Posted on 04/18/2020 10:16:57 AM PDT by Retain Mike
RIP heroes, God bless you all.
There used to be a B-25 in a small park in Valparaiso. I think they eventually moved it to the Armaments Museum at Eglin.
That is what I was going to say. The Midway operation by the Jap's may have never happened if the Doolittle raid didn't happen.
Pretty sick isn't it? Compare the 1942 USN to today's Navy. We have over a $4 Billion carrier that is wasting away in port. Enemies remember weakness. It is widely said that the new carriers are unsinkable. Well,we have one that is "sunk".
When my Mother got home from her defense plant job at midnight, there was so much celebration still going on in the neighborhood that she initially thought it meant the war was over... My Dad was just about to graduate from Parris Island and she thought she could breath a sigh of relief...
Of course, unknown to us, two months later he was on board a ship headed across the South Pacific...
No kidding. As though we have never fought through the flu before. There were more flu deaths in WWI than combat deaths.
Can you imagine? They got off that carrier without a catapult! And loaded to the gills!
Looking at the film of the takeoff, it appeared one plane almost just lifted straight up.
I guess the speed of the ship plus the wind probably combined to almost takeoff speed by themself.
may post this on my facebook page?
What a great American Hero. He did more for the war effort than anyone.. RIP Jimmy!!
The hangers used to modify the B-25s are stll used at Elglin AFB!
The naming of the ship was a radical departure from the general practice of the time, which was to name aircraft carriers after battles or previous US Navy ships. After the Doolittle Raid, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet, President Roosevelt answered a reporter’s question by saying that the raid had been launched from “Shangri-La”, the fictional faraway land of the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Shangri-La
Commissioned: 15 September 1944
The Doolittle raid on Japan was of no military significance. It was of great significance relative to the fact we could bomb Japan. It was psychological against the Japanese and a great boost to moral in the United States.
A few short years later we burned all their great cities to the ground with our fire bombing raids. B29s unleashed hell and fire on their nation. My uncle was one of those that delivered death from the sky. He was the navigator and oddly the most important man on the aircraft. If he did not do his job right they would not get home. We had total supremacy in the air, thank you Boeing and all the others that made our aircraft and weapons of war.
Lastly the Enola Gay and Boxcar burned Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the ground in nuclear fire. It worked. They surrendered. Oddly this was the best thing to happen to Japan. If we had of invaded the home Islands our causalities would have been horrendous. Theirs would have been many times worse. I assure you as our troops saw their brothers fall in combat they would have extracted revenge in the extreme and it would have been civilians also. Their officers would not even care. That was real war.
That is fine with me. I am nobody, so please post with the bibliography. It give credibility to the story and the links and books are great for anyone interested in the history.
Oh My God. That is so wonderful.
That is a great link. I added it to my bibliography and added a couple details to my essay. Thank you.
Had the honor of meeting Dick Cole and I have his book signed by him...complete with pic.
Thanks I was going to post everything you wrote!!!
Wonderful.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.