[Retain Mike]

This essay is my way to remember annually the extraordinary men who surrounded me growing up; men who seemed to consider their WW II service as a common rite of passage. My contact with these men started about age nine when my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had a weird back swing. I found out he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. My Economics professor in college served with one of the first UDT teams to clear barricades and mines in the surf zone before Pacific landings. I often ended up as a dishwasher at the country club and noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. He saw my puzzled look, and said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc. Those are just a few of the stories I remember among so many others I could tell or have forgotten.

Men like these should never be forgotten. The reference and links contain much more information.

[2banana]

But the environmental damage from the raid was not taken into effect...

[sparklite2]

Nice read. Just substitute morale for the instances you use moral.

[Flick Lives]

The wingspan of the B25 bombers just about covered the width of the flight deck.

[Strac6]

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.

[llevrok]

Arguably one of the most audacious missions - land/sea/air - in all of WW2. Amazing training and even more so, courage of the crews.

[yarddog]

He misspells Eglin a couple of times but inexplicably gets it right a couple of times too.

[Mollypitcher1]

In November 1942, Jimmy Doolittle was in charge of the Operation Torch Air Forces when the United States entered the European War in Operation Torch. Operation Torch was headed by George S. Patton in charge of the American Troops who invaded North Africa at Casablanca on the Atlantic side. American and British Forces invaded Algeria and Oran on the Mediterranean Coast.

[uncbob]

Unfortunately the Japs took revenge on the Chinese who helped the American fliers by murdering a couple hundred thousand

[Mollypitcher1]

I have many similar memories of men who worked for my parents before and after the war. One was my childhood hero who jumped into St. Mere Eglise on D Day with the 82nd Airborne.
Another jumped into a foxhole in the Pacific when under Japanese air attack and landed on another soldier.....his brother....whom he had not seen in two years. Another survived the Bataan Death March.....
The stories are unforgettable.........

[HippyLoggerBiker]

I won’t forget.

Thank you.

HLB

[AU72]

It was thought to be, in the words of "Animal House" a weak and stupid gesture on our part". Put it was a strategic stroke that shook Japan's military to it's core. that the Home Islands were open to attack that early after Pearl Harbor was never considered possible and it forced a full re-allocation of valuable strategic resources it did not have.

I give Roosevelt credit for green-lighting what was realistically considered a suicide mission for the sake of homeland morale.

[kvanbrunt2]

thank you. I lived my whole life with a guy who was a decorated hump pilot. i never knew. Cecil Bailey. i think my dad knew at some point. who served on Haverfield WWII and Iowa Korea
repost of the original
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1817532/posts

listed as passenger
http://www.comcar.org/1st_comcar3rd_ccs_special_orders_223.htm

[Tammy8]

Yes I grew up around the same type of men. The amazing thing is most did not really talk about what they did.

There was an old cowboy here that was a legend as a cowboy and a truly great person to know. We were really close to him and knew that he served in the Navy but he never said what he did. When he passed away his services were in a really small community in the absolute middle of no where. When we got there a full color guard was there and some Navy officer got up and told all about the old cowboy being in the Battle of Midway and what a hero he had been, saving others, etc. The whole packed church was stunned, we all knew him as a great cowboy, not even his own daughter knew what he had been a part of.

I served on the election board with a lady that was married to a man that retired from the Navy. She told us a story about him helping put out a fire on his ship after an attack and that he was credited with saving many lives. He walked in while she was telling the story and he was annoyed with her. He admonished her and told her he was no hero- if you are on a ship that is on fire you better fight the fire!

My father-in-law was with Patton in Europe, he told of the horrors of the concentration camp they found, and how he lost friends but never said much about what he did. He was asked once if he liked or hated Patton, and his answer was that depended on what day it was. He did say they would have followed Patton through hell and did.

My sister-in-law’s mother was a nurse at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. She never said much about it either but there was a small picture of her in her uniform in their living room.

Amazing thing was they acted as though it was just part of life. I know many that have served recently and been deployed over and over. They have the same attitude. A neighbor kid came back from Iraq in the beginning and didn’t say anything to the rest of us but did sit out on the patio and talk to my husband (Vietnam Veteran) all night. That kid now has been to Iraq three times and to Afghanistan and all he will say is in both places the “people are all ate up” meaning they are a mess, such a different culture from ours no way can we understand it, certainly not change it.

[Does so]

July 9, 1942:

GENERAL DOOLITTLE's REPORT ON JAPANESE RAID

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/rep/Doolittle/Report.html

[golux]

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