Uma história interessante: em 1944, pelo que ele chamou de razões humanitárias, desejando ajudar a encerrar a 2ª Guerra Mundial, um tenente japonês, Minoru Wada, guiou um ataque dos EUA contra o Japão. Detalhes são secretos até hoje, mas a história passível de ser contada está no texto abaixo e neste link AQUI.
The raid effectively neutralized Japanese strength in Mindanao, the Philippine Islands, according to aerial warfare historian Martin C. Caidin. Caidin, a dean among international air war historians, said: "It was one of the war's strangest incidents, as this prisoner-officer voluntarily led a U.S. force of PBJ Mitchell bombers and F4U Corsair fighters directly to his divisional headquarters. The result of the raid all but wiped out Japanese effectiveness in the campaign. "The U.S. Marine fliers pounded the headquarters and billet area with fragmentation bombs, napalm, rockets, and heavy machine gun fire. The area was devastated."
Details of Lt. Wada's involvement in this incident, plus information about the raid itself, are still smoothered in security, even today - more than 30 years later.
However, this much is known:
"Lieutenant Wada was apparently a highly-rated intelligence officer with the Japanese 100th Division, a crack unit activated in Mindanao early in 1944. Their mission was to stop the U.S. advance at all costs," according to William Flynn, now a university professor and formerly a Marine intelligence officer who served in the Pacific Theater. Flynn continued: "Our people went right after the 100th, hitting it hard with artillery and air strikes, before they could get organized and into the ballgame. "But we needed a knockout punch. We needed to locate their headquarters - their glass jaw, so to speak. That's where Minoru Wada came in like a gift from Heaven."
Wada was an idealistic young man. He was a sharp intelligence officer with the 100th Division. Flynn interviewed Wada after he became a prisoner of war at the time and found that the Japanese officer was discouraged with the direction of the war. "Several times, he told us he had never been convinced his country should have started the global conflict they did. He was sick about the prison camp situations both In Germany and in those countries controlled by his people. "He told us he would do anything, even sacrifice his own life, to stop the war and bring ultimate peace to the people on the Japanese home islands."
According to Flynn, Wada said: "The generals and admirals, the old, tough military, forced this war on the people. The common Japanese person does not want war. What can I do to end it?" The only thing Flynn was skeptical about was the way in which the Japanese officer had been captured. "I wasn't sure if he'd actually been caught in a legit fashion or if he let himself be taken prisoner. He surely was anxious to get the war over. He really felt strongly about that. The 'Mud Marine S-2' [a ground forces intelligence officer] didn't waste any minutes getting this Japanese officer up to us. The rest was easy, after we were sure he wasn't nuts or trying to lead us into a trap. We suggested the raid. It wasn't his idea. "We got the idea of destroying their chain of command by crushing the 100th Division, making a helluva lot of troops homeless. We put the idea to him of being a pathfinder for a bomber raid. "At first he was horrified at the idea of killing his own people. Then, he began to see the value of killing a few persons to save the lives of so many thousands of innocent soldiers - Japanese and American."
In a way, Flynn noted, Wada's decision was based on the same logic which later led President Harry Truman to order the atomic bombs to be used against two Japanese cities. The Japanese POW agreed to direct the raid from the lead aircraft. "As Lt. Wada didn't speak English, we obtained a flier with Japanese language capability, then mounted the mission. USMC Gunnery Sgt. C. T. Imai acted as interpreter for Minoru Wada, who directed the pilot of the lead bomber to the specific target area. The lead B-25 was flown by Maj. M. H. Jordan."
The mission involved the famed Mitchell B-25 bombers which had been recently commissioned in the USMC as the PBJ, accompanied by four squadrons of F4U Corsair fighters, at the time the fastest fighter aircraft in the Pacific.
According to intelligence estimates, the headquarters units of the 100th Division were squeezed into the mountains near the Kibaw-Talomo Trail, in Mindanao's Davao area. Only Lt. Wada, however, knew the exact location of his unit among the rugged hills and tangled jungles below.
He led the way without error - and right on target. "Major Jordan is supposed to have told the debriefing officers after the raid: 'The Japanese officer put us zero on the target and we did the rest ... maybe overdid it.' The after action recon photos showed the raid destroyed their command capability," Flynn noted. "What was left of the Japanese divisional headquarters became stragglers, which meant the end of that unit as a fighting element. That surely shortened the war in our area."
A hero in one camp and a traitor in the other, Minoru Wada became an outcast, a man without a country. Yet, he was happy, according to Flynn, because he had accomplished what he counted as important in his life - a major contribution to the end of the war.
From that point on, Minoru Wada became a new person, with a new identity and appearance to protect him from his past.
Where he is today, if he is alive, and any other facts about Minoru Wada are not known.
Today, more than 30 years after it happened, the saga of Minoru Wada remains tightly classified and the entire incident simply does not exist in the war records of the U.S. Marine Corps—officially, that is.
Sérgio
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