Read “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” about 30 times as a kid.
Met 4 of the Raiders at a DC reception about 15 years ago. Three were in wheel chairs. Not a dry in the house.
According to their website, there are now four surviving raiders. The most recent to pass on was Major Thomas Griffin, the navigator on Crew 9. He survived the mission over Japan and went on to join a bomber unit in North Africa. He was shot down on a subsequent mission and spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp.
Major Griffin rejoined his comrades on February 26th of this year.
While stationed in Monterey, CA in 1985 I got the opportunity to talk to Gen Doolittle at his house in Carmel, CA. Talked to him for about an hour.
What a great guy. He must have told that raid story a thousand times but told us like it was his first time. :)
He had this picture hanging up in his house; getting his 4th star from President Reagan and Goldwater
