르메이의 새로운 임무(마터호른 작전 Operation Matterhorn)의 서막: B-29와 일본군

He would be in command of a contingent of B-29s that were trying to fly over the Himalayan hump and establish bases in China from which to attack the Japanese.

- contingent of B-29s: (큰 집단 중에서) 파견된 부대나 분견대를 contingent라고 한다. 또는 특정 목적을 가지고 꾸려진 인원의 집단, 물자 집단.

 

If he could have heard some of their remarks about him out of earshot, he would have been even more pleased.

One officer said of him, “Navigators will tell you he was the best damn navigator Third Division ever had. Bombardiers say he was the best bombardier. And pilots swear they’ve never ridden with a cagier pilot.”

- cagier pilot: cagey(혹은 cagy)는 ‘신중한, 영리하게 상황을 파악하는, 노련하고 교활한’이라는 의미이다.

 

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[chapter eight]

 

*르메이, 워싱턴에서 Hap을 만나 B-29에 대해 들었음. 이 당시 Hap은 3번째 심장 발작을 겪은 이후였고 B-29 problems은 또 심장발작을 충분한 수준에 있었음.

 

When LeMay was ushered into his office, Arnold was preparing to attend a routine meeting, so he took LeMay along. Returning to Arnold’s office after the meeting, LeMay presumed they would now sit down and discuss his new assignment at some length.

- Hap, 일과 미팅에 LeMay 데려갔고 미팅 후 르메이는 자신이 이제 새로운 임무 맡을 일에 대해 알 수 있으리라 생각.

 

It didn’t occur to him that Arnold couldn’t tell him what to do because Arnold, who had never been able to get any combat experience, didn’t exactly know what to do about the operational problems of the B-29.

-       사실: 아놀드는 실전 경험이 없어서 B-29 운용 문제를 어떻게 처리해야 할지 정확히 몰랐다.

-       결과: 그래서 아놀드는 르메이에게 “무엇을 해야 하는지” 지시해줄 수 없었다.

-       하지만: 르메이는 아놀드가 그렇게 해줄 수 없으리라는 생각을 전혀 하지 못했다.

 

That was why he needed LeMay. Instead of talking a lot of garbage to him, Arnold hung LeMay’s second Distinguished Flying Cross around his neck, then told him to get out to India right away and replace Brig. Gen. K. B. Wolfe who was in charge of the Twentieth Bomber Command, the B-29 operation headquartered at Kharagpur, about ninety miles west of Calcutta.

When Arnold told someone to do something right away, he meant Do it yesterday, but LeMay didn’t yet know him well enough to be intimidated by him.

“If I’m going to command a bunch of airplanes that are strange to me,” he said, “I’m going to learn to fly one of them first.”

- he meant Do it yesterday: ‘당장 하라’는 말의 강한 뉘앙스를 주는 관용적 표현.

 

Kharagpur가 일본과 얼마나 먼지 보면........ 임무가 얼마나 힘들었을지........

 

He persisted in this stubborn notion until Arnold and his staff finally agreed to set up a special course for him at a B-29 school near Grand Island, Nebraska.

 

 

당시 B-29가 운용되기 위해서는, B-29 한 번의 작전 비행을 위해(one mission) 7번을 왕복해야 필요한 물자를 가지고 올 수 있었다. (히말라야 hump, 고개 넘어……. 개고생…)

 

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K. B. Wolfe, a materiel expert who had done an outstanding job guiding the B-29 through its developmental phase, but lacked the experience to handle such a difficult combat assignment, had already returned to the States, leaving in charge an old friend of LeMay’s and fellow student at flying school, Brig. Gen. Laverne G. “Blondie” Saunders.

- materiel expert: 군수분야 전문가로 무기, 군수품, 장비 전체를 관리하는 사람을 뜻한다.

 

LeMay was pleasantly surprised, when he arrived in India, to find that one of the transportation officers there was his brother Lloyd, who had enlisted before the war and subsequently earned a commission.

- earn a commission: 장교로 임관하다

 

The twentieth Bomber Command, under Wolfe, had established eight bases in the Kharagpur area—four for the four B-29 groups already there, and four others for the C-109s (B-25s converted into flying tankers), which carried gasoline for the bombers to forward bases.

- 20폭격기 부대는, Wolfe 아래에서, Kharagpur지역에 8개의 본부를 설치함. 4개는B-29그룹을 위해서고, 다른 4개는 C-109s를 위해서임(B-25가 개조된 것)

 

With all the overheating problems of the B-29, added to the altitude and weather factors across the Hump, the big bombers were, as LeMay noted, “going down over the Hump all the time, or they were busting up on the strips in India and China.”

- 여기서 strips은  Chinese collies에 의해 지어진(손으로!) airstrips[활주로]를 의미함

- bust up: 비행기가 착륙할 시 활주로 상태(비포장, 활주로 길이 짧음, 거친 표면)로 인해 랜딩기어가 부러지거나, 기체가 손상되는 상황을 뜻함. 본래 ‘망가지다, 부서지다, 파손되다’라는 구어체 표현.

 

LeMay was so dismayed by these conditions that when Arnold’s staff sent him a query as to whether he wanted more B-29 groups under his command in India, he said no.

- query: 공식 질의서, 공식 질문

 

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당시 르메이의 작전에 대한 참조 링크:

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Operation_Matterhorn