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To: HighWheeler; All

From the article:

“Of the eighty original members of Doolittle’s team who flew into history that day in April 1942 only five remain today...”

And of the eighty here’s what happened to eight of them who were captured by the Japanese - On August 13, 1942 Japan passed an ex-post facto law called the Enemy Airman’s Act that declared airmen whose bombs fell on civilians would be sentenced to death. The eight prisoners were sentenced to death.

On October 15, 1942 Dean Hallmark of Robert Lee, Texas, Bill Farrow of Darlington, South Carolina, and Harold Spatz of Lebo, Kansas were executed by firing squad.

Emperor Hirohito in his royal benevolence commuted the sentences of the other five to life imprisonment, with the proviso they would not be treated as prisoners of war, but as war criminals that could not be repatriated should there ever be an exchange of prisoners of war.


8 posted on 04/21/2012 9:00:27 AM PDT by ngat
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To: ngat

To this day, the way the Japs treated POWs is a good reason I generally have no use for the Japanese.


9 posted on 04/21/2012 9:06:55 AM PDT by X-spurt (Its time for ON YOUR FEET or on your knees)
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To: ngat

Jacob DeShazer was one of the 5 POWs that was originally sentenced to death. He returned to Japan as a missionary after WWII. DeShazer and Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the Pearl Harbor air attack, became close friends. In 1950, Fuchida converted to Chistianity and became a missionary himself.

http://voices.yahoo.com/doolittle-raider-jacob-deshazer-dies-age-95-1313989.html


20 posted on 04/21/2012 11:30:37 AM PDT by DFG
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