though. --kkiloran

I'm late to this... but my dad was Fleet Air Arm too. The ships names I recall are HMS Stephenson and HMS Indefatigable, Singapore bound, as they went via stop-offs UK > Gibraltar > Malta > Cyprus > Palestine > somewhere in/off modern-day Yemen, when VJ day was declared and they headed homewards. He never used to mention it until he was about mid/late-70s, maybe when excercising his right to have his service medals finally issued. Now we can't visit my parents without him getting his WW2 photo album out, again, [No disrespect, it is fascinating, but he does do it like clockwork and doesn't quite realise we see them each visit].

If your Dad was aboard the Indefatigable when it took part on the attacks on the Tirpitz in Norwegian waters (before it headed to join the British Pacific Fleet), then he should probably qualify for the Arctic Star medal which was introduced retrospectively in 2013, after a long campaign for recognition of the perils of service in the Arctic - particularly with the Arctic Convoys. And the Russians have awarded the Ushakov medal to British veterans of the Arctic Convoys.
I believe that all five British carriers in the BPF (Formidable, Indomitable, Indefatigable, Illustrious and Victorious) suffered from Japanese bomb or Kamikaze strikes, but their armoured decks protected them from major damage.
I hope you listen attentively to his stories, no matter how often he tells them And if you write them down, and ensure that his photo album has a safe home, then I think it likely that later generations will be grateful.

[DiamondEcho]

If your Dad was aboard the Indefatigable when it took part on the attacks on the Tirpitz in Norwegian waters (before it headed to join the British Pacific Fleet), then he should probably qualify for the Arctic Star medal which was introduced retrospectively in 2013, after a long campaign for recognition of the perils of service in the Arctic - particularly with the Arctic Convoys. And the Russians have awarded the Ushakov medal to British veterans of the Arctic Convoys.
I believe that all five British carriers in the BPF (Formidable, Indomitable, Indefatigable, Illustrious and Victorious) suffered from Japanese bomb or Kamikaze strikes, but their armoured decks protected them from major damage.
I hope you listen attentively to his stories, no matter how often he tells them And if you write them down, and ensure that his photo album has a safe home, then I think it likely that later generations will be grateful.

He was conscripted quite late I think, 1945? He certainly didn't head for Norway, I know that for sure. That said I do know the extraordinary story of the Tirpitz/Norwegian waters, though hadn't realised it was the Indefatigable that was the heavy hunter/killer that did it.
His 'orders', as I understand them, were headed for Singapore and ASAP. That was what they were doing various stop-offs/refuels when VJ Day was declared.
I certainly do listen to him, although at times I wish he'd go beyond 'what we did/happened' to 'how it felt'. Though I also realise he might not have the modern framework within which to convey feelings as we might today. The only time he's hinted at it, he said it all felt like rather an adventure, but maybe that's where time evolves such memories.

[UncleIan]

I certainly do listen to him, although at times I wish he'd go beyond 'what we did/happened' to 'how it felt'. Though I also realise he might not have the modern framework within which to convey feelings as we might today. The only time he's hinted at it, he said it all felt like rather an adventure, but maybe that's where time evolves such memories.

Sounds like my Grandad, apparently "Karachi was a bloody mad place!" in WWII apparently, and that's all I got. He was an engineer on a flying boat, "docked" there on a trip to Australia and back, I'm sure there was a purpose to the trip, no idea what it was. Took them a wee while though, I have 20 days in my head, but not sure how accurate that is. Sure sounds like an adventure to me!