Debate is on at 12:30PM TODAY!

Greg you made your case and points succinctly and coherently. I could not say the same for Mr. Marshall. I confess I lost interest early on. You observed what occurred, and laid out why it didn't have to be that way. With solid examples. Mr. Marshall observed the same things and essentially figured it must therefore have had to be that way. I got the sense you enjoyed the debate which is reason enough to justify it. You have certainly been successful at getting a large audience to rethink the USAAF narrative, and that's a win. Well done! Skip

You were very well prepared and Mr. Marshall was too. I think you did a good job of showing that doctrine was not well developed to protect the bomber pilots and make use of the available assets (the P47 as an escort fighter). I think you showed that they failed the US Army Air Force service members however I think your arguments fell short of showing incompetence or professional negligence. I think Mr. Marshall argued that they may not have been perfect but that it wasn’t entirely their fault or intentional. As I said during the event, the moderator completely failed. He should have pushed hard on both of you and instead he said nothing and you two just talk past each other. When he finally took questions, they were stupid ones based on who contributed $ which came out of nowhere. I think it could be argued that the bomber mafia maybe have pushed alternative options to see if they would be MORE effective than escort fighters because they thought they maybe there was a better technical solution. It’s not obvious to be the extent to which industry and government solicited technical innovation vs fielded what private companies put out. They were wrong to delay escort fighters. Did they have a good reason to? Mr. Marshall argued they did. I’m not sure. At the end of the day, WW2 killed a lot of young service men. However, that was a asset we had a lot of. Heavy bombers too. That’s a very cold thing to say 80 years removed but I can see how that thinking at the time would lead officials to want to see if the heavies could handle themselves, especially if the YB40 or some other ideas had paid off. You two both did well. The moderator kept it from being a debate. That and technical connectivity issues which were disappointing considering how much preparation you had obviously put into it. - John

Howdy, sorry I couldn’t tune in for the live cast, pesky interfered with my Tube time. I will watch all of it. Watched about 20 min some far, enjoying🤓

Yes you did. Sorry I wasn't clear in my statement. Meaningful discussion. Fly Safe!

I did specifically blame two people in the Bomber Mafia, Hap Arnold and Ira Eaker.

A great discussion. Mr Marshall is an authority on the subject, big props to him for stepping up! You both had valid points. I don't think he could get past the fact that doctrine was strangling the performance of the P-47 which in return gave the airplane a bad rap for certain mission sets that other platforms could more easily perform with less drama. Who was in the decision tree that cause that hindrance wasn't clearly identified and the moving time line of aircraft performance improvements almost rendered the argument moot. His audio wasn't very good needs to be improved.

https://www.youtube.com/live/qzrg-u-MYdc?si=mMMQSDdw4rCZ2U3-

Link would have been good, I was driving a car when this came out, if it was tappable I'd have been there but searching YT while driving is painful

Was there a link?

Looking forward to it! I’ll be listening with headphones while I work.

Awesome, is it on your channel or somewhere else

Is there going to be a special link? Or for everyone to see on YouTube?

Looking forward to it! Have fun!

You should tell people the time zone. I think you mean 1230 central