"Doolittle Raiders on board USS Hornet - 18 April 1942"
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
Now like Richard Cole all the men I knew have passed as well. I do not plan to forget them and will post this story annually to help others remember.
They didn’t call it off for the flu?
That was an amazing raid.
“30 Seconds Over Tokyo” is one of my all time favorite films.
So many brave acts in WW2. But to my thinking, this was perhaps one of THE most audacious
Thank you for posting this. I got to meet one of the Raiders many years ago in Oshkosh. By the way, it was on this date in ‘96 that I took and passed my private pilot check ride!
Since you post this every year you’ve probably heard me say this but I had the honor to talk with General Doolittle for a whole hour in 1985.
At his house in Carmel, CA, a fellow linguist and myself were honored to chat with him in his home on a variety of topics from the raid to current events at that time under President Reagan.
Definite hero worship on my part. It was an experience I’ll never forget.
And I’ll never forget the picture on his wall of President Reagan awarding Doolittle his fourth star!!
I saw film showing reporters standing around FDR’s desk, repea5edly asking where the B-25s came from. Finally he looked around at them with a wide grin, and said, “They came from shangri-la.” That place was featured in the movie “Lost Horizon,” released in 1937.
Some of the bravest men to serve our Country. Backlash of the raid was the extermination of 250,000 Chinese by the Japs. Remember that all you folks arguing against the use of Atomic bombs that ended WWII.
Tim Blotz, a news anchor in the twin cities, has a cool blog post about his grandfather’s role in the preparation that occured in Minneapolis. With some great photos!
https://timothyblotz.com/tag/minnesota-doolittle-raid/
Bravery,courage and patriotism was a commodity that was not in short supply. When Americans were men and women were women. Hubba hubba.
About 2 decades ago, I attended a gun-show at Dallas Market Hall.- When an announcer said on the public address system that a DOOLITTLE RAIDER was present, the gun-show shopping almost came to a “screeching halt”, as just about everyone wanted to meet him & shake his hand.
The Raiders were “GIANTS walking on the Earth”, imo.
Yours, TMN78247
I went to an event in Fairfield, CA in 2003 as part of the Doolittle Raiders reunion. I’d grown up reading Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo in elementary school and bought it, Mrs. Lawson (the author’s widow), Gen. Doolittle’s son, and the surviving Raiders in attendance autographed it.
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
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.
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...
may post this on my facebook page?
What a great American Hero. He did more for the war effort than anyone.. RIP Jimmy!!
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.