Help Needed in Seattle

[HAHalliday]

Is there anything in the Seattle, Washington newspapers to substantiate a claim that an RCAF pilot, flying a B-25 Mitchell, buzzed the city of Seattle about 5.30 a.m. of 6 December 1944 ? He purportedly "flew through downtown canyons of office buildings and at rooftop level over residential neighbourhoods. He executed barrel rolls, loops, Immelmans and low level passes over Seattle airport. A commercial airline pilot, preparing to take off, was stunned to see a military bomber coming straight at him on the same runway. A coat of paint sepatated the two two planes."

It is a matter of record that an RCAF pilot did indeed "shoot up" sections of British Columbia on that day before fatally crashing. The story is much told in Canada - but though often retold I suspect it is seldom checked in all its details. Hence my wish to check one detail as close to the source as possible.

[Leendert]

Hugh,

Story here: http://www.airmuseum.ca/mag/0709.html

Just scroll down to heading "A wartime account of Sergeant Scratch".

Regards,

Leendert

[HAHalliday]

I have looked at the website mentioned but it does not serve my purpose, which is to check whether there is a contemporary account of the Scratch B-25 flight re Seattle. The Vancouver papers wrote it up without mentioning the Seattle visit. Ken Mclean advises us that a Toronto paper wrote it up, without mentioning the Seattle visit. Neither does Seattle figure in the accident investigation proceedings, the diary of Western Air Command or the OTU diary.

Other details appearing in accounts published 50 years after the event do not gell with contemporary documents, and I am trying to sort out historical fact from recollections "spam".

[Leendert]

Hugh,

No direct link to Seattle found indeed, but story may have been an interesting read (for others) after all to get the picture.

Just a thought: would US newspapers at that time been advised not to report the antics of the Mitchell (if there have been any over the Seattle area in the first place) because of possible implications?
If the US military had let a "foreign" bomber roam freely near such strategic sites as the Boeing aircraft plants, what would the public think?
However, if there has been some kind of military censorship, I have no idea how far this went in relation to press reports.

Regards,

Leendert

[B.F.M. Droog]

Hello all,

I've just read The First Casualty. From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker, by Phillip Knightley, Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc, New York and London, 1975.

Pages 217 to 333 cover the Second World War. Censorship was very strict (stricter than I thought possible), so I can hardly imagine that the Sgt Scratch story would have been published in Allied newspapers during war time.

The only newspapers of those days that possibly would have published this story would be German or Japanese newspapers or newspapers based in neutral countries. My guess is that they didn't, because they didn't know.

Regards,

Bart

[HAHalliday]

The Sergeant Scratch story ran on page 1 of the Vancouver Daily Province (an afternoon paper) on the very day it happened under a headline, "Pilot Runs Amok, Crashes Bomber", with subsequent follow-up over the next two days including back-grounding on how he had been court-martialled following a solo joy-ride in a Liberator (in Newfoundland) the previous summer - so the incident was not a subject for Canadian censorship.

Censorship of such matters would be most severe when information might have some operational value to the enemy - and the Scratch story hardly qualifies as a sensitive topic of interest to said enemy. On the other hand, when Japanese incendiary balloons began arriving in North America in November 1944, American and Canadian authorities asked newspapers not to publish reports of their appearances (even though they were seen by hundreds if not thousands of people). I understand that at least one major newspaper had the story written up and typeset, ready to roll if any other paper broke the embargo, but none did. Consequently, the Japanese had no feedback about the balloons arriving and gave up the campaign in mid-April 1945. When, in early May 1945, six Oregon picnickers were killed by a balloon-delivered bomb they discovered in the woods, the decision was made that continued silence was dangerous to the public, the military itself issued press releases (22 May 1945) revealing the existance and nature of the weapons.

[B.F.M. Droog]

Hello Hugh,

Thanks for your explanation - it 'throws new light' (as we say in the Netherlands) on this subject. The Scratch incident would have been of propaganda value for the Germans and Japanese, so that could be an explanation why American newpapers didn't report on it.

Regards,

Bart

[HAHalliday]

I am sorry, but I fail to see how an incident of low and reckless flying, followed by a crash, involving an aircraft at a training base in far-off British Columbia would be of the least value to either Germans or Japanese in terms of either military intelligence or propaganda.

There seems to be a presumption that the Seattle papers did not report the incident. At this moment, I do not know (and am trying to find out) if they reported or not. All I can say with certainty at this moment is that (a) Vancouver papers reported the incident in great detail but without mentioning Scratch going to Seattle and (b) the official investigation by the RCAF (which would be an internal document and thus not subject to censorship) made no mention of his starting out with a Seattle excursion - although it was made clear that pursuing RCAF fighters had orders to shoot down the Mitchell IF THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO CROSS THE BORDER.

So there might be an account of him going to Seattle - but so far nobody has offered to check a Seattle newspaper.

On the other hand, there might be no account. If so, the silence would be explainable by one of three equally plausible reasons (a) the papers were ordered to keep it quiet (censorship) or (b) the papers did not know enough or care enough to consider it a story worth reporting or (c) it did not happen - "it" in this case being the Seattle portion of accounts appearing 50 to 60 years after the event.

[B.F.M. Droog]

Hello Hugh,

Have you tried posting your question on Seattle based websites or blogs, or via a Seattle based newspaper?

I don't want to go into a 'yes' or 'no' discussion regarding the propaganda value of the Scratch incident, but I've seen that sometimes trivial things were turned into propaganda, by all sides. Or were used in interrogations of prisoners of war, to let them know that 'they' knew everything. That's why I think it could be a reason why it - if it indeed happened in Seattle - was censored.

Regards,

Bart

[HAHalliday]

I have queried the Seattle Public Library ("We will get back to you in about two weeks") and the Museum of Flight ("We don't know - try the National Archives in Washington, D.C.").

I guess that nobody registered with TOH or RAF Commands lives in or near Seattle.