Photos of Richard L. Notestine and the WW2 Japanese Baka Bomb.

The name Baka was given by the Americans, which means fool in Japanese.  The Japanese called the Baka bomb the Ohka, translated to English as "Falling Blossoms"  You can clearly see the psychological difference in the names.  When the Japanese were listening to the Americans talk about the Baka Bomb, they really heard the "Fool Bomb."  Psychological warfare is very strong and can push the enemy into depression or committing rash acts usually detrimental to the  cause of the enemy.  Advertisement and programs on today's TV use the same principles to sway our opinions.

The Baka bomb would be dropped from a G4M2 Betty bomber within a forty mile radius of the target and the Kamikaze pilot would fly the Baka bomb to the target, usually a ship.  The Baka bomb used a rocket motor to propel the aircraft at nearly the speed of sound as it dived onto the ship.  To the best of my knowledge, the Baka bomb was designed too late and was never used in combat.

From the webmaster.  I worked on the A-7's while stationed at NAS Lemoore in Lemoore California.  This was the largest attack base on the west coast.  I was attached to VA-125 the Rough Raiders which flew the A-7A & B then Transferred to VA-192 the World Famous Golden Dragons.  They made a movie about VA-192 starring William Holden and Mickey Roonie called "The Bridges at Tokyo Ri"  It's interesting to see the difference between the A and E models of this plane.  The airframe is the same but nothing else is even closely the same.  The E model had a different engine and different Avionics with everything in a different place.  As of the late 70's, every bombing derby in which an A-7 entered into competition, the A-7 took first place.  This was regardless of the high tech components on the other airplanes.  (The A-7 Corsair II was a very low tech, seat of the pants bird)  While we were on a West Pacific Cruise aboard the USS Kitty Hawk we beat the squadrons from the USS Midway in bombing competition.  This was previously unheard of because the Midway was stationed in Japan and was always on the top of the training, where the Kitty Hawk spent most of it's time in San Diego and only had a year of fleet training at the most for any given crew.  I believe that this accomplishment was because of the efforts of one man, AQ-2 Dale Shepherd.  Dale was a perfectionist.  The major problem with being on a ship for extended periods was boredom.  If the equipment that you worked on rarely broke, you didn't have anything to do but sit.  Dale worked on the APQ-116 Fire Control Radar System.  To prevent boredom, Dale spoke to the Commanding officer of VA-192, Commander Joseph Cole, and requested that he take one airplane out of service one at a time and groom the entire weapons delivery system aligning the gun sights and the radar's fire control system to get the most accurate lock-ons.  I don't believe Dale received any awards for this, but he should have.  Placing this note on this page is my way for saying Thanks to Dale.  C. Jeff Dyrek, webmaster.