Too bad that their sacrifice is being thrown away today by our "leaders".
Wow. God must have loved the United States to send such men to populate it.
They were an amazing group of men. I have a map of the raid, signed by a handful of Raiders, that was given to my grandfather aboard the Hornet shortly before they launched.
Filthy nips murdered thousands of Chinese in retaliation:
Too bad that their sacrifice is being thrown away today by our "leaders".
Between you and me, it was amazing those B25s launched from a carrier could get off the deck.
Why?
Mitchell and his men had cojones the size of bowling balls.
5.56mm
I managed to find a number and called his aide to setup an interview for our little company paper.
Long story short, we (me and sidekick) got to talk to General Doolittle for little more than an hour. Of course he told the story about the raid, which I'm sure he had told thousands of times before that day, in addition to other things. It was quite the experience.
This pic of General Doolittle getting his fourth star was hanging on his wall
A fly-over tribute today if you in the hood...:
Truly the greatest generation. Thank you to all WWII vets.
The Doolittle Raid was the subject of a Jeopardy! question last week. None of the contestants could guess the capital the Raiders bombed.
Thanks for posting this. However, after all this time, how does the WSJ allow little errors to creep into the article? Not nit-picking, but B-25’s are medium bombers (not heavies) and, it is pretty certain that the Japanese did NOT know of the attack before the planes were over Japan.
That doesn’t change the heroism and sacrifice of the crews, or the strategic effects of the raid. It’s just frustrating that journalism can be so careless.
America could Bomb the Japanese Home Islands anytime they wished.
Not to diminish their feat, those were medium bombers, not heavy bombers. Typical of the type of journalists who call an LST a battleship or a marine a soldier.
For the life of me I still do not understand why FReepers post articles that have a pay wall. Are you receiving a commission for every person that uses your link to subscribe, or are you just a naturally inconsiderate jerk?
The most important thing they did was convince the Japanese that they needed to extend their defense perimeter. That led directly to the Battle of Midway......
I got to go to one of the last Raider Reunions about 10 years ago. I think only 5 were left that could attend. A great honor.
My dad was a Hump Pilot in the China Burma India Campaign. He got to meet a couple of the Doolittle men when they toured Japan .
Doolittle’s autobiography
He did a LOT more than fly a mission over Tokyo. He was one smart engineer, (with a PhD from MIT no less), and an excellent commander of men.